Daughter of the Wind: a blog on desert arabian horses, past and present

Amer is one of the most successful current arabian racing sires and has produced nearly 300 offspring to date. His progeny has raced in Europe and Middle East and currently more than 80 offspring  have won a total of 339 races. 40 of these wins are Group 1 wins, 39 by horses bred and raised at Umm Qarn’s farms in UK and Qatar.  His progeny have additionally been placed in 25 Group 1 races, won 4 Group 2 races and 6 Group 3 races. The text and photos are taken from Umm Qarn Farms, Qatar, Amer’s owners

(joe)

The first Saudi Arabian Stud book was issued in 1991 by the ”Dirab Arabian Horse Center” later named the King Abdul-Aziz horse Center. In 1935 Dr. Mabrouk of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt, traveled to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on a horse-buying mission. He wrote about and took pictures of the horses he saw, from the stud of Prince Faysal in Taif near the Red Sea to the stud of Ibn Jiluwi stud near the Persian Gulf.  As I’m now in Beirut and the book is in my stables in Damascus ,a post will follow with pictures from Dr. Mabrouk’s trip (if they are good) inshallah.

In 1936 a lot of Saudi horses died of a horsesickness, so King Abdul-Aziz received as a present a lot of mares and stallions of Syrian origin,especially from Ibn Mehayd, the sheikh of the Fad’aan Bedouins,

Looking at Volume I of the Saudi Arabian studbook one notices the following :

The strains are Hamdani Simri, Kuhaylan Abu Arqub, ‘Ubayyan al-Saifi, Kuhailan Suwayti al Firm, Kuhaylan al-Sekti, etc. Saqlawis are very  rare.

A quick survey of the 1980’s Saudi mares gives the following:

Daughters of Safeer (100) a Hamdani Semri: 474 Farasha Kuhaila Sowaitia; 476 Soad  Kuhaila Um Arqub; 481 Afeefa Kuhaila Sowaitia; 503 Najat Hamdania Semria; 508 Nada Hamdania Semria; 510 Shahanda Hamdania Semria; 520 Aziza Hamdania Semria

Daughters of Eidan (263) a Kuhailan Sowaiti al Firm: 544 Sameeha  Obeya al Saifi; 557 Kahraman  Sowaitia al Firm; 563 Abla II  Obeya al Saifi; 565 Faheema  Sowaitia el Firm; 570 Dalal  Obeya al Saifi; 571 Azeema  Obeya al Saifi; 575 Qasma  Sowaitia el Firm; 583 Khoolood Obeya al Saifi; 594 Kayda  Obeya al Saifi; 597 Haleema II  Sowaitia el Firm; 600 Lafya  Obeya al Saifi; 612 Reehana   Sowaitia el Firm; 633 Mozna  Sowaitia el Firm; 657 Fayhaa  Sowaitia el Firm; 699 Jumaa   Umm Arkub; 747 Ameena II  Umm Arkub; 790 malika  Hamdania Semria

Daughters of Mobarak (349) Siklawi Gidrani: 651 Leena   Hamdania Semria; 653 Mabrooka III  Obeya al Saifi; 683 El Majrooha  Koheila el Sekti; 694 Fatat el Sharqiya  Obeya al Saifi; 700 Rasama Umm Arqub; 725 Zuhriya   UmmArqub; 739 Azba  Obeya al Saifi; 808 El Hanouf  Maanakia Sbeylia; 896 Hagir  Sowaitia el Firm; 911 Seeda  Obeya al Saifi

I suspect that the Hamdaniat, the Umm Arqub and the Sbeylia are originated from the Syrian mares.

Horse exported to the USA according to Vol.I

Balsam. S. 1981 K. Abu Arqub : Qabeel (Qaroonx Tanta) EAO 1973 x Baseema 208. 

Bint el Shiiokh .M.1984 Qabeel x Salha  350.Siklawia Gidrania

This was the situation in 1991. Are all these  Asil  horses are still preserved until now ? we should ask the Saudi Arabian Stud Book authorities.

Al Wadah 1996  Kuhaylan Abu Arqub of pure Saudi breeding; Qais x Rasama  (tracing to Baseema. 208. 1965); photo taken from the Asil Arabian Horse book.

