The gorgeous Monologue CF (Rispote CF x Soliloquy CF by Regency CF), a Hamdani Simri stallion tracing to the Hamidie Hippodrome Society mare Galfia. He was bred by Craver Farms, and now stands at stud at Pamela Klein’s in Virgina. Some of you thought he looked like the Syrian mare Hijab, featured below. Huge eyes, like his three-times great-grandsire Ibn Alamein, whom I saw at age 32.
A nice photo of a son of two desert-bred imports. Letan is by *Muson, a Kuhalyan al-Musinn of the Ruwalah, out of *Jedah, a Hamdaniyah Simriyah of the marbat of Ibn Ghurab. Both *Muson and *Jedah were imported from Northern Arabia by Homer Davenport in 1906. My Wisteria has 25 crosses to him, and her daughter Wadhah 37 crosses. Now compare him with another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab, Mobarak born some 80 years later, at the stud of Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Dar’an Ibn Ghurab of the Shammar Bedouins, and notice the similar body structures:
It’s all in the title. Mokhtar is the black desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion bred by the Shammar, and has been a recent fixture on this blog.. His owner Chantal Chekroun says that professionally frozen semen will be available for him this coming September, to respond to international demand. The horse is turning 24 next year, so the clock is ticking.. Soon, with Bedouins becoming sedentary and more integrated in the global economy, the notion of a desert-bred horse born under a tent will itself come to and end. Below is a photo of one of Mokhtar’s sons in France, the stallion Quarzai, who recently earned third place at a 90 miles endurance race.
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…
This is not so good photo of what is certainly a very nice colt. This young fellow was bred by Pam Baker of South Carolina. He is the result of breeding the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Salil Ibn Iliad, who traces in tail female to the mare *Nufoud of the Saudi royal stables, to the mare Atah Saqlawiyah, actually a Hamdaniyah by strain, tracing back to *Galfia of the Hamidie Society importation of the USA in 1893. Salil Ibn Iliad, one of the few asil stallions in the USA not to carry Blunt bloodlines, is owned by Lesley Detweiler and is standing at stud at Pam Baker’s. Atah Saqlawiyah was bred by Jackson Hensley of New Mexico and carries a rare line to the precious Saqlawi al-Abd stallion Zarlan (Mistlany x Zarieha by Kahar), a product of Jane Ott’s Blue List program. This colt, which is in my eyes illustrates Combined Source – for lack of a better term – breeding at its best, is looking for a new home.
The Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse recently set up a preservation program for the rare and valuable lines of Al Khamsa Arabian horses in danger of extinction. The program encourages breeders who happen to own horses from such lines and who are not in a position to either sustain these horses or otherwise breed them within the group of Arabian horses recognized as Al Khamsa, to donate or lease the horses to the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse. The Institute then endeavors to breed these horses and eventually place them or their offspring in a preservation program. So far two mares from the rare and precious Hamdani Simri strain tracing to the desert-bred mare *Samirah of royal House of Saud breeding have been placed in this program. These are ASF Ubeidiya (ASF Ezra x ASF Eudia by ASF David) and her daughter Jadah Kerasun (by ASF Raphael). Both mares carry rare lines to early Al Khamsa Foundation Horses such as *El Bulad, *Nufoud, *Nedjran, *Farha as well as some of the very last lines to other Foundation Horses such as Mameluke, Kesia I and Kesia II. Anita Enander, who is the Institute’s President has more about this program, which…
This is AAS Dahmah Sawanah (DB Shahhat x DB Jasidah by Desert Jalam), a 1999 chestnut Dahmah Shahwaniyah bred by Edie Booth of Antique Arabian Stud, of Canton, Texas, who sent me the photo. She had a colt this year by the Hamdani stallion AAS Al Sakb. She is the sister of the mare of reader Regina from the Netherlands, which was featured on this blog earlier. The strain comes from Bahrain through the mare *Sawannah.
Reader Diane, from Australia, on the quest for standardized perfection and the resulting uniformity of type in Arabian breeding today, had this precious comment, in one of the recent threads on this site: Western people, it appears, have a problem accepting an individual [Arabian horse] that isn’t quite absolute PERFECTION. This is what the Standard is advocating. The individual asil is not necessarily perfection in itself but is perfect for what it should be able to do per its original parameters / breeder/user requirements. Who are we, as westerners, to change this? Westerners need to learn that it’s not about perfection but what is functional.
