Basilisk and Rabanna as Saqlawi Marighi

In my book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha: New Discoveries: The 1860 Abbas Pasha Sale List and Other Original Documents (Ansata Publications, 2022), with Kate McLachlan and Moira Walker, I showed how the strain of the Blunt mare Basilisk and hence that of her female descendants, including the Pritzlaff mare Rabanna and her own descendants, is actually Saqlawi Marighi. I made this discovery using two surviving original Arabic sources: the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, and the hujjah (Arabic certificate) of the Blunt mare Meshura, a close relative of Basilisk’s in the female line. The Abbas Pasha Manuscript was translated into English by Gulsun Sherif and beautifully published by Judith Forbis (Ansata Publications, 1993). The Arabic manuscript was then acquired by officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and published in Arabic under its original title Usul al-Khayl al-‘Arabiyah. An image copy of the hujjah of the Blunts’ mare Meshura was originally published in the book of her daughter Lady Wentworth, The Authentic Arabian Horse (1945). I published an English translation of it for the first time on this blog in May 2008 (link here), before publishing a slightly revised translation in my book in 2022. In summary, both primary sources…

A Syrian desert-bred stallion from the 1940s

I have been trying to go back in time as far as possible with the pedigrees of modern Syrian Arabian horses, looking for male ancestors as early as the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a difficult task, because the registration of Syrian foundation horses (the first wave in Volume 1, and the second wave in Volume 7) is based on oral testimonies, which seldom go beyond three or four generations, whether in horses or in humans. How many of us can readily remember the name of our paternal great-grandmother? A horse that keeps coming back in the back of the pedigrees of Syrian Arabians is the Dahman Amer of Sa’ud al-‘Ajarrash. In the back of the pedigree of this mare born in 1971, for example, where his owner’s name is misspelt and his strain is misrepresented. The mare’s hujjah shows the right strain and owner for this stallion, her great-grandfather, which was likely active in the 1940s. The same stallion appears as the sire of the Egyptian RAS desert-bred stallion El Nasser. Below a photo of this really fine mare in extreme old age (around 32). She was a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the strain of Ibn ‘Amoud. I took this photo…

Ghazal Al Layel and Louna, Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mares in Syria, 2008

Ghazal Al Layel and Louna are maternal half sisters, out of the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Ghazal Al Banat. Louna/Loonah is the 1993 daughter of the Hamdani ibn Ghorab stallion Mobarak, featured previously on this blog. The younger half-sister, Ghazal Al Layel, is the 1995 daughter of the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Shaddad, who has also featured on the blog before. Their dam, Ghazal Al Banat, is a daughter of the ‘Ubayyan Sharrak stallion Mashuj, whom Edouard has written about here. Photos were purchased from In The Focus.

Another picture of Najm and Marwah, the desert-bred Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the Shammar

Marwah had these magical soulful eyes and long eyelashes. She was small, but built like a tank. Both photos from Marwa’s owner Basil Jadaan. The strain belongs to Hasan ibn Amud who led the Amud clan of the Northern Shammar, but traces to the Jadraniyat mares of the Frijah clan of the Ruwalah. The Frijah were the fountainhead of the Saqlawi Jadran strain.    

Republishing: Marwah with Najm al-Himmayri

Basil Jadaan’s gorgeous  foundation mare Marwah, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the marbat of Ibn ‘Amud from the Shammar, pictured here with the late Najm al-Himmayri. Najm’s day job was “horseman”, or “horse expert”. Marwah was the dam of Hijab (by Ward al-Mayel), exported to France and the maternal grandam of the French-bred Syrian stallion Menjad Maram Al Baida (by Mokhtar). Najm, together with a few others like Abd al-Qadir Hammami (from Aleppo), ‘Uqlah al-Hanshul (from Deyr), Fawwaz al-Rajab (from Homs), Rashid ‘Issa (from Hama), Shakir al-Salluh (from al-Mayadin), was a fountain of knowledge. He knew all the stories and the all the horses and all the strains.  I never met him, but Basil knew him well.

الصگلاوية الجدرانية في الجزيرة برواية حمّاد الجدوع الجزعة توثيق محمد معصوم العاقوب

يقول حماد الجدوع الجزعة سمعتُ من أبي يقول الصگلاوية الجدرانية التي عندنا بالأصل لآل غبين شيوخ الفدعان من اعنزا وقدا أهدوا فرس الى ابن اختهم ضاري ابن محمود شيخ زوبع من شمر في ثورة العشرين في العراق جَلى ابن محمود الى الجزيرة السورية لأنّه كان احد القادة للثورة وجلبَ معه مجموعة من الخيل ضمنها الصكلاوية الجدرانية فباع هذه الصكلاوية لمحمد الدندح شيخ الجوالة من طي من خلال سائس الخيل اسمه سرحان فارسل معه الفرس وحجتها وكانت الفرس لاقح وذُكر في الحجة اسم الحصان الذي تشبت منه الفرس وهو دهمان عامر من خيل ضاري ابن محمود وبعد عِدّة أشهر ولدتْ الفرس مهرة اشترى جدوع الجزعة نصف هذه المهرة ب 125 نيرة رشادية وجمل ( جمل بيت ) سمّاها جدوع فرحة جدوع عندما كبرت هذه المهرة ( فرحة جدوع ) شبّاها من حصان عبو الحميّد من رسن صكلاوي جدراني اسمه فرحان ايضاً وصل للحميّد من ضاري ابن محمود ثم افلت فرحة جدوع بمهرة شقراء ثم شبّاها من نفس الحصان فرحان وبعد شهور قليلة حان موعد الفكك جعل محمد الدندح المهرة وفوقها 20 نيرة كوم (( حُصّة )) والفرس كوم (( الحصة الثانية )) فاختار جدوع الجزعة الفرس ودفع 20 نيرة لمحمد الدندح (( هذه طريقة للمشاركة في الفرس عند الفكك المالك يكوّم…

