This is a follow on to a previous message about the horses of the Hamidie Society, some of which survive in modern Arabian horse pedigrees (including *Nejdme, *Obeyran, *Mannaky, *Galfia, and the elusive *Pride). The same letter by J.R. Dolbony I discussed in a previous blog post about the stallion *Mannaky is also relevant to the mare *Nejdme. *Nejdme is registered as a Kuhaylah ‘Ajuz, by a Saqlawi Jadran. An article from that time, has the reverse, by a Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz, out of a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah. I personally see the attribution of these two strains to *Nejdme as suspicious, for two reasons: First, these are the run-of-the-mill Arabian horse strains or “brands”. Just like tissue paper is generally associated with “Kleenex”, and photocopy machines with “Xerox”, Arabian horse strains in the late nineteenth century were readily associated with “Saqlawi Jadran” and “Kuhaylan Ajuz”. Second, and that’s personal speculation on my part, I believe the officers of the Hamidie Society were under some expectation to send to the Chicago World Fair horses representative of the five main strains of the Al Khamsa legend, a bit like a car maker would showcase a full array of car types at a car salon: SUVs,…
The new Annotated Quest features a re-edition of Charles Craver’s article “Horses of the White City”, the most comprehensive article to date on the history of the Hamidie importation of Arabian horses to the Chicago World Fair of 1893. The history of the Hamidie horses themselves and that of the people around them is still shrouded with mystery. One of those people is J.R. Dolbony, who was associated with the importation in some way or other (he hailed from the Dalbani Shi’a Muslim family of Baalbeck in Lebanon today). I have found his testimonies about the Hamidie horses very intriguing, and I believe they should be taken seriously. In a letter to Homer Davenport from 1909 now at the US National Archives, Dolbony made several claims: 1) that he raised the Hamidie import *Mannaky; 2) that both *Mannaky’s sire and dam were of the Ma’naqi strain (hence his name); 3) that both were owned by “Sage el Misrub”, and 4) that *Mannaky was bred by this same “Sage el Misrub”. I have just identified this “Sage el Misrub”. He was none other than Sagr al-Misrub (that ‘r’ at the end of his first name must have been mistaken for an…