Daughter of the Wind: Edouard Al-Dahdah’s blog on desert arabian horses, past and present

Even since I found Caroyln’s McIntyre’s blog “Girl Solo in Arabia”, I have been reading it avidly to the point of neglecting everything else. Just take a deep breath, click and start reading. You’ll emerge from it three hours later, with red eyes, but the journey it takes you on is worth every minute of your time.

I just noticed I wrote my 500th blog entry a few days ago, and with it came the realization that the amount of material available on ‘Daughter of the Wind’ may soon become unmanageable to some of the readers less familiar with the various – and not always user-friendly – ways of navigating it.

So here are few tips, keeping in mind that there are three columns to this blog, with the articles appearing on the left column:

1) if you are looking for information on the horses of a particular country (Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, France, Germany, etc) or just for a broad topic (Bedouins, Tribes, Strains, Racing, etc. ) then click under “Themes”, in the central column. You will find under each broad theme category all the blog entries that directly related to it.

2) if you are looking for more specific information (a particular strain e.g., Hamdani, Hayfi ; a particular breeding group e.g. Davenport or Crabbet; or particular famous breeder or family of breeders e.g. Saud, Mauvy, Blunt, then click under “Labels”, in the right column. You will need to scroll down to the middle of the column.

3) If you know what you are looking for and it’s very specific, just use the “search function” in the right column, not far from the “Labels”.

 This very old mare is a Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah from the Middle Euphrates valley in Syria, near the small town of al-Mayadin.

This area general is home to the tribe of al-Aqaydat (Ageydat), a wealthy and powerful semi-nomadic tribe of cultivators and small herders whose Shaykhs obtained a number of really good desert-bred mares in the first part of the twentieth century, sometimes through ghazu (raids) and sometimes through purchase and gifts. They bred these mares well, and protected them by using only asil stallions, and hence came to own reputalbe marabet. Today some of the prettiest and typiest Syrian horses came from these Ageyday marabet.

One of the most well known Aqaydat marabet is that of Kuhaylat al-Trayfiyyah, which is an old strain the history of which I don’t know well. All I know is that it might – just might – derive its name from Matarifah clan of the ‘Anazah tribe. The strain is mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, in connection with events that took place in Eastern Arabia, either in Bahrain, Qatar or the al-Ihsaa region of Saudi Arabia.

The Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah is the photo was not registered in the WAHO Syrian Studbook and I don’t know the reason. Perhaps some of her papers or authentication documents were missing or incomplete, perhaps she did not meet the Registration Committee’s criteria, and perhaps her owners did not want to register her, which was not uncommon at the time.

I recall being struck by her high withers, her deep girth, her sloped shoulder, her short-back, her level croup, her beautiful pricked ears, and her overall graceful and gentle appearance, despite her old age, and poor condition. Photo taken at Radwan Shabariq’s farm near Aleppo, in 1996, where this mare was being brought to be bred by his Hamdani ibn Ghurab stallion al-Aawar.

Joe Ferriss has a nice article on Egyptian Arabian stallions of the Hadban strain in the online newsletter Arabian Essence.

Speaking of Hadban stallions of Egyptian bloodlines, I was lucky to have known the grey stallion Kaheel (by Ashour who was by Anter out of Ayda x Yosr by Ibn Fakhri out of Bint Yosreia), who was bred by the Egyptian Agricultural Organization in Cairo, and died in my home country of Lebanon, leaving no progeny, some time in the late 1990s. I made plans to purchase Kaheel after I saw him for the first time. When I went to see him again at some equestrian center north of Beirut, he had just died from a colic.   Kaheel was a unique individual in many ways: a Anter grandson in the tail male, both sire and dam from the Hadban strain (he actually qualifies as Sheykh Obeyd and Heirloom) and otherwise the direct grandson of three lesser known but very special Nazeer offspring, all three of which belong to good racing lines:

1: Ayda, by Nazeer x Lateefa, and hence a full sister of Serenity Ibn Nazeer / Lateef  

2: Bint Yosreia, by Nazeer x Yosreia, and a full sister of Tersk’s Aswan / Rafaat, among others;

3: Ibn Fakhri / Korayem, by Nazeer x Helwa, and a full brother of the unique Abla at the EAO 

He was also near perfect in conformation, with tremendous presence, and beautiful, graceful movement, and a kind disposition. I can’t help thinking what things would have looked like had I been able to acquire him. The last I heard, his full brother Sadek, a chestnut, was alive in Saudi Arabia.  

