Kuhaylan al-Krush asil horses from Syria in Spain

Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians in France, just sent me this link to the website of a young Syrian lady, Dr. Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, who moved to Spain and brought with her an asil mare from Syria, Karboujah (Sa’d x Roudeinah by Mas’huj), and her grey asil son Najm Ya’rob, by the stallion Fawwaz (Ayid x Sit al-Kull). Dr. al-Abrash also has other horses at her Abrash Krush stud near Madrid. While I have never seen this stallion or his dam, I have very vivid memories of their sires, grandsires, and grand-dams: the stallions Ayid, Fawwaz, Mas’huj, Mahrous, Sa’d, and the mares Jamrah, and Sitt al-Kull populate my teenage memories, when my father and I used to drive from Lebanon to Syria and visit the studfarms of Syrian horse-breeders. The stallion Najm Yarob is interesting pedigree-wise, because he trace to two completely different branches of the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain. His sire, Fawwaz, comes from an old-established marbat of Kuhaylan al-Krush in the city of Hama in central Syria. This marbat traces a branch of the Krush horse family originating from the Fad’an Bedouin tribe, and know as Krush al-Sane’. The mare *Werdi, a Kuhaylat al-Krush mare imported by Homer Davenport to the…

Photo of the day: Seanderich (b. 1902)

Seanderich, a desert bred stallion born in 1902, is one of the founders of Arabian horse breeding in Spain. Both his sire and his dam are stated to have been from the Saqlawi strain. The Spanish Stud-book actually has all his four grandparents as Saqlawi. For more details about his importation to Spain through an Istanbul-based horse dealer by the name of Ismailion, and his influence on Spanish breeding, read this article. And if you are interested in early (1900s) Spanish Arabian horse breeding, check this Flickr roll. One can’t help but lament the consequences of the addition to Spanish Arabian breeding of Polish Branicki bloodlines through Ursus and Wan Dick, and their overshadowing the influence of desert-bred imports like Seanderich, Sawah II and Bagdad.  

The 1909 desert imports to France

In 1909, a French government commission led by Inspector Quinchez bought 24 desert-bred stallions from the Egyptian racetrack of Sidi Gaber in Alexandria. Of these, 17 went to Algeria (then a part of France), and the remaining 7 were distributed in government studs across mainland France. The seven were: Dahman, Meenak, Farid, Aslani, Hamdany El Samry, Latif and Maarouf. The magnificent Dahman, to which this blog paid a tribute some time ago, was no doubt the star of this importation. Dahman’s hujja – which I will translate for you soon – tells us that he was bred by the Shammar tribe, from a Dahman sire and a Rabda dam. He stood at Pompadour for twenty-some years, leaving behind many pretty Asil mares like Ninon (picture below), Melinite, Musotte, and Noble Reine, and some excellent stallions, one of which, Minos (x Melisse) was sent to the King of Morocco. Today Minos appears in many modern Moroccan pedigrees. If Dahman was the most striking, Aslani was the French breeders’ favorite. He originally came from the tribe of Bani Sakhr, by a Ubayyan and a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz. Quinchez had to pay the hefty sum of 8,000 Francs to snatch him away from Alexandrian trainer and racehorse owner Michaelides – the same individual who…