Saving Gisela’s Bergman’s horses.

Gisela Bergman has been living in Tunisia and breeding Arabian horses from old Tunisian lines for more than three decades. She is one of the very last breeders of the Dolma Batche tail female in Tunisian breeding. Gisela has recently had trouble feeding and taking care of her horses. She is elderly, suffers from arthritis, and lives on her own on farm in a remote area near the Tunisian-Algerian border.  A number of her friends and supporters, some of them veterinarians led by Sofiene Ezzar, have set up a support group on Facebook, Tous Unis Pour Aider Gisela,  and are doing the best they can, with limited means. The Facebook site has photos and a video which shows the condition of the horses (one photo below).. Things look pretty ugly. If you can do(nate) anything for Gisela, her horses and her asil sloughis, or just want to express your moreal support to this “Lady of the Horses” please hop on this site, or give Gisela a call at: +216 212 92 350. You would need to keep trying, because the cell phone network is poor in that part of the country.. Anything you can do will help. Over the past year and a half of doing the blog,…

Unidentified son and daughter of Raad at the Anbarji farm in Syria

To follow up on the earlier entry on the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad, here is a picture of one of his sons and one of his daughters at the Anbarji farm some seventeen years ago. The colt, either a Kuhaylan al-Khdili or a Hamdani al-Ifri by strain ( I don’t remember, even though I am in the pic), was recovering from an illness, and the photo is not to his advantage, but you will no doubt notice the refinement that his sire Raad transmits, as well as the fine muzzle, the deep jowl and the big eye. Note also the dark, full bay color which Raad passed on to his progeny. The filly is a Hamdaniyah Ifriyah (a well esteemed branch of Hamdani Simri from the ‘Amarat Bedouins, more on it later), and in my opinion, is the epitomy of refinement and feminity. I don’t recall her name either, but Omar Anbarji, her breeder, can perhaps refresh my memory. Omar, you were standing behind my father who took the picture..  

Photo of the Day: Raad, desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn from Syria

Blog reader and friend Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, Syria, sent me the following picture of his foundation stallion Raad, a desert-bred (yes) asil Kuhaylan al-Musinn, born in 1982, and now deceased. Raad was bred by Jamal Turki al-Saw’an, out the mare Nawal al-Kheil, and traces back to the famous marbat of Ibn ‘Amayir of the Fad’aan Bedouin tribe. Back in the early 1980s, Omar’s father, civil engineer Munir Anbarji, was working on projects in the Syrian desert. He purchased this young Kuhaylan al-Musinn colt to use on his desert-bred mares. The handful of Aleppo horse breeders who cared about asil arabians at the time knew that this colt, Raad, was of mazbut (authenticated) origin.

Video of the day: Desert Lily Arabians in Oregon

This video was taken in August at the open barn session hosted by Diane Lyons of Desert Lily Arabians. Lustre CF, Affinity CF’s full sister, is seen about 4:30 into the video. (I have it on good authority that Affinity is an even better mare–) Right after her is Javera Thadrian’s full sister, GH Janet. Enjoy! Desert Lily Arabians Open House 2009 This video was taken in August at the open barn session hosted by Diane Lyons of Desert Lily Arabians. Lustre CF, Affinity CF’s full sister, is seen about 4:30 into the video. (I have it on good authority that Affinity is an even better mare–) Right after her is Javera Thadrian’s full sister, GH Janet. Enjoy!

Two asil Kuhaylat al-Hayf mares now in the United Arab Emirates

I just got word that two asil mares of the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain, from the horses tracing to the desert-breds imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906, were exported to the United Arab Emirates. Both are now owned by Mohammed Bin Humooda of Al-‘Ain, UAE. They are Affinity CF (Javera Thadrian x Audacity) bred by Craver Farms and Jadah Beshan (Baile La Bamba x Cinnabar CF) bred Randall and Mary Sue Harris. Mr. Bin Humooda already owns a number of asil Saqlawi Jadran horses bred by the Doyle family, as well as an asil Hadban Enzahi stallion bred by the Dirks family who is being used in endurance racing. This exportation is encouraging news for the asil Arabian, and a sign of Arab breeders’ emerging interest in old USA-bred, asil bloodines. May there be more of these. Below is a picture of Audacity, Affinity’s dam, and another of Javera Thadrian, Affinity’s sire, with Nancy Becker on top.

Photo of the Day: Bossa Nova, asil Jilfat Dhawi from France

At last I get to see a picture of Bossa Nova (Iricho x Bassala by Masbout), thanks to Adrien Deblaise who sent me this one today.  Bossa Nova, of the Jilfan Dhawi strain that traces to the mare Wadha from the Fad’aan tribe, was bred by the French government stud of Pompadour, by Iricho, an asil imported from Anatole Cordonnier’s breeding in Tunisia, out of Bassala, an asil imported from the Tiaret government stud in Algeria.  Bossa Nova, together with the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Ablette (photo below, by Sumeyr x Attique by Meat), was deemed the “best”, “purest”, and “most classic” mare in Pompadour” by master-breeder Robert Mauvy. Now I see why.

