A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
Someone Marie Arthur posted this picture on Facebook of the Kuhaylah Hayifyah Davenport mare EK Asiirah UF (Portico x Astranah by Astrologer) bred by Joyce Gregorian, and it struck me. I really like this mare. I even like her one obvious defect: a shorter and thicker neck, which is/was the case with  many many desert bred … Read more
Much of Arabian horse breeding program in the West follows patterns based on the exclusion or inclusion of specific horses or groups of horses: within the Babson Egyptians, for example you have the non-*Maaroufa, which is a sub-group that excludes lines to this mare. The Babson Egyptians are themselves an artificial sub-group of Egyptians Arabians, … Read more
This is a bottle in the ocean.. about whether anyone knows anything about a 1999 grey Al Khamsa Arabian mare oddly named Kiefer El Sherif (Hadaya Nile Anwar x Sherlaila by Sheriz) tail female to the W.R. Hearst import *Layya, hence an Obayyan by strain. Jenny Krieg — who owns her sister Maraya and Maraya’s … Read more
Have those of you who live in the Mid-West and South of the USA vaccinated your horses against the West Nile virus? Soon I will be needing a vaccine for the East Nile virus, which is a good virus to catch 🙂
This is true and an important point Edouard in looking to the future options of diversity. The Egyptian horse has long benefited from the influence of the Astraled sons: Sotamm (Astraled x Selima), Rustem (Astraled x Ridaa), and Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare) as well as the Berk son Hamran (Berk x Hamasa). All of these … Read more
The Blunt Hamdani Simri stallion Sotamm (Astraled x Selma II) is in every single Egyptian pedigree by now. He is of course the sire of Nazeer‘s maternal grandsire Kazmeen (Sotamm x Kasima). He is also in the n0n-Nazeer’s New Egyptians through El Sareei (Shahloul x Zareefa by Kazmeen), Sid Abouhom (El Deree x Leila out of Bint … Read more
Guillaume Lambert has published excerpts of a precious 1866 letter from Emir Abd al-Qader al-Jazairi to French Army General Eugene Daumas about the asil Arabian Horse and its living conditions of French USCAR website . It is in French but worth translating through Google Translate and reading. Guillaume thinks this letter was probably the last one between the two … Read more
I wrote this entry mostly for myself, for the record: I was finally able to retrace the whereabouts of my mare Jadiba from the time she was born until she ended up in my ownership, thanks to information from Shirin Samiljan, Charlotte Newell, Carrie Slayton, Pam Studebaker and Jill Erisman. — She is registered as … Read more
This is one of my all time favorite Arabian horse photos. The stallion featured in it, the 1971 chestnut Saqlawi Jadran Ibn Tirf (Sutan x Shillala by Gulson), is one that I would have liked to breed myself. Ibn Tirf was owned by the late Joyce Gregorian of Upand Farm, who wrote this beautiful article … Read more
A view of Aleppo taken from it’s citadel by a member of Homer Davenport’s expedition to the Arabian desert in 1906.
I am fascinated with Arabic etymology, and in particular by Arabic words with roots in other languages, as well as by words in other languages with Arabic roots. Here’s a nice blog on the topic. Some entries requires knowledge of the Arabic language but not all.
Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. … Read more
This is Bint Delingat (Delingat x Bint Ammoura), one of the non-registered Tahawi mares that are currently being considered for registration by the EAO in a registry separate from the “Straight Egyptians”. She belongs to Yahia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi, who otherwise owns and breeds a lot of registered Arabian mares of Tahawi backgrounds, tracing in … Read more
Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. … Read more
In the ancestral homeland of the Tahawi clan, looking at old documents, with Mohammed Saoud al-Tahawi in Arab garment and headgear, Yasser Ghanem Barakat in the striped shirt, and Yahia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi on his right.
Also a while ago, Arnaud Decroix from France sent me this photo of the young Shuwayman Fahad, a 2011 Shuwayman Sabbah bred by Jean Claude Rajot by the Syrian desert-bred stallion Mahboob Halab (also a Shuwayman by the way) out of Shueymah Sabbah, herself by the Syrian desert-bred stallion Mokhtar (a Kuhaylan Krush from the … Read more
A while ago, Adrien Deblaise sent me this photo a Jahir daughter, following an online discussion on Jahir himself. Rania El Arba (Jahir x Rial El Arba by Shawani out of Fatija by Fawzan out of M’Rabbia by Saadi out of Hammada) has an interesting pedigree: Hammada was a gift from Admiral Cordonnier’s Tunisian stud … Read more
I like this 2001 picture of the Davenport stallion Telemachus CF (Odysseus x Recherche by Prince Hal). This is the real thing. Everything else, where you detect an inch of artificial features or characteristics, is fake.
A number of rare mares of old American lines have recently been brought to the attention of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task  Force which I part of; the mares’ owners are either looking for people willing to take on preservation projects, or simply asking the task force about the right stallions for their mares; One … Read more