Wanted: blogger on South American lines

Something tells me that there may a number of asil lines down in South America. A non-negligible number of Arabians of Crabbet, Babolna, and French bloodlines were exported to this part of the world, which to me is terra incognita. There were aslo some direct importations from the desert, such as that of Don Hernan Ayerza. All these horse must have left something.

In the USA, the best known South American asil mare is the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare *Aire (by Ali x Raira by the Crabbet-bred Rustnar) was bred in Brazil, from Ayerza  bloodlines and was imported to to the USA in the 1934 by General Dickinson of Travelers Rest Farms. She still has asil descendents in the USA (and nice ones, too) and her tail female, although endangered, is still extant. Jill Erisman wrote a nice article summarizing the status of line within Al Khamsa, in the last Khamsat.

Aire (Ali x Raira) a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Argentinian bloodlines imported to the USA in 1934
Aire (Ali x Raira) a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Argentinian bloodlines imported to the USA in 1934

Let me cut to the chase. If anyone knows someone, or knows someone who knows someone who can and wants to write and research asil Arabian in South America, then please let me know. He or she would be invited to contribute to this blog. Language is not a problem, I will find someone to translate from Spanish and/or Portugese.

53 Replies to “Wanted: blogger on South American lines

  1. “All these horse must have left something.”

    Edouard, I wonder if you are underestimating the influence of Hamdani Semri I-9, O’Bajan V-6, Kurdo III, and O’Bajan-7 in South American pedigrees?

  2. For example in Brasil live 6 million horses.From them there are 59000 arabians ,but “only ” 28000 purebreds-
    show in the statistics.
    We need somebody,who live there,or somewhere in South America.

  3. Hi Edouard,
    There was a doctor from Uruguay who visited my farm in Ohio, USA, in 1989. His name was Usandavarus (sp?), he was a lovely man with some knowledge of the Ayyerza horses. His English was pretty good but I did not maintain any contact with him. I also have a good friend in Montevideo there, not a horse person, but someone who might be able to locate him for you.

  4. You are right, Pam. He was a fine person, and had done some writing on the Ayerza topic. His name is Dr, Eduardo Usandivara; he wrote a book called Caballos Arabes de Argentina, published in 1989 in Buenos Aires. He gave a copy to Charles, and I have it here in front of me. It is set up like Al Khamsa Arabians (1983), index format. A person of that name is an agricultural consultant in Argentina, but I don’t know if it is the same person. Perhaps Edouard can locate him through this much information.

  5. I think so, but would not swear to it. He did come to the US to attend the Al Khamsa convention in 1989 in Ohio. That was a meeting where Charles went and I stayed home with the animals, so I did not get to meet him.

  6. This is hopeful. We may have located a real treasure trove of information if we can find him.
    Wouldn’t it be amazing to find that Laszlo is correct and that there is still old asil blood from Babolna crossed with additional lines?

  7. Could someone list for me the old asil Babolna horses exported to South America? Then I will check what descent breeds down from them. The only such Babolna horse of which I am aware is Hadban I-4, but all of her descendants were crossed with 30 Maria or Shagya blood within only a few generations.

  8. I must appeal for help. I have combed DataSource reviewing the lists of horses imported and entered in the stud books of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uraguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia (apparently Peru has no stud book of its own?), starting from the mid-1800s and going through 1960. The only asil Babolna horse I can find is still Hadban I-4.

    What are the names of the old asil horses from Babolna, and which South American countries imported them? I honestly can’t find more than one and, as I said, all of her descendants were crossed with 30 Maria and Shagya blood within a few generations.

  9. I decided to go about this systematically, running the complete asil descent from each of the imported Ayerza foundation mares. I have already done Nadima, Hadban I-4, and Kariban. As far as I can tell, there are no living asil descendants from any of them, except that Kariban has the line through *Aire, pictured above. Next (maybe tomorrow) I will look at the line from Hayde.