Reader Chantal Chekroun of France just sent me these recent photos of her desert-bred stallion Mokhtar (Awaad x Doumah), a 1987 black Kuhaylan al-Krush from the Shammar tribe in north-eastern Syria. This venerable horse has been regularly featured on this website, and for good reason. He is the epitomy of asil. Mokhtar is a Kuhaylan al-Krush, tracing to the marbat of the Sheykh Mayzar Abdul al-Muhsin al-Jarba, Shaykh of the Northern Shammar. This precious marbat goes back to the ‘white Krush’ of the leading Dawish clan of the Mutayr Bedouins, who are the most famous custodians of the strain. Mokhtar was bred by Ayadah al-Khalaf, known as al-Qartah, who took control of the marbat from Mayzar’s family, and bred the Krush horses to each other for two or three generations. Syrian breeder Basil Jadaan of Damascus acquired Mokhtar as a yearling in the late 1980s, and later bought his sire Awaad and his double grand-dam Mumtazah both in extreme old age. Mukhtar was a leading sire at Jadaan Arabians for several years, producing a number of influential sons and daughters such as Al-Qaherah, a black Shuwaymat Sabbah mare and the founder of a dynasty at Basil’s; Hayel, a black Saqlawi…
Earlier this month, this little website reached it’s 50,000th unique visitor and hit the milestone 1,000,000 clicks a few days later, over the 30 months of its short life. In terms of comparative rankings, Daughters of the Wind now ranks in the top 250,000 websites in the USA, and in the top one million websites worldwide, up from somewhere in the top 22 millions when it first started. Its readership grew by 360% over the last three months, and now averages 500 daily unique visitors . Not bad for a start-up, solely focused on such a specific and tiny segment of interest: animals, not any animals, horses, not any horses, arabians, not any arabians, asil arabians, not any asil arabians, rare and little known lines. You can check these stats by visiting websites like alexa.com, which rank other websites in terms of traffic. Just write daughterofthewind.org in the Search box.
One more issue of Joe’s inisghftul articles about Egyptian foundation horses in the Arabian Essence magazine, this time about the matriarch El Dahma of Ali Pasha Sharif, her ever growing worldwide influence through some of her most famous descendents. Joe, in the spirit of discussing your article here, I am intrigued about your statement on ”the rule book standard of an ideal Arabian horse”. I am sure you are not talking about how you personally view these horses, but rather about how the lay Western eye tends to see them — and in that case, indeed I would entirely agree with you. It is thrice disheartening to realize that (a) that such a rule book standard even exists in the Western eye; (b) that a single group of horses — the descendents of El Dahma — is generally perceived as embodying it ; (c) to see the extent to which the Western eye has succeeded in defining what an Arabian horse ‘ought to’ look like. In the 1980s, the late Edward Said, of Columbia University, and one of the most influential Arab intellectuals of his generation, developed the concept of “Orientalism’: a theoretical construct with practical applications, referring to the West’s produding its own knowledge about the…
You really need to visit this website: http://www.akhalteke.info/. I am serious. Start with the introduction, and go through the history and purity chapters, then the rest. The ‘politics’ chapter is also interesting. It has nothing to do with Arabians, but is instead about this famous other eastern horse, the Akhal Teke. Except that, unlike most websites on the Akhal Teke, it methodically and relentlessly deconstructs all the myths and folklore surrounding the origins of the Akhal Teke (e.g. that it is the oldest ‘pure’ breed in the world, that it is the horse of the Scythian tribes of 3000 B.C., that is was kept unmixed with foreign blood in remote desert areas, etc, etc). It tells you the REAL story of the breed, about how the breed was managed (or rather, mismanaged) by the Soviets, who cross-bred it with English Thoroughbreds, and kept valuables lines outside the formal Akhal Teke Studbook. It puts informed criticism and hard facts before romanticized mythology and brand marketing. It is simply impressive. It’s the most impressive bofy of information I have ever come across online, all horse breeds considered.
There is a new blog dedicated to the “Syrian Arabian Horses: Past, Present and Bright Future”, which Hazaim al-Wair started last month, with input from noted breeder and desert horse advocate Basil Jadaan and others from the Syrian Arab Horse Association. This is a really promising endeavour, as Hazaim is thoughful and knowledgeable about the Syrian horses and Syrian breeders, with whom he keeps in close touch, from his current home in Britain. Be sure to follow it as it takes off. Unfortunately, photos are copyright-blocked so you can’t download them..