L’Arabe n’est pas international, il est arabe

Ce modeste article intitulé des paroles du Sage (Robert Mauvy) fait suite à celui traitant de la consanguinité : « Ah cet embreeding », ainsi qu’en réponse au questionnement de Monsieur R.J. Cadranell. Il fallait lire : « (…) la dure vie nomade, alliée à l’environnement hostile ainsi qu’aux conditions climatiques implacables joueraient leur rôle de régulateur éliminant du même coup sujets et gènes récessifs indésirables (…) » Dans de telles conditions de survie, un sujet affligé du moindre handicap n’a que peu de chance de salut, et, par voie de conséquences, n’engendre aucune descendance. Le sujet éliminé ne peut donc être porteur ni parasiter de quelque manière que ce soit le reste du cheptel. Il est reproché très souvent à la pratique de la consanguinité d’infliger une diminution de la vitalité ainsi que de la fertilité et pousser à l’hypernervosité ; pour tout dire conduire à une dégénérescence. Nous nous trouvons donc au fait de la question : « le sursum des hérédités entre elles et la possibilité de leur faire atteindre leur maximum d’intensité » avec ce dilemme entre l’hérédité saine … ou morbide. Mais encore une fois, la race chevaline la plus aboutie qu’est le Cheval Arabe de Sang Pur nous a apporté des géniteurs dotés des plus…

Those who are gone, and those who are left

In 1952, Charles Craver acquired the asil Crabbet mare *Ringlet (by Astralis x Rudeyna by Daoud), around the same time two other giants, Dr. Joseph L. Doyle, and Richard Pritzlaff were acquiring the asil mares Gulida (by Gulastra x Valida by Ghawi) and Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr), respectively, which they bred to the stallion Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare by Rodan). Ghadaf, Gulida, Rabanna and Ringlet, all pictured below, are unique in that they carried the highest concentration of Abbas Pasha (Viceroy of Egypt, ca. 1850, and Arabian-horse-freak-in-chief) bloodlines available in the USA at the time. Gulida and Ringlet were entirely of old Crabbet stock, and so was Rabanna with the addition of the line to *Nasr (Rabdan x Bint Yemama), who of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq’s breeding in Egypt, but out of a sister to Crabbet’s Mesaoud (Aziz x Yemameh). Gulida and Rabanna bred on, Ringlet didn’t. She is now lost to asil breeding. Thank God for what still remains of these glorious old Crabbet bloodlines.  

Photo of the Day: Tahirah, a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Hama, Syria

Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the Syrian desert, and as such was the main marketplace for the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, which was famed for its many marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan al-Usayli’, Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan which by the way is Queen of Sheba’s marbat, ‘Ubayyan Ibn Thamdan,’Ubayyan Ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan Labdah, etc). The Saffaf family were in close business contact with the Sba’ah Bedouins, from whom they obtained a number of desert-bred mares. One of these mares was Tahirah’s maternal grand-dam, a chestnut ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, bred by Ku’ayran al-Amsa’, a Bedouin of the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah tribe. She was by a famous Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion, then the herd sire for the Rasalin section.  Tahirah’s sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush, also from the Saffaf family, who owned a Krush marbat as well. Her dam’s sire was a Hamdani Simri, also from Hama. Tahirah has many of the features…

Online Datasource

Yesterday evening, I threw away my 2000 Arabian Horse Datasource CD-ROM, and bought a new one year online membership. The geek in me was so excited. Now guess what is the first studbook I looked up in search for lost and forgotten asil Arabians? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Bahrain? Iraq? the USA? France? No. I looked up Algeria first. I guess that’s where my heart really lies. This is where France sent its best desert-bred imports and its best horsemen. This is where, in my opinion, some of the most authentic, true-to-type Arabians were bred. Every mare at the the West-Algerian stud of Tiaret was a gem. Of course, following their country’s independence , the Algerians went ahead and imported “Arabians” from Spain, the UK and elsewhere, effectively putting an end to some 100 years of asil breeding. I wanted to see what remained of the Tiaret breeding, which up to the 1980s was centered on the two magnificent stallions Larabi (Fil x Ledmia by Ghalbane) and Guercif (Ghalbane x Gaila by Bang0). The news is not good, but there may be two or three mares of breedable age still alive, with progeny in 2000. I feel like jumping in an…

