There are many ways to judge a horse. Some of the more common considerations include conformation, size, temperament, athletic ability and genetic “potency.” These are normal criteria for evaluating all breeds of horses. However, within the Arabian breed, another criterion takes precedence over all others: pure blood. A pure or asil Arabian horse is defined by its exclusive origin among the Bedouin tribes of Desert Arabia, the creators of the Arabian breed. Bedouins accepted a horse as pure if they had reliable information on its strain, sub-strain and Bedouin breeder. Conversely, Bedouins removed horses from the breed for two distinct reasons: mixed blood and unknown origin. Mixed blood. Bedouins used the term hajin to generally describe any horse that contained non-Arabian blood mixed with Arabian blood. Horses of mixed blood are by definition not pure. Any descendant of a mixed blood horse is also of mixed blood so the status of hajin is not reversible. A hajin horse does not have a strain connecting it to the community of Arabian horses. How do we know a horse has mixed blood? The most obvious way, but not the only way, is that the owner of a horse identifies non-Arabian blood…