PS: when you look at his pedigree on allbreedpedigree.com, you can’t help but notice the near dominance of Crabbet horses at the sixth generation and beyond: Rustem, Kazmeen, and Hamran, in addition to Sheykh Obeyd mares bred by Lady Anne Blunt: Radia, Durra, Zareefa, Dalal, Fayda, etc. I mean, I always knew that Egyptian horses were full of Blunt blood, but I never saw it displayed on a pedigree in such a striking way as on Kaheel’s.

Ghuzayyil was a famous desert-bred horses from Syria, whose bloodlines are present today in a number of modern pedigrees from Syria, including that of the stallion Hussam al-Shimal now in France. This is his entry in the Aldahdah Index:

GHUZAYYIL: a grey desert-bred stallion, born c. 1952; [no picture available]

Strain: Saqlawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, also called Saqlawi Marzaqani.

Sire: Hamdani al-Jhini a Hamdani Simri of the Shammar tribe, a celebrated horse among the Bedouins, sometimes simply referred to as al-Jhini; sire of sire: Hamdani Simri of Shammar, known as al-Malkhukh, also a famous horse; dam of sire: Hamdaniyat al-Jhini of Shammar;

Dam: a Saqlawiyah Marzaqaniyah, from the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe. According to Fawaz al-Rajab, a horse merchant from Hims, who told Hazaim al-Wair, who told me, the dam of Ghuzayyil and the dam of Mawj al-Athir were maternal sisters.

Racing and Breeding Career: Ghuzayyil raced in Beirut starting in 1956, in the ownership of the Marquis Musa de Freije and won at least eight races (he is recorded as having won eight races in one of my notebooks, based on notes I took from one of the Hippodrome de Beyrouth’s racing records); his reputation as a racehorse eventually reached the Bedouin clan who had bred him, and they reacquired the horse to use him on their mares; according to Radwan Shabariq, a horsebreeder in Aleppo, who told me, he covered one hundred mares in his first year as a lead stallion with the Shammar tribe (this is perhaps an exaggeration but is noneless revealing of the fame Ghuzayyil had achieved as a racehorse of authenthic descent). Ghuzayyil was later owned by Alaa al-Din al-Jabiri of Aleppo, where he covered many more mares.

Progeny: He is the sire of Malakah, the Saglawia Jedrania of Ibn Zubayni dam of Al-Abjar; of the Kuhaylan Krush of Alaa al-Din al-Jabiri, whose dam was one of the mares of Mayzar Abdul Mohsen al-Jarba; of Basmet Farah, an Umm Arqub; of the Kuhaylan Mimrah of Hamkah; and of the Umm Arqub (perhaps same mare as Basmet Farah) dam of the mare Uswarah and the granddam of the mare Neamah bred by Amin Yakan of Aleppo, among other horses. All these were bred during Ghuzzayil’s stay in Aleppo with Jabri. It is highly likely that Ghuzayyil is also represented in the pedigree of many more pedigrees of desert-bred Syrian horses, under the generic strain name “Saqlawi Marzaqani – Shammar” during his stay with the Bedouin clan that bred him and repurchased him after his racing career was over.