جولان الخير صقلاوي جدراني من تاج الخير وبشرى الخير من خيل باسل جدعان ابو فارس

The Saqlawi Jadran Jawlan Al Kheir, by the Ubayyan Suhayli Taj Al Kheir out of Bushra Al Kheir a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, at Basil Jadaan’s studfarm outside Damascus.

Yaqut, Saqlawiyat ibn Amud from Basil Jadaan’s breeding in Syria

Yaqut is another gorgeous Saqlawiyat Ibn ‘Amud from the breeding of Basil Jadaan, by Shaddad (Marzuq x Aseelah) out of Karawiyah (Odeilan x Marwah). She is a maternal grand-daughter of Marwah and the dam of Basil’s stallion Shadeed. Sadly, this maternal line was lost due to the war in Syria and is now only represented through Shadeed. Yaqut’s sire Shaddad, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, was bred by Kamal Abd al-Khaliq in Aleppo, and his lines blended very well with Basil’s mares. Below, her son Shadeed against the backdrop of Palmyra’s ruins

Azzah, Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah from Syria

‘Azzah was one of my father’s favorite mares at Mustafa Jabri’s. She was a daughter of the Hamdani Ibn Ghurab al-Aawar and of Nadia, a desert bred Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah tracing to the marbat of Muhammad al-Dahdah of the Jawwalah clan of Tai and to Dari al-Mahmud of the Zawba’ Shammar before that. That strain originally goes back to the ‘Anazah. I took this photo of hers in the mid-1990s. Despite being the daughter of two registered horses, and the full sister of Mustafa’s other senior stallion Ihsan (photo below), Azzah was somehow missed by the first wave of registrations of the late 1980s, and was only registered in the second wave in 2001. By the way, it took me ten years before I realized that Ihsan was a son of Al-Aawar.

Al-Dahdah Index: The grey Saqlawi Jadran of Farhan al-Nayif, Tai

A grey desert-bred asil stallion. Strain: Saqlawi Jadran, from the marbat of ‘Abd al-Hamid (a.k.a. Hamid) al-Talal al-‘Assaf of the leading family of the Tai tribe, who got the strain from Ibn ‘Amud of Shammar (according to Hamid himself). From the strain that came to Ibn ‘Amud from al-Frijah of al-Ruwalah. Sire: Saqlawi Jadran of Hamid al-Talal of Tai, from the marbat of ibn ‘Amud of Shammar. Dam: a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Hamid al-Talal of Tai, from the marbat of ibn ‘Amud of Shammar. This grey horse was standing at stud with the Shaykh of Tai Farhan al-Nayif al-‘Assaf. His nephew Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Nayif, the current Shaykh of Tai, borrowed him for a while. It is unclear whether he was bred by the Nayif clan of the al-‘Assaf ruling family of Tai or by their cousins the Talal clan. It does not really matter. Hamid al-Talal said that this horse was a Saqlawi Jadran of the marbat of ibn ‘Amud from his horses. According to Hamid al-Talal, his Saqlawis came directly from Hasan Ibn ‘Amud of Shammar in 1928 (verify the date). According to Mahruth ibn Haddal, the ruling Shaykh of the ‘Amarat and paramount Shaykh of the ‘Anazah,…

Marwah, desert-bred Saqlawiyat ibn ‘Amud from Syria

I finally found a couple good photos of Marwah, the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Amud. The top photo was taken at the entrance of Basil Jadaan’s old farm. Marwah was sired by the grey Hadban Enzahi of Fazaa al-Hadi al-Jarba, the son of the old bay Hadban Enzahi of Fazaa. Both Hadbans stood in Garhok in North Eastern Syria, and were widely used by the neighboring Arabs. She was small, but otherwise impossible to fault. Her croup and hindquarters were among the best I have ever seen in desert-bred Arabian horses. NOTE: Please, if you feel the urge to share on social media, link to the entire blog article, but don’t download and share as if the photo were yours. I don’t want Facebook to own these photos or others.