  10. Edouard, when I run the descent from the imported Ayerza foundation mares, I am assuming every French import to South America to be asil, without even checking the pedigree. In my studies so far, it has made no difference. French blood or no French blood, everything gets crossed with 30 Maria, Shagya, Skowronek, or Shahzada by the mid-20th century.

    And forget about any combination with Babolna bloodlines — unless someone knows differently, I believe the only asil horse of old Babolna lines in South America was Hadban I-4, and there is nothing asil left from her.

  11. Ouch, that’s painful to hear. I will try running the French tail females, while you run the Ayerza ones. Maybe I will get lucky.

    Laszlo, what makes you think 74-Tifle might have left something in South America?

  12. Dear Edouard,
    74 Tifle had 3 daughters in Bábolna.From them 2 sold as a broodmare (8 Gidran – by Siglavy Gidran or.ar. as 10 years old,47 Durzy – by Durzy or.ar. as a 20 years old.)
    And Bábolna stud exported many-many granddaughters,grand-grand daughters… until the last World War.
    All of these exported Hamdaniyat horses was asil in my opinion.And all of these mares left more or less progenies.I must say,it is just an intuition ,but I would like to do everything to see distinctly.
    Please,read once again our correspondence in july under the title ” Rare pictures of 25 Amurath Sahib”
    I didn’t say I have concrete informations.I have asked a help through Your Blog. Yes,this thing with 74 Tiffle is nearly hopeless,but somewhere,maybe not in South America lives a mare..a daughter of the wind,
    In spite of this fact,South America can be important for us.

    László

  13. It took several days, but I have run through all the Hayde descendants. When I run these lines, I do not look just at the horses that are tail-female to Hayde — I look at all descendants. Just as with Kariban, the only asil descent from Hayde that I can find is through *Aire.

    Next I will look at the asil descent from Maanaqui and the later desert mares, Diya, Sedi, and Richa, in case something survived from them in asil form. But for this to be so, those horses would have to have been bred apart from the Kariban and Hayde descendants, which seems unlikely.

  14. There is another early imported Ayerza desert mare, often overlooked, named Gelue. Now I see why. She has no living descendants at all.

  15. Before moving on to Maanaqui, I looked quickly at the four Blunt mares imported to and registered in South America. Nadima (Daoud x Nefisa), founded a major line, but as I discussed above, no asil descent. Atwa (Feysul x Abla) has no progeny registered in South America. The line from Hafida (Berk x Hamasa) bred for a few generations but has since died out completely. Betina (Rijm x Bereyda) had a line with asil progeny for four generations, but no further. She may have non-asil living descendants, but I didn’t run the non-asil lines far enough to check.

    Conclusion: no living asil descendants from any of the four Blunt mares sold to and registered in South America.

  16. One surprise is the many asil Crabbet horses that the British stud books and Crabbet records say were exported to South America but which do not seem to have been registered in any South American stud books. These include the Crabbet stallions Alsoran, Fantass, Rafeef(!), Nahas, Ragheb, Rihan, Nar, Rakim, Afrit, Rayyan, and Indian Fire, and the Crabbet mares Fakira, Filfil, Ribaba, Bussora, Jask, and Silwa.

    Perhaps, if Babolna sold asil horses in addition to Hadban I-4 to South America prior to World War II, those horses were never registered in South America either?

  17. Mexico and Panama are not in South America.

    Nonetheless, I decided to use DataSource to pull up all Babolna horses exported and registered in all stud books of the world in DataSource. This search pulled up Babolna horses registered as imports in stud books from Argentina, Poland, Weil (Wurttemberg), the U.S.A., Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Uraguay.

    The group in Uraguay, c.1913, was new to me. They do not have Babolna names: Baroud, El Thaga II, Gazele II, Mahaba, Mata Hari, Mimosa II, Pharia, Zora III, and Siglavy. (OK, Siglavy could be a Babolna name.) They do not have listed sires or dams, but they do have complete foaling dates instead of just a year. All of their lines either die out or get crossed with the usual South American bloodlines, e.g. Hamdani Semri I-9, O’Bajan V-6, etc.

