She may or may not have been of the strain of Kuhaylat al-Ajuz al-Shaykhah, Kuhaylat al-Shaykhah for short, or Szeikha (Shaykhah) may just be her name. She is the quintessential war mare, and I am a strong advocate of breeding back to this type of Arabian mares – the upright neck aside.

My first reaction was: “okay, so that’s where all these old photos of Polish Arabians on the Net comefrom..”. My second reaction while browsing through the book was one of astonishement at the enormous amount of information squeezed between the two covers. Then I started reading, and I was quickly turned off after a few pages. I need to vent my frustration on someone, and you, my patient reader, are going to be that someone. 

So, what’s this whole business of linking strains to types based on skull measurements? “The family of Milordka is a Saqlawi judging from the measurement of the skulls”. Really? The last I heard was that Milordka was an indigenous Polish mare. Not a desert-bred mare. Not an Arabian mare. A mare with no origins. A kadeesh, in my language. Appending Arabian strains on indigenous  Polish mares to turn them into Arabians, and using some pseudo-scientific way such cranial measurements to justify this new “metamorphosis”, is a smart trick indeed. Nice try. But it won’t fly. 

Even by the loosest of Bedouin standards, all the offspring of Milordka, Szweykowska, Iliniecka (tail female of Skowronek), Ukrainka, Woloszka, Szamarowka, and the other local Polish mares bred at the Slawuta stud are “hajin”, the product of Asil Arabians mixed with horses of unknown origin. And a hajin is not an Arabian horse. There is no way around that, unless one makes the conscious choice of departing from the Bedouins’ definition of an Arabian horse (i.e., an Asil horse). Or unless someone invents a new definition for an Arabian horse. Let me offer this one: “An Arabian is the offspring of any unknown or mongrel mare bred to desert-bred horses imported from Arabia over many generations.” How about that? That’s exactly what a Polish Arabian horse is today. Stretch this definition a little, and you could even include Percherons as Arabians, on the basis of the amount of Arabian blood flowing in their veins for the past 1200 years. I am only half joking. 

I will let you know my impressions as I read more. And more on kadeesh soon.

Then there was a time when only, or two, or perhaps three Polish Arabians were Asil. That was in the 1960s and 1970s, not such a long time ago. When Arwila, Rozka, Lassa and a few others were alive. Now that time is gone. 

This new series of posts will feature the last Asil mare from each desert-bred line imported to Poland or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lets start with Arwila (Amurath Sahib x Wilga, photo above from Skorkowski’s book, I think), a Kuhaylat al-’Ajuz tracing to the desert bred Gazella, imported by Count Juliusz Dzieduszycki in 1845. Her pedigree is one of the 24 extended pedigrees originally compiled by Ursula Guttmann in her 1968 book

Arwila was born in 1947 and exported to England in 1965. She did not leave any Asil progeny. 

The combination of Amurath Sahib, Ofir, and Kuhailan I help explain how Arwila managed to stay away from the non-Asil lines carried by the likes of Fetysz, Enwer Bey, etc.  Amurath Sahib and Ofir were some of the last Asil stallions in use in Eastern Europe at that time. But luckey crosses like the one that produced Arwila were not the norm after WW II. Arwila’s sister Carmen, who went on to produce Comet, was by Trypolis, which carried non-Asil lines.

Burgas, a Saqlawi Jadran by a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, born in 1907, was one of 20 Arabian stallions imported to France in 1914, just before World World One. Of these, ‘Adwan, Ghoumar, Madfah, Nazim, Taleb, and Burgas went to the stallion depot of Pau, in southern France. Below are pictures of the last two. 

The sale of Burgas was a obviously a mistake, since he went on to sire Federacja for the Poles. She was the dam of Witez II. 

Taleb, a Ma’naghi Sbayli, sired the stallion Rabat, who is the represented in the pedigree of the handsome stallion Nichem. 

125 Ghalion is not registered as an Arabian mare. That’s probably because her cross to 30-Maria is in the tail female, which Arabian horse breeders pay particular attention to. (What’s her strain? “Kuhaylan Maria”). Now someone please tell me why Skowronek, with his 9 non-Arabian crosses, would be considered an Arabian horse.

“Finally I hear a neigh, they guide the stallions… they lead the bay Kuhailan Haifi. My legs buckled under me, it is just the horse I am looking for. Not large, dry, on splendid legs without any trace of cow hocks. A long neck, a noble head, although not very small, with distended, thin and moveable nostrils; a splendid high carried tail. I feel, the first time in my life, that during the purchase of a horse I am fainting…”

Have any of you experience that near-fainting feeling when coming across a unique Arabian horse for the first time?

I have. Twice. I should consider myself lucky. I will tell you about these two electrifying encounters.

