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 Iricho was imported from Tunisia to France, and has close lines to the desert. His grandsire, the Hamdani Simri Ghalbane, and his great-grandsire, the Saqlawi Jadran Masbout, and his great-great-grandsire, the Ma’naqi Sbaili Bango, all came from the Syrian desert, and were among the last imports to French Algeria. So much pure, authentic, well-ascertained blood flows in his vein, so close to the original desert source.

Adrien tells me the first photo was taken at Louis Bauduin who was standing him at stud, while the second was a show contest, much earlier.

Walid is a modern preservation breeder, one of those few like-minded breeders around the world who pay special attention to keeping their horses’ bloodlines pure and protected. He goes to great pains to select the right stallion for his mare, and is now considering a breeding to the Syrian desert-bred stallion Mokhtar, the black Kuhaylan al-Krush, bred by the Shammar Bedouins and now in France.

Walid’s mare Ezzina is particular in that she does not have any lines to the now ubiquitous (yet asil) Tunisian stallion Esmet Ali. Note the very close cross to Oramino 1947 (Masbout d.b. x Ramie by El Managhi d.b.), one of Algeria’s last asils.

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 did produce three asil Arabian stallions: Zab in 1971 (out of the beautiful Izarra), Jahir in 1975 (out of Ciada), and Nichem (out of Caida). Very little asil blood if anything at all, remains from Iricho today.

Photo from the collection of Pierre-Henri Beillard of Le Sureau, France.

Sortie en compagnie du Chef de Tribu Rhida Ghobber, de frères et cousins dont Youssef et Amara Ben Ghabri. Je revois encore le visage de mon ami Jean-Claude chevauchant à mes côtés et photographiant du regard le superbe coursier en pleine action, puis entendre Rhida crier de derrière : « Tu imagines « Luis » comme cela durant trente kilomètres ?… Attention aux trous de renards ». Réponse en cœur : « Où ? trop tard » Nous fondions dans cette immensité sur l’horizon à très grande vitesse.

Jehol ne connaissait qu’une allure : le Galop ! En action sur place une fois enfourché, les renes semblaient élastiques, la bouche pourtant pas dure pour autant, ce diable de cheval semblait s’enfoncer dans le sol pour, les doigts légèrement ouverts, partir progressivement en dérapage dans une gerbe de sable. Ici l’expression « à la nage, à la nage » prenait tout son sens. N’étant pourtant à l’époque pas au mieux de ma forme et sous traitement, l’environnement aidant, j’aurais pu me croire le maître de l’univers.

L’année suivante, nous partions à cinq amis d’Orly avec selles et brides pour une randonnée de dix jours dans le sud Tunisien. Notre guide Amara me confia un excellent cheval nommé Marzouk (Ouaffar x Barkana par Oramino et Kalthoumia par Sabour) au caractère très affirmé, très efficace, il était mis à l’amble. Ce cheval me convenait parfaitement, Amara avait le don d’associer monture et cavalier. Jean-Claude Rajot montait un bai Sansabil (rivière du paradis) cinq ans venant de remporter une course de deux mille mètres le samedi et l’épreuve de trente kilomètres le dimanche précédant notre randonnée. Benoît Mauvy (petit-fils de Robert) montait quant à lui un petit alezan de quatre ans, Rimel qui lui aussi avait remporté un deux mille mètres dans sa catégorie. Ce dernier galopa sans cesse durant les deux premiers jours. Les six chevaux entiers toisaient entre 1,43 et 1,50 et ne portaient pas de fer.

Cette région de Tunisie était très riche en excellents chevaux.

The stud manager was not there, only a couple grooms who showed me around. I took photos of all the stallions, except for the French ‘pseudo-Arabians’ who were very becoming increasingly popular in Tunisia and are all over the pedigrees now, and photos of the broodmares in the paddocks, but I did not take notes, and I am unable to identify any of the mares now. If the Tunisian readers could help with that, it would be great.

The photo below is of one of these Tunisian mares. This dark chestnut old mare was so refined, so regal. Back then, she reminded of Moniet El Nefous and her daughters Mona and Mabrouka in the famous photo with Dr. Marsafi which Judith Forbis took at the EAO in Egypt in the 1960s. Some of that likeness shows here.