The desert-bred Saqlawiyah of Muhammad al-Rhayyil

I spent the morning digging through old photos, which also bring back stories. I like this photo so much. It features a Tai Bedouin horse breeder, Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Sulayman al-Rhayyil, putting one of his toddler sons on his Saqlawiyah mares near Al-Qamishli, North Eastern Syria. The photo belongs to the sons, now grown men in their thirties and fourties. I believe it is from the early 1980s. The mare is a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah from the breedeing of al-Rhayyil. He or his father obtained what would have been the granddam of this mare in 1952 from the family of the Shaykh of the Tai, Abd al-Hamid (a.k.a Hamid) al-Talal al-‘Abd al-Rahman. The latter got the line from the family of the owner of the marbat, Hasan al-‘Amud, the Shaykh of the ‘Amud section of the Northern Shammar. According to ‘Abbas al-Azzawi (in his encyclopedic book “The Tribes of Iraq”, in Arabic), who quotes the Shaykh of the ‘Amarat Bedouins Mahruth ibn Haddhal, the ‘Amud had obtained the prized original mare in war from the Frijah section of the Ruwalah. This piece of information makes this line one of the most authenticated Saqlawi lines in the desert, because the Frijah are the…

Ginger this afternoon

This is my DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI by Monietor), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, tail female to Rabanna carrying a high percentage of horses from the lines of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sharif. Her body is still too thin to take a full conformation shot. She was in foal to the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, but did not keep the pregnancy.   Next time I will bring one of my old Bedouin halters. I never think of these things beforehand.

Saqlawi al-Abd is a branch of Saqlawi Jadran

One never stops learning. A read of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript section of the Saqlawi al-‘Abd strain teaches you that the strain is actually a branch of Saqlawi Jadran: It turns out that a man from the Shammar tribe was once taken prisoner by an Ibn Sha’lan (the leading clan of the Ruwalah tribe). The Shammari gave up his Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah to the Sha’lan man in exchange for his freedom. Later the Sha’lan man was somehow involved in the murder of a fellow tribesman (from the clan of al-Mani’ of the Qa’aqi’ah of the Ruwalah) and had to surrender the Saqlawiyah to this man’s family as blood money. The family’s caretaker was a slave (‘Abd in Arabic) who once rode the mare in battle against the Bani Sakhr tribe, and was unhorsed from her.  From there the strain spread to the tribes, including back to the Ruwalah. In that specific case, the Bedouin traditional judges decided that the right to claim any mare of that strain  under trover — that’s a Bedouin practice allowing the strain’s first owner within a certain tribe to claim any horse from that strain that enters the tribe — remained with the family of the deceased Ruwalah…

“She outraced all of them by far”

These were Barghi Ibn Dirri’s own words, in my translation of the certificate of his mare Meshura, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Dirri, who was bought by Lady Anne Blunt, and who was Pharaoh’s sister, Azrek’s maternal aunt, and a close relative of Basilisk’s: “I declare that I took part in a raid with a group of fourty five horsemen from the Fid’an, their military commander being Mashi [illegible name likely al-Sahim] al-Khrisi, and the raid was on […] al-‘Issa from Ahl al-Shamal and with them Bani Sakhr […] and I was riding this Saglawia and she outraced all of them by far and I took the camels [away] and brought them back [to the camp] and the remaining horses [two illegible words, likely ‘stayed behind’] / then my son […] took part in a raid on her, with the Fid’an al-Wuld, and the Saba’ah, and he [two illegible words] / on Ibn Sha’lan and he killed [illegible first name, likely Mahbus] son of Kunay’ir ibn Sha’lan, and the horses [taking part in the raid] were more than five hundred on that day, and Jad’aan Ibn Mahayd was present and she outraced all the horses, and my son took camels [away] and…

Welcome, Ginger

I recently acquired DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI), a 1998 Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, from Sheila Harmon of Destiny Arabians, Idaho. She is tail female to the Blunts’ desert-bred mare Basilisk through Rabanna, and has lots of Blunt/Ali Pasha Sharif blood throughout the pedigree. Photos below, taken by Sheila in 2009. I have long been a fan of these highly authenticated Blunt and Ali Pasha Sharif lines, which, a hundred and fifty years after their importation from the Arabian Desert to Europe then the US, continue to produce high quality horses from time to time, close to the original Arabian type. These lines also do very well in endurance (cf. Bint Gulida and Linda Tellington Jones, see photo), and are being increasingly recognized and celebrated in this field. Her pedigree is composed of three lines to Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr, 75% Crabbet/SO), three lines to Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to the Doyle foundation mare Gulida (Gulastra x Valida, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to *Rashad (Nazeer x Yashmak II who was out of the Crabbet mare Bint Rissala, almost 50% Crabbet/SO), and three to *Bint Moniet El Nefous (Nazeer x Moniet El Nefous, low percentage Crabbet/SO), as well as one line to…

2014 Saqlawi Jadran Ibn Dirri in the USA

This one was bred by and belongs to Jenny Krieg and is a reward for the efforts of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force. Her sire is Tamaam DE, a Doyle/Straight Crabbet stallion belonging to Rosemary Doyle and the dam is the wonderful, old-style, classy, grand and stylish Sarita Bint Raj, who in addition to her good looks, is our last asil link to *Euphrates, *Al-Mashoor, one of the last ones to *Mirage, as well as being tail female Basilisk through Slipper. By the way, Jenny Krieg has a nick for carefully and expertly choosing stallions to match her mares, and these matings always result in exceptional individuals. Photo credit to Terry Doyle.  