    Now, I’m not saying DataSource is infallible. It does not run the Polish pedigrees back further than about the 1890s, for example. But it does seem to have the complete record of breeding in Argentina starting with Hernan Ayerza’s first imports, and following the progeny of those horses exported to Brazil, Uraguay, etc.

  18. Odd thing about the group in Uraguay — although they are pulled up in a search for imports from Babolna, DataSource assigns their parents to the “desert bred” category in the Dam # and Sire # fields. That’s why I didn’t find them in my search on South American imports with parents given Babolna numbers.

  19. Nothing asil left from Richa or Diya. I did turn up another asil English (not bred at Crabbet) mare imported to Brazil, named Nusi. She’s a Sainfoin daughter out of an *Aldebar daughter out of Arusa (Rustem x Abla), giving a relatively high concentration of lines to Queen of Sheba through all three of *Astraled, Ahmar, and Asfura. Nothing asil left from Nusi.

    So I found nothing asil remaining from any of the Ayerza desert, Crabbet and other English, or Babolna mares imported to South America. I will leave it to Edouard or someone else to explore the progeny of the French mares that bred in South America.

  20. Many thanks for taking the time to do this RJ, if only to confirm your earlier suspicion. At least now we now for sure. I will move on the French lines..

  21. I also tried to find “old south american asil lines” but I could not find one. Only SE asil lines.Many, if not nearly all breeders are influenced by the shows in USA and Europe, and only a few are interested in asil preservation.

  22. Ayerza lines is an important issue, source of many problems in South America. I have the book “El Legado Ayerza” (“The Ayerza Legacy”) written at Argentina by Mary Lockwood in 1995 with the collaboration of Elsita B. de Shulte. Like Gerd I can say that we are very few breeders interested in asil lines. I have straight egyptians that I try to preserve in the middle of imports of “french lines” for races and others that have never been asil.
    I can help you from Chile if you want.

  23. My excuses for the delay of the answer Edouard. In my personal opinion there aren´t asil Ayerza lines here en Latin America, all Asil are related to Straight Egyptians. Here the Ayerza lines are used a lot in the endurance competitions, but purists like me do not use them in our breeding plans. They are good horses, accepted by WAHO, but not Asil. This link by Robert J. Cadranell with Michael Bowling I think that dispels many doubts about the topic:

    http://cmkarabians.com/2008/11/21/the-south-american-arabian-pedigree-faq/

    I would like to talk about the mare Trabag,

    http://www.horseforum.com/horse-colors-genetics/trabag-manchado-chestnut-arabian-152906/

    She was and Ayerza mare and Argentine National Champion. Lady Wentworth wanted to buy her because according to her there was a Bedouin tribe that she knew that they had asil horses with these patterns. What is the opinion of the rest of this mare?