I do not know what position to adopt with respect to this controversy, and I will actually refrain from adopting one until more information emerges from within the country, which I am sure will be the case at some point.

The original Esmet Ali was born in 1955 at the famed and well-respected Sidi Bou Hadid stud of french Navy Admiral Anatole Cordonnier, one of the savviest and most knowledgeable breeders of Arabian horses of his time (little known in the USA, unfortunately). That Esmet Ali was by Cordonnier’s stallion Hazil and out of one of Cordonnier’s best mares, Arabelle (Beyrouth x Ambria by Nasr d.b).

In 1956, Tunisia became independent from France, and some troubled times followed for a brief period, during which the stud of Sidi Bou Said was looted, and many animals ran away, and others were lost or stolen. The yearling Esmet Ali was one of these. He was taken away to the nearby mountains, an army helicopter followed him for about an hour and a half, and then lost trace of him.

A few years later, a horse reappeared in the racing scene that was claimed to be Esmet Ali. Many saw in that horse the chestnut yearling of Cordonnier, but some did not recognize him. That horse made his way to the stallion barn at the Government Stud of Sidi Thabet and sired some of Tunisia’s best racehorses ever, including Dynamite III.

The position of the Robert Mauvy, who was Admiral Cordonnier’s best friend and confidente is a bit ambiguous here. Mauvy knew Cordonnier’s horses inside out. He even received two of Cordonnier’s mares as a gift: the beautiful Izarra (David x Arabelle) a Kuhaylat al-’Ajuz who is Esmet Ali’s maternal sister, and Hammada (Madani x Antinea by Kriss II), a Mukhalladiyah of old French lines. The story above is known to have come from Mauvy, among others yet at the same time it is the same Mauvy who writes in his book ‘Le Cheval Arabe’: “Aissaoui, Esmet Ali, que de bon et beaux chevaux sont restes outre-Mediterranee; souhaitons qu’ils y aient fait souche…“, which roughly translates as “Aissaoui, Esmet Ali, so many good and beautiful horses remained on the other side of the Mediterranean” (i.e., North Africa). The first edition of the book was written in the mid 1960s, the second in the late 1970s, and the stallion Esmet Ali was active during both times. Maybe Mauvy eventually recognized that the horse that resurfaced was indeed Esmet Ali..

Whatever the case, his sons and grandsons certainly bear the original Arabian type: deserty, dry, skin like silk, huge eyes, etc.

Ten years ago, Tunisia was still one of the last reservoirs of asil blood in the “East”, but that is quickly changing, and today there are only a few dozen asil mares and stallions left. The country has traditionally bred Arabians for the racetrack, and it continues to have a very dynamic racing scene. When I was there last, in 2006, I took some pictures of the unbelievable stallion Akermi (Dynamite III x Ichara by Koraish) at the government stud of Sidi Thabet. 46 starts, 40 wins, 5 seconds, 1 third, can you believe it?

Several of Akermi’s stablemates were “Arabian” stallions imported from France, all of dubious racing bloodlines. They’re just about as much “Arabian” as I am Chinese. The groom who was walking me through the stables told me that there was a lot of enthusiasm among Tunisian breeders about these French horses, and that most breeders were using them. There is a growing market for these French-Tunisian crosses in the Gulf countries too, and prices are on the rise. Today, nobody, save a few purists and oldtimes, cares about preserving the Tunisian asil Arabian anymore.

Walid Maazaoui is one of this handful of purist breeders. His mare Ezzina is special in that she one of the few remaining Tunisian horses without a cross to the stallion Esmet Ali (Hazil x Arabelle), the founder of Tunisia’s most successful racing dynasty, and a stallion with a controversial history, which I haven’t fully sorted out yet. If Tunisian asil breeding is an outcross to global asil blood, Ezzina’s rare Tunisian lines are an outcross within the outcross.