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…
Yesterday, I posted the photo of the beautful Bint Turfara (Sirecho x Turfara by Fadl). Below is the photo of another foundation mare of the BLUE STAR program, her 1961 half sister Bint Muhaira (Sirecho x *Muhaira by Old Hamdani), a ‘Ubayyah. She was bred by the Searle Stud. Her dam *Muhaira (Old Hamdani x *Mahraa) was bred in Saudi Arabia, by an expat lady, Esther Ames, from two horses from the stud of Prince Sa’ud ibn ‘Abd Allah Ibn Jalawi, Governor of the oil rich province of al-Hasa in Saudi Arabia. *Muhaira and her dam *Mahraa were imported to the USA by Mrs. Ames. *Muhaira’s sire, the Old Hamdani (born around 1938), was presented by Ibn Jalawi to Mr. Thomas C. Barger, then CEO of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO, the state-owned national oil company of Saudi Arabia, renamed Saudi Aramco in 1988). Old Hamdani was apparently also imported to the USA, but he was never registered in this country. He was featured on this blog early on, here. As an aside: The stud of Prince Saud Ibn Jalawi (alternative spelling: Jiluwi) was really part of the group of studs of the House of Saud, not only because of the frequent exchanges of…
The beautiful chestnut mare Bint Turfara (Sirecho x Turfara by *Fadl), a Kuhaylah, is pictured below. By the way, and just to set the record straight, the strain of “‘Ubayyan al-Hurmah” , which Carl Raswan ascribes to *Turfa (and her sire) simply does not exist. There are about four dozens different strains of ‘Ubayyan, which I will list on this blog some day, and none of these is “Ubayyan al-Hurmah” (H-U-R-M-A-H). There is, however, a ‘Ubayyan strain known as “Ubayyat al-Hamrah” (H-A-M-R-A-H), the ‘red’ or ‘bay’ Ubayyat. This was the strain of *Turfa’s sire, according to her Arab Horse Society Stud Book Vol. 6 (1944) entry. Note the different orders of the letters M and R in the two words (H-U-R-M-A-H) and (H-A-M-R-A-H), and the different vowels A and U. These two words are not the same. There is also a town in Saudi Arabia by the name of al-Khurmah (K-H-U-R-M-A-H), where one of the studs of the House of Saud was located. *Turfa came from that stud, and her Arab Horse Society Stud Book Vol. 6 (1944) entry mentions her as a Kuhaylah, from this Saud stud located in al-Khurmah, an oasis between the Hijaz and Najd regions. No “substrain” is assigned to her, and we’ll just have to live with…
The 1987 black mare Cealie (Haziz Halim x Bint Alliette, by *Adhem out of Alliette, by Hallanny Mistanny out of *Lebnaniah) is the last asil descendent of the mare *Lebnaniah, a grey Ma’naghiyah imported from Lebanon by W.R. Hearst to the USA in 1947. The Arab Horse Association Datasource shows Cealie as being last owned by John and Sharon Campbell Bower of 8042 Rivergreen Dr. Everta, California 95626, who have since moved elsewhere. Cealie produced a gelding with a Polish “Arabian” in 1998, and might still be alive. If so, she would be 23. She was bred by Dr. Richard J. or Arlene Kuhn 26969 Ladera St. Redlands, CA 92373, who also bred and owned the 1987 stallion Aliziz (by Haziz Halim out a full sister of Bint Alliette). Below is a photo of Haziz Halim (*Ansata Ibn Halima x Serenity Shahrabi, by Serenity Osiris), the sire of both Cealie and Aliziz, Haziz Halim, was bred by Dr. Gradin, or Corvallis, Oregon. If anyone knows how to locate these two couples of breeders as well as Cealie and Aliziz, please get in touch with me: ealdahdah@hotmail.com. There is an ongoing effort to submit *Lebnaniah for inclusion in the Al Khamsa…
This is just a quick note to acknowledge all the private email messages that I have been getting from many readers over the past couple weeks, without having had the chance to respond them. I am getting anywhere between 10 to 12 emails from readers every day, most of which are solid and substantive, and hence require a good deal of thinking. I apologize for not having replied to many of these recently, as it is crunch time at work, and my horse ‘focus time’ will be limited until June 30th.
