20 Farag at Bábolna
The photo below shows 20 Farag, a daughter of the EAO import Farag, out of the mare 25 Amurath Sahib. Her dam was herself a granddaughter of the desert-bred stallion Kuhaylan Zaid, imported by Carl Raswan and Bogdan Zientarski for Bábolna on the same trip that they bought Kuhaylan Haifi and Kuhaylan Afas for Prince Roman Sanguszko’s Gumniska stud in Poland.
Photo by Betty Finke, purchased from In The Focus.
20 Farag is tail-female to the mare Adjuse (60 Adjuze in the Al Khamsa roster), imported to Bábolna in 1885 by Fadlallah al-Haddad, along with the stallions Koheilan Adjuze and O’Bajan (both of whom feature in 25 Amurath Sahib’s pedigree). Foaled in 1876, Adjuse was a grey mare (Wrangel calls her forellenschimmel, “trout grey”), sired by a Koheilan Adjuse and out of a mare listed as Scheha; she stood 157cm tall, or just shy of 15.2.
20 Farag’s granddam 221 Kuhaylan Zaid was caught up in the Second World War, and it is by a small miracle that she survived to produce 25 Amurath Sahib. She was one of four daughters of Kuhaylan Zaid who landed up in the vaccine-manufacturing Behring Plant, Marburg, Germany, and who were subsequently exchanged for some draught horses by the Polish state studs. Re-named Blaga, she was the dam of the Polish stallion Doktryner, before her repatriation to Hungary, in foal to Amurath Sahib.
Edouard has previously posted a photo of 25 Amurath Sahib on the blog.
Thank you Kate for bringing up of the precious Babolna asil mare, 20 Farag.
However please allow me a small correction regarding the withers height of the 60 Adjuze mare. No, this mare was not so tall. No matter how much the horse buying expeditions would have liked the imported horses, including this mare, to have been taller.
At that time, this 157 cm was not measured with a stick, but with a tape. We have to subtract about ( depending on condition) 8-10 cm if we want to know the height measured with the stick.
Unfortunately, it is widely assumed that the original Arabian horses imported to Bábolna were taller than average anyway. Fadlallah and the other expeditions would have been happy to buy mares of such height ( 15.2) at the withers.
During the selection, however, the purity of blood was a decisive issue and as we know, the original Arab mares were rather smaller than this in this round.
I have to make one thing clear. At the time of Adjuze’s purchase, the measuring stick was already known and used, despite this, this size was specified with a tape.
So 60 Adjuze was only about 14.2.
Best wishes,
László
Thank you, László, that is fascinating. I had wondered about the heights of some of the horses, as they seemed quite big, though Wrangel talks about O’Bajan as being a small horse, so I’m now wondering if he was under 14 hands!
Thank you, László, for helping to clarify the measurement issues we have today with early European imports from the desert. Years ago, the large height of those horses put off a number of Al Khamsa breeders, and I was just SURE there was something more to the story. Was very happy to learn that measurements were conducted differently, and that contributed in no small way to getting the European lines now under the Al Khamsa umbrella. We need to make that clear always, today, so that people do not get the wrong impression. Thanks, again!
Double thank you to Laszlo- That explains why the original stallion Shagya was often said not to have been a desert bred after all because his size was variously referred to as over ,’15.2,’- larger and stronger than usual for the time etc.. So we should all bear in mind that the use of a band rather than a stick helps to clarify things.. Regardless of their size the purebreds brought into Babolna from the desert certainly had enormous impact on not only the Hungarian program and many subsequent warmblood registries but also the Polish breeding system where they helped to avoid inbreeding..Though now that is beginning to become an issue.. The obvious remedy – get some desert breds from the cradle countries to once again fix things
best
Bruce Peek
I just love the quality of the discussions we all sometimes have across continents.
Dear Bruce,
I agree with you.
During breeding, to “make things right” again and again we have to go back to the source again and again.
They knew this at the time of Shagya’s import, and many of us know and admit it even today. If the source dries up, we will have nowhere to turn. This is why the new movement ( https://arabianhorsemanifesto.org/ ) has a huge role to play, but it will only be successful if Arab breeders also return to the traditional principles. The source must be alive in order for us to draw from it.
It seems a selfish position, I know, but it’s the truth, but I believe, not useless to the community and the whole horse breeding.
Best wishes,
László
Allow me one more small comment, Kate.
The color of 60 Adjuze was really ” Forellenschimmel” in German, which in English means “trout grey”, as we say “Pisztrángszürke” ( as a horsecolor) in Hungarian.
Also used in French for horse color “trouté”, but this color in the equestrian language is speckled grey in English.
60 Adjuze was a speckled grey mare.
Best wishes,
László
Yes, in French, it’s “gris truité” which is speckled grey.
