Arneb is yet another offspring of the stallion Aslan, and is also the foal of the other earliest German Weil mare that found her way to Chile, Ramdy. Ramdy was born in 1867, her dam also carrying the name Ramdy and her sire being the bay 1851 stallion Tajar (Amurath x Geyran III). Again, we see the foundation elements of Bairactar, Sady III & Hamdany I, Geyran I, and Bournu & Kabron I. This horse’s name, I believe, means ‘hare.’ It was unclear to me whether or not this horse was a mare or stallion, but I believe Arneb is a mare. In ‘El Stud Book del Valparaiso Sporting Club’ (1895) a list of registered Arabian horses contains this gem on pg 85:
This is RASCHID (the “b” is a typo), a grey stallion born in 1894 by Gomuza (Gomussa, Kouch x Naomi) and Kothaf (Aslan x Ablulu). Ablulu was also by Aslan, and her dam was the mare Hazam, one of the original imports from the German Weil along with Aslan and Ramdy (also spelled Randy). All of these horses are very interesting – it can be noted that the Early American Arabian supermare Naomi is felt in Chile through an element that precedes any Huntington or Borden influence, and is one of the stallion Kouch’s very few registered Arabian offspring. Aslan appears to be a desertbred stallion, but Raschid’s tail female line to Hazam contains several generations of Weil breeding, including three crosses to the Or. Ar. stallion Bairactar and three crosses to the Sady III and Or. Ar. Hamdany I mareline. We also see the asil elements of the stallion Bournu, the stallion Dzelaby, and the mare Geyran I. You can view a copy of the pedigree here.
I am posting this on behalf of Miguel, who is quite knowledgeable of the history of the Arabian horse breed in Chile, where he tells me that he believes the Chilean registry is the oldest of all those in South America. The Chilean registry includes Peru, and is said to have begun in in 1872, the details of which you will find below.
Earlier I shared a photo of the Chilean Tahawi stallion, PB Muahjid. I am now sharing a photo of the other Neveen foal in Chile that Miguel Acuña Álvarez has in his program, PB Mushka, who is tail female to the Hamdan Tahawi mare, Folla. This is her with her 1997 grey filly, Nueva Ortigosa Ghezira, by the Chilean National Champion stallion HS Kisra.
Miguel Acuña Álvarez has shared this photo of his foundation stallion, PB MUAHJID [pedigree] by the Ansata-sired Nasani and out of the imported Hamdan Stables mare Neveen, with whom he was with in-utero during her importation to Chile. Neveen’s dam was the 1963 Bint Folla II, and her dam was the Tahawi mare and Hamdan Stables foundation mare, Folla. In the United States this is a rather rare line, as Bint Folla II is only felt through the mare Neveen, and Neveen had but one daughter to carry her line forth, the 1990 grey mare Amira Neveen, by the ubiquitous TheEgyptianPrince. Amira Neveen had several offspring: two stallions, 1996 Amir Farid and the 2010 Amer El Khalid LDV; and four mares, Sulayah LDV, Morocco LDV, X Quisite LDV, and Perla LDV, all bred by La Dulce Vida Arabians / Martha Suarez and born respectively in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2008. So far, it appears that the only one of these 6 offspring to breed forward is Sulayah LVD, who foaled the mare Amira Jewel LDV in 2008, meaning that it’s been a decade since this line last saw a foal on the ground. There’s still time, but this is definitely…
The following photos have been shared with me (and with permission to share) by Virginia Pope, the granddaughter of Arthur Hurn. Among other things, Arthur Hurn was the stud manager for HRH the Prince of Wales (Prince Edward)’s Tor Royal Stud in Dartmoor from the years 1918-1931, meaning he was present when the stallion *Aldebar was born in 1919, and knew/cared for Dwarka up until his death in in 1921 at the advanced age of 29 years old. Virginia Pope has just published a book about her grandfather’s time at Tor Royal, which reportedly includes an account of Dwarka’s journey from the desert to India and then to the UK – which I will hopefully be reading and perhaps obtaining permission to share with the more global audience on DOTW, since the book itself is currently only really available for shipping in the UK (I was very fortunate that Virginia and her assistant were willing to personally work with me to get a copy shipped Stateside.) Until then, these are several pictures of Dwarka’s personal bridle! I may be wrong, but I think this bridle may have come with him from India.