Du Akhir Flame

I was looking at the current Babson Egyptian Arabian stallions tonight, and I was struck by this younger stallion, bred by Dan Ulm. The 2001 chesntnut Saqlawi Jadran stallion Du Akhir Flame (Ibn Mahrouf x Serra Afina by Serr Rou) is quite something.  He is really well built, and I especially like the shoulder, the depth of girth and the withers. I even like the color. He is owned by Kim Cooper of Missouri Virginia.  

Ibn Tirf, 1971 Saqlawi Jadran stallion

This is one of my all time favorite Arabian horse photos. The stallion featured in it, the 1971 chestnut Saqlawi Jadran Ibn Tirf (Sutan x Shillala by Gulson), is one that I would have liked to breed myself. Ibn Tirf was owned by the late Joyce Gregorian of Upand Farm, who wrote this beautiful article about him. Incidentally, my own Jadiba was originally purchased by Joyce as a yearling for breeding to Ibn Tirf, as per Joyce’s own words in the 1989 article: “While my first loyalty is to my Davenport program, Ibn Tirf has had influence on my buying as well as on my breeding. The Saqlawi al-Abd (*Wadduda) filly, Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta), was bought for his future harem; an Al Khamsa filly combining “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt, Davenport and Hamidie Society bloodlines… In strain and pedigree he is a felicitous example of the complementary blend inherent in “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt and Davenport lines, a combination suggested by Carl Raswan both in The Arab and His Horse, and in The Index.” Ibn Tirf and his two daughters, who left no offspring, were the last representatives of this historically very successful Blunt/Davenport cross. Ibn Tirf was 75% Blunt through the Doyle horses, and 25% Davenport through…

Unpublished *King John photo

Bill Cooke gave Jeanne Craver permission, who gave me permission to use this previously unpublished *King John photo, courtesy the Arabian Horse Trust collections at the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington. He was a Saqlawi Jadran from the marbat of Dari al-Mahmud, Shaykh of Zawba’ Shammar in Abu Ghraib. This was the best marbat of Saqlawi Jadran in Arabia in the 1920s/30s. Please use proper credit (above) when using. The line died out in Al Khamsa with the death of Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, a son of *King John) in 1984. Thanks, Bill and Jeanne.  

al-Abjar, asil Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Zubayni in Syria

While digging through old pictures, I came across this headshot of the asil Saqlawi stallion al-Abjar, which I took in the mid 1990s, at the studfarm of the late Hajj Amin Yakan near al-Bab, not far from Aleppo. He was a tall stallion of tremedous style, carriage and presence. My father is the man in the picture. I have already written about al-Abjar here. He was a Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Zubayni, from the marbat of al-Dali’ (like his relative *Mirage), later in the marbat of the Mudariss family. There is still a thin tail female line running through his sister, in Damascus.  

Haraka and Bint Hamida, Saqlawi Jadran mares in the USA

The two Saqlawiyat Jadraniyat full sisters Haraka and Bint Hamida (Kenur x *H.H. Mohamed Ali’s Hamida) have founded a dynasty of their own in the USA. Their dam Hamida (Nasr x Mahroussa) was bred by Prince Mohamed Ali and was a half sister of *Zarife, *Fadl, and *Maaroufa; their sire Kenur (*Sunshine x *Tairah) was the offspring of two Albert Harris’ Saudi imports to the USA. Both photos are from the archives of Billy Sheets, but I have seen them before in a Khamsat magazine issue too.

From Jadran the “substrain” to Qadran the man

Did you know that the Arabic letter  qaf‘, which in Latin script is equivalent to the letter Q has at least three different pronunciations in spoken Arabic, depending on the dialect? One pronunciation of qaf is as [Q] in conformity with classical Arabic, and is used in the dialect of the Druze inhabitants of Mount Lebanon, and the ‘Alawi inhabitants of the coastal mountain chain in Syria, as well by many other groups elsewhere in Arabic speaking countries. For example the would pronounce the Arabian horse strain name Nawwaq as “Nawwaq”, just as you would in English, and as it is spelled in classical Arabic. Similarly, “Saqlawi” would be pronounced exactly as it is written. Another pronunciation of qaf is as the glottal stop [‘], which is best rendered in latin script by the letter [A]. Most Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese — including myself — will pronounce it this way.  Nawwaq is pronounced “Nawwa’ ” in this case, and Saqlawi becomes “Sa’lawi”. A third pronunciation of qaf is as the letter [G], and this is the way most (but by no means all) Arabs of Bedouin stock will pronounce it, including a majority of Jordanians, Saudis, other Gulf citizens and some…

Raswan photo of Gulida and Rabanna, from Terry Doyle

Terry Doyle kindly shared with me this unique photo of Dr. Joseph Doyle’s foundation mare and 100% Old Crabbet broodmare Gulida (Gulastra x Valida), along with Richard Pritzlaff’s Rabanna (Rasik x Banna) which was taken by Carl Raswan at their farm in Iowa in the 1950s. Rabanna was there for a breeding to Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare). This is probably one of the most precious photos featured on this blog. I cropped the photo to zoom in on the two mares. The larger photo has a view of the pasture and of some of Gulida’s offspring.  

