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Story of
the Hungarian Horse
as told by Jim Edwards in 1994
Note:
Photographs are from The Heavenly Horses, by Virginia
Weisel Johnson, an excellent account of how the Hungarian
Horse Association of America was established.
I have been asked by Kevin Shannon of Butte to make a few
remarks about my association with Margit Sigray-Bessenyey,
who was one of Marcus Daly's granddaughters. Much has been
written about old Marcus -- one of the "Copper Kings" of
Montana, who died in 1900. Not very much is known about his
family who followed him.
As my sister would say, "When you ask Jim for the time, you must be prepared to listen to how to build a watch". Well, no one asked the time, but when you talk about Marcus Daly you'll just naturally have to talk about horses -- so, we'll start to build a watch.
My
association with Margit Sigray all started with a horse
which had been captured in Germany at the close of
World War II by General
Patton for the US
Government.
To clarify why Patton was stealing horses for the Army
Remount, perhaps we should go back to the starting gate so
we can keep the whole yarn in perspective.
At the time of World War I, the US Army had a Cavalry and many horses were needed. There weren't too many horses being raised in the US to meet the demand, as the demand for cavalry horses was extremely rigid. Something had to be done -- so after the war the Army entered into a remount program in order to be assured of good horses for the future.
Stallions were purchased and given to various horse breeders to be used. Thoroughbred horses from the race tracks, who were either too old or too slow to run, were also purchased. Also, some race horse people donated their non-winners. Anyone who owned five mares and lived in an area where horses were raised and used could receive a stallion to use -- free of charge. The Stallion Agent was allowed to charge a $25 stud fee to outside mares to help the cost of keeping the horse. All the Army wanted was the first chance to buy the gelding colts from the Agents, if the horse passed the requirements.
I became a part of this breeding program about the time Patton captured these horses and shipped them to this country. I was not raising running horses, so when I read about these European horses I waited until they were distributed. The stallion I received was of Hungarian origin and bred for endurance rather than speed.
As
this is as much a horse story as it is a Daly, both being
synonymous, a word of explanation about the capture and
shipment of these horses and reason for it may be in order.
We will remember that, until now, the Army Remount was in
full swing. There was still a horse cavalry, but not too
much in use. But General Patton was still a
horse-oriented person. When he heard about a bunch of
horses being held at some of the German stallion farms he
became extremely interested. The Russians were approaching
from the East, the US from the West and South. It looked
like the Russians would get there first. Patton made a deal
with the Germans to turn these horses over to the US to keep
the Russians from capturing them. It was said at the time
that had the Russians captured the horses they would have
been butchered and eaten.
Walt Disney, in the show "The Miracle of the White Stallion," covered this subject pretty well. His movie was about the Lippizaner horses, but in reality there were many other breeds of horses involved also. This included Arabians, 1/2 Arabs, Thoroughbreds, and Hungarian Halfbreds, as well as the Lippizaner. The horse I received in May 1948 was a Hungarian Halfbred, gray in color, weight about 1140 lbs. and a real beauty. The term "Halfbred" must not be confused with the term "halfbreed". The halfbred has the same meaning as "thoroughbred," "standardbred" or any other pure breed. "Half-breed" means a cross between two unrelated breeds, such as 1/2 Arab and 1/2 Morgan, for instance. The Hungarian Halfbred was bred for a specific purpose. They were bred for cavalry mounts -- which means size, bone and endurance. In 1949 the remount abandoned the program so I ended up buying the horse from the government, as he was already located on our ranch.
We had been living in Hail Colombia Gulch, north of Butte, Montana, but purchased another ranch near Manhattan, Montana, in the Gallatin Valley. We moved over there in 1951. As we had to have our horses inspected by the State Livestock inspector to move them out of the county, an interesting sideline to this yarn should be included.
I came into the stockyard, yelled to the inspector, and unloaded the horses. All of the horses were branded with my brand except for the old stallion. I never did have the heart to run my iron over his glossy old hide and anyway, he was already packin' an "H4" on the side. "H4" stood for his name, Honpolgar 4". Well, the inspector cleared all my horses except the old horse. In Montana, when you have a horse inspected you give the inspector the bill of sale you got from the original owner. It is sent to the state capitol in Helena and put on file. If a horse is branded with your brand that is all you need.
