I bet some of you think this is overkill, but here are two more pictures of that lovely Kuhaylat al-Mimrah mare that went from Egypt to South Africa. The first one also features a headshot of the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisaan. With kind permision Pauline Du Plessis, Saruk Stud, RSA
A fascinating and thoroughly documented article (in French) by anthropologist Bernadette Lizet on the French manuscript of count Wenceslas Rzewuski, which was touched upon in an earlier post and ensuing thread.
The readership of Daughter of the Wind keeps growing. Yesterday it reached the 100,000 clicks milestone. Sometimes I struggle to keep up with the flow of queries, comments, and new topics for blogging that readers address to me through the website or by way of email. Yet, sometimes I feel that the blog’s focus on pedigrees, strains, and concepts is too narrow, and perhaps a bit too “intellectual”. In the spirit of broadening the blog’s focus to address general issues of interest to the global Asil Arabian horse community, and reach out to a new generation of Asil Arabian breeders and enthusiasts, I have asked a number of friends to contribute to Daughter of the Wind as regular bloggers. They will bring a new perspective to breeding and understanding Asil Arabians in their native land (Arabia) and in their countries of adoption (the rest of the world). Their ideas will complement the valuable contributions of Joe Ferriss, Joe Achcar, R.J. Cadranell, and other guest-bloggers to come. I am glad that Jean (Ambar) Diaz has agreed to be a (more or less) regular blogger on Daughter of the Wind. Ambar acquired her first Asil Arabian, Petit Point CF, in 1999. Since then, she’s completed a BS…
A good article by Peter Harrigan is Saudi Arabia’s Aramco World. Peter was a keynote speaker at the last Al Khamsa Convention in Tulsa, OK.
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.
This past weekend I took part of my family to visit with Jenny Krieg, of Poolesville, Maryland. Jenny is the president of Al Khamsa for a few more days. A new board will take over for a year after the 2009 Tulsa Convention, which starts today, and which I am so sorry for not being able to attend. Jenny is otherwise the proud owner of HS Marayah (2 pics below). Marayah traces to the Shaykhah mare *Layya, imported to the USA by W.R. Hearst in 1947. Jenny is one of the few breeders preserving this rare line in Asil form, and this year she bred Marayah to DB Khrush (pic also below) for a 2009 foal. In 2007, mtDNA research showed that Marayah and a Lebanese mare from the same strain and the same original breeder as *Layya shared the same haplotype, implying a common tail female ancestor. *Layya’s original strain, and therefore Marayah’s, is ‘Ubayyan, from the marbat of the Donato family, a merchant family of Italian origin settled in Lebanon’s Biqaa’ valley. *Layya’s great-grand dam was a famous and important mare, and was hence known as “al-Shaykhah” (feminine of al-Shaykh, or al-Sheikh, a honorific title in the Arab world). Her descendents were named al-Shaykhat, after her. They practically formed a new strain, and back in…
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…
Looks like some of my last posts (here, and here) have really (like, really) angered a particular category of people: cynical French breeders who make big money out of breeding and selling “pseudo-Arabian” racehorses. They are now fully mobilized and want to launch a campaign to defend their horses by the next WAHO conference. Some even stand ready to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares pointing a accusatory finger at their horses. Poor them. They think they are victims of another campaign to kick their horses out of WAHO – now that they have recovered from the Manganate controversy that erupted at the 1974 WAHO conference in Sweden. Don’t worry, cynical French breeders of “pseudo-Arabians”. There is nothing to be scared of. Your livelihood will not be threatened, and your financial interests are safe. WAHO will certainly keep you in its fold. Its circular, hopelessly tautological definition protects your horses: “A pure-bred Arabian horse is one which appears in any pure-bred Arabian Stud Book or Register listed by WAHO as acceptable”. That’s bullet-proof. My two posts – and the others to follow 🙂 – are not an attempt to throw French pseudo-Arabians out of WAHO, this low-ceiling benchmark of purity.…
Pretty mare, eh? Nabilah Fanatasia (Omar El Shaker x Nabilah Bint Saklabilah) is from South Africa’s Nabilah Stud and traces to the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Nabilah (Enzahi x Zamzam) in tail female, as well as to the Kuhaylat al-Mimrah Barakah in the midde of the pedigree. Both Nabilah and Baraka were imported to South Africa in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of Eugene Geyser of South Africa.