Photo of the Day: Ebonys Doyle LHF

I also saw many nice horses at the Al Khamsa Convention. One of my favorites was the 24 year old mare Ebonys Doyle LHF (Ebony Nefous RSI x Larkin DE by Greggan), bred by Vincent Melzac, from two of his favorite horses, and now owned by Lesley Detweiler. She traces twice to the grand Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by Nasr), and her dam is a Doyle mare of 100% old Crabbet breeding. In my opinion, and regardless of the petty politics of what is “Straight Egyptian” and what isn’t, the more Rabanna blood in a horse, the better the horse. Also, Carl Raswan and Richard Pritzlaff did not save Rabanna in the 1950s, so that we waste her blood away in 2010. We cannot pay continuous lip service to their legacy, and do nothing about it in practice. Not sure how many horses with Rabanna blood remain today (someone needs to do a headcount), but something really needs to do something about that. And by the way, I don’t believe that the head of an Arabian horse needs to be more “extreme” than that. Anything beyond that becomes distortion.  

Photo of the Day: Huntington Doyle, 1990 asil Saqlawi Jadran stallion

Karsten Scherling took this photo of the 1990 Saqlawi Jadran stallion Huntington Doyle (Dib x Gulida Nadjia by Bragadoon Fa Raad) at the 60 year celebration of the Doyle breeding program in Oregon in 2009. Huntington Doyle is the senior stallion at Doyle Arabians, and has the highest percentage of Abbas Pasha blood in any stallion alive today (64%), including at least 232 crosses to the Blunt’s Mesaoud, whose color he may have also inherited (unless it’s Rodania’s). Lyman Doyle in the picture.

Photo of the day: Jadib, 1954 asil Arabian of old Blunt bloodlines

This is the well balanced and very correct stallion Saqlawi Jadran stallion Jadib (Ghadaf x Gulida by Gulastra), bred in 1954 by Ellen Doyle, with young Barbara Baird up. He carries ten close crosses to the Blunt’s Mesaoud (through his sons Seyal, Harb, Astraled, Abu Zeyd and Daoud, and his daughter Risala), and it shows.

New information on the strain of *Mirage, a Saqlawi of Ibn Zubayni

The 1919 grey desert-bred stallion *Mirage (photo below, with owner Roger Selby) is a legend in American Arabian horse breeding. This Saqlawi Jadran stallion was born in the desert, and selected as a mount of the newly installed King of Iraq, Faysal I, before he was sold to a European ambassador and ending up in Lady Wentworth’s hands by 1923. You can read more about this in a good article by Michael Bowling, here. He was her dream grey horse, but the British registration authorities would not let her register him, so he sold him to Roger Selby of Ohio in the USA in 1930. Here *Mirage had a brilliant career at stud, and his is now one of the most successful sire line in the USA (that of Bey Shah, Huckleberry Bey, and Barbary, among others). *Mirage’s strain is recorded as “Seglawi Jedran of Dalia” which is better transliterated as “Saqlawi Jadran of al-Dali’ “. Recently, while looking at some documents pertaining to the Syrian Saqlawi Jadran stallion al-Abjar (photo below, from Raed Yakan, thank you Raed), which was owned the Yakan family of Aleppo, and which I saw at their stud in the early 1990s, I came across his breeder’s description of al-Abjar’s strain as…

Photo of the Day: Ihsan, desert-bred Saqlawi Jadran, Syria

The desert-bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion Ihsan (Hamdani Simri x Nadya, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah) was the second stallion at the Jabri stud in the 1990s. He was mainly used as an outcross to Mahrous daughters. What I liked about him was his large expressive eye, his huge half-moon cheekbone, his nice croup, as well as his good tail carriage. I took this photo in 1990. Ihsan traces all the way back to the famous Saqlawi Jadran marbat of Dari al-Mahmoud, the leader of the Zawba’ Shammar of Iraq, and a hero of the Iraqi resistance to the British in the 1920s. There are only three Saqlawi Jadran marbat among the Shammar today, and they will be the subject of an entry to come. The 1922 stallion *King John, who raced in Egypt, and was later imported to the USA, was also a Saqlawi Jadran from Dari al-Mahmoud’s marbat, according to his hujjah (featured in the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians II, 1993). A thin asil line to *King John survived in the USA until the 1980s, through his great-grandson Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, who was by *King John), but it was eventually lost. *King John (photo below)…

Photo of the Day: desert bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion, Syria

This photo was sent by a horse merchant in Syria to one of the Tahawi clan leaders in Egypt, bto probe his interest in purchasing the horse. Here is what figures on the back of the photo: “Photo of the Saqlawi Jadrani horse, his sire is ‘Ubayyan of the horses of Ibn Samdan and his dam a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the horses of the Sba’ah” A couple noteworthy observations: 1. The marbat of Ibn Thamdan (mispelt Samdan on the back of the photo) is one of the most respected and authenticated marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah tribe. It survived in asil form in Lebanon until the late 1950s. 2. Notice the resemblance of the horse in the photo with the Blunt mare Basilisk, who was from the same strain and the same tribe.

