This is Fabienne Vesco’s Djoar Beni Sakr (Jahir x Loubia bint Breek by Breek), a Jilfan Dhawi by strain, as a younger horse, and as a 16 year old stallion. Both his maternal grandparents, Breek and Rihya, came to France from Morocco with Jean Deleau, and trace to combined Egyptian, Tunisian and French lines.

The French born stallion Agres (photo below, by Sumeyr x Altise by Abel x Attique by Méat), which was a sire at the Moroccan Royal stables, and traces to a Hamdaniyah Simriyah mares imported from Syria, is well represented in his pedigree.

Below is her pretty mare Akhesa Beni Sakr, by the Tunisian stallion Hadhr El Basher (Chedi x Loubna by Oramin0) out of her mare Akaba Beni Sakr (Jahir x Loubia Bint Breek by Breek), a Jilfat al-Dhawi that blends Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Egyptian lines. The foal in the photo was by Fabienne’s Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Hortal El Din (SEA Asal x Thallame by Breek).

His sire Bango was a Ma’naqi Sbaili from the Shammar, was imported to Algeria in the 1920s, and this makes Sumeyr very close to the desert. Photo from the Deblaise collection on their  site Lozanne Publications.

Now this one is of the very desert looking Tabriz (Oukrif x Hama by Agege out of Taflia by Ibn Fayda), a close relative of Sumeyr who had all this sallion career in Tunisia. He is also very close to the desert blood, his grandsire being the stallion El Managhi, imported from Hama, Syria, at the same time as Bango.

He sent me a set of very rare, old pictures of desert-bred Arabians imported to France, Tunisia and Algeria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some time ago, I started a series of blog entries featuring photos of some these outstanding and so little known desert-breds (Dahman, El Sbaa, Nibeh, Burgas, Taleb, Niazi, El Managhi, etc), but I ran out of original photos to share. I am happy I now have a few more pictures to resume this series. Merci Adrien!

This is Ghazi. Chestnut; desert-bred; born in 1901; recorded sire: “Arkoubi”, a Kuhaylan al-’Ajuz; recorded dam: “Zarifa”, a Kuhaylat al-’Ajuz; raced successfully in Egypt; imported by the French government to Algeria (then a part of France) in 1909; head sire at the Tiaret stud for many years. Robert Mauvy, who knew him well, said of him:

“Alezan dore, trois balzanes et liste, et dont presque toutes les juments nees a Tiaret descendent. Couvrant beaucoup de terrain avec de tres grandes lignes, il brillait par l’elegance de ces gestes et de ses allures … Ce fut, en outre, un excellent performer.”

By 1954, on the eve of the bloody (more than a million dead) Algerian eight year war of independence from France, it was difficult to find a mare at Tiaret that did not trace to Ghazi. Today his blood can be found in Tunisia, Morocco and France.

To look at pictures of other horses featured in this series, go to this blog’s middle column, under “Themes”, and click on “France”. A new page will open, scroll down, and look for the relevant blog entries.

B’Oureah is shown here competing for a 60 mile endurance race (which she won). She is a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, tracing to the mare Wadha imported by the French government from the Fad’aan tribe in 1875. Qhejala traces to Cherifa, a Shuwaymat Sabbah imported by the French from the Sba’ah tribe in 1869. Note the resemblance between Qhejala (who is 75% Egyptian) and the Babson (a group of asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines) broodmatron Fada (Faddan x Aaroufa by Fay El Dine). Fada’s rare photo below is from the late Billy Sheets’ photo collection.

Of the Arabian horses bred in the three North African countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, the latter is the only one that did not develop its own “brand” of Arabians. Rather, Morocco relied on importations from its two North African neighbors as well as France and Egypt.

Lets look at the pedigree of a typical modern Moroccan-bred Arabian horse: Fata, a chestnut stallion of the Jilfan Dhawi strain imported in utero from Morocco to France in 1976. Fata’s dam Tobiha was actually sold by the Moroccan Government stud of Meknes to French breeder jean Deleau, the founder of Haras de la Lizonne, in Western France. 

Fata is by El Sud El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), an Asil stallion born in Egypt and gifted to the King Mohamed V of Morocco (a full brother to SF Ibn Nazeer, by the way). Fata’s dam Tobiha is by Burhan (Morafic x Mona by Sid Abouhoum x Moniet el Nefous), another Egyptian Asil, and also a present from Egypt to the Moroccan King.  

Fata’s maternal granddam, Mousson is by Murols, a stallion bred at the French stud of Pompadour and imported from France to Morocco. Murols is by Abel, a Denouste son (hmmm…) and out of Musette, a true Asil Arabian (at least by my standards).  Lets give Musette, one of the jewels of Pompadour, a closer look. By the magnificent desert import El Sbaa, out of Musotte, herself by the even more magnificent desert import Dahman out of Mysterieuse, by Enwer (a grey Ma’naghi Sbayli imported to France) out of Mysie, by Benikaled out of Meleke, both desert bred.  The three best desert imports to France (El Sbaa, Dahman, Enwer) all in one mare! I will try and dig her picture out.

Mousson’s dam, and Fata’s maternal great grand-dam in the tail female is, in case you are still following me, the Moroccan mare Rose Etoile, by the French Arabian stallion Ordizan, also from Pompadour. Ordizan is by Abel (again) out of Danae III, who is herself by Soukne (a desert import, and Ma’naghi by strain) and out of Dourka. Dourka was acquired by Pompadour from a French private stud. Still she traces entirely from old, well authenticated lines, all the way back to the foundation mare Warda, from the horses of baron Fechtig (this guy needs an entry for himself).