Comments: According to Fawaz al-Rajab [who told Hazaim al-Wair, who told me], who claims his uncle bought Ghuzayyil from the Maraziq clan of Shammar, the horse had a very thick tail, was extremely pretty, and beat several part-bred horses on the Hippodrome de Beyrouth — the Beirut racetrack. Fawaz also remembers that Ghuzayyil won a horse beauty show in Lebanon.

Ghaddar is another desert-bred race-horse mentioned in the newspaper clipping below. He was racing at the same time as Mawj al-Athir. The Aldahdah Index happens to have an entry on him as well, with all of the information coming from old horse merchant Abd al-Qadir Hammami.

GHADDAR: a gray desert-bred asil stallion;

 Strain: Hamdani Simri of the marbat owned by ibn Ghurab, also called Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; bred by ‘Ajil ibn Ghurab.

 Sire: al-Marzaqani al-Adham, “the black Marazaqani”, a Saglawi Marzaqani bred by the Shammar and later taken by the ’Anazah;

 Dam: a Hamdaniyah ibn Ghurab of Ibn Ghurab of Shammar.

 Racing and breeding career: Ghaddar raced successfully in Beirut in the 1950s, where he won 14 races. Races were held on both Saturdays and Sundays at that time, and Ghaddar was one of the very few horses that were entered and won races on two successive days. He was later used as a stallion. He died within the first year of his breeding career, and only left a few produce, and none of them have left lines today.

If you follow this blog regularly, then you must have already heard about the chestnut desert-bred stallion Mawj al-Athir: he is in the pedigree of the bay stallion from Syria, Hussam al-Shimal, now in France. He is also the sire of the pretty mare below, whose photo you have already seen before.

Joe Achcar also scanned and sent this old Lebanese newspaper clipping from Nov. 11, 1954, which has a picture of Mawj al-Athir on the racetrack, with the mention, in French: The “strongest horse of the Middle East”.  Note the mention in the clipping of two other desert-bred asils, about which there will be more on this blog, soon: Chatt el-Arab and Ghaddar.

Now here is Mawj al-Athir’s entry in the ‘Aldahdah Index’:

MAWJ AL-ATHIR: a chestnut desert-bred Asil stallion [photo available];

Strain: Saglawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan [or guild] of the Shammar tribe; the strain is also called Saqlawi Marzaqani.

Sire: a Saqlawi Marzaqani; according to Abd al-Qadir Hammami, an old horse merchant from Aleppo, his sire was al-Marzaqani al-Adham (“the black Marazaqani”), a celebrated stallion of the Saqlawi Marzaqani strain, bred by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, used by them as a stallion and later taken by the ’Anazah tribe; according to Fawaz al-Rajab, an older horse merchant from Hims, the sire of Mawj al-Athir was also his maternal brother, then a yearling, who bred his own dam by accident. He also mentioned that Mawj al-Atheer’s brother later broke a shoulder, which would mean his sire is the famous Saqlawi Marzaqani Abu-Kitf. According to Radwan Shabariq, [both of the potential sires of Mawj al-Athir, as per the above] Abu-Kitf and the black Marzaqani were maternal haf-brothers. Also according to Fawaz al-Rajab, Mawj al-Athir and another great desert-bred racehorse, Ghuzayyil, were sons of two sisters.

Dam: a Saqlawiyah Marzaqaniyah from the Maraziq clan of the Shammar;

Racing and Breeding Career: Mawj al-Athir raced successfully in Beirut and was later bought by the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture for breeding.

Progeny: Mawj al-Athir was the sire of the beautiful grey Kuhayla Nawwaqiyah mare “Bint Mawj al-Athir”, dam of my father’s “Nawwaqiat ‘Akkar” (herself by Achhal). He left no other produce I know of in Lebanon. His line survives in Syria however through his son, Amali, the Kuhaylan Khdili of ‘Abdu Tannus in Aleppo.

