A morning at El Zahraa

While visiting Egypt for week a couple weeks ago, I spent a morning at the Egpytian Agricultural Organization’s (EAO) stables of El Zahraa in Ein Shams. I was joined by my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, who lives in Beirut, and came to Cairo to spend a few days with me. EAO Director Ali Said welcomed us, and we spent three hours visiting the stallions‘ stables as well as the mares‘ paddocks. The magnificent grey stallions Harras (Kisra x Hebat El Nil) , Serag El Din (Mourad x Safinaz) and Baydoun (Gad Allah x Bint Ibtisam), in that order, were both our personal favorites. Too bad I did not bring my digital camera with me.. The photo of Harras below is from the Asil Club’s website.

Le Cri d’Alarme

Je voudrais rappeler le cri d’alarme lancé par Monsieur Robert Mauvy ! :  “Renouvelant mon cri d’alarme, mon cri de désespoir ! Il faut absolument et à tout prix sauver ce qui reste du véritable Pur Sang Arabe. Il est impossible de laisser disparaître l’une des plus belles oeuvres du Créateur. Que l’initiative privée, que les amis et admirateurs du Noble Cheval se resserent et prennent en main cette admirable mais dure tâche : Sauver à tout prix le Cheval Arabe ! Je les en supplie car demain … demain il sera trop tard !…”  Monsieur Robert Mauvy qui avait plus de quatre vingt années d’expérience a fait éditer un petit livre; oh, non pas un album de photos ni même une encyclopédie mais le contenu en est d’une très grande richesse : “Le Cheval de Pur Sang Arabe” chez Crépin Leblond.  Il est très néfaste et dangereux pour la race chevaline entière de vouloir élever l’Arabe en fonction d’une mode ou d’une discipline ! L’Arabe est et doit rester le cheval de chasse et de guerre des nobles Bédouins d’Arabie. c’est le “Don d’Allah”. “L’Arabe de Sang Pur” est fait pour l’attaque et le repli avec ses démarrages, accélérations et arrêts…

Introducing new guest blogger: Louis Bauduin

I am pleased to introduce Louis Bauduin as a guest blogger on “Daughter of the Wind”. Louis is a passionate preservation breeder, and a devoted enthusiast of true, “real” Arabians horses of old French and North African bloodlines. He was one of the closest disciples to the late masterbreeder Robert Mauvy, who is the main influence on his breeding philosophy (and mine). Louis is the vice-president of the Union pour la Sauvergarde du Cheval Arabe (USCAR) and the owner of Murad Arabians, which was the home of the Mauvy stallions Cherif (Saadi x Zarifa), and Ashwan (Irmak x Shawania).

Le French Directory

I have started working on “Le French Directory” (click here to access) a section of this website dedicated to listing the hundreds of Arabian horses that were imported to France, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from the desert in the XIXth and XXth centuries. This is work in progress. So far there are only stallions, but mares will be added soon. If you have any additional informaiton about some of the horses listed, want to correct faulty information, or wish to add more horses, please send your comments!

Photos of Mohalhil’s too few offspring

Following an inquiry about photos of descendents of Mohalhil in an earlier post, Jeanne Craver kindly sent me the two pictures below.  The first one of his unique offspring, Prince Faisal, out of the desert-bred Hadbah mare Mahsuda, herself a gift from King Abd al-‘Aziz al-Sa’ud to Charles R. Crane. This photo of a rather fat Prince Faisal was taken at an Arabian horse shown in 1952 by Charles Craver’s father (thanks Charles and Jeanne for the picture!). Prince Faisal in turn sired a daughter, Jeddah Princess (second photo), out the desert-bred Hamdaniyah mare La Tisa, another gift to Charles Crane from Ibn Sa’ud.  It is such a shame La Tisa and Mahsuda did not leave more offspring. They seem to have been very beautiful mares even by today’s altered (do you like that euphemism?) standards of what an Arabian horse ought to look like. La Tisa was featured in an earlier post on this blog (click here).

Photos of the day: Mohalhil (1922) and Bango (1923)

These four rare photos of Mohalhil are courtesy of the late Billy Sheets. No idea where he got them from. Mohalhil was a grey Ma’naghi Sbayli bred by the Shammar tribe in 1922 and imported to Egypt in 1925, by Fawzan al-Sabik, who raced him there before presenting him Charles Crane in 1929. Crane imported him to the USA, where Mohalhil still has a very thin line.  Notice the striking physical resemblance between Mohalhil and another stallion that was featured on this blog, Bango. But the similarities in their backgrounds is even more striking. Like Mohalhil Bango was a grey, desert-bred Ma’naghi Sbayli; like him he was bred by the Shammar tribe, at around the same time (Bango in 1923 and Mohalhil in 1922); like him he raced in Egypt.

Arabia Felix

Nothing to do with horses, but I thought some of you would enjoy these pictures of the green mountains of Yemen, which I gleaned from the internet. They help dispel some stereotypes about this area of the world.. The name ancient Romans knew Yemen by was ‘Arabia Felix‘, “Fertile Arabia”, because of its running waters, its lush vegetation and the riches it garnered from the frankincense, myrrh and spice trade.

Strain of the Week: Kuhaylan al-Wati — famous relatives

According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century, a Bedouin warrior by the name of Rashid ibn Jarshan, from the tribe of al-Buqum, owned a branch of the strain of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz that was known as Kuhaylat Ibn Jarshan, after his name. His marbat was famous, and one of his mares was even the subject of a Bedouin ode. Ibn Jarshan sold one of his Kuhaylat mares, a grey by the name of al-Shuhaybah, to another Bedouin, Sarhan al-‘Abd of the tribe of al-‘Ajman. The strain of Kuhaylan Ibn Jarshan seems to have prospered at al-‘Abd, because al-Shuhaybah produced a grey daughter for him (by a Saqlawi), and that daughter in turn produced a grey daughter (also by a Saqlawi). Al-‘Abd leased the latter, the grand-daughter of Ibn Jarshan’s Kuhaylah, to a third Bedouin, Ibn Jallab of the tribe of Aal Murrah.  She stayed at Ibn Jallab for six years without producing any foals, so al-‘Abd took her back by force, and sold her to Ibn Khalifah of Bahrain for a ton of money, plus camels, falcons, clothes, a slave (!) and a sizeable bunch of dates, a sale that effectively turned him (al-‘Abd) into a precursor of today’s Gulf millionnaires.. Her short and unproductive stay at…

WAHO accepts Yemen as a member

Rosemary B. Doyle, who is attending the 2009 WAHO conference in Oman, just reported to the Al Khamsa Board about the first day of WAHO meetings. One event worth noticing is that Yemen was voted in as a WAHO member. Yemen, the cradle of the Arabian breed, if one is to believe the old Arab legends. Great. Now the Yemenis can safely import and register Polish and Spanish “Arabians” from the Gulf countries and cross them with whatever asil Arabians Yemen has left, in the name of “improving the heads of their horses”.  Let me make a forecast, and I really hope time will prove me wrong: there will be no asil Arabians left in Yemen ten years from now. That’s how long it took to destroy the remnants of asil Arabian breeding in countries like Lebanon and Algeria.  Asil Arabians in these two countries survived two civil wars (Lebanon: 1975-1990; Algeria: 1991-2004), looting by militias, air raids and bombings, famine and government neglect. By the time Lebanon was a full WAHO member, in 1992, non-asil stallions of Russian, French and Spanish lines had been imported to the country and crossed with the remaining elderly asil mares.  By 2000, not…