The inspector became hostile when I said I didn't have a bill of sale and couldn't get one because the horse had been stolen anyway. He was "spoils of war" from Hitler's stables -- and anyway, I wasn't about to re-brand the old gray, law or no law! Well, the guy said they would just keep the horse in their custody 'til someone higher up could make a decision. In the meantime, I could load up the rest of the horses and leave.
I know the inspector thought I was nuts before -- spinning such a yarn, and when I blew a fuse and almost became violent he said he would call Helena if I'd pay for the call -- which he did. To make a long story short, after a visit on the phone things were okay. I knew enough people in the yards to take me up on my wild tale about having a horse out of Hitler's stable so we finally got on the road.
In
Manhattan, the first thing I did was build a big corral to
keep him separate from the mares. We lived fairly close to
the highway and it wasn't unusual for cars to drive in --
people wanting directions or gas or salesmen, etc. So when
this gray imported car appeared one day I didn't pay much
attention except to notice that the hood on the machine was
as long as a sleigh track and it was driven by a pretty
neat-looking lady -- about my age.
She said she was looking for Yim Edwards and a horse called Honpolgar, and that her name was Margit Sigray. I said I was her man, so she said she must see the horse! Her attitude was kinda' high-handed, which I rather resented. But I said, "Follow me" and we went over to the corral to see the old pony. I had built the corral "horse high" out of peeled poles. We could have gone around to the gate but I elected to climb over the top on account of her high-toned air. She just climbed up over the corral too, without any hesitation. Well, she picked up a few "brownie" points with me right there because most girls woulda' peeked through the poles.
About this time I heard my friend making some queer sounding noises and walking right up to the old horse -- who was some distance away. I didn't know it at the time but she was talking Hungarian to him and he seemed to understand, as he walked over to meet her halfway. She blew her breath in his nose, scratched his neck and ears and they seemed to get along. All the while the old pony was really getting the once-over from head to tail.
Without any more hesitation she walked over to me and said, "I must have this horse." I said, "Lady, he's not for sale."
Of course this went over like a lead balloon, as you could see that little rich girls usually get their way. I told her that this old kid was one of the family and that selling him was out of the question -- but why did she want him so badly? To make a long story short, we went into the house and while having coffee she spun a yarn that knocked the socks off us. It was a lesson in history, geography, war stories In Hungary, and eventually ended up in Montana over at the Bitterroot Stock Farms in Hamilton and Marcus Daly's life.
Of course, being from Butte I knew all about old Marcus Daly, so I felt a kind of kinship to this lady and the Daly horses. Old Marcus came to Butte in the 1870s and pioneered the deep level copper mining. He became one of the three famous "Copper Kings." He had two daughters and while traveling in Scotland one of his daughters met and married count Sigray, of Hungary. They had one daughter and this is the girl sitting across from Helen and me that morning back in 1953. Her's was a dazzling life story of growing up in Hungary and spending the summers in the Bitterroot at the Daly Stockfarm. Their estate in Hungary was taken over by the Germans, mother and dad were placed in a concentration camp, and how she made her escape under the cover of darkness into a US Army Camp -- eventually getting back to Montana. It was a great yarn.
Now she wanted to raise Hungarian horses in Montana and it happened that I owned the only stallion in the country. There were two other stallions beside mine, but Honpolgar 4 bloodlines would fit her mares the best. Although she did not know Honpolgar's sire, she was acquainted with the people who owned the foundation stock in Hungary and wanted to keep breeding the same bloodlines.
When these horses arrived in the US they were put on display and then farmed out to Agents such as myself. When the Remount was abandoned, these stallions and mares were offered for sale. Margit purchased 9 of these imported mares and they were now over on the stock farm in the Bitterroot.