The early fame of Kuhaylan al-Krush was certainly associated with the quest of the Egyptian Viceroy Abbas Pasha I for Asil horses from this strain. Several sources (or perhaps one source that was quoted several times, will look that up later) tell us that Abbas’s quest eventually failed, and that Bedouin owners of Krush mares refused to sell them, or give them as gifts to one of the most powerful rulers of the time. Bedouins even went as far as composing poems in which they tell their pride in thestance they took  (the famous poem which starts with “Ya Bey ana Krush la-ahdi wa-la Bee’ - O Bey, I won’t sell Krush nor will I give her as a gift – is one).  Such was the high esteem in which horses from this strain seemed to be held by their Bedouin owners.

The reality appears to be have been rather different, however, as the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (more on this book later) mentions at least two mares of the Krush strain in the “High Stud” of Abbas Pacha…

In 1878, Lady Anne and Wilfred Scawen Blunt imported the mare Burning Bursh to England as part of their “First Attempt” at founding an Arabian Horse Stud [Aug. 29 update: Michael Bowling rightly reminds me that the phrase "the First Attempt" refers to Lady Anne's earlier horses at Sheykh Obeyd, which she eventually gave away, and that the phrase doesn't apply to early Crabbet imports. Thank you Michael for the correction]. Burning Bush was said to be a Kuhaylah al-Krush, coming from the area of Hama, in central Syria.  Apparently, the Blunts did not think highly enough of her (or her origins) to retain her at Crabbet, and she was quickly made away with a few years later. Nothing remains of her descendance. [August 29: Michael also tells me Burning Bush produced only one recorded foal, a filly which died after a few days, so she didn't really have a chance to found a branch of the strain. He adds that she went blind and that after a few years was given to Miss Dillon. It is possible that had she kept producing, the Blunts would probably have kept her]

In 1906, Homer Davenport imported *Werdi to the USA. A chestnut Kuhaylat al-Krush tracing to a mare also from the same Syrian city of Hama, *Werdi founded a long dynasty of Asil Arabians that endures until today.

In 1911, and after many years of negotiation through her agent Ali Abdallah al-Bassam, Lady Anne Blunt, then living in her Egyptian estate of Sheykh Obeyd near Cairo, succeeded in importing a Kuhaylat al-Krush mare, Aida, and a white (not grey, white) Kuhalyan al-Krush stallion, Krushan, from the Arabian desert.  The two prized animals were followed in 1913 by another chestnut mare of the same strain, Jauza. Jauza become a favorite of Lady Anne’s in her later years. An entry in her Journal singles out Jauza as the only one with “an undefinable charm” among the prized Sheykh Obeyd band of broodmares. All three Krush horses produced at Sheykh Obeyd, but were eventually lost at Lady Anne’s dealth in 1917.  Only Jauza’s daughter Jazia resurfaced in Egyptian pedigrees, albeit briefly and sparingly, as the dam of the stallion Ghandour, used by the Egyptian Agricultural Organization in the 1940s.

Lady Anne had already seen a Kuhaylat al-Krush during her visit to Muhammad Ibn Rashid, the ruler of Hail in Arabia, and seemed to have been quite taken by her, despite what she described as a plain head. It is also very significant that of out of her last six desert bred imports – Krushan, Aida, Jauza, Dohayya, Saade, and Saadun – half should be from this one strain.

In June 1927, King Ibn Saud of Najd sent a 1921 white (not grey, white) desert-bred Kuhaylah al-Krush, Dafina, to Lady Wentworth through the Sir Gilbert Clayton, a top British official based in Cairo.  She left many offspring but none of her current descendence is Asil. Pity.

Also in 1927, Ibn Saud gave King Fouad of Egypt a desert-bred mare, El Kahila, with no mention of a strain. However, the studbook of the King Fouad’s stud of Inshass lists El Kahila’s daughter El Zabia as being of the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain.  [Query: Will mtDNA comparison with Dafina's descendence validate this claim?]

[November 30 update: In 1931, Bogdan Zientarski and Carl Raswan, on a buying trip across Arabia, bought the chestnut 4 year old stallion Kuhailan Kruszan from Hamad ibn Fahad al-Saadun, Shaykh of the Muntafiq Bedouin tribe, for the stud of the Polish prince Roman Sanguszko.] 

Finally, in 1937, the same King In Saud gave also gave a Kuhaylat al-Krush mare, Faras, as a present to King George VI of Great Britain, in a batch of four horses that also included *Turfa. Faras didn’t even have the chance to produce registered Arabians.

To sum up, El Kahila’s line, along with *Werdi’s, is the only one to have left Asil Krush descendents in the tail female. The other lines are gone. Yet others Krush lines remain elsewhere…