Last week, my beloved 28 year old Ma’naqi Sbayli mare, Dakhala Sahra, was put down. She had a stroke, which had left her moving in circles from point A to point B, instead of straight lines. I saw footage of this, which I will not share here out of deference for her. I had never seen anything like this before. The story of this mare is one of missed opportunities, since I first tried breeding her in 2010. With her breeder Jeanne Craver, and former owner Kathy Busch, we tried everything: ET, AI, live cover after treating her uterus cysts. Nothing worked. I feel guilty because the Ohio vet I chose for her ET was incompetent and inexperienced. I felt I had a window there. She is one of very few asil mares left with a tail female to Haidee of Captain Roger Upton (I have serious issues with those that trace to *Bint Shams in the middle of the pedigree, by the way), and has the most beautiful pedigree of all the mare I have owned. Imagine this: a daughter of Plantagenet, who is a grand-daughter of Sir (Tripoli x Dharebah), a great-grand-daughter of Julyan (Julep x Bint Maaroufa),…
Perhaps I should not be doing that, but I am posting a list of potentially surviving Tiaret lines in a Word document. There are less than a handful potentially left, as John was writing earlier. If someone finds a way to get hold of one, let me know. I will jump on the next flight to Algiers. Let me know if you can open it. Legend: in bold: stallions, underlined: potentially alive.