Hujjah of Saqlawi Jadran stallion from Tay, bought by the Tahawis, c. 1936

This hujjah comes from the Tahawi tribe website and is very interesting, because of the place of origin of the horse: unlike most of the Tahawi hujaj I saw, this one comes from the Upper Mesopotamia area (al-Jazirah) while the others came from Western Syria. I hope the horse referenced in this hujjah document left some modern descendants, because his origin is precious. Here’s my translation of the document: “We testify by God and his Prophet, in truth and righteousness, that the grey horse, brother of the bay horse, which [the grey] has a small star on his face, and which is five years of age, and which was purchased by Abdel Aziz Bek and Husayn al-Hilal from Adham al-Humayyid that he is Saqlawi Jadran, and that his dam is a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, and his sire a Saqlawi Jadran, from the horses of Dari Ibn Mahmud, the Shaykh of the tribe of Shammar al-Zawba’; and the horse is ‘shubuw’ [to be mated] and can be mated, and is protected [from the side of both]  his sire and his dam, and that there is no impurity in his origin; and for this reason we have prepared this testimony, and God is the…

Hijab, asil Saqlawiyah Ibn Amoud mare from Syria, now in France

Below is a photo of Hijab (Ward Al Mayel x Nisreen by Mubarak), an asil Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah now in France, with Chantal Chekroun, who sent me this picture. Chantal also owns the black Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Mokhtar. Note the similarity between this photo of Hijab and some of the Priztlaff horses of Rabanna bloodlines (especially the progeny of Kuval RSI) The bay Hijab was born in Syria, by Mostafa al-Jabri’s asil Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan stallion Al-Ward al-Mayed (Mahrous x Nadrah), out of Basil Jadaan’s Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Nisreen (Mobarak x Marwah). Basil gave Hijab and the black Mokhtar to Mrs. Mennings who took them to France. They were later acquired by Chantal Chekroun, who bred them to each other. The breeding of Mokhtar to Hijab produced the dark bay Menjad Maram al-Baida (photo below, by Sophie Lacarre) now a stallion at the Balthasar’s Haras de la Lizonne in Western France. I first wrote about Menjad on this blog several months ago (click here to read). Then I wrote about him and his grand-dam Marwah again here. Chantal retained Manjad’s full sister Quokriya Al Shatane (Mokhtar x Hijab), whose headshot below she also sent me. The long established marbat of the Saqlawi…

The horses of the elusive Ahmad Ibish

My research project about Syrian horse-racer Ahmad Ibish is progressing well, but I am not ready to share the results on this blog yet. Ibish, of Damascus, Syria, was on the top of my list of influential urban Middle Eastern horsemen of the twentieth century, along with Henri Pharaon of Beirut, Lebanon, Iskandar Qassis of Aleppo, Syria, and a few others.  However, I can say a couple things about the horses he was associated with, at different times. I could find four of these, all stallions. 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…

Asil Crabbet damlines one hundred years later

Recently, I have been re-reading a lot of the old articles RJ wrote for Arabian Visions magazine, to refresh my memory as I start working on an Al Khamsa project on rare lines (more on this later). One of my favorite RJ articles is “The Blunts and Crabbet Stud: An Abbreviated History and Description of the Breeding Program“, from the time Crabbet Stud was founded in 1878 to Lady Anne Blunt death in 1917, including the dam lines that were represented at Crabbet across 40 years of breeding: In 1917, “the desert mares still represented at Crabbet at the end of Lady Anne’s life were Basilisk, Jerboa, Dajania, Queen of Sheba, Meshura, Rodania, and Ferida. However, the Jerboa line had died out in tail-female.” So, six of the Blunt’s desert damlines were still represented in 1917. Also, “of the Ali Pasha mares, the 1917 catalog details that […] the blood of the families of Sobha, Bint Helwa, Bint Nura, Makbula and her daughter Kasida, ran strong in the herd, with all but the latter having provided sires to the stud.” Four damlines from the Ali Pasha Sharif mares were still there in 1917, for a total of ten damlines.  It would be…

Misconceptions in Straight Egyptian pedigrees are harder to dispel

I recently saw in the online brochure of a well known stud that breeds “Straight Egyptians” that the Saqlawi Jadran descendents of Roga El Beda (i.e., the tail female line represented by Moniet El Nefous and El Bataa in modern pedigrees, among others) was made to trace back to the desert-bred mare Ghazieh through Bint Horra (allegedly the dam of Roga El Beda, according to this brochure). This is plain wrong, and was based on erroneous information from the Raswan Index, which has been relayed in Al Khamsa Arabians I and II, and later corrected in Al Khamsa Arabians III. Decade old Mitchondrial DNA research (Bowling, 1999, unpublished) indicates that the haplotype market for the Roga El Beda tail female is different from that of the Ghazieh tail female. I don’t know what you think, but I have found some of these errors much harder to dispel in the case of Straight Egyptians than for the rest of the asil Arabians, despite rock solid evidence to the contrary (e.g., the myth of the Kuhaylan Jallabi tail female as surviving in Straight Egyptians).