((please click on the photos for larger views!))
For a while now, I have been trying to compile as many first-hand accounts of Arab horses written by eighteenth and nineteenth century European travellers in the Levant, the Middle East, and Arabia as I can, and one of the things that I have found fascinating is the changing of the five strains listed as Al Khamsa over time, with the only constants being the Kuhaylan and the Saqlawi. D’Arvieux’s Voyages dans la Palestine, published in 1717, is one of the earliest European works I have yet found to give an account of Arab horses in their homeland. He talks about the Kehhilan, contrasting it to the “ancienne race” Aatiq and to the Guidich, but does not mention any of the strains, save for Touysse, probably the Tuwaisan, which he gives as the name of a mare belonging to one Abrahim Abou Voüassés. In his Beschreibung von Arabien (1772), Niebuhr gives rather more information on the strains of the Arab horse. Using the term Köchlâni to denote the breed as a whole, he refers to the strains as families, listing the most common strains of each area. Such familiar names as Dsjülfa, Mânaki, Seklaúi, Hamdâni and Daádsjani are listed, along with some rarer strains, such as Sáade, Toreífi and Challaúi –…
Keels Mol gave me this unique photo of *Turfa, likely taken in Jeddah prior to her export to the UK, Ias a royal gift from King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia to King George VI, in return for the hospitality shown his son when the Saudi prince attended the British King’s coronation. I then donated the photo, along with several others, to the Arabian Horse Archives, which published it here in high resolution, with an explanation of its provenance.
The chestnut Arabian mare Kariban, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, was imported from the Middle East by Hernan Ayerza in 1898 for his large El Aduar stud in Argentina. El Aduar can be thought of as the historical equivalent of Crabbet in Latin America. Kariban is the tail female for the mare *Aire. She has a very thin tail female in Al Khamsa, down to a single mare, San Luis Solstice, despite having contributed many important horses to US breeding programs. I had translated Kariban’s hujjah for Al Khamsa Arabians III some twelve years ago, but the fact that the mare is in the pedigree of one of my mares led me to take another look today, which proved fruitful. Here is my translation of the original Arabic document: On the below date, we sold our chestnut mare, the daughter of our burnt bay mare; the mare that was sold, her strain is Saqlawiyat Jadran, she was born with us; her sire is the bay Ma’naqi horse of Shawkat Pasha; her dam is from Bagdad, her origin being from the horses of Ibn Sattam Sha’lan, leader (Amir) of the tribe of the ‘Anazah Arabs. She was born with us, her age is three…
This photo was identified as BINT FEREYHA with an IBN NURA filly. I was hoping that a quick check of the pedigrees would identify her, but such is not the case – the book was published in 1898, and both Ibn Nura fillies out of Bint Fereyha that are listed on Allbreed (I know, not the best of sources) were born within this timeline: the 1893 bay filly FULANA and the 1898 grey filly WUJRA. My guess based on that was that this is Fulana, just because Wujra was born the same year this book was published, but that’s not definitive proof. The only photo I have been able to find of Fulana unfortunately does not show her face very well, so I’m uncertain of the facial markings. That said, Edouard also shared this with me, from the Sheyk Obeyd Studbook: 1897 – WUBBR, chestnut colt that (I believe) eventually went grey, by Ibn Sherara — which brings us to a third possibility. Does anyone else recognize this photo, or the little foal (perhaps as a grown horse?)