This little known importation is the earliest ever made to the United States. Between 1851 and 1856, Keene Richards took two trips to the Arabian desert, visiting virtually every region of North Africa and the Middle East. He came back with several horses, of which the stallions Massoud, Faysul, Mokhladi (no doubt a Mukhallad, the same rare strain as the French desert import Merjane) and Sacklowie. He left an account of his travels, edited by Thornton Chard, who also wrote this article about the importation. Sadly, the US Civil War broke out and completely destroyed what were extremely promising seeds of early USA Asil Arabian breeding.
In the spirit of continuing to pick on French “Arabians”, here is an old picture of Gosse d’Avril (Gosse du Bearn x Fleur d’Avril), a horse any English Thoroughbred breeder would want to own..
My father took this photo at Craver Farms in 2002. I remember really liking this mare, but can’t recall her name or breeding. Would this be Una CF?
I can’t help keep showing pictures of the Kuhaylat al-Mimrah mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat). Here is a photo with her daughter, Sahibi Bint Baraka, by the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisaan (Jellabi al-Marshoosh x a Tuwayssah). Below is Sahibi Bint Baraka as a grown-up mare. Both photos courtesy of Calvyn Badenhorst of South Africa.
This 1997 article by Michael Bowling and R.J. Cadranell mentions the Babolna-bred mare 125 Ghalion (b. 1975), which has only one distant cross to the English Thoroughbred mare 30-Maria, her tail female ancestor (scroll down to the middle of the article for the question about 30-Maria). RJ and Michael calculated that after 125 years and 12 generations of breeding to Arabian stallions, 125 Ghalion was left with 0.024% English Thoroughbred blood. 125 Ghalion is not registered as an Arabian mare. That’s probably because her cross to 30-Maria is in the tail female, which Arabian horse breeders pay particular attention to. (What’s her strain? “Kuhaylan Maria”). Now someone please tell me why Skowronek, with his 9 non-Arabian crosses, would be considered an Arabian horse.
It’s been some time I have been saying that I will write a post about this French Arabian stallion, by the desert import Latif, from the Fad’aan tribe, out of the French-bred mare Djaima, by Khouri also an import from the Fad’aan. That article will come soon, I promise. Meanwhile, here is Denouste, a Mukhallad by strain, pictured as a youngster.