Interesting Quote: Don Hernan Ayerza to his friend Leonardo Pereyra

Don Hernan Ayerza, a well-to-do Argentinian landowner imported desert-bred Arabian horses from France, Hungary (Babolna) and the UK (Crabbet) into his El Aduar Stud. He also went to the Middle East (but not the Arabian desert itself) and bought a number of Arabian horses from there. He also bought two stallions for his friend Leonardo Pereyra. I leave you to ponder this quote about the reliability of hujaj (authentication certificates), from a letter Ayerza wrote to Pereyra, quoted from “the Crabbet Heritage in Argentina” an article by Mary Lockwood in the the Crabbet Journal – Winter 2006 No. 7: “I am sending you the only kind available in all Arabia and anyone who says he has a legal certificate, like the ones used in Europe, lies! I’ve insisted on being shown something with every horse I inspect and they jot down more or less whatever occurs to them at the moment of sale in front of witnesses. I have seen over 500 such ‘certificates’!” Hmmm.. lets debate that one over the next few days..

Lost asil tail females: Jilfa, a Jilfat Sattam al-Bulad

In 1887, Lady Anne Blunt purchased the little-known desert-bred mare Jilfa from her breeder, Khashman al-Kassab of the Mawaheeb section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe. She was imported to Crabbet in 1888, as part of a batch that also included Azrek, and Ashgar, a Saqlawi Ubayri from the Shammar. Jilfa, a Jilfat Sattam al-Bulad by strain, was given away in 1896. I have never seen a photo of Jilfa.. At Crabbet, Jilfa produced Jamusa by Azrek, who in turn produced Mareesa in 1902, by Mareb (Mesaoud x Mansura, by Ashgar out of Meshura, another imported mare rarely found in Crabbet pedigree). Interestingly, Mareesa blends the three 1888 desert imports with the rare Meshura line, providing for an unusual early Crabbet pedigree. Mareesa produced the pretty Alfarouse by Berk (by now the line was out of Crabbet) and her sister Yakuta by Rasim (Feysul x Risala). In 1937, the latter produced Rasheeqa by the closely related Azym (Sher-i-Khurshid x Alfarouse), a son of Yakouta’s sister Alfarouse. Rasheeqa was 100% old Crabbet breeding and both her sire and her dam were of the same Jilfan strain. Rasheeqa produced the mare Resique in 1948, by Aaron (Algol x Rythma by Berk), carrying the asil Jilfa tail female…

Photo of the Day: Ibn Mouna I, ‘Ubayyan Hunaydis from Syria

In the 1990s, Syrian breeder Mustapha al-Jabri, of Aleppo, owned a sturdy, deserty little mare that was bred by the Shammar of Mesopotamia. He name was Mouna, and her strain was very precious: ‘Ubayyan Hunaydis (Lady Anne Blunt: “Mutlaq [her Mutayr stud manager] says mazbut strain”). She had at least two sons and one daughter by Jabri’s then head stallion Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli – another precoius marbat of the ‘Ubayyan strain. Both sons stood in Jabri’s stallion barn, but I don’t know whether he used them or not. I don’t recall their names, either, and I used to call them Ibn Mouna I and Ibn Mouna II. Below is Ibn Mouna I, with a youthful Edouard in the background. This horse had some defects, including longer cannon bones and a slightly thicker neck than I’d like, but he oozed real, bold, masculine, desert type. If he could roar he would.

Wilfred Thesiger Photo Collection at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum

Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) is known as the last of the great Western explorers and travelers. He was the first European to have crossed the heart of the lifeless Empty Quarter (al-Rub’ al-Khali), the great South-East Arabian sand desert.  Before him, Bertram Thomas and Harry St-John Bridger Philby traveled around the edges of that desert, which Thesiger crossed twice, on foot and camel back. Thesiger, who is otherwise known for two books, “Arabian Sands”, and the “Marsh Arabs”, both classics of travel literature, was also a talented photographer, who donated his extensive collection of negatives to Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum. A hundred of Thesiger’s less know photos for Arabia, Asia and Africa, is available for viewing on the museum’s website, including the one just below. Note the 1948 picture of a youthful, bare-footed Shaykh Zayed B. Sultan al-Nahyan, then Shaykh of Abu Dhabi, and later (as of 1971) ruler of the United Arab Emirates. Also note the nice picture of the Yemeni port of Mukalla (below), which I visited in the summer of 2008. Also, read Thesiger’s 2003 obituary in the Guardian, here.

Photo of the Day: Ben Chicao, desert-bred import to Algeria

Another desert-bred imported to Algeria in the XIXth century is Ben Chicao. I don’t know his strain or his breeder. He is represented in modern pedigrees through his daughter Addresse (x Pervenche), to whom the stallion Madani (Souci x Sissana by Mossoul) has a line in the middle of the pedigree. He was otherwise rarely used. Is that a good Arabian horse conformation wise, judging from the photo? What do you think?