Ezzina also has a close cross to the 1972 Egyptian stallion Ragheb (Tuhtomos x Rakia by Anter), a gift of the EAO to Sidi Thabet, two more crosses to Ibn Fayda I (Ibn Radban x Fayda by Jamil-Blunt), a gift of Prince Kemal El Din Hussein to Sidi Thabet, and is otherwise from old Tunisian and Algerian lines.

The Algerian lines are precious in this regard because they are often a generation or two away of direct importations from the Arabian desert. A closer look at her pedigree will show you that the Algerian blood in Ezzina comes through the stallions Oramino (Masbout d.b. x Ramie by El Managhi d.b.), Caleh (Bango d.b. x Primerose by El Managhi d.b), Souci (El Managhi d.b. x Deqiqa by Malek d.b.), and further away through crosses to Baleck (Venture d.b. x Olympe by Goutta d.b.) and Negrash (Ghazi d.b. x Hedjla by Nahboub d.b.). The rest of the pedigree, including the Jilfan tail female to Dolma Batche, and the lines to Ibn and Loubieh, is old asil Tunisian blood.

The first, and perhaps most famous here in the US, was Aiglon. Aiglon was a Saqlawi Jadran imported by Ibish to Egypt for racing, around 1920, according to the export document for his daughter, *Exochorda, attested to by Dr. Branch, the Director of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt. *Exochorda, named after the ship that brought her to the USA, is of course best known as the dam of Sirecho.

The second was El Sbaa. El Sbaa, a chestnut, was bought from Ahmad Ibish by a French government mission led by Madron and Denis at the Cairo Heliopolis racetrack in 1925, and sent to the French Stud of Pompadour where he was used as a stallion. De Madron related the circumstances around his purchase in his bool. El Sbaa was recorded as a Ma’naghi Sbayli, but there is an additional paper attached to his file at Pompadour, which clarifies that according to the leader of the Hadidiyeen Bedouin tribe, Nawaf al-Salih, his strain was actually Ju’aitni. I wrote about him extensively, here.

The third was a bay stallion named Ibisch, born in 1902. I  don’t know his strain. All I know is the French bought from Ahmad Ibisch, and took him to Tunisia, where they used him at their Etablissements Hippiques d’Afrique du Nord. Ibisch is still represented in modern pedigrees, since the two influential French bred stallion of Algerian/Tunisian lines Saadi and Ourki (both by Ourour out of Oureah, by Ghalbane and Fantazia by Vizir, who was out of Omphale, who was by Mossoul, by Ibisch).

The fourth was a chestnut stallion, whose racing name was lost, but who remains forever influential as the sire of Krush Halba, a Lebanese-bred stallion exported to Turkey where he founded an important sire line, in addition to being the foundation stallion of the now defunct Lebanese asil breeding program (below is headshot of my own Al-Tuwayssah, the last suviving mare of the program. She has two close lines to Krush Halba). The hujjah of Krush Halba is featured on the WAHO website, from which comes the following quote:

“His father (sire of the Krush) is the golden chestnut horse with blaze and markings on the left legs, he is the Saglawi Shaifi of the breeding of Ibn Ghobosh from the Al Fidaan tribe, that was purchased by Solaiman Ojel from the Fidaan and sold by him to the famous Ahmad Afandi Ebesh at the price of one hundred and sixty Ottoman Lira. The above mentioned sold him to Egypt at the price of five hundred English Lira and after that he won two races.”

While this Saqlawi Shaifi will probably remain unnamed for a long time, his story provides with a number of interesting insights as to the supply chain that ends with Ahmad Ibish. From the above quote, and the information available about the other horses, we learn that :

a) Ahmad Ibish used to deal with Sulayman Ujayl, the scion of a family of Syrian horsemerchants from Hims in Central Syria, who used to buy their horses from the ‘Anazah tribes whose summer pastures were near Hims.

b) Ibish did not hesitate to acquire mature horses who already had an opportunity to be used as stallions before being raced.

c) Ibisch bought horses straight from the desert source: El Sbaa came from the Hadidiyeen and the Saqlawi Shaifi came from Sba’ah.

d) Ibisch used to pay large sums for his horses: One Hundred and Sixty Ottoman Liras. (Will need to see how large this amount was for the time).

e) Ibisch used to act as a horse-merchant as well. He bought horses for racing, but he also sold them to racehorse owners, presumably  with a profit margin. Not sure how much the conversation rate between Ottoman Liras and English liras was at the time.

f) Ibisch, a native of Damascus, Syria, was active in both Syria and Egypt.