At this time I was still only charging $25 stud fee to approved mares. Margit didn't want to bring her mares over to our ranch, so we made a deal where I would take Honpolgar over to the Bitterroot for the breeding season. She would have a handler take care of him and I could come over any time to check him out. I said I wanted to stay in the horse business too so the deal was that I would get the pick of the colts and keep one for myself. She fired right back and said I could keep a stallion but that she got all the fillies, but if the colts were all fillies I could have one but she had first pick. So that was how my Hungarian horse enterprise got started -- which turned out to be very interesting.
It was nice having nice horses giving prestige to my Cayuse horse herd, but the big payoff was to be around the Bitterroot stock farm. I was given free reign to look everything over -- all the historical paraphernalia that was so interesting and was a part of Marcus Daly's racing career. The barn was brick with an upstairs full of old-time racing carts, surreys, sulkies and other racing gear of the 1880s and 1890s. These old racing sulkies had very high iron-tired wheels that were quite heavy. There were right out of an old Currier & Ives print of long ago. There were trunks full of horse gear, whips, horse care equipment, veterinary tools, shoeing tools and some of the old green and copper racing colors worn by jockeys riding Daly's winning horses on tracks all over the east coast. There was also equipment from Hungary. Patent leather gold plated harnesses with the family crest on the hardware, and other pieces of horse gear that would be collectors items even in those days. I will add too, that the barn had a floor made of cork blocks imported from Spain. A horse won't slip on cork. The barn is still there and can be seen by visitors.
It was also an experience to stay in the original Daly home that stood on a high bench above the town of Hamilton. This is not the mansion on the Daly estate -- that mansion was built after Daly's death in the 1900s. The house was full of family treasures, paintings from famous European and American painters. The family sterling had a crest of the Bitterroot -- the state flower and the name of the valley.
"Tammany" was, of course, the favorite horse of Daly and there were several oil paintings of him done by some famous painter of the time. Also, there was a group of oil paintings of horses done by a famous painter by the name of Cross. These were giant in size, about 7 feet high and 10 feet long and were framed in gold gilded frames about 8 inches deep. These paintings were of mares and colts against a background of the Bitterroot mountains.
Much has been written about Daly and his horses and the flying copper and green racing colors, so there isn't much use talking about it here -- but a little yarn told to me by Margit could be of interest.
Daly was determined to breed the best and fastest horses in the world. Whenever a horse became famous he would try to buy it. At one time he sent his agent to Hungary to buy a great stallion called "Ormonde," who had been winning all the races. At the sale the agent bid as high as he thought prudent, but a man from South America finally ended up the owner for $140,000 and took it to Brazil.
When the agent returned to Anaconda to report to Daly he confessed he had bid a lot more than he should have and even then wondered if Daly would have approved if he had bought the horse. Upon hearing this Daly turned away in disgust and said, "Next time I say to buy a horse, I mean it".
There was a small bronze sculpture on the fireplace mantle. It was a race horse being held by a man in a derby hat -- no doubt; either the trainer or the owner. This was a model of the great racehorse "Lamplighter" owned by some other horseman in the east. A match race was arranged between Daly's famous horse Tammany from the west and Lamplighter from the east. The odds were heavily in favor of the proven horse from the east. A side bet of considerable size was also made.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the owner of Lamplighter, who thought he had a sure thing, had commissioned a famous sculptor to sculpt a likeness of his horse and cast it in bronze. At the banquet following this race the statue was to be presented to Lamplighter's owner -- who was supposed to be the winner and to receive a trophy in the likeness of his own horse.
When the dust settled it was Tammany who crossed the finish line four lengths in the lead -- a real runaway! At the banquet the owner of Lamplighter proved to be a good sport and presented the sculpture intended for himself to Daly.
We're getting off the subject a little so we'll get back to Margit. Eventually I got first colt, and not having the desire to stand another stallion on the ranch I made a deal with Steve Cooksley, who lived in the sand hills of Nebraska. Steve had three mares out of the same group of horses brought over from Europe with Honpolgar 4. He had been using quarterhorse and Thoroughbred stallions until he found out about my horse. Of course, Margit had old Honpolgar and I couldn't back out of that deal, so when it came time to pick a colt from the new bunch of colts I had Steve come up and choose the colt that would do him the most good -- which I then leased to him.