Kent Mayfield of Second  Wind Arabians invited me to speak at the Pyramid’s Society National Breeders Conference, 2010, in Atlanta Gerogia. The National Breeders Conference is an annual event organized by the Pyramid Society’s Education Committee, which Kent chairs, to educate its members about the Arabian horses of Egyptian bloodlines. This year’s theme is “Back to the Future: Models for Egyptian Arabian Breeding”. Other invited speakers are Joe Ferriss, Judith Forbis, Hans Nagel, Anita Enander, Scott Benjamin and Cindy McCall. I bet it’ll be extremely interesting.

I wish to thank Troy Patterson for sharing with me this rare picture of the asil stallion Zairafan (Alwal Bahet x Maarah by Taamrud), from Mrs. J. E. Ott’s breeding. Zairafan is a Ubayyan whose tail female goes back to the mare *Mahraa, bred by Prince Saud ibn Abdallah ibn Jiluwi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and imported to the USA in 1950. Zairafan is a true son of the desert.

In 1971, H.R.H. Prince Salman b. Abd al-Aziz Aal Saoud, brother of the present king of Saudi Arabia, and then and now governor of the Province of Riyadh (which more or less corresponds to the historical region of Najd), presented the bay Hamdaniyah mare Gazala to a Dr. Klaus Simons of Germany. The latter imported his prized mare to Germany, where the Asil Club accepted her and her offspring, three mares by Farouss (Kaisoon x Faziza by Fa-Turf) and two stallions by Hamasa Arslan (Farag x Shar Zarqa by Negem)

Jeanne Craver forwarded me her typewritten hujjah, which is signed by the hand of Prince Salman, and exists in both the original Arabic, and an awkward English translation. Here is the English version as it appears in the original document, word for word (capitals mine):

[Printed Letterhead for Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud]

To Whom It May Concern

We certify hereunder that Gazala is Thoroughred Arabic (Assila), she is of Hamadaniah Kuhaylan family, she is brown colour, white line of the face, white spot on the upper lip, white line between the nostrils, white colour on the lower extremities of the limps. Her father Saker and her mother is Sultana. Her pedegree is attached to this certificate. She was born in the Arab desert of Najd in the tribe if Shammar in Hayel Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She has been in my stable one year.

For the above we herby certify

Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud

[handwritten signature of Prince Salman]

Governer of Riyadh

Of course, the typos and mistakes come from the translation, not the original Arabic version. A second document, very similar in form and content, provides the additional information that the mare was presented to Mr. Klaus Simons, and clarifies that the strain is Hamdaniyah with no mention of Kuhaylah this time. I don’t have the attached pedigree, but you can see a translation of it in the Asil Araber II, where there is also a nice picture of Ghazala. The pedigree, which is very elaborate with ancestors recorded up to the sixth generation, and dates of birth up to the third generation (both VERY unusual features for a desert pedigree) is also on allbreedpedigree.com, here.

What is really strange is that the Arabic version of the hujjah speaks of Hamdaniyah “Kahlawiyah”, a term I have never heard of before, and which the English version translates as “Kuhaylan”. Two possibilities: either the administrative cleric who drafted the hujjah for Prince Salman to sign knew nothing about Arabian horse strains (not at all unusual, even in Saudi in 1971) and meant to write Kuhaylah but wrote Kahlawiyah instead; or ‘Kahlawiyah is a branch of Hamdaniyat, but that’s highly unlikely. I have never heard of it, and the way the word is built suggests a garbled rendering of the term Kuhaylah.

This striking bay stallion who recently came to France from Syria has already been featured here before. Hussam Al-Shimal is a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq from the old-established Stud of Saed Aghan Yakan in al-Bab, Syria. His sire is a desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Mussin called Raad who has also received a lot of visibility on this website. Hussam traces to some of the best desert-bred horses that were sent to the Beirut racetrack for racing: Ghuzayil, Mawj al-Atheer, and al-Malkhoukh. More on all three later. You can view Hussam’s near-full pedigree here.

Joe Achcar of Lebanon has arranged for Hussam to come to France to be training for endurance racing with Arnault Decroix in Normandy, where these photos were taken by a professional.