Mousson’s maternal grand-dam, and Fata’s great-great grand-dam (I must have lost you by now) is Koura by Aiglon out of Amana. Aiglon is another French stallion imported to Morocco. He is not from Pompadour, but rather from French private breeders. This is not the same Aiglon as the Egyptian horse, sire of *Exochorda. I know nothing about him and have never seen a picture either.

The mare Amana, Fata’s g.g.g. grand-dam, is the last horse we’ll be looking at. She was imported to Morocco from the stud of Tiaret in Algeria. She traces exclusively to high-quality desert-bred horses:  El Obayyan, (a Ubayyan Sharrak from the Syrian city of Hama) Venture (a Hamdani Simri from Lebanon), Quatre As (a Dahman from the desert), etc. The tail female is that of Wadha, a Jilfat Dhawi from the Fad’aan tribe.

To sum up: Fata is 75% Egyptian Arabian (and Asil), and 21.875 French (of which some is Asil and the rest I don’t know), and 3.125 Algerian (Asil, in my opinion). He carries two lines to Abel and one line to the French stallion Aiglon. Subsequent posts will try to focus on these two stallions, after I do some research. Lets see where this will take us.

Still, a couple points on that discussion, if I may: the horses of the stud of La Lizonne are from Moroccan lines, not Tunisian. The stallion El Sudd El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), a full brother of SF ibn Nazeer (Lateef) was sent from Egypt to the King of Morocco as a gift, and never went to Tunisia.. 

Also, I have promised the readers of this blog an aricle on the Denouste issue, which I hope will shed some light on the status of this horse (i.e., whether he is Asil or not, which would have many implications on the status of many French and North African Arabians). This article in under preparatin, so stay tuned.

I reread the posts I have been writing on French Asil horses to refresh my memory. Most are “gloom and doom”, with words like “lost” and “last” all over the entries’ titles. The sad reality is that this grim assessment is true, and that French Asil are on the brink of extinction, despite the enormous number of desert horses imported to France and to its former North African possessions over the last two centuries.

Arabian horse in France were – and are still – bred by two categories of breeders: the Government and private breeders. Since Napoleon’s time and until WWII, the French government has been importing and maintaining desert Arabian stallions in stallion depots across the country, as well as a small herd of broodmares in the stud of Pompadour. Arabian stallions and, to a lesser extent Arabian mares, were bred to English Thoroughbreds to produce Anglo-Arabs, a breed France is credited for creating and developing. A small nucleus of Arabians was also bred separately.

Private breeders, many of whom have been breeding horses for  generations, typically bred both Arabians and Anglo-Arabs for racing purposes. This focus on short-distance racing, and the breeders’ feeding and breeding conditions, meant that the classic type(s) of Arabian horses was overlooked, and that another type prevailed. Such seems to be the case of the stallion Denouste, a most important horse in French Arabian breeding, of the Mukhallad strain. He seems to be okay pedigree wise, but as a 2 years old he certainly did not look like a pretty Arabian horse (judge for yourselves below: photo taken from the French site Forum sur le Cheval Arabe, where it was posted by Orient Arabians.. ). He will be the subject of a next post,. For now I have just left him out of the list of horses I have considered Asil…

In addition, at several junctures during the twentieth century, Arabian races came to a halt, and breeders had to enter Arabian horses in the same races as Anglo-Arabs, in which the latter clearly had an advantage… Some breeders – not all, only some – went ahead and bred their arabian mares to Anglo-Arab stallions and registered the progeny as Arabian.

The bottom line is that it is difficult to trust most bloodlines of Arabian horses of “Old” French bloodlines bred by French private breeders. The only stud I trust blindly is that of Mr. Robert Mauvy, as it relied on North African Asil bloddlines in addition to authentic bloodlines from the Pompadour government stud. It is worth noting here that Mauvy himself ascertained the purity of specific mares of French bloodlines at specific points in time, which doesn’t mean these lines are still Asil today. Examples include Djerba, a Mukhalladiyah by strain, and Dragonne, of the “strainless” Warda line. Warda was imported to the desert by Baron Fechtig in 1824.

Pompadour maintained two female lines of unquestionably Asil origins: the line of Bassala, a mare born in Algeria and tracing to the desert-bred mare Wadha (a Jilfat Dhawi), and that of Adana, an “old french” line, tracing to the desert-bred mare Zenab (a Hamdaniyah). The other female lines of But Pompadour were from private breeders and their authenticity of breeding has been questioned by purist breeders.

Of these two lines, that of Adana-Zenab has died out in Asil form: its last Asil representative was Ablette, which was bred to stallions of questionable purity (e.g, Ba Toustem). Ablette’s dam Attique was also bred to questionable stallions (e.g., Abel). The line to Bassala-Wadha was more fortunate as it benefited from the arrival of several Tunisian Asil stallions to Pompadour in the 1960s, and one Egyptian stallion, Fawzan (Tuhotmos x Fayrooz) in the 1970s. Now this line is down to two or three aged mares of unquestionable purity of bloodlines.

Finally, in the 1960s, some breeders imported Asil broodmares from North Africa: Tunisian Asil mares as Hallouma, Izarra, Naziha and Algerian Asil ones such as the Ghalbane daughters Achra, Oureah and others came in. Some were bred to Asil stallions, others were not. But not much is left of that blood either..