A great number of legends have been passed down by our ancestors from generation to generation. They included the proverbs and sayings about the ‘heavenly’ horses, for example, ‘thoroughbred horses are tested in the battlefield’, ‘birds have wings, and young men have horses’, ‘the man is brave in fight, and the horse is fast in sprint’, ‘the horse is known in race, and the man is known in outlook’, ‘brave men need a horse to be famous’, ‘where there is a horse, there will be a holiday’, ‘the horse is the support for the young man, and the carpet is the heart of the girl’, ‘he who has a horse acquires wings, and he who has a son acquires wealth’ and etc. Here is one of such legends with the following contents.
In ancient times, a grey horse won a horse race at a wedding in the Turkmen village. At that time, the wedding host, the horse owner, the bird owner and the breeders consulted and decided to organize a competition between this horse and a falcon. People wanted to see a little tournament. A large crowd gathered to watch this amazing race. When people arrived at the venue where the horse and the bird were to compete, the falcon’s owner climbed to the top of the hill, holding a piece of meat in his hand. The falcon saw the meat and was ready to fly. The bird leaned towards the owner. The young man on the horse also turned towards the finish line. When the bird took off, he also started the race. The grey horse was running fast like a flying arrow, while the bird was hovering like a blowing wind. The horse crossed the finish line a second before the falcon.