  24. A summary of what I have read about TRABAG:
    Lady Wentworth never bought TRABAG (as many believe), but she tried insistently to change her with another horse of her property, since according to her the dollar was very expensive and there were many prohibitions at that time. She wanted to propose to the governments of each country the deal of blood refresh (in function to save all kinds of taxes). The mare in question was born on October 8, 1946 at Haras El Aduar. Rafael Ayerza describes her as a filly whose hair caught her attention, he warned her like a painted overa to the argentine stud book, because it can be defined that way, being the color spots chesnut on white background. Very pretty lines, with great quality and a lot of arabic type. She was the daughter of the stallion TATAR, an Arab stallion imported from Arabia in 1931 by Hernán Ayerza; and out of ADUA, argentine champion in 1933, born in the Haras. Both parents chesnuts; TATAR, chesnut with a white star, blaze and snip, with the four legs white also; ADUA, also chesnut but more dark chesnut.
    Rafael Ayerza communicated all this by letter to Lady Wentworth, telling her that in her book The Authentic Arabian Horse, on page 88, she wrote than she had not seen a painted Koheyland (spotted). Attached he sent pictures and the pedigree. He added that his mother ADUA was chesnut like all her ascendants, and on the maternal side she has blood from Crabbet Park through the stallion AJMAN (imported by his uncle Félix Buxareo to Uruguay). TRABAG was very nice and win a first prize that year with a jury from France.
    On September 24, 1949 she responded that she has been very interested in TRABAG photography because the famous prehistoric hair of the Stables of the Kings of Yemen are reproduced. I had not seen it until now and I would like to buy a daughter. It would interest you to know that AMIDA, daughter of AJRAMIEH, has produced a lot of animals with very beautiful white spots in golden chesnut with white tail and mane; White spots on the belly appear on my horses like NESMA and SHAREER, but never like those of TRABAG; I have always maintained that this hair was original of the Arab thoroughbred, the same as the palomino so famous in races.
    After that there was a long epistolary exchange but the change never materialized.
    It is interesting to see the horses in common that existed in both places:
    1.- El Aduar: TRABAG (ADUA x TATAR), ADUA (AHOROSA x ALJ), AHOROSA (SABAAH x AJMAN), AJMAN (AJRAMIEH x FEYSUL APS), AJRAMIEH (ASFURA x MESAOUD).
    2.- Crabbet Park: AMIBA (AJRAMIEH x IBN YASHMAK), AJRAMIEH (ASFURA x MESAOUD).

  25. Thank you, Miguel Acuña. Most interesting! Did Trabag produce? If she did, are there photos available of the offspring?

  26. It’s a very good question Jeanne! Thanks, I was only investigating TRABAG and his ancestry and not the other important side, her offspring. Checking the argentine stud book online I do not see that she has progeny, but it can be a problem that those old files have been missed or destroyed by some accident like fire or other. But I will ask my good argentine friends about this and I wish they know something. Unfortunately in my book “El Legado Ayerza” by Mary Lockwood (1995) with the collaboration of Elsita B. de Shulte, it has many pictures but they are only of argentine arabs that were champions. In the letters they always talked about an exchange of TRABAG, although several times Lady Wentworth asked if she was pregnant or had a filly out of her. But there were never answers about that from Rafael Ayerza. Unfortunately the book “Los caballos árabes del Haras El Aduar” by Guillermo Bond can not have that information since it was published the same year that TRABAG was born, 1946, besides that book is now exhausted and is a collector’s item that I’m not lucky to have it.
    The book that Dr Eduardo Usandivara wrote “Caballos Árabes de Argentina”, published in 1989 in Buenos Aires, I have at my farm. But I do not think it add information about this issue if you also have it, but I will review it anyway just when I go there next time. Are you sure that the link you put is of the same book just named? Because I click it and it comes out “Indices Adicionales De Padrillos Y Yeguas Árabes. Argentina” by Eduardo Usandivaras, 1989. Which is a similar title but not the same. It seems to me that it is like a complement to the previous one.

  27. Edouard about your question “What about old Ayerza + Babolna bloodlines in connection with old French bloodlines?” I can tell you that in 1940 there was an import of a stallion from France named ZIZI (1936), I do not have the complete pedigree, but part of it is:
    http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/zizi We have tried in France to have more data but it has been impossible.
    Indeed R.J. Cadranell, Perú does not have its own records, it has been kept by the Chilean Registry (SOFO) for some years.

  28. I don’t know the answer your question. We did correspond with Mary Lockwood after that meeting with Dr. Usandivaras, and I have a file of that material. I will try to remember to locate that material and see what I can learn. I don’t remember anything exciting from it at the time.

  29. We have some luck Jeanne, my great friend Elena Baumgart de Romero Onetto went to the to the argentine stud book and got information and photos. But it was not much since TRABAG had only one offspring, with the stallion KEDIVE, female, whose progeny she has in the picture on the screen. So you’ll see that very little was left of she. As soon as the pictures arrive I will see how to upload them to the blog.