I love the website allbreedpedigree.com . It’s one of those wikis that let you do whatever you want. Readers’ comments on the last entry I posted just put me in a subversive mood, so I went and changed the race of the mare Polka from “Arabian” to “Thoroughbred”. For those who are not aware of the facts, the stallion Skowronek has multiple lines to the English Thoroughbred mare Polka, and so does everyone of his descendents. One of these several genealogical paths is as follows: Skowronek –> his dam Jaskolka –> her sire Rymnik –> his sire Kortez –> his dam Gonta –> her dam Helada –> her sire Szumka III –> his sire Szumka II –> his dam Polka, an English Thoroughbred. This makes Szumka II an Anglo-Arab (even if he is not registered as such), and someone needs to change that in allbreedpedigree too (I hope I am not starting a war). Now comes the million dollar question: if you cross the descendents of an Anglo-Arab like Szumka II to Arabians for several generations, do they become Arabian horses or will they always and forever be Anglo-Arabs? [okay, partbreds]. To be sure, this question is worth much more than a million dollars, if the prices of…
On paper, this stallion looks okay. I mean he has the pedigree of an Arabian horse. But he is not. He is an Anglo-Arab in disguise. Ba-Toustem (Djerba Oua x Bacchantara, at least that’s what his papers say) was born in France, at a time when Arabians raced in the same same races as Anglo-Arabs and English Thoroughbreds, with a weight “discount”. Ba-Toustem (check out his picture on allbreedpedigree.com, pretty typey, eh?) is the result of what French purist breeders call the “midnight breedings”. Arabian mares mated to Anglo-Arabian stallions. Their products registered as Arabians, with Arabian sires as a fig-leaf. Raced against Anglo-Arabians, and English Thoroughbreds [correction: only against anglos; thank you Jean-Marc di Francesco]. Then used as stallions on pure Arab mares. And the story goes on, and on, and on. The few French purist breeders that stood against such widespread practices were silenced. And WAHO accepted these horses. What a shame. From now on, “Daughter of the Wind” will seek to escalate the debate on purity by featuring a regular series called “This is not an Arabian horse”, with the aim of “naming and shaming” those horses that should not even be called Arabians. Photo of Ba-Toustem courtesy of Pierre-Henri…
The new Al Khamsa website has a pedigree directory. Check it out.
Since the last couple posts have been about mares of the Shuwayman Sabbah strain bred by the Shammar, here is a quote from Lady Anne Blunt‘s “Bedouin tribes of the Euphrates” (p. 235) that had a lasting impression on me: “Faris’s own mare is a tall bay, Shuéymeh Sbàh, with a powerful shoulder, great girth, legs like iron, but a rather coarse hindquarter.” Also, in the same book, in an annex on strains (p. 439), under “Shueyman Sbàh”: “Faris, Sheykh of the Northern Shammar, has a mare of this breed. She is coarse, but of immense strength and courage, and when moving becomes handsome.” How true of Hakayah, the black Shuwaymah mare from Tai. Uninspiring when standing, magnificent when moving. Again, Hakayah’s g. g. granddam (I may be adding “g” or two) was a wedding gift from Nuri al-Jarba to the Shaykh of Tai. Nuri is son of Mah’al (Pasha) al-Jarba, who is son of Faris. The same Faris in the above quotes. Does it mean that Hakayah and her offspring trace directly to Faris’ war mare? There is no way to know for sure, but they certainly are from the same close family.
Just came across an interesting article from 2005 in the New Scientist: Irish researchers analyzing Y-chromosome sequences in the DNA of a sample representative of the 500,000 or so English Thoroughbred racehorses alive today found that 95% of these horses traced to a single horse in the tail male: the Darley Arabian, born in 1700 (who by the way, was a Ma’naghi from the Fad’aan Bedouin tribe, which makes this strain one of the oldest recorded). I wonder how many different sire lines a similar study could identify within the Arabian horse population…
Following the recent entry on the pretty black mare Shams al-Ghurub, and to Joe Ferriss recalling that he saw her dam Hakayah in 1996 in Syria, I am posting a picture of Hakayah that I took back in 1989. Hakayah was then with Ahmad (Abu Tahir) al-Ghalioun, who had leased her from her owner, the Shaykh of the Bedouin tribe of Tai. I don’t remember anything about the foal at her side. Here is my partial translation to English of the Arabic hujjah (certificate of authenticity) of Hakayah, skipping the introductory religious blessings: “I, shaykh Mohammad al-Abd al-Razzaq al-Ta’i, testify, and my testimony is before God Most High, that the mare whose strain and marbat is Shuwaymat Sabbah and with the following description: [her] color [is] black, her age ten years old is from our horses, from the horses of the Tai, protected, without any impurities, her sire is the horse of Juhayyim, and he is Krush, and protected; the sire of her dam is the same horse, Krush Juhayyim, he is protected, and is from the horses of the Tai; the sire of her grand-dam is the horse of Juhayyim, al-Hayfi, and he is protected; She is well known and bred [by us] one generation after the…