Witez II was a bay Arabian stallion foaled at the Janów Podlaski Stud Farm in Poland. He spent his early years at Janów at a time when Poland was under occupation by Nazi Germany before ultimately arriving in the United States in 1945, where he lived for the remainder of his life until his death. His name came from an archaic Polish word meaning "chieftain, knight, prince and hero."

The Janów Podlaski Stud Farm is the oldest state stud farm in Poland, established in 1817 in Wygoda. The stud farm specializes in breeding Arabian and Anglo-Arabian horses. It has been an important stud farm for the Arabian horse breed for the last 200 years despite being plundered in 1914 and 1939 by Russia.