Photo of the Day: Predrag Joksimovic on Mahiba

Recently, Ambar Diaz started posting photos of some of this blog’s authors and regular contributors mounted on asil Arabian horses, as a way to put names on faces. Here is a photo that reader Predrag Joksimovic sent me of himself, mounted on Mahiba (Shams El Arabi x Mansoura), a very deserty little mare. Mahiba’s sire Shams El Arabi (Farouk x Bint El Arabi by El Araby)  is of Egyptian bloodlines, her dam’s sire El Aswad (Ibn Galal x 10 Hosna) is also Egyptian, but her grand-dam Malaga (Madani x Berriane by Titan) was bred in Tunisia from predominantly Algerian bloodlines (and some old French through Mossoul). Malaga traces to several desert-bred imports featured on this blog, such as Bango, El Managhi, Ghazi, and others. She was a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, and so is Mahiba. She was exported to Germany in the 1960s. Egyptian and Algerian/Tunisian lines tend to blend very well with each other, further empasizing the added value of “combined source” breeding.

Ma’naghi horses are beautiful

This beautiful mare with big, black, femine eyes is Kokhle, the daughter of two desert-bred horses imported from the Syrian desert to the USA in 1906. Her sire, Hamrah is a Saqlawi al-‘Abd, and her dam, Farha, is a Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah. I know I sound like a broken record, but who said Ma’naghis did not look like classical Arabian horses? Unfortunately, Kokhle’s tail female no longer survives in asil Arabian horse breeding, but she does have a line in modern pedigrees through her son Kokhleson (by Ashmar), whose son Ralk (x Halloul) sired Ibn Ralf and Bint Ralf.

Barely Surviving Lines: Saqlawi al-‘Abd line of *Wadduda through Serije

The more I browse through the Al Khamsa Online Roster, the more I realize the importance of the desert-bred mare *Wadduda. She was a chestnut Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd, and was the war-mare of the Bedouin chieftain Hakim Ibn Mhayd of the Fad’aan tribe, before she was imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906.  There is even a series of children books about “Wadduda of the Desert”. *Wadduda has left a lot of asil offspring in the tail female, mostly through her descendent Sahanad (Abu Hanad x Sahabet by Tanatra), a mare that started a dynasty of her own. Sahanad has an active preservation group of her own, and there are around 150 horses tracing to her today! However, there are other lines of asil Arabians to *Wadduda, too. These run the risk of being overlooked in part because of the success of the Sahanad preservation effort, and in part because they do not belong to any of todays breeding groups/silos within US Arabian horse breeding. Jeanne Craver recently mentioned on this blog that an attempt was currently being made to find a preservation home for a 21 year old mare from one of these lines. The mare is Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta by Jadib). Jadiba’s sire…

Preservation Hotline

As Daughter of the Wind slowly turns into an international virtual community of people involved or interested in preserving the real asil Arabian horse where it can be found, I thought I’d issue this message: By now, many of you who read that blog know which Arabian horses are of interest to this community. These include Arabian horses from lines native to the following countries: Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Israel/Palestine, and to a lesser extent Mauritania, Sudan, Chad, Pakistan, and India. Of course, not all the Arabian horses from these countries are of interest, and I will be making that call for now, pending a broader discussion (one of the privileges of owning a blog is that you get to make the last call on what gets published and what doesn’t). In the West, the following breeding groups are of interest: Babolna (Hungary), old French (Pompadour, Mauvy), Weil (Germany), early American Foundation (Davenport, Babson, Brown, Dickinson, Huntington, Hearst, Crane..), Saudi imports to the USA (Harris, Roach, Cobb, Rogers..), old English (Courthouse, Crabbet), etc. I may have missed a few. If you think you own or know of a horse…

Photo of the Day: Chira, last asil mare to carry El Gadaa’s blood

Teymur Abdelaziz of Germany sent me this photo of the 1993 grey mare Chira (Saymoon x Cylia by Madkour I), a great-great-grand daughter of Nafaa, the desert-bred Kuhaylah mare gifted by Ibn Saud to the king of Egypt in the 1940s.  Chira is unique in the sense is that she is the last mare to trace to Nafaa through Nafaa’s daughter Bint Nafaa (by El Gadaa) and as such, the last mare to carry El Gadaa’s blood. Read more about Bint Nafaa and her sire El Gadaa here. I am glad to know Teymur is working on preserving this precious line, which is so close to some of the choicest desert bloodlines. Best of luck with that, Teymur.

Michael Bowling article on early Crabbet breeding in Australia

I have read and re-read this article by Michael Bowling time and again.. and always learn something new. The article is about the early stages of Arabian horse breeding in Australia, and focuses on early Crabbet bloodlines. I am always struck by this photo of the magnificent Rafyk (by Azrek x Rose of Sharon by Hadban), a small stallion of 14 3/4 hands that looks like a 16 hands horse. Wow, what a horse! Why the heck were the Blunts parting with horses like this one?