The word ‘kadish’ (feminine kadishah, plural kudsh) is one you will hear often if you become involved in Arabian horses in their native land, the Middle East. I for one, encountered it very early on in my life. I would be on a visit to a horse farm with my father, and we’d be looking at the mare herd that was roaming freely in large enclosed courtyards or open pastures, and learning about their elaborate origins and pedigrees (‘this one is a Saqlawiyah from this tribe, this one a Hamdaniyah from that clan’, and so on), when a wretched-looking horse typically kept in a separate enclosure would draw my attention, perhaps exactly because he was being left apart: ‘And what about this one?’ I would naively ask our host. “Oh, this one is just a kadish, we use him to pull the cart”, would be the usual answer, often uttered in a dismissive tone, as if discussing the ‘kadish’ further was a distraction from the more interesting conversation about the other horses. The less people talked about these ‘kadish’, the more the curiosity of the ten year old I was back then was aroused. On the way back from these visits, I…
One topic that keeps popping up on this blog is the culturally-rooted Arab notion of authenticity and purity in Arabian horses: the notion of an ‘asil’ Arabian. I have been trying to look at this notion from a number of different lenses, and have written about it on several occasions (click here for one such instance). I find myself continuing to grapple with this notion and my thinking about it keeps evolving. One way to understand this notion of an asil Arabian is to look at some of conceptually related notions, in particular the notions of ‘hajin’ and ‘kadish’. This entry focuses on ‘hajin’, and leaves the altogether different notion of ‘kadish’ for a later time. Understanding what ‘hajin’ means may help to better understand the notion of asil. So what’s a ‘hajin’ horse, according to Bedouins and other Middle Eastern Arabs involved in Arabian horse breeding? Simply put, a hajin (pronounce it hah-JEEN) is a horse of foreign, non-Arab blood, such as the English Thoroughbred, Kurdish, Turkmen or Barb horses. There is also an Arabic verb for this notion of hajin: Hajjana. ‘Hajjana al-khayl’, when speaking of a person, is the deliberate act of mixing or interbreeding one’s asil…
Yesterday, I received one of the first 50 copies of the late French “Master-Breeder” Robert Mauvy’s “Doctrine d’Elevage” (his ‘Approach to Breeding’), which has just been published by the “Union pour la Sauvegarde du Cheval Arabe – USCAR”, at long last. USCAR is one of France’s preservationist organizations, which Mauvy helped found. I want to thank Louis Bauduin and Jean-Claude Rajot for sending me a copy of this precious document, which outlines and explicates Mauvy’s approach to breeding Arabian horses outside of their native homeland. Here’s a quote: “Toute selection ou amelioration chevaline doit se faire du Sud vers le Nord mais jamais a l’inverse” In English: “Every attempt at improvement or selection must take place from the South to the North, not visa versa” Further explanation may be needed: in Mauvy’s parlance, the South is the cradle of the breed, Arabia Deserta, and, to a lesser extent, Egypt and North Africa, the latter being a French dominated region where the climate and the soil are very similar to the horse-breeding areas of Arabia. The North is Europe (which on a map, lies to the North of Arabia, Egypt and North Africa). What Mauvy meant is that Arabian horse-breeding in…
Jackson Hensley, of Bedouin Arabians Farm, in New Mexico, just sent me pictures of the latest addition to his stud; Sabella Al Krush, an asil Kuhaylat al-Krush filly, tracing in tail female to the mare *Werdi imported from Syria to USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. *Werdi hails from the Krush marbat of the Fad’aan Bedouins. As an aside, the famous stallion Krush Halba, the foundation sire for the Turkish Arabian horse breeding program, hailed from the same Fad’aan marbat as *Werdi. Krush Halba was one of the most prepotent sires of racehorses of his time. He was active in the northern Lebanese town of Halba in the 1920s and 30s, and was purchased in 1933 by a Turkish Government Commission and exported to Turkey where he was known as Baba Kurus. Check out his hujjah here (scroll down to Appendix B). One of Krush Halba’s sons, the grey stallion Kroush (actually a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq by strain) was bought from the Beirut racetrack in 1936 by Dr. Mabrouk of the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS), and was used by the RAS for breeding . Kroush appears in the Egyptian “RAS History” studbook (EAO Vol 1) on page 48. He had three registered offspring in Egypt: the stallion Tamie (1937) out of Nagiya; the mare Bushra…
This pretty little girl, born on May 5th, at Royal Blue Arabians in New Jersey, is the latest addition to Terri Somers’ asil Ma’naqi program. She is by RB Bellagio out of CSA Jerusha (Mahtar x Dan El-Hosanna by RG Joshua, a mare of predominantly Egyptian lines, except for the Ma’naqi tail female to Drissula). This new filly, yet to be named, already has an older full sister, GTS Al Mas Hura.
My father is here in the USA, visiting with me. We often get the chance to reminisce about the hundred or so horses he bred or owned when he was actively breeding, but also about those he was never to obtain, for one reason or another. Laila (photo below, which my father took) is one of these. Laila was a ‘Ubbayyah Sharrakiyah, bred a small ‘Anazah Bedouin clan from an area in southern Syria. Somehow, her and her dam had found their way to Damascus in the early 1980s, where their new owner was breeding them to English Thoroughbred stallions to produce part-bred Arabs for the racetrack of Beirut, Lebanon. I will always remember seeing Laila’s black son, al-Adham, and her brother, Nashwan, both partbreds with 50% English Thoroughbred blood, on Sunday afternoons at the Beirut racetrack (it was the early 1990s), their tail held high in the air as they raced toward the finish line, looking distinctivly prettier than all the other partbreds in lot. In the picture below, she is pictured with a foal by the part-bred Arabian stallion al-Mustaqbal. In the early 1990s, as Syria joined the World Arabian Horse Organization, Laila’s owners switched to the breeding of asil Arabians, which was rapidly becoming…