Photo of the day: Malakah, Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Zubayni from Syria

I took this photo of the venerable Malakah in 1990, at the stables of Syrian breeder Salih Khaddam al-Sruji, south of Damascus.  She was more than 30 years of age, which explain why her croup and legs look the way they do. Malakah was bred by the Mudarris family, an old Alepine  – ie, from Aleppo, Syria – family of great social standing and influence. The Mudarris family owned one of the most famous city marabet of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni, which the ‘Anazah Bedouins from the area around Aleppo recognized as ‘mazbut’ (well-ascertained, well-authenticated). I have Malakah’s hujjaj somewhere and will need to dig it up for you to read. There is a very thin tail female line to Malakah left in Syria today. That said, Malakah’s blood is mainly present in Syria through her son al-Abjar, who was standing at the Yakan studfarm in al-Bab, north of Aleppo. Many people in Syria thought that Malaka’s was the only line of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni left in Syria, and this is certainly how the Syrian Studbook presents it.  Fortunately, there is at least one other equally mazbut line of Saqlawi ibn Zubayni left there. That’s the line of Mabrouka, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah…

Two asil Kuhaylat al-Hayf mares now in the United Arab Emirates

I just got word that two asil mares of the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain, from the horses tracing to the desert-breds imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906, were exported to the United Arab Emirates. Both are now owned by Mohammed Bin Humooda of Al-‘Ain, UAE. They are Affinity CF (Javera Thadrian x Audacity) bred by Craver Farms and Jadah Beshan (Baile La Bamba x Cinnabar CF) bred Randall and Mary Sue Harris. Mr. Bin Humooda already owns a number of asil Saqlawi Jadran horses bred by the Doyle family, as well as an asil Hadban Enzahi stallion bred by the Dirks family who is being used in endurance racing. This exportation is encouraging news for the asil Arabian, and a sign of Arab breeders’ emerging interest in old USA-bred, asil bloodines. May there be more of these. Below is a picture of Audacity, Affinity’s dam, and another of Javera Thadrian, Affinity’s sire, with Nancy Becker on top.

Another asil line from South Africa: Rosina, a Kuhaylat Rodan

Some time last year, this blog featured the precious asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah line to the mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat) which has been flourishing in South Africa. The series of postings on Baraka and her descendents attracted a lot of attention from South Africa and Namibia, and is by far the most popular thread on this blog. Now is the time to feature another asil line that has survived in South Africa, and which carries crosses to desert-bred lines that are extinct almost everywhere else around the globe. That’s the line of the mare Rosina (Saoud x Ruth II by Bendigo), a 1950 Kuhaylat al-Rodan exported by H. V. Musgrave Clark to South Africa in 1953. The line is a tail female to Rodania, an 1869 desert-bred Kuhaylat Rodan imported by Lady Anne Blunt in 1881, and one of the most influential mares in Arabian (and asil) horse breeding. What’s so special about this line, will you ask? Kuhaylan al-Rodan asil horses are all over the place. Well, first of all, the absolute majority of Rodania tail female horses are within what is known as “Straight Egyptian” breeding, a sub-set of asil breeding which has branched out into a category – and…

Photo of the day: Carver DE

Karsten Scherling, who takes really good (and free!) pictures took this one of Carver DE (Maloof Najid x Greggan’s Lark LHF by the gorgeous Greggan), one of the main Saqlawi Jadran stallions at the Doyles’, during their open barn last week in Oregon. My friend Lyman Doyle is leading him. For many more beautiful photos of the Doyle’s 60 years of breeding celebration, check out Karsten’s website.

Sixty years of Doyle Arabian breeding in the USA

Sixty years ago, in 1949, a young Terry Doyle and his father, Dr. Joseph Lyman Doyle (“Doc”), hauled the asil mare Gulida (by Gulastra x Valida by Ghawi), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah tracing to the marbat of Ibn Sudan, to their farm in Sigourney, Iowa. They bred her once to the asil stallion Nusi (Gulastra x Nusara), a Kuhaylan Da’jani; they also bred her several times to the asil stallion Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare), also a Saqlawi Jadrani from the same marbat. Sixty years later, I had the privilege of seeing and taking video of some 50 horses at Terry and Rosemary’s Doyle Arabians ranch, in Alfalfa, Oregon. Most of them are unique in that they trace exclusively to the three horses Gulida, Nusi, and Ghadaf, and that such a closed group has endured for so long. They are also unique in that the younger ones among them carry more than 25 crosses to the stallion Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare), who had tremendous impact on the early foundation American breeding of Arabian horses, and who was the subject of a recent CMK symposium, in Redmond, Oregon. But what is really unique about the Doyle’s horses is that they are the last horses of exclusively…

There is still a tail female line to *Roda!