Mauvy was a big advocate of the idea of re-invigorating old European Arabian bloodlines with fresh desert-bred blood at leart every three generations, as as to sustain the physical and mental characeteristics of the Arabian horse of Arabia Deserta. Mauvy’s friends and students adhered to this theory early on, and bred some of their mares to desert-bres stallions such as Mokhtar, and now Mahboob Halab.

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, I did not posted any “rescue” entries at all, despite the increasing number of Arabians horses starving and suffering for poor treatment in many areas of the world, including the USA, where there are rescue efforts all over the place, and where some people are turning the horses loose or selling them for meat due to the recession here.. But I felt the plight of Gisela and her horses deserved to be featured here.. thanks to Patrick for the info.

 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.

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.

All I know is that he is present in the back of the pedigrees of some really good Tunisian and Algerian horses, like the pretty Kuhaylat al-’Ajuz mare Hadia (Kefil x Rafiaa by Bango) from Tunisia, pictured below. Hadia has three lines to Aziz, though his three daughters El Keira, Fakhera, and Gueddima.

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.

While Mauvy is little-known outside of France and North Africa– despite his longtime connections with some of the fathers of the Asil Club movement in Europe, such as Foppe Klynstra, I am certain that his fame will skyrocket when an English translation of his small yet gigantic book “Le Cheval Arabe” will become available. This masterpiece was my Arabian Horse Bible, from age 10 until today.

One of the key teachings of Mauvy, as laid out in his book, is that the Arabian horse, like all things living (plants, animals, and even humans) is the outcome of the environment in which it is bred. If you take it out of its original environment, it will live certainly live and it may even prosper, but it will soon loose the specific characteristics that make it an Arabian horse. This seemingly simple and straight-forward notion has some important consequences; it means that Arabians bred outside of their original environment — the steppes of Arabia — can no longer be considered to be true Arabians. The remedy Mauvy proposes to Westerners who want to breed Arabian horses that retain their original desert characteristics is three folds: 

1) First, these breeders need to breed their horses on dry terrain, the nature of which is as close to the limestone terrain of the Arabian desert;

2) Second, they need to select their stallions the same way Bedouins used to select theirs: since ghazus and desert warfare is no longer an option, a good proxy is endurance racing (as opposed to halter shows). Mauvy and his supporters have eloborated a series of tough guidelines for such endurance races; some of these involve competitions where horses are supposed to gallop non-stop for more than 10 miles. Any horse that reverts to trot is immediately disqualified. The horses that successfully complete competition like this one and others can be used as stallions.

3) Third, they need to go back to the desert every 3 generations to infuse the blood of desert-bred Arabians into their horses. If a horse-buying expedition to Arabia Deserta is not possible, then a less desirable, but still acceptable recourse is the importation of Arabian horses bred in North Africa, the climate and terrain of some parts of which closely resemble Desert Arabia.

Since they started breeding Arabians, Jean-Claude Rajot, Louis Bauduin and their friends have been turning the teachings of Mauvy into practice — at least the first and the second ones, above. As far as the third axiom – breeding back to desert-bred stallions each three generations — was concerned, Rajot and Bauduin were using the stallions Ourki (Ourour x Oureah by Ghalbane)  and Jazour (Saadi x Izarra), as well as other sons of the stallion Saadi, Ourki’s older full brother: Cherif (Saadi x Zarifa) and Shawani (Saadi x Zarifa). Saadi, Ourki and Jazour were the sons of mares bred in North Africa (Oureah in Algeria and Irarra in Tunisia), and hence were “second-generation desert”, Oureah aslo being the daughter of the great Hamdani Simri stallion Ghalbane imported from Syria/Lebanon in 1945. By the time the daughters of these stallions came of age, Rajot and Bauduin were faced with the need to “go east” and look for desert-bred stallions to breed them. The next blog entry tells the story of the outcome of their search…

Jenny Lee’s weanling Amr, from the UK, has a different yet equally interesting pedigree. His sire is the Egyptian stallion Goudah (Gad Allah x Ramiah), and his dam Jenny’s Bahraini mare Shuwaimeh Bint Warda. 

