Nureddin II was born in 1911 at Crabbet Park in the UK. He was reported to have been sired by Rijm out of Narguileh, and thus a full brother to Nasik. He was bought by Roger Selby and exported to the USA in 1933. He was a big horse, measuring a full 16 hands, but again his recorded sire Rijm was just a trifle shorter at 15.3 hands. Nureddin II is not an Al Khamsa horse, even though both of his recorded parents are. It was said that Carl Raswan, the father of purist Arabian horse breeding in the USA, had access to information according to which Nureddin II’s dam Narguileh was bred to an English Thouroughbred stallion at Crabbet and that the resulting foal was Nureddin II. As a result, Nureddin II was not included as “Blue List” in Jane Ott’s Blue Arabian Horse Catalog, on which Raswan was a major influence, and a special “sublist” was created for him and his otherwise “Blue List” descendants: these horses were subsequently known as “sublist Nureddin”. Miss Ott actually encouraged breeders who were interested in preserving Nureddin’s type — which was a key component of the ‘Wentworth Superhorse’ bred at Crabbet…
I am excited because I finally found pictures of two asil mares I had never seen before: the two Kuhaylat al-Hayf sisters Iras (El Alamein x Portia by Tripoli) and HB Octavia (Ibn Alamein x Portia), both bred at Craver Farms and the founders of dynasties of their own within Davenport breeding in the USA. The photo of Iras below is reminiscent of a type of horses which some old-timers in Lebanon and Syria referred to as a “mares [suited] for kings” (faras muluk). I cannot find the words to describe this type, but it is usually associated with very long ears, a thin long neck, and a muzzle with very delicate nostrils, among other features, as well as an overall regal “poise” and expression, in which you could read some disdain for the insignificant human being they made you feel like as well as infinite feminity and kindness. We owned a desert-bred mare of the Rabdan strain from the Tai tribe that looked just like that.