There have been interesting discussions along many of this blog’s topics over the past two weeks, and I am having a hard time catching up with all of these. I owe readers a number of new entries on these topics, and I will get to these in the next week.   Jaspre, a son of Roda Still, how many of you knew that there was still a thin tail female to *Roda out there?  I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Margaret Shuey bred a daughter from her, Sunny Acres Fantasy, by the very handsome stallion Ibn Hanad, but did not know that this line was carried on until now.  Check out the pedigree of this young (2005) mare, for instance. True, the line is now diluted in a sea of new Egyptian breeding, but if that’s the only way to keep these old lines alive, why not… (you’re getting an insight on some of my biases here) Anyway, isn’t it amazing to see that line managed to survive? I wonder if this was by chance, or if there was a concerted effort to preserve it.. There is even a chance of a nicer, more diverse female line to *Roda having survived,…

Query on French bloodlines in the USA

In 1921-22, W.R. Brown imported a number of Arabian horses from France to the USA, for Army Remount purposes. Two of these horses, the mares *Kola (Latif DB x Destinee by Maksoude DB) and *Balkis II (El Hassan DB x Bedadine by Edhen DB) have left important lines in mainstream US Arabian horse breeding, *Kola through her daughters Fadih (by Sargon) and Fath (by *Rodan), and her son Kolastra (by Gulastra); *Balkis II through her daughter Fenzileh (by *Rodan). Balkis II also came with a colt (*Babel, b. 1921) [correction, *Babel was a filly] by the desert bred stallion Gadban, imported to France in 1902. I don’t know whethe any of *Kola, *Balkis II and *Babel have surviving asil progeny today. It wonder if anyone has gone through the trouble of looking for their progeny from Al Khamsa eligible horses. It would certainly be worthwhile to do so. If they do, I am going to try and put together a submission for inclusion into the Al Khamsa Roster of the following nine desert-bred horses, all of them included in the pedigrees of *Kola, *Balkis II and *Babel: — Latif, a desert-bred a Hamdani from the Fida’an tribe, imported to France in 1909 — Maksoude,…

Menjad Maram al-Baida, an asil stallion in France (part 2)

Part 1 introduced the young stallion Menjad Maram al-Baida, whose sire and dam were imported from Syria to France. Some people would refer to this horse as a “Straight Syrian”. I don’t like this phrase, nor any term with “Straight”. Others who know more than I do don’t seem to like it either. [Incidentally I wonder whether the descendants of the Arabian horses imported to the USA by H. Davenport would qualify. And the Tunisian, Algerian and French horses too. All these folks imported most if not all their horses from Syria]. We had left off with Manjam’s maternal great granddam Marwah, a Saqlawiyah Jadaniyah straight from the marbat of Ibn Amud, arguably the most authentic desert-bred marbat of Saqlawi Jadran in the second half of the twentieth century. More about this marbat in a subsequent entry dedicated to this strain. I first saw Marwah  at Basil’s in 1990, when I took the (rather poor) picture above. A very small mare (you can tell from the way her handler is holding her bridle in the picture), with a strong girth, high withers, a very short back, a flat croup, a round hindquarter, she conveyed an overall appearance of roundness and sturdiness that was reminiscent of the descriptions I had read of…

Menjad Maram al-Baida, a young asil stallion in France (part 1)

Recently I became aware of the existence of a young bay stallion of desert-bred stock that was bred in France, where he is now standing at stud. The name of this young stallion is Menjad Maram al-Baida, and his strain is Saqlawi Jadran (photo below, from his owners website). Menjad was bred by Mrs. Chantal Chekroun, and sired by the black stallion Mokhtar out of the bay mare Hijab. Both Mokhtar and Hijab were owned by Basil Jadaan in Damascus, Syria, then by Mrs. J. Menning to whom Basil gave them, and are now owned by Mrs. Chekroun. Mrs. Chekroun sold Menjad to Sophie and Dominique Balthasar of the Haras de la Lizonne, and still retains a full sister. A sketchy pedigree of Menjad looks like this:                                                                                                                                                                            Awaad (S. Shaifi x Mumtazah)                                          Mokhtar                                                    …

Lost asil tail females: *Nedjme

Think of this new “Lost asil tail females” series as an obituary section in a newspaper.. I know there is no point in grieving over what is lost, but it’s a good reminder of how lucky we are to have what we still have. The series starts with *Nedjme, just because “she was given the position of the first registration in the stud book of the Arabian Horse Club of America, […] an indication of the regard in which she was held by Arabian horse breeders in this country of her day” (Craver and Craver, Horses of the White City).  *Nedjme was one of the horses the Ottoman Hamidie Society exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. She is registered as a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz by a Saqlawi Jadran. However, evidence from a letter J.R.  Dolbony (who was involved with the Hamidie Society, perhaps as an performer in the Ottoman exhibition) to Homer Davenport, mentions that her dam was of the Sa’dat al-Tuqan strain, from the Wuld Ali Bedouins and her sire of the Nkhayshi strain, from the Hssinah tribe, which is certainly more interesting.   Whatever the case, *Nedjme was the pick of the Hamidie Society horses, and fetched the highest price when the…

Photos of the day: Burgas, Taleb

“Excellent horse, but his grey color makes him unusable”. So the French government, prompted by the cavalry’s dislike of the color grey, sold the stallion Burgas to Poland in 1923, without using him.   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.