“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 violents. Dans l’obscurité, il voit mieux que quiconque. Nanti de la plus grande rapidité, vivacité, maniabilité et souplesse, il choisit ses allures et son terrain. Il es intelligent et participe à la chasse comme au combat car monté libre. Dévoué à son cavalier et ami mais jamais soumis, c’est “une gentille brute”. 

Elever le Cheval Noble en fonction de nos caprices, d’une raison financière imbécile et sur un terrain qui n’est pas le sien, nous en feront un dégénéré. La discipline, les réglementations, l’abrutissent et l’agressent. Ce n’est pas un cheval de caserne, de concours ou de loisir au sens actuel du terme, encore moins de club. 

C’est le “Cheval Etalon” seul régénérateur. Pour conserver cette Valeur, il nous faut calquer au mieux malgré tous nos handicaps l’élevage Bédouin. Cela ne peut se faire qu’avec des origines irréprochables, ce qui est très rare. On ne fait pas de chevaux de guerre avec des sujets de show, voire même de course, ces deux espèces dégénérées inondent le marché et noient le “prototype”. 

Il tombe sous le sens que le métabolisme du cheval oriental soit tout à fait particulier ! La “saillie de minuit” qui n’est pas une légende, n’est pas toujours l’auteur responsable de l’abâtardissement de la race, le mode d’élevage, et tout particulièrement le régime alimentaire, peut l’être tout autant. 

Deux orientaux donneront facilement un rejeton qui toisera 10 cm de plus qu’eux, il suffit pour cela d’un gavage aux “aliments complets”, fourrages, mauvais foins, pâture à discrétion, compléments en tous genres, une pharmacopée à portée de main et pour bien assurer ce massacre l’abandon des géniteurs et du produit à l’inaction. 

L’Egypte ne possède pas ou qu’imparfaitement sol, climat et atmosphères rencontrés en berceau de races voir même dans les pays du couchant (le Maghreb: Algerie, Tunisie, Maroc) ou la Libye. Dandy de l’espèce, le cheval égyptien, outil de parade plus que monture de guerre fut certainement avec le Polonais qui lui n’intéresse pas ces lignes, l’étincelle de la dérive puis l’embrasement vers le Show. 

La Syrie peut s’enorgueillir d’avoir perpétuellement été terre de prédilection aux transhumances des tribus Nobles productrices du Cheval Pur. Berceau de Race sans contredit, des spécialistes veillent scrupuleusement à la pureté des lignées, s’inquiétant des méfaits que pourraient causer ces modes et besoins occidentaux, business destructeur de vérité avec pour seules foi et loi le profit maximum. Néanmoins, nombre de Bédouins n’ayant que faire de papier ou reconnaissance mondiale, aidés par la foi, préservent la Race Pure près d’eux. 

Ce mode d’élevage existait encore il y a quelques années à Maknassy, en Tunisie. Il semblerait depuis que la sélection dans ce pay n’ait cessé de s’effectuer essentiellement sur hippodrome. Comment oublier cette irréprochable fille d’Aïssaoui et ne pas penser à sa production. A quel Sires a pu être confiée cette exceptionnelle jument grise rencontrée à Sidi Thabet ? 

Image indélibile que celle de Guelta, superbe fille de Zilzal âgée de 26 ans, parée de cette séduisante robe grise truitée de larges pastilles, beauté avec qui nous avions fait connaissance à la jumenterie de Tiaret voilà bientôt trois décennies. Ses soeurs et cousines étaient toutes filles, petites-filles et arrière petites-filles d’orientaux, tels Ghalbane-Masbout-Safita-Bango, etc… Leurs descendants ont-ils conservés cette authenticité ? Qui a pu prendre la suite des étalons Larabi et Guercif résultant eux aussi d’une cascade d’orientaux ? 

