A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
Gisela Bergman has been living in Tunisia and breeding Arabian horses from old Tunisian lines for more than three decades. She is one of the very last breeders of the Dolma Batche tail female in Tunisian breeding. Gisela has recently had trouble feeding and taking care of her horses. She is elderly, suffers from arthritis, and lives on … Read more
Note again the huge expressive eye, the big jowl, the tipped ears, and the small muzzle. All that in a desert-bred stallion. I will dig his hujja out and translate it for you.
To follow up on the earlier entry on the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad, here is a picture of one of his sons and one of his daughters at the Anbarji farm some seventeen years ago. The colt, either a Kuhaylan al-Khdili or a Hamdani al-Ifri by strain ( I don’t remember, even though I … Read more
This is the fourth part of a great series by Joe Ferriss in Arabian Essence, featuring popular sire lines from the Egyptian breeding.
Blog reader and friend Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, Syria, sent me the following picture of his foundation stallion Raad, a desert-bred (yes) asil Kuhaylan al-Musinn, born in 1982, and now deceased. Raad was bred by Jamal Turki al-Saw’an, out the mare Nawal al-Kheil, and traces back to the famous marbat of Ibn ‘Amayir of the … Read more
This video was taken in August at the open barn session hosted by Diane Lyons of Desert Lily Arabians. Lustre CF, Affinity CF’s full sister, is seen about 4:30 into the video. (I have it on good authority that Affinity is an even better mare–) Right after her is Javera Thadrian’s full sister, GH Janet. … Read more
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 … Read more
At last I get to see a picture of Bossa Nova (Iricho x Bassala by Masbout), thanks to Adrien Deblaise who sent me this one today. Â Bossa Nova, of the Jilfan Dhawi strain that traces to the mare Wadha from the Fad’aan tribe, was bred by the French government stud of Pompadour, by Iricho, an … Read more
Ce modeste article intitulé des paroles du Sage (Robert Mauvy) fait suite à celui traitant de la consanguinité : « Ah cet embreeding », ainsi qu’en réponse au questionnement de Monsieur R.J. Cadranell. Il fallait lire : « (…) la dure vie nomade, alliée à l’environnement hostile ainsi qu’aux conditions climatiques implacables joueraient leur rôle de régulateur éliminant du même coup … Read more
In 1952, Charles Craver acquired the asil Crabbet mare *Ringlet (by Astralis x Rudeyna by Daoud), around the same time two other giants, Dr. Joseph L. Doyle, and Richard Pritzlaff were acquiring the asil mares Gulida (by Gulastra x Valida by Ghawi) and Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr), respectively, which they bred to the stallion … Read more
Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the … Read more
Yesterday evening, I threw away my 2000 Arabian Horse Datasource CD-ROM, and bought a new one year online membership. The geek in me was so excited. Now guess what is the first studbook I looked up in search for lost and forgotten asil Arabians? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Bahrain? Iraq? the USA? France? No. I looked … Read more
I just received my gift copy of the book “The Babson Influence: A Retrospective”, which is published by the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse. I started looking at it tonight, and there are lot of nice pictures I have never seen before. Thank you Anita, Kent and John. 🙂
Don Hernan Ayerza, a well-to-do Argentinian landowner imported desert-bred Arabian horses from France, Hungary (Babolna) and the UK (Crabbet) into his El Aduar Stud. He also went to the Middle East (but not the Arabian desert itself) and bought a number of Arabian horses from there. He also bought two stallions for his friend Leonardo … Read more
In 1887, Lady Anne Blunt purchased the little-known desert-bred mare Jilfa from her breeder, Khashman al-Kassab of the Mawaheeb section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe. She was imported to Crabbet in 1888, as part of a batch that also included Azrek, and Ashgar, a Saqlawi Ubayri from the Shammar. Jilfa, a Jilfat Sattam al-Bulad by strain, was … Read more
In the 1990s, Syrian breeder Mustapha al-Jabri, of Aleppo, owned a sturdy, deserty little mare that was bred by the Shammar of Mesopotamia. He name was Mouna, and her strain was very precious: ‘Ubayyan Hunaydis (Lady Anne Blunt: “Mutlaq [her Mutayr stud manager] says mazbut strain”). She had at least two sons and one daughter by Jabri’s … Read more
Jeanne Craver sent me this photo a few days ago, in reference to the discussion on this entry.
Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) is known as the last of the great Western explorers and travelers. He was the first European to have crossed the heart of the lifeless Empty Quarter (al-Rub’ al-Khali), the great South-East Arabian sand desert. Â Before him, Bertram Thomas and Harry St-John Bridger Philby traveled around the edges of that desert, which … Read more
Another desert-bred imported to Algeria in the XIXth century is Ben Chicao. I don’t know his strain or his breeder. He is represented in modern pedigrees through his daughter Addresse (x Pervenche), to whom the stallion Madani (Souci x Sissana by Mossoul)Â has a line in the middle of the pedigree. He was otherwise rarely used. … Read more
Recently, Ambar Diaz started posting photos of some of this blog’s authors and regular contributors mounted on asil Arabian horses, as a way to put names on faces. Here is a photo that reader Predrag Joksimovic sent me of himself, mounted on Mahiba (Shams El Arabi x Mansoura), a very deserty little mare. Mahiba’s sire … Read more
This beautiful mare with big, black, femine eyes is Kokhle, the daughter of two desert-bred horses imported from the Syrian desert to the USA in 1906. Her sire, Hamrah is a Saqlawi al-‘Abd, and her dam, Farha, is a Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah. I know I sound like a broken record, but who said Ma’naghis did not … Read more
Here is a seminal article by Charles Craver advocating for need to breed “Combined Source” bloodlines..
The more I browse through the Al Khamsa Online Roster, the more I realize the importance of the desert-bred mare *Wadduda. She was a chestnut Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd, and was the war-mare of the Bedouin chieftain Hakim Ibn Mhayd of the Fad’aan tribe, before she was imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906.  There is … Read more
As Daughter of the Wind slowly turns into an international virtual community of people involved or interested in preserving the real asil Arabian horse where it can be found, I thought I’d issue this message: By now, many of you who read that blog know which Arabian horses are of interest to this community. These include Arabian … Read more
Teymur Abdelaziz of Germany sent me this photo of the 1993 grey mare Chira (Saymoon x Cylia by Madkour I), a great-great-grand daughter of Nafaa, the desert-bred Kuhaylah mare gifted by Ibn Saud to the king of Egypt in the 1940s. Chira is unique in the sense is that she is the last mare to … Read more
I have read and re-read this article by Michael Bowling time and again.. and always learn something new. The article is about the early stages of Arabian horse breeding in Australia, and focuses on early Crabbet bloodlines. I am always struck by this photo of the magnificent Rafyk (by Azrek x Rose of Sharon by … Read more