Passion for what?

It looks like the WAHO conference in Syria has given a number of Syrian entrepreneurs a bright idea: the desert Arabian horse as a commercial good. They are hosting “Arabian Passion: the Damascus International Horse and Equestrian Fair” (I made it a policy not to link to commercial stuff, so Google it yourselves if you want), for the second time, on October 16-19th, 2009 in Damascus. Not sure which passion they mean..  The exhibitors’ target is “making this exhibition an ideal place for those who would like to offer their products and services”.  Fascinating. Gone indeed are the days when idealistic Syrians would offer visitors their lasting friendship and the hospitality of their homes and barns. Now they want to offer you their products and services, including those coveted “bedding and flooring products”. I knew that era would reach Syria one day, but I didn’t know that it would happen so soon… which reminds me of this quote from French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944):  “Nous nous sommes nourris de la magie des sables. D’autres peut-etre y creuseront leurs puits de petrole et s’enrichiront de leurs marchandises. Mais ils seront venus trop tard. Car les palmeraies interdites ou la poudre vierge des…

The other Ibn Fayda

Another horse from Egypt that has left his mark on Tunisian breeding is the chestnut Ibn Fayda (Ibn Rabdan x Lady Anne Blunt’s Feyda), a gift from Egypt’s Prince Kemal El Din Hussein to the Tunisian government stud of Sidi Thabet.  This chestnut Ibn Fayda, b. 1925, is the full brother of the bay Ibn Fayda, b. 1927 (picture below), who was the sire of the Inshass stallions Adham (xZabia), El Moez (x Bint Zareefa) and Zaher (xZahra). Inshass is Egypt’s King Fuad’s private stable, which had acquired the bay Ibn Fayda from Prince Kemal El Din.  The chestnut Ibn Fayda (I’ve never seen a picture) had a long career at Sidi Thabet in Tunisia, where he was noted as a sire of broodmares. One of his daughters, Imama, produced the chestnut masculine stallion Ourour (photo below, by Duc) and another was the grand-dam of the beautiful brown stallion Sumeyr (photo below, by Bango O.A.) both of whom become important government stallions in France (Ourour at Tarbes, and Sumeyr at Pau then Pompadour). Sumeyr is the sire of the pretty Pompadour mare Ablette, featured here.   

“Nasr, a racehorse”

Nasr, the chestnut [January 23rd: Sporthorse-data lists hims as “brown”, and the French studbook as “bay”] horse pictured below was a desert-bred stallion that was imported to the Tunisian stud of Sidi Thabet in the 1920s.  He was imported from Egypt, where he’d had a good career as a racehorse. French masterbreeder Robert Mauvy, who knew Nasr, referred to him as “the prestigious imported horse Nasr” in one of his books.  MIchael Bowling tells me that the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) used a desert bred racehorse by the name of Nasr as a stallion in the 1920s, and that this horse was subsequently exported to Tunisia. He also tells me this horse is the reason why the other more famous *Nasr (Rabdan El Azrak x Bint Yemama) was renamed “Manial”, when he was raced by Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik before being exported to the USA.  If so, then it seems like the chestnut horse in the picture is the “Nasr, a racehorse” of one of the early EAO studbooks. He left many descendents in Tunisia, and in France, of which Mauvy’s Moulouki is one. Moulouki’s maternal granddam Arabelle is a granddaughter of this Nasr. [Jan 23rd update: He is also…

Photo of the day: Niazi (France)

Niazi is another desert bred stallion imported to France. He may have been part of the last importation before World War, but I am not sure. I don’t know his strain either. What is sure is that he is one of the first French imports whose records show the mention “asil”, a term seldom used before in French horsebreeder circles. The imported stallions Nibeh (from the Fad’aan, featured here), Telmese (from the Shammar), El Moustabel (also from the Shammar), El Nesmeh and Chams are also indicated as being “asil”.  Niazi left some Arabian descendents whose lines survive in South America, but not in France.  PS: Sorry for my silence of late. Blame it all on Verizon and my home internet connection.

One year of Daughter of the Wind

Yesterday, January 11th 2009 marked the first birthday of “Daughter of the Wind”. I want to pause for a minute and take a look at one year of blogging about desert Arabian horses.   As a trained economist I can’t resist sharing the latest figures from my dashboard. Since March 26th, 2008 (which is when I started keeping track of stats) there have been 10,694 unique visitors and 163,884 clicks or visits to the website; it has featured 6 bloggers (me included), who posted a total of 240 posts, with 87 readers posting 925 comments. 100 links were added and 281 tags created. Also, 70% of the reader used English on their web browsers (which doesn’t mean they all come from English speaking countries); 10% used French; 5% used German; 2% used Hungarian; 2% used Arabic and the rest were divided in 19 other languages.  Beyond the numbers, Daughter of the Wind has drawn together readers from countries as diverse as Croatia, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Mauritania, Namibia and South Africa, in addition to the US, Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etc. It has featured the wonderful asil Arabians of South Africa as well as the precious Babolna lines of Hungary, and shed some light on…

Photo of the day: Jalam Al Ubayyan as a younger horse

A nice picture of Jalam al Ubayyan as a young stallion in Saudi Arabia. He was bred in 1949 by Saud Ibn Adballah ibn Jalawi, Governor of the Saudi province of al-Hasa, and was imported to the USA by Connie Cobb in 1966.  He is present in many of the shorter (i.e., closer to the desert) pedigrees of US-bred asil horses (mainly through the category known as BLUE STAR Arabians).  Photo courtesy of the late Billy Sheets. Not sure if it was published before. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Strain of the Month: Kuhaylan al-Wati

I don’t know where to start from.. the story of Kuhaylan al-Wati is so long and so rich, and begins way before the strain acquired its current name.. It also encompasses a number of other related, albeit better known strains. While I mull this over, let me leave you with this picture of Falat, a Kuhaylat al-Wati (by a Ma’naghi Hadraji from Ibn Ufaytan) from the sons of Hakem Hsaini al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins. This family is the owner of the strain.. Falat was later sold to Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo, Syria.

Lost asil tail females: *Abeyah

In my opinion, *Abeyah was the best mare of the Davenport importation, and perhaps one of the best mares to come out of Arabia. She was certainly the best authenticated one. Look at my translation of her hujjah (also published in Al Khamsa Arabians III):  I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which on her face has a blaze and on her two back legs has a stocking, [i.e.] she has two stockings on her hindlegs, that she is ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, [that she] is to be mated in the dark night, [that she] is purer than milk, and we only witness to what we know and do not keep [information] about the unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [Faris al-Jarba’s seal] A hujjah couldn’t get any better than this. Concise, to the point, and written and sealed by the supreme leader of the preeminent Bedouin horse-breeding tribe of Arabia Deserta: the Shammar al-Jazirah. In comparison, how many horses otherwise known to have been berd by the Aal Saud have Ibn Saud’s own seal on their hujjah?  How many other imported mares have Faris al-Jarba’s seal? [I know of only another one: the…