The famous stud farms of Arabian horses in Bila Tserkva (or rather in farms belonging to this estate) were started by Francis Xawery Branicki, buying and bringing to the Szamrajowka farm, 30 mares and two studs from the estate of Szczesny Potocki in Tulczyn.
In 1803 a studbook was started in Szamrajowka. Unfortunately it was unwillingly, or not at all, shared with outside researchers. It was only used by its administrators, who were responsible for writing down the history of this unusual stud farm – the transcript of this shortened history was utilized by a famous Polish hippologist prof. Witold Pruski in his research. The stud book was burned when rebellious Ukrainian peasants plundered the estates of Branicki family in 1917 (killing the epoque stud Ibrahim only for resisting to be walked out of his box). The records were lost and so (almost...) history was forgotten. The history which for horse breeders in Poland was like Dagome Iudex – the first known document written by a Polish duke, the first record of Polish language passages, for political or church history.
The first known (thanks to professor Pruski) stud in Szamrajowka was the stud Politowski: the gift from the Sultan to Stanisław August Poniatowski, which the king feared to mount and gave to his courtier of this surname. Politowski sold the stud, first to Hieronim Janusz Sanguszko. From Slawuta ( another stud farm, not less famous than Bila Tserkva) Politowski got to the family of Branicki.
In later years, studs and mares were brought to Szamrajowka directly from Arabian Peninsula. These were some of the horses belonging to Waclaw 'Emir' Rzewuski and the horses brought by regular expeditions to Aleppo and further into the dessert.
In 1830's Bila Tserkva hosted horse racing, as a result of the effort of masters of Wilanów. Their renowned stud farm was divided into 3 parts. Arabian, Thoroughbred, and Anglo-Arabian. The excellence and perfection of the farm can be proved by one incident. In 1864 Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz decided to open a modern 'European style' stud farm outside Istanbul. He wanted to breed mainly Arabian horses. Half century earlier the Turks did not appreciate horses from Arabian Peninsula. They only learned from French and English literature that as 'people of the east' they should be riding 'horses from the east' and the only 'horses from the east' are Arabian horses. Thus longing for opening a stud farm of such breed was longing for Europeanization. Sultan's missionaries looked all over the world, but did not find better horses than in Bila Tserkva. They purchased from Branicki family106 horses for their principal: studs Jarzmo and Junak ( both after Grey Indian), 90 mares, 8 riding horses and six cart horses.
In 1864 almost entire Arabian Peninsula belonged to Turkey...