Steve
ran a lot of horses and was pretty much a thoroughbred man,
so his mares had bloodlines that fit perfectly with the
Hungarian . Of course none of our horses -- Steve's,
Margit's or mine -- had any way of registering the
pedigree in the United States. So the next thing to do was
to start a stud book of pedigrees. Margit had an old friend
who was also a Hungarian refuge who lived in Virginia. Her
name was Judith Gurkey. She had escaped through the Iron
Curtain and managed to get about 7 mares out with her. This
is also a wonderful story, but we'll stick to this one
first. Judith had no stallion either. So we all got together
to do some horse trading and to get a set of breeding
records together.
We met at the Stockfarm. Margit had also invited Dr. Ensminger, who was to do the necessary groundwork with the US Department of Agriculture to get this book of pedigrees accepted and recorded. All this was done at Margit's expense. It took a long time to get these pedigrees accepted but it was finally accomplished before Margit's death.
No horse was ever sold until the buyer was carefully researched to prove that he could afford to own it and give it a good home. Judith Gurkey was also helped along by Margit in her business of raising and selling horses. Also, Steve traded horses with both Judith and Margit.
In retrospect, it only seems natural that Hungarian horses should have a home on the Bitterroot Stockfarm. Old Marcus attempted to buy one but it took his granddaughter to make this dream come true -- she and Jim Edwards (giving myself a pat on the back.). Margit always used to introduce me to her friends by saying, "This is Yim Edwards. He is grandfather to all my babies on the farm" -- meaning horses, of course.
It also tickles me that because of Margit, this horse of Hungarian breeding, foaled in Hitler's stables in Germany, captured by the famous General Patton, and ending up in Hail Columbia Gulch (you might say in the wilds of Montana,) and eventually Manhattan and the Bitterroot would have his blood line predominate in just about every Hungarian Halfbred horse in the United States -- that is, up until recently. The change came when the Hungarian government opened its doors to horse trading once again.
I don't know how true this is but I recently received a call from a man I knew years ago in Manhattan. He was in the grain elevator business. Because of his knowledge of grain he was sent over to Hungary by the US government. This had something to do with grain marketing and trade agreements. While there he was shown around the country and visited one of the old (pre-WW II) stud farms. He was surprised to find that all the good old bloodlines had been scattered during and after the war. The Hungarian government was looking to the United States for breeding stock to start again. In their conversation they asked if he knew a Jim Edwards and Margit Sigray -- both from Montana (which was where he came from). That came as a surprise. He had known my horse for years but not being interested in horses he wasn't very impressed with that foreign horse of Jim Edwards, who lives down the creek. Of course, in those days -- the 1950s -- the Quarterhorse was the popular breed and anyone who wasn't mounted on a Quarterhorse was afoot.
If you're wondering why I'm including this little piece of information just bear with me (building a watch again) and I'll explain. In the 1950s, Margit used to get people out of Hungary by going through the underground. It seemed to me that there was always a bunch of refugees and could be all ages and professions. One of these refugees was a writer who later worked for Radio Free Europe. He would beam messages by radio to Hungary. His subjects were always items of interest to help the morale of the people who were unfortunate enough to still be there. He used the story of Honpolgar 4, Margit, and Jim Edwards and the wonderful care these horses were receiving. The Hungarian people are pretty well tied into horses so this was supposed to make them feel good and to like Americans. The old horse, you might say, had become what you might call an equine ambassador to Hungary. I surmise that this is the reason my name was mentioned to my friend who was visiting the stud farms.
Well, I haven't received any mail postmarked from Hungary and haven't had any horse buyers with a foreign accent knocking on my door. But if they did, it would be too late -- the Daly stock farm is gone, Margit is gone, and her horses are scattered to the four winds. The good part is that there are now many Hungarian horse breeders out there who are still carrying on the breeding program that Margit had the foresight to get started in the 1950s.
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