The YILKI Horses of Cappadocia
In December 2024, I had the opportunity to shoot horses with Nuri Corbacioglu, owner of Cappadocia Photo Tours and a world-famous equine photographer based in Cappadocia, Turkey. While most people associate Cappadocia with sunrise hot air balloon rides and those distinctive rock features, the region is also home to the Yilki horses, an ancient and semi-wild breed of horses saved from extinction. At first, I thought I had just done an incredibly cool shoot with a local photographer, but upon further research, I realised the significance of horses to Anatolian history and culture.
Having been picked up by Nuri and his assistant Momo from my hotel, I found myself in the village of Hürmetci, somewhere in the outskirts of Kayseri. It was late-afternoon, and so it was not going to be long before the winter sun would set. I had no idea of what to expect, having only been told by Momo that the recent rains meant that the ground would be too wet, and that the horses wouldn’t kick up any dust. Looking around, while I could see a few horses dotted across the horizon, I could definitely smell the manure splattered all around me. I was introduced to the local horse rider, Bekir, before I was led out into an open field with a small watering hole. Momo told me that Bekir would go and round up the horses, and he pointed out a few of the vantage points from which I’d get a good view of the horses coming towards me. None of them were particularly great, so I was fortunate that Nuri had brought over a red tractor with a trailer, giving me the elevation for a clearer look off into the distance.
On the horizon, I saw Bekir rounding up horses in drips and drabs, slowing pushing them in my direction. It didn’t look like a very sizeable herd at first, but before long it looked like looked like the Rohirrim riding onto Pelennor Fields in Return of the King, with Bekir bringing up the rear. I felt like an orc. I was promised a “wave of horses”, but with over a hundred horses charging at me, it felt more like a tsunami. Nuri reassured me that it was perfectly safe to get off the trailer and that the horses knew to avoid me, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t too keen on being trampled while on holiday.
Another rider, Oktay, holding a whip, showed up to help manoeuvre the horses around. It was chaos as dirt, mud and water flew everywhere, and I did my best to avoid any landing on my camera. While most of the horses were relatively well behaved and stuck to the rest of the herd, there were a few stallions that were constantly trying to break off and and start fights one another. I thought at first it was just horse-play (pun definitely intended), but according to Nuri, the horses were really fighting. Otkay and Bekir worked endlessly to try and round up the horses, pushing them across the field and the watering hole. Eventually, as things started to calm down, I got off the trailer and began to calmly wander around these majestic beasts, very cognisant of not being kicked in the head.
As the sunset glow dabbed golden light to silhouette the horses, I knew there and then that photographically this was one of the coolest shoots of my life. Moreover, it felt incredible that I had this space largely to myself, and that I got to witness something that the vast majority of visitors to Cappadocia would never. However, I think there was also a part of me which was 100% comfortable. I am perfectly fine with paying for local knowledge, expertise and connections, but while shooting, I was questioning how “authentic” this all was. I began wondering whether the horses were only being round up for me, and worse if I was causing unnecessary stress to the horses (it did reassure me when Momo told me that the horses weren’t actually being whipped, and that Oktay was just whipping the air). It was only reading up more about the Yilki horses and the history of horses in the region that gave me a little bit of perspective.
What I learnt at the time was that the Yilki horses were not just “random” horses, but were an ancient breed from the region, with their history going back all the way to the Hittites. Known as the “Mercedes of horses” by locals due to their smooth ride, the Yilki horses played key roles in the numerous civilisations that controlled this region throughout history, from the earliest settlements of mankind all the way through to the Ottoman Empire and now modern Turkey. As per Mongolian traditions (former conquerors and cousins to the ethnic Turks), for many centuries the Yilki horses were left to fend for themselves and survive over the long and harsh winters, with only the strong ones surviving and being used for farming and riding over the summers. As was often the case, advancements in agricultural technology and increased urbanisation saw a reduced need for Yilki horses, and the species was close to extinction. It is only thanks to conservation efforts, including by Nuri, that the Yilki horses were able to survive.
From what I understand, while the horses perhaps did not need to be chased around as much as they were, they did need to be rounded up and taken care of. Meanwhile, encouraging people to see horses in their natural semi-wild environment, rather than as part of touristy horse rides in the valleys of Capadoccia, provides a living for the riders and helps preserve local traditions. From that lens, perhaps it wasn’t a 100% organic experience (in that I didn’t just stumble onto these horses), but looking back I am incredibly glad to have met Nuri, Momo, Bekir and Oktay, and was proud to witness the Yilki horses running wild and free in the fields of Cappadocia, as they would have done for hundreds of years before.