  30. Trabag lived until 1970 and was dam of 10 registered foals. Of these, only her daughters Ketbe and Sugarhob have registered offspring.

  31. Yes Edouard, that is the complete pedigree of TRABAG that we complete in Chile based on the pedigree of the Chilean National Registry (SOFO) that they have. I may not have explained myself well when I wrote “We have tried in France to have more data but it has been impossible.”. What I wanted to say is that in France there are no records about ZIZI today, everything we trace from him is from Chile. ZIZI was a very important stallion in his time in Chile for the new blood he brought, and maybe (with good luck and study), we can find descendants of him with Asil Ayerza mares. But it’s difficult since every time I see an old chilean pedigree with argentine horses they have at least one that starts with K, and that is always KURDO III in the blood. But the probability of finding an Argentine import of Ayerza horse that are Asil exceeds that of finding it in Argentina. For what we could answer your question “What about old Ayerza + Babolna bloodlines in connection with old French bloodlines?” with a good research.

  32. Excuse me I wrote “Yes Edouard, that is the complete pedigree of TRABAG that we complete” in the first line,must be changed by: ” “Yes Edouard, that is the complete pedigree of ZIZI that we complete”

  33. If you go to http://www.studbook.com.ar/ R.J. Cadranell you can not find any foals of TRABAG. In the pictures of the argentine stud book computer screen they sent to me I can only see about TRABAG: birth date and death date, (0/0/1946) – (01/01/1977); progeny only one daughter named KETBE (KEDIVE out of TRABAG [TATAR], (18/10/1958)-(01/07/1990). The progeny of KETBE were all females: 1.- SULYAMIL 1963(by SILVER SUN); 2.- SHATMATAR 1966(by SILVER SUN); 3.- SHOBULAD 1970(by SILVER SUN); and SAKLUNA 1975(by SHAMUN). SILVER SUN was bred by Crabbet Stud.
    Please tell me in what sources you found that information of TRABAG and its progeny to look for it, if I can, and study it since it differs a lot from the official data available from the stud book of Argentina. Thaks a lot.

  34. I just found an error in the Argentine stud book R.J. Cadranell:
    “* SUGARHOB (A .1962) S.B.ARG. Vol. 24 Pág. 47 Por NEHAS y TRABAQ por TATAR en ADUA por ALI.”
    They put “TRABAQ” instead of TRABAG as the dam of SUGARHOB. With progeny only one colt: LC GARSEM 20/01/1987.

  35. Comming late to this topic, but I would like to add to some comments.

    At the very beginning there were two different programs of Arabian horse breeding in Argentina, the one from Don Hernan Ayerza that started in 1893 with DB Arabian horses and some French mares -whose progeny after some years were not entered in the studbook; and to this program other DB stallions and mares were later added and also other Asil Arabians, stallions mainly, from Crabbet Park and France. In 1910 Don Hernan also brought to his breeding farm El Aduar, a stallion from Balbona Y’OBajan, renamed Kurdo III, which at the beginning and for many years wasn’t used much. Kurdo Iii was not Asil. The only non Asil horse of his program until much later, in 1938- if my memory serves me right but I would have to check on that. he brought as a loan for 2 years from Brazil a stallion, Harmattan with Skowronek blood. Don Hernan Ayerza died in 1940, And his wife Maria some years later , and after that there was a dispersal of their horses and the propery itself was sold. Don Hernan Ayerza had worked for 47 years mostly with Asil bloodlines and always trying to improve on the height of his Arabian horses. The other Arabian breeding program was started around 1910 by Don Alfonso Ayerza, a younger brother of Don Hernan, with 3 Shagya Arabians, a stallion and 2 mares, and an Asil mare all from Balbona. To this program other Asils, a few, not many, were added from Crabbet Park and from the desert. And althought working with a program based on a few individuals, Don Alfonso Ayerza was able to produce some very fine horses, although most were not Asil. Unlike Don Hernan, Don Alfonso Ayerza did not try to increase the size of his Arabians, thinking, or rather seeing probably, that as a rule the smaller the horse the nimbler he is… Don Alfonso Ayerza died in 1942. And only one time in all those years did Don Hernan and Don Alfonso exchanged animals, being their breeding programs so different. That was in 1934 – if I remember correctly. The Arabians of Don Alfonso Ayerza were also dispersed after his death.