Skowronek’s widespread presence in the pedigrees of horses registered as Arabians is arguably the raison d’etre for a number of different preservation initiatives including Al Khamsa, the Asil Club, the Pyramid Society and probably even this blog. Since I was a boy, I had heard about Skowronek and thought his non-Arabian ancestry was common knowledge since the 1940s when my grandfather first learned about it. Attending the 2017 WAHO conference made me realize I was mistaken. Below are a number of viewpoints from people I either personally interacted with or overheard during my trip: Two Arabs friends, from different Middle Eastern countries, who wanted to know what I thought about the whole Skowronek issue. Is he really not Asil? A prominent British breeder who had this to say to me when I mentioned Skowronek and his non-Arabian ancestors: “Oh that’s not proven now is it? It’s just unsubstantiated rumor.” A European breeder conversing at a dinner table: “Oh the DNA shows the Asil horses are all part breds too, so who cares?” A European and an Australian shouting in a bus: “All the evidence has been published on Skowronek over 50 years ago. He has non-Arabian blood in his pedigree”…
Both below are courtesy of The Toronto Star Archives and have been provided by the Special Collections Department of the Toronto Public Library. Either that was a very tall man, or *Aldebar was a rather short horse. Caption: ” PRINCE’S STALLION FOR CANADA. The Prince of Wales’ Arabian stallion Aldebaran, which was shipped on the Canadian Pacific liner “Minnedosa” from Glasgow. The animal will compete at the Canadian National Exhibition at Toronto before going to the Prince’s ranch in Alberta.“
As we broached up the subject of Arabian Horse Archives in a previous entry, I am excited to say that I will be giving annotated, digital copies of my entire collection of photos and negatives, mostly taken in Lebanon and Syria in the 1970s-80s (by my father) to the 90s and 2000s (mostly by me). I encourage those of you who have relevant collections to do the same. I have already donated a never-seen-before image to Turfa taken in her home country, together with the British imports Kasim and Faras, which was given to me by Kees Mol. Below, Mawj al-Rih, a Saqlawi Jadran at the Beirut racetrack in the 1940s. From the book of Ali al-Barazi.
The caption says Rose of Jericho and Dahna. Both mares were bred at the Crabbet Farm and then exported to Australia to live at the Quambi Springs Stud owned by Sir James Penn Boucaut. Rose of Jericho and Dahna, were both in 1891, and had foals on the ground as early as 1893. Dahna had 7 foals by Rafyk – 10 in total – whereas Rose of Jericho had at least 11 foals by Rafyk in her time in Australia – including Bedaween, the “Grand National Champion of Australia,” and his younger brothers, Zubeir and Suleiman – shown below. Zubeir, in particular, was a rather successful sire, breeding not only pure Arabian get but also horses suitable for the colonial life of Australians in the early 20th century. He was purchased by Mr. Warburton of Northern Australia. I was fortunate enough through the power of the internet to have a copy of his stud listing sent to me, which you can see below — It is from Zubeir that we derive the mystery of Minaret. Michael Bowling wrote a wonder article on this a while back, but to rehash: with any familiarity with the story of the Crabbet Stud, you’ll know that for some…
I’m always a little disappointed when people tell me that Arabians cannot jump, despite evidence to the contrary. As Kate likes to put it, they’re unique, and “they trust to the hand of God.” These mares are at the Arab Stud Farm in Needham Market, which is, of course, the farm of the Rev. F. F. Vidal. I’m not surprised that they’re jumping at his farm. Naomi herself was said to be quite a successful hunter in England before being imported overseas to Huntington’s farm – I know I’ve read it in a periodical source somewhere, but the easy example is the Allbreed info citing her as “An exceptional and widely-acclaimed field hunter known for clearing 7-foot fences carrying 196 lbs.” I wonder who these mares are. Michael Bowling suggests that they might be Shiboleth and the Anglo-Arab Trigonia.
Neither of these photos are new, but they are the largest, most complete versions I have seen, extracted from the 1898 reprint of Sarah Buckman-Linard’s book “My Horse; My Love.”