Riding through the snow by horseback in Turkey
By Cheryl Blackerby
The Palm Beach Post (Fl.) and The Austin American-Statesman (TX)
AVANOS, Turkey — Ercihan Dilari sat coiled in the trim French saddle, his black leather chaps pressed against the Arabian stallion’s ribs, and his worn cowboy boots anchored in the stirrups.
Dilari’s eyes automatically scanned the ancient ghost cities chiseled by hand into mountainsides and the towering red chimney peaks sculpted by whipping winds.
On this subfreezing winter morning, the stallion raised his head to scent the hard wind funneled through the canyon. His nostrils flared, and he tossed his head as he danced in an impatient trot.
A rancher who grew up in the snow-topped volcanic mountains, Dilari easily controlled the horse by his soothing voice. No spurs, no whip, no heels digging in the stallion’s sides. Just leather gloves firmly on the reins and a soft “ssssssss” to keep him in check.
Dilari suddenly turned in the saddle to look back at me over his shoulder. He grinned. “Let’s gallop,” he said. He gave a signal like a big smooch, and the stallion bolted like a spark from flint.
Given rein, my white Arabian horse Sevda (in Turkish it means “desperate love”) was close behind, her unshod hooves sinking in the soft mud, her neck stretched out, her head high. She was 1,000 pounds of churning muscle, sweating and blowing like her ancestors who raced through here on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking China and the West.
With an unreasonable combination of fine-boned fragility and fierce power — the grace of a ballerina and the strength of a linebacker — Sevda scrambled up steep banks and easily leaped a 6-foot wide ravine. The golden canyon walls were a blur and every twist in the trail felt like a hairpin turn in a Grand Prix race.
During four days together, usually spending most of the day in the saddle, Dilari and I flew across snow-covered wheat fields; slowly crossed frozen gullies, the horses’ hooves breaking the ice; and waded through knee-deep brooks.
Along the way, we saw cities carved into mountains during Roman times, shepherds shearing sheep in a canyon, a beautiful nomad from Algeria who was traveling with two long-haired camels, and two men in a pub who longed to meet American women.
There’s a saying in this part of Turkey that there are three things that are important in life — your horse, your gun and your wife. Horses come first.
Arabians and the land
On our first morning together, I was asking a lot of questions as we rode the cobblestone lanes of a small village.
Dilari suddenly volunteered that he and his wife were separated. He left her, he said, because “she talked too much.” I talked less the rest of the day.
But his horse, Serap (which means something along the lines of unattainable fantasy in Turkish), kept up a steady conversation as we rode, whinnying and flapping his lips — but evidently it was not too much. Dilari would never leave Serap.
Using his and his partner Ali Karatas’ ranch, Akhal-Teke, as a base, we roamed through Cappadocia in south-central Turkey on horseback, which was appropriate.
The name Cappadocia means Land of Beautiful Horses, and horses, especially the elegant and strong Arabians, have been here at least since the Persians came from central Asia in 600-300 B.C. Stone tablets show that the Hittites trained horses here for sport and war as early as 1,400 B.C.
Man arrived by horse, and wars were fought by mounted men — the Romans in 300 B.C., the Mongols in the 1200s, and the Ottomans, who for 600 years had armies with horses. Here, they say you’re born on the horse and you die on the horse.
Which probably would be OK with Dilari. He’s had lots of hard riding in these wild valleys, where big white sheep dogs wear leather collars with 4-inch metal spikes to keep the wolves from their necks. This, after all, is a man who takes horse medicine when he’s sick. And who shares his cup of hot tea with his horse.
A spiritual connection
In the corrals of his ranch, next to the banks of the Red River near Avanos, his horses followed him like big Labrador retrievers. When I rode next to Dilari, Sevda would occasionally lay her head against his leg.
In Cappadocia, the people have a spiritual connection with the horse. Dilari and Karatas have trained many Arabian and cross-Arabian horses from birth. I saw several colts that were going through the gentle two-year process.
No horse on the ranch is ever sold. The men use no whips, no spurs, no heavy hand, and they have contempt for those who do.
Sitting by a wood-burning stove at a cafe in the village of Goreme, Karatas — Dilari’s urbane counterpart, who wore a black and white tweed topcoat and had a British accent — spoke about his horses.
“People who use whips do it because they want to train a horse quickly. They don’t care about horses. In Cappadocia, we still use the horse to go to the fields —they’re good friends to us,” he said, with obvious feeling.
And of those who say horses aren’t smart, he said, “Those people are not smart. Horses have fine personalities. They get frightened, they laugh, they sing. They love each other, and they love people.”
The training process is done, he said, “with a lot of time and a lot of affection.”
Commands are verbal and through the subtle shifts of the rider’s body, although Dilari’s stallion seemed to know what Dilari wanted no matter what words he used. Sevda, too, kept a constant eloquent eye on me during our rides, and it was so clear what she was thinking — let’s run, let’s just walk, do we really want to walk through this cold water?
Galloping through the past
At night, we had dinners in village restaurants, where we pointed to the dishes we wanted — grilled eggplant, shish kebabs of lamb and chicken, yogurt soup with mint — and drank tea. Dinner was a chance to get to know Turkish people.
It was at the Palm Pub in the village of Urgup where I ran across the two men who wanted to meet American women — because American women are friendly and open and “not snobs.”
My last morning before I took the plane back to Istanbul, I got to say goodbye to Sevda.
Snow was falling, and she looked so pretty, her mane tangled and her winter coat thick and shaggy. She looked at me and I could have sworn she was sad that I was leaving. Or maybe it was relief she wouldn’t have this strange American woman on her back. I’ll have to ask Dilari to ask her.
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For more information about the Akhal-Teke Horse Riding Center: www.akhal-tekehorsecenter.com; www.facebook.com/akhaltekehorsecenter/