Kökjal (Horse)
Kökjal (Iradi: "grey mane"; foaled about 1919) was a Chongtor stallion from the herds of the Kökjal clan, entered as No. 1 in the first Chongtor studbook in 1926. He stood at the Chong-Talas Stud Farm and was painted by Ermek Saparbekov. A popular story connects him with the requisitions of 1944; it is not found in the records.[1]
History
The stallion was foaled about 1919 in the herds of the Kökjal clan and bought by the republican horse-breeding trust as foundation stock for its studbook of the mountain horse. When the first Chongtor studbook was opened in 1926 he was entered as its first stallion, and he stood at Chong-Talas. Saparbekov's portrait of him, Kökjal (1926), was bound into the studbook.[1][2]
Legend
According to a story told in the Talas Alatau, when the procurement commissions came for the breeding stallions in 1944 a herder hid the old Kökjal in a cave above a snowbound side valley and kept him alive there all winter (see 1944 Wartime Mobilization Strike). Kemel Ishakov's story Kök Jal (Grey Mane, 1959), about an old herder who keeps a grey stallion alive through a winter, is widely read as his story, although Ishakov never said so. Studbook records do not say what became of the stallion during the war.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Chongtor Studbook Registry (2023). Annual Register and Breed Standard.
- ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 218: Republican Horse-Breeding Trust, Studbooks and Drawings (1922–1934).
- ^ Talas State University Press (2012). Ballads of the Horse. Talas.