Yes, that was my thought, as trouts are speckled. Nicer term than fleabitten, if you ask me!
Yes, nicer term, I also like the trouts…….
Maybe we Hungarians are overcomplicating the issue, so we distinguish many shades of grey horses. In any case, we call a horse “legyesszürke” (“fleabitten grey” ) if the grey horse has small dark gray spots.
It is a different color if the grey horse also has small, but red dots ( like trouts), here we call them “pisztrángszürke” and the British call this color “speckled grey”
Best wishes,
László
in French too, you have gris mouchete, litterally flea-bitten from mouche = fly/flea; gris truite, which is small red spots, like the fish; and gris pommele, dapple grey.
marshoush (mouche): Relationship in the Arabic and French?
Probably a false friend, French mouche comes from Latin musca.
no. marshush from “rashsha” to sprinkle so “sprinkled”, or “sprayed”
I’m missing 20 Farag from the AK Roster.
25 Amurath Sahib had 2 asil daughters. The Roster only shows 3 Siglavy Bagdady VI, although this mare and her offspring are also important, at least in my opinion.
Best wishes,
László
László, we worked backwards from horses we had. 20 Farag would be automatically included by parentage, so I will make it a project to get her and her offspring into the roster ASAP. I hope you noticed that I cleared up the issue of the numbers and periods! Thank you for your help in making our roster better!
Oh, that’s exciting, Jeanne! Do you want help with the South African and Namibian horses eligible by parentage?
Dear Jeanne,
I saw the corrections and I’m glad that my comment helped. If it is necessary to check some data about Babolna horses ( past or present) , we can do it from original documents.
Best wishes,
László
That is WONDERFUL helpful news, László. You can be sure I will be calling on you!
Kate, I am certainly interested. Let’s be in touch about it!
I disagree with the notion that inbreeding must be avoided and that to make things right there is no choice but to go back to the source. Some of the best horses Charles Craver bred came toward the end of his career (Monologue CF, Una CF, En Pointe CF, the Wisteria CF foals by Javera Thadrian and Triermain CF), after half a century or more of inbreeding. You can breed good horses either way (outcrossing or inbreeding). You can read right here on this blog heaps of praise for Monologue CF and several of the Wisteria CF foals written not by me but by their owner.
There’s an interesting new study on inbreeding in Thoroughbreds, ‘Inbreeding depression and the probability of racing in the Thoroughbred horse’ by Emmeline W. Hill et al. in ProcB, that came out in June this year. While it found that more inbred horses performed worse as athletes, it also made a fascinating discovery (which is common sense, when one thinks about it, but STILL).
Basically, runs of homozygosity (abbreviated ROH) varied in length according to how close the inbreeding was in the pedigree. “Generally, shorter ROH reflect distant inbreeding resulting from a common ancestor many generations back in the pedigree, whereas long ROH reflect a more recent common ancestor.”
In the Thoroughbreds sampled, the authors found “[l]ong ROH had a strong negative effect on the probability of racing, while short ROH had no effect, indicating that recent inbreeding rather than historic inbreeding is the cause of inbreeding depression for this trait in the population.”
From the discussion of the results (the authors use FROH as the abbreviation for the effects of inbreeding/inbreeding co-efficient):
“Indeed, here we show that inbreeding in the distant pedigree, measured as FROH_short, is not disadvantageous to the breeding goal. This observation is in agreement with an analysis of pedigree-based inbreeding in the Australian Thoroughbred population that suggested that the ancestral history coefficient of inbreeding, the number of times an allele has been identical by descent in an individual’s pedigree, has a positive association with racing performance and probably captures the effects of positive selection for favourable exercise-relevant traits over many generations. However, more recently shared common ancestors, indicated by FROH_long, have a considerable negative impact on the viability of a horse for racing and contribute to wastage in the population. Although not quantified here, it is likely that these long ROH contain a higher proportion of rare, deleterious alleles, which cumulatively cause the inbreeding depression observed.”
Which I find fascinating, because it would mean that as long as the ancestor(s) targeted by inbreeding are pushed back into the upper reaches of the pedigree, then the harmful effects of inbreeding are more likely to be limited – at least as far as Thoroughbred racing performance goes. Unfortunately, I can’t find any mention in the study of what constitutes “many generations back” (six generations? more?) and what “a more recent common ancestor”.
And while there are problems with extrapolating from a study about racing in Thoroughbreds to the health of the Arabian population, I do think it shows that judicious inbreeding is not inherently bad. So even working with a limited gene pool, western Arabian breeders have wiggle room.
New genetic research shows that Doktryner is the son of Amurath Sahib and not of Miecznik, out of Blaga. Therefore he was a full brother of 25 Amurath Sahib-2. This research was quoted in Arabians in the Focus see https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/read/66652565/arabische-pferde-in-the-focus-1-2022-vol-29-public