This one is Thank Heaven, a 2003 grey mare (by Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer by Ru Serr Llany), owned by Cathie Fye in the USA. As far as I know she is the only progeny of the Bahraini asil (heck, super-asil) stallion Mloolshaan Hager Solomon who has been in this country for 22 years now…

Dick Reed of Toskhara Arabians in Texas shared this photo of the Ubayyah mare *Hamra Johara which was imported by Lewis Payne (pboto) to the USA in 1961. Dick’s stallion Line Dancer, who won 24 races in 30 starts in the USA and the UAE, traces four times to this mare which was bred in Najd, Saudi Arabia, by the House of Saud in 1952. Thanks Dick for sharing this photo and the information on this precious mare.

Recently, Jeanne Craver was able to access the hujjah and supporting documents about the mare *Hamra Johara, a desert-bred Arabian mare imported to the USA in 1961 by Lewis Payne. *Hamra Johara has no asil descendents, unfortunately.

Jeanne obtained the documents from Gari Dill-Marlow, who got them from Dick Reed, who breeds Polish Arabians in Texas. I don’t know where Dick got them from. The mare’s hujjah in Arabic, and its very accurate English translation are part of the documents. I am reproducing the English translation here, which was originally done by James C. Stewart, “Acting Translation Analyst of the Translation Division of the Local Government Department and the Arabian American Oil Company [ARAMCO], in the offices of that company at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia”:

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Village of Khufs Dhughurah, Province of Nejd, Saudi Arabia

6 Rabi’ II 1978 (Corresponding to 20 October 1958)

I, the undersigned, Turki Al-Hashishi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, residing in the village of Khufs Dhughurah, Province of Nejd, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, declare the following to be true:

The mare Johara described as chestnut with a white left hind foot and a white stripe from her jibbah to her nose, was foaled in the stables of the Royal House of Sa’ud in Riyadh, Province of Nejd, on 25 Jumada II 1371 (Corresponding to 21 March 1952). Both her sire and dam were chestnut colored and of the Ubayyan strain. The sire is known as Kabir Ahmar and the dam is called Rajabah and both were owned by King ‘Abd al-’Aziz ibn Sa’ud.

I avow the above to be a true statement concerning the mare Johara before Allah the Merciful and the Compassionte, for she and her dam and her sire are descended from generations of horses of pure blood of the Ubayan strain

Signature of Turki Al-Hashishi

Witnessed by: Khalifa Ibn Yusuf, Ibrahim ibn Majeed

This hujjah is typical of the type of hujaj issued in Saudi Arabia around the same period. Khufs Dughurah (or Khafs Dughrah) was the location of one of the larger studs of the House of Saud. 

[Republishing this piece, which was already published here last July - Edouard]

The mare El Samraa is certainly one of the least documented horses in Egytian Arabian horse breeding. To me, that’s a big problem. Heck, it should be a big problem for every researcher and breeder with an interest in these horses. Given El Samraa’s contribution to mainsteam Egpytian breeding (she is the grand-dam of Sameh, and the great-great-grand dam of Al Metrabbi, among countless other descendents), it is even surprising that researchers have not spent more time investigating her.

Below is what we know of El Samraa: her color (grey); her date of birth (1924); the year she was acquired by the King of Egypt (1931); the name – only the name – of the man she was purchased from (Shaykh Omar Abdel Hafiz); her registration number in the Inshass (the King’s private stud farm) Original Herd Book: (#13); the name of the man she was later sold to (Mostafa Bey Khalifah); and the year she was sold to this man (1941). In short: three dates; two names of people, none of which appears to have been her breeder; and a color. That’s it.

Most of you will have to agree with me that such factual information as date of birth and name of previous owner has no bearing on one’s ability to assess the purity and authenticity (asalah, or asil status) of this mare. Now, that’s what we don’t know about El Samraa:

1) her strain; no strain is listed in the Inshass Original Herd Book; later, the Egyptian Agricultural Organization listed her strain as Saqlawi on some occasions, and as Kuhaylan on others; this confusion makes things worse that if she had no recorded strain at all.