Pharisianisme exclu, ces pays peuvent-ils toujours prétendre au titre de succursale de l’Orient, de pépinière du Pur Sang Arabe ? Des connaisseurs avisés et clairvoyants comme le commandant Bardot et Robert Mauvy rêvaient de voir naître en ces pays bénis, mieux que des Haras Souche : une Jumenterie Nomade ! 

De l’air, de l’espace, de l’ensoleillement, une nourriture tonique, une présence humaine constante, de l’exercice dès le plus jeune âge. Monter les mâles étalons au pas ainsi que les femelles vides, pleines et suitées. La Cavale Arabe n’est pas un “sac à poulain”, le plus gros du travail se faisant avec et grâce à elle. Proscrire l’abandon au pré… 

Avec toutes ces précautions, il ressortira certainement quelques sujets d’exception qu’il faudra impérativement juger sur le terrain. Les épreuves seront dénuées de toutes règles, si ce ne sont celles de la bienséance, seuls la cravache et l’éperon seront prohibés sur ces 5 à 15 000 m de galop. L’homme de cheval pratique le respect, il aime sa monture, connaît et en apprécie la valeur. Ensuite, une “cueillette” pourrait s’effectuer suivant la morphologie, le caractère et surtout les aptitudes. Certains sujets plus maléables pourraient être dirigés sur l’endurance qui n’est qu’un pis-aller. 

Des épreuves restent à instaurer comme des raids d’une cinquantaine de kilomètres et plus, d’une traite, allure libre en terrain varié mais relativement plat. L’Arabe est un cheval de plaine, laissons la montagne et ses cailloux aux mules. La majorité des produits qui découleront de ce mode d’élevage sera constitué de toute façon d’excellents chevaux de randonnée, voire même polyvalents dans la fourchette de leurs possibilités. 

Il n’est pas aisé de placer les sujets d’exception, ne connaissant que leur cavalier, ils le protègent jalousement. On peut tout leur demander, même si parfois ils ont quelques velléités… “j’y suis, j’y reste”. Ce sont des sujets à part entière, des personnalités, ils ne leur manquent souvent qu’un cavalier. 

Il est possible que ces réflexions fassent sourire certains “professionnels” du cheval qui ne manqueront pas de baver quelques niaiseries, je leur rétorquerai simplement : ON A LE CHEVAL QUE L’ON MERITE !

This chestnut Ibn Fayda, b. 1925, is the full brother of the bay Ibn Fayda, b. 1927 (picture below), who was the sire of the Inshass stallions Adham (xZabia), El Moez (x Bint Zareefa) and Zaher (xZahra). Inshass is Egypt’s King Fuad’s private stable, which had acquired the bay Ibn Fayda from Prince Kemal El Din. 

The chestnut Ibn Fayda (I’ve never seen a picture) had a long career at Sidi Thabet in Tunisia, where he was noted as a sire of broodmares. One of his daughters, Imama, produced the chestnut masculine stallion Ourour (photo below, by Duc) and another was the grand-dam of the beautiful brown stallion Sumeyr (photo below, by Bango O.A.) both of whom become important government stallions in France (Ourour at Tarbes, and Sumeyr at Pau then Pompadour). Sumeyr is the sire of the pretty Pompadour mare Ablette, featured here. 

MIchael Bowling tells me that the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) used a desert bred racehorse by the name of Nasr as a stallion in the 1920s, and that this horse was subsequently exported to Tunisia. He also tells me this horse is the reason why the other more famous *Nasr (Rabdan El Azrak x Bint Yemama) was renamed “Manial”, when he was raced by Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik before being exported to the USA. 

If so, then it seems like the chestnut horse in the picture is the “Nasr, a racehorse” of one of the early EAO studbooks. He left many descendents in Tunisia, and in France, of which Mauvy’s Moulouki is one. Moulouki’s maternal granddam Arabelle is a granddaughter of this Nasr. [Jan 23rd update: He is also in the pedigree of Irmak]