None of the three mares bred this year are in foal. Ginger came back in heat first and Bev bred her back to her stallion. Then Wadha turned not to be in foal to the Bahraini stallion of Jenny Lees, and that was a big disappointment after (or perhaps because of) all the work at the vet hospital, and she should have been back in heat but she is not. Not sure what’s going on there. And now Pippa has come back in heat, not in foal to Tamaam. Lyman Doyle is going to be try a breeding to Kashgar again (photo below, from Lyman). I wish that could work, because I like him a lot. If that does not work, I asked Lyman if he could try Buckner (photo below, also from Lyman), who has had a foal before. Buckner is an out-cross of sorts within the Doyle herd, as he brings in two close crosses to Greggan, two rare crosses to Subani, that cross to Serg, and that rare tail male to Ibn Gulribbon. I really need to learn why mares are such infertile animals. Or it’s just mine.
This has been simmering for some time. Photos of saluki Amira Khalid El Taif fFrom Gail Goodman’s collection.
This article appeared in the Khamsat Magazine issue in tribute to Charles Craver. I first met Charles (and Jeanne) in December 2000, when I took the train from Chicago where I was studying. It was a memorable visit, and we spent hours talking in their kitchen and looking at horses and old documents. Upon my return, Charles told a person whose identity escapes me now that “I had liked a very different set of horses than the ones other visitors typically liked.” This was true for the most part, because in addition to perennial favorites Pirouette CF and Wisteria CF, several Davenport broodmares with straighter profiles, less classical heads, and less round, more sloped hindquarters had caught my eye, and I had commented favorably about them. They were built like tanks, with deep girths, broad rib cages and high withers. I cannot recall their names today, but all were very reminiscent of mares of desert-bred stock I had known and liked in Syria and Lebanon while growing up there in the 1980s. These Davenport mares were “diamonds in the rough”, and it’s that unadulterated, un-sculpted, pristine quality that attracted me to them. The overwhelming majority of desert-bred mares and mares…
Through Pienaar Du Plessis in South Africa come these photos of the asil 1994 Kuhaylan Mimrah stallion Kibriya Nishkur (Sidi Abu Khai x Sidi Mabruka by Raafek), a sire of endurance winners in this country, with an improbable nine crosses to Morafic, and two close crosses to the 1955 Bahraini stallion Tuwaisaan of Valerie Noli-Marais. This horse is a case study in the change a small infusion of desert blood can do to Egyptian lines. Notice the big flat bone, and the muscle neck, the high withers and muscular croup characteristic of the Bahraini horses and of the old Kuhaylan Mimrah line of Barakah from Manial stables. Most Egyptian horses with nine crosses to Morafic don’t look so masculine.
Together with Aleppo, Sanaa in Yemen and Fes in Morocco, my favorite ancient city. Then come Florence, Budapest, Rome, Paris, Vienna. Here the suq of Midhat Pasha. Photos from the Library of Congress.
Photo gleaned on an online discussion where Lyman Doyle was asking about feedback on his Tamaam’s straight profile. Call this creature whatever you want, a snake, a seahorse, a mutant, “living art”, but not an Arab horse. This has gone too far.
Ginger — with Bev Davison in Idaho — was bred to Bev’s stallion Subanet Jabbar SDA (photo below), a Saqlawi with a high percentage Crabbet and Abbas Pasha blood, with close crosses to personal favorites like the Doyle stallions Parnell and Subani, and the dark bay Babson stallion Saafaddan. That was close to three weeks ago. Time for a pregnancy check. Below: Saafaddan, with Walter Shimanski.
Wadha was bred last week to the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais (photo below), from the breeding of Jenny Lees in the UK. I am looking forward to this cold outcross, the first ever of a Bahraini horse to a mare of old Syria (i.e. Davenport) lines. I hope it works, because Wadha was still showing fluid in her uterus as of yesterday.
Today Rosemary Doyle bred for me the Managhi mare Daughter of the Pharaohs (aka “Pippa”), which I leased from DeWayne Brown, to the Doyle stallion Tamaam DE (photo below, by Carver DE out of Maloof Habiba), who of 100% old Crabbet lines. Fingers crossed for a healthy foal in 2019.