2) whether she was desert-bred or not;

3) the name of the person who bred her; all we know is that when she was seven years old, she was owned by one Shaykh Omar Abdel Hafiz who sold her to King Fouad;

4) her marbat, that is, the name of the family of horses she belongs to;

5) where she was bred;

Here too, any unbiased reader will have to concede that what we don’t know about El Samraa is exactly the kind of information one would need to know to assess the purity and authenticity (asalah, asil status) of the mare. For example, if someone tells me that a given mare’s strain is Kuhaylan; that she is desert-bred; that she was bred by Ibn Khalifah; that her marbat is Jallabiyah; and that she was bred in Bahrain, I will be able to tell you: she is asil; If, on the other hand, you tell me that you don’t know the strain of this mare; you don’t know if she is desert-bred or not; you don’t know who bred her, and you don’t know her marbat; then, at the very best, I will tell you: I cannot say if she is asil or not. The latter case is that of El Samraa.

As a matter of fact, the one and only thing that seems to have redeemed this mare in the eyes of researchers’ past and present is her owbership by the King of Egypt’s prestigious private stud, Inshass, which housed mostly asil horses. However, that’s not enough. One needs positive evidence about the mare herself. And that’s been missing for a very long time.

Wait. I almost forgot to mention one thing: the Inshass Original Herd Book lists a sire and a dam for El Samraa. The sire is recorded and “Hab El Reah” and the dam as “Bint El Sheikh”. How could I have forgetten this? Shame on me.

The problem is, “Hab El Reah” and “Bint El Sheikh” are not names of horses. The phrase “She is from Hab El Reah and Bint El Sheikh”  is just an Arabic colloquial expression from the area of the Middle Euphrates Valley that translates roughly into “she is from the wind that blows, and the daughter of the Sheikh”, which means that the mare is gracious, free, swift (a “Daughter of the Wind”, really), and that she is as precious to her owner as the Shaykh’s daughter is precious to her father. It’s one of those expressions that Arabs use about their horses, and which you can see in the desert horses hujaj (certificates of authenticity), like “purer than milk” and “can be mated in the darkest night”, etc.

Whoever turned the expression “the mare [El Samraa] is from Hab El Reah and Bint El Sheikh” from the colloquial expression that is originally was into the names of the sire of El Samraa (“Hab El Reah”) and of her dam (“Bint El Sheikh), perhaps an Egyptian clerk employed as a King Fouad’s stud to keep the books, must have been ignorant of the meaning of this colloquial expression. That’s not surprising, given that the expression is, as far as I know, mainly employed by the people (Bedouins and settled folks alike), of the Middle Euphrates valley, in Syria and Iraq. Next time, I will get you the original hujjah of a mare that is still alive, which mentions the expression “She is from Hab El Reah and Bint El Sheikh”, and I will translate it for you. You will see for yourselves that the hujjah records the names and strains of this mare’s sire and dam, and mentions the phrase too, in a diffferent part of the certificate.

Meanwhile, and as far as El Samraa is concerned, this points to an origin in the Middle Euphrates region of Syria (the Der El Zor-Mayadin-Bu Kemal area) or Iraq (the Qaim-Hadithah-Anah-Hit) area, which is good news, since it brings El Samraa several steps closer to the desert. One can also infer from this that King Fouad’s staff were given a hujjah, when purchasing the mare for him, and that the hujjah contained the phrase “She is from Hab El Reah and Bint El Sheikh”. One needs to find this hujjah to further establish the credentials of El Samraa as an asil mare.

This picture is from Hungary, and features Laszlo Kiraly’s lovely mare Scheherazade B, who is heavy in the blood of the Babolna mare 25 Amurath Sahib.