Artist George Ford Morris on *Wadduda
“You go to the stables and … look into the box and see the war mare of Sheik Hashem Bey with spear scars adorning her neck and sides and prayers to Allah from different tribes hanging from silken cords around her neck. She is small, chestnut in color, bone like flint, slender, high carried tail, wide bulging jibba (forehead), and full, prominent eyes. Davenport tells you that never since she was first saddled was that saddle removed until she passed into foreign hands and that she stood ready day and night for the Sheik to leap to her back and ride into battle, on wild foray, or in swift flight. The slave boy carresses her; her peculiar wrinkled nostrils and delicate muzzle quiver and move like a fawn’s. You do not see the straw under her feet nor the boards of the stable behind her, but the hot desert, the flowing robes of the Bedouins and the tents of those who worship Allah spread out on the sands before you.”
George Ford Morris, in Bit & Spur, 4/15/1907, excerpted from the Annotated Quest.
Thanks Edouard for posting this. It is so well written and it is just how I had imagined Wadduda after first reading Homer Davenport’s book, which was one of the first books on Arabians that I read in 1970. Wadduda has always been an inspiration to me and a reminder from where this breed really originates and who has entrusted it to us.
lovely, though I hope the saddle bit is poetic license!!
Lisa – the pictures show white scarring consistent with saddle sores, so I’ve always taken the report to be correct.
Anita