This article deals with some concepts in the Turkmen language which are related to horses and equestrianism, and also the fact that these concepts reflect certain aspects of Turkish culture; some of these concepts are borrowed by other nations. The equivalent of the word “jockey” in the literary Turkmen language is “çapyksuwar.” However, in the Old Turkmen and in the Yomut dialect of the Turkmen language the term widely used for the race-horse rider, is “at oğlan.” Yomuts in Iran who make up the majority of the population of the Turkmens in thıs country, have always been using the term “atoğlan” for “jockey.” In the traditional Turkmen horse races the distance is measured by the eye and when the race is approaching the finish line, a musical instrument, not in use anymore, called “şadıyan= shadiyan”, accompanied by a drum, played a tune to motivate the jockeys, called “at getiyr” meaning ‘(the tune which) brings the horse to the finish line.’ Together with this tradition the term “atoğlan” has disappeared in equestrian culture in Turkmenistan. However, the word “atoğlan” or its shorter version”oğlan”after passing from Central Asia to Anatolia was widely spread in Europe through Poland. The Poles brrowed “atoğlanı” and its shorter version “oğlan” from the Ottomans and passed it onto other European countries. Polish ulan has become uhlan or ulan in English which means ‘light cavalry armed with lances and sabres.’ This word also exists in Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian as ulan; it is ulán in Czech, Ulan in German, ulano in Italian and in Russian it is used as ulany. These words are widely used with some slight semantical change. The word “jockey” which has become “cokey” in Turkish meant a ‘boy’ or ‘oğlan’ as in Turkish before the 16th century. The word at in Turkic languages, has become agta in Mongolian; ağta in Turkmen means ’castrated’; it means the same in Mongolian. Castration of the horses is due to the fact that in the olden times some rulers did not wish other people have horses similar to theirs.The word agta has been preserved as aḫta (äḫtä) or āḫta (āḫtä) اخته / آخته in Persian. Horses were also used to pull carts. The English word coach was taken from Hungarian kosci szeker (pronounced as cochy seker) and it is used in different formsin other European languages. The word коч (pronounced koch) in Russian means ‘a covered cart used to move from one place to another’ and it resembles Turkmen and Turkic köç / göç. The saddle of horse originally was

Anahtar Kelimeler
At, atoğlan, üzengi, eyer, agta.