… occurs in the archives of Dur-Sharrukin (today’s Khorsabad), the capital of Assyrian King Sargon II (721-705 BC). It dates from around 715 BC. It mentions king Sargon II exacting tribute from “Pir’u king of Musuri, Shamsi queen of the Arabs (a-rib-bi in the original text), Itamra king of Saba, the kings of the coast and the desert I received gold, products (?) from the mountain, precious stones, ivory, all kinds of perfumes, horses, and camels as their tribute.” 

The same tablet mentions “the distant Arabs, dwellers of the desert, who did not know learned men or scribes, who had not brought tribute to any king”. In other words, these Arabs are the Bedouins. 

Horses? Yes! Horses as tribute from the Queen of the Bedouins to the allmighty Assyrian king! (There is some speculation as to whether “Pir’u king of Musuri” is one of the Pharaohs of Egypt).  Of course, a large number of earlier ancient Middle Eastern sources mentions horses, but this one is the earliest one where the mention of horses is paired with a mention of the ” dwellers of the desert”. 

Perhaps the coolest thing is that these Arab Bedouins were ruled by a woman. I am going to call my next filly Shamsi. 

[Update: Nov. 16: check the reference in Encyclopedia Britannica, here]

I am no “expert” on Polish Arabians (and I have a lot of trouble with the concept of “expert” in general anyway), so don’t expect these posts will tell you anything many of you don’t know already. I am writing them for the record only. As a reminder to reader that there was a blessed time when some Arabian horses from Poland - this great horsemanship country - were Asil. 

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.

A beautiful representative of the Shaykhan strain tracing to the Lebanon-bred mare *Layya imported by W.R. Hearst is the 1992 mare Nile Swan (Ansata Nile Comet x Fadda Laila). Congratulations to Michelle, her new owner. I hope this mare and others from her strain, like Jenny Krieg’s HS Marayah, contribute to a renaissance of this rare and precious strain.   

This morning I was talking to Jean-Claude Rajot over the phone and I asked him if he would agree to write on Daughter of the Wind. I didn’t think he would, but I still asked. He agreed. And I am happy he did. 

Jean-Claude, a French breeder of Arabian horses, is the president of USCAR (Union pour la Sauvergarde du Cheval Arabe). USCAR is a grassroots preservationnist organization of the old kind (the good kind), in many ways the French version of the US-based Al Khamsa. 

Jean-Claude was also a disciple and one of the closest people to master breeder Robert Mauvy, during the last 11 years of Mauvy’s life. Mauvy called Jean-Claude “mon fils” (’son’).  Jean-Claude and friend Louis Bauduin, USCAR’s vice-president, owned several of Mauvy’s horses. Their offspring now constitute the nucleus of their breeding programs. 

Mauvy’s teachings have had a most profound influence on me. His small book “Le Cheval Arabe” is my Arabian horse Bible since I was ten. One of the book’s photos features the stallion Cherif (by Saadi x Zarifa, by Matuvu), bred by Mauvy in 1967. A chapter of the book is dedicated to the nursing of Hamada (by Irmak x Shawania by Amri), a favorite of Mauvy, also bred by him in 1979. Do you know that feeling you have when, after looking at a horse’s photo in a picture or reading about him for years and thinking that the horse is more myth than reality, you finally get to see that horse one day? That’s what it felt like when Jean-Claude and Louis Bauduin took me too see Cherif (then 28 years old) and Hamada in 1995, in Bauduin’s farm near Nemours. 

When I talk to Jean-Claude, it feels as if the memory of Mauvy and the majestic horses from another era that Mauvy knew and cherished (Dahman, b. 1900; Enwer, b. 1905; El Sbaa, b. 1920, etc) comes alive again. Jean-Claude has a special gift for keeping that knowledge alive and transmitting it. I am glad he will be doing this on this blog. 

Jean-Claude will be writing in French, and I will be translating excerpts from his posts to English from time to time. In the meantime, here is a picture of him riding Murad Haouda (Cherif x Hamada), a Shuaymah Sabbahiyah tracing to the desert-bred mare Cherifa, purchased by a French government mission from the Sba’ah in 1869.