    So it was after this period that most of the intermingling of the different bloodlines started, being that apparently no one saw the merits of also of keeping the 2 very distinct breeding programs apart.

    1. Regarding Don Hernan’s early breeding, do you know anything about the mare Folette? She was apparently the dam to Felidye, whose son Califa was exported to South Africa, along with the mares Rakat and Malaf; the stallion Ghofran or Ghofar (the spelling varies by source) may have accompanied them. I am interested in these horses, but the information available locally is sparse, confusing and at times contradictory.

      1. Hi Kate,

        Ghofran (born 1901), chesnut

        Richam (DB) x
        Gelue (DB)

        Both, sire and mare, bought on Don
        Hernan‘s second journey to the Middle East region in 1898.

        Gelue: kehilet-el-ajuz

        Richam: sire seglawi / mare koreisheh

        Considering Don Hernan’s convention for naming his horses, the daughter’s name starts with the first letter of her sire’s name, and the son’s name starts with the first letter of his mare’s name, and the years involved, most probably Folette is by Freyan out of some of the French mares that Don Hernan bought on his first trip to Europe and the Middle East in 1893. Either Soukara (1887-1902), Yakouta (1888-1900), or Djallil (1889-1902). But this is just a guess that needs to be checked! I don’t have the studbook and this period is not available online.

      2. Don Hernan Ayerza also bred Anglo Arabians (registered as AA in the Studbook of Argentina -being AP the designation for Pure Arabian)

        The stallion AA Califfa,
        was awarded as champion at the 1900 exhibition of Sociedad Rural and later exported to Sud Africa.
        Could he be the horse you were asking?

        Was he registered in Sud Africa as Anglo-Arabian or as a pure Arabian horse?

        Pd: this information from the book El Legado Ayerza, by Mary Lockwood

        Pdd It was the odd name of Califfa, starting with a C, that got me to look at the mixed bred Anglo-Arabians, since the name did not correspond to the naming convention of Don Hernan, given the names of his first imported horses…

        Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear…

      3. In the book Los caballos Arabes de haras El Aduar by Guillermo Bond, it is also mentioned Califa a horse awarded in the 1904 exposition of Sociedad Rural Argentina de Palermo.

        Different spelling, from the previous one, although it could be a typo.

        In which year was the exportation of Califa to Sud Africa?

        1. Thank you! This is very interesting and useful.

          The information I have on the Ayerza imports to South Africa is really contradictory and patchy, but Califa was definitely in South Africa in 1905, where he won a prize at a local show. If he is the Anglo-Arab, it would not surprise me – the show report notes that he was “a good looking horse but rather large for an Arab”; I presume he was registered as an Arabian here, whatever his actual breeding.

          Califa is recorded as the sire of four foals in South Africa: Sultan (ex Rakat), and the full siblings Seydie, Roxana and Califa II (ex Malaf). In 1918, Roxana produced a foal, De Grendel Updol or Abdol, by Califa II. The horses were later dispersed, and their descendants did not make it into the current Arabian studbook.

          Ghofran was gifted to Louis Botha by his importer, Sir David Graaff, and is described as “a most comely beautifully shaped Arab”. According to Sir David’s son, Sir De Villiers Graaff, General Botha used him on Basotho ponies, and sent two of his offspring as gifts to Sir De Villiers and his brother.

          1. Thank you Kate.

            If I learn anything new about AA Califfa who won a prize in 1900 and/or Califa who won a prize in 1904, I will post it here.

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