A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
I finally found a couple good photos of Marwah, the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Amud. The top photo was taken at the entrance of Basil Jadaan’s old farm. Marwah was sired by the grey Hadban Enzahi of Fazaa al-Hadi al-Jarba, the son of the old bay Hadban Enzahi of Fazaa. Both Hadbans stood in Garhok … Read more
Both taken by an unknown photographer at the old farm of Basil Jadaan. He had a lot of style, and when ridden, he would prance sideways rather than walk straight. Critics would fault his sinuous, snake-like middle of the body, but he did not transmit that.
The more time passes, the more I cherish those precious few horse photos that also happen to show a glimpse of the people around the horses. I used to believe that good horse conformation shots should not show the handler, and certainly not the people in the background. When they did, I would relentlessly crop … Read more
I spent the morning digging through old photos, which also bring back stories. I like this photo so much. It features a Tai Bedouin horse breeder, Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Sulayman al-Rhayyil, putting one of his toddler sons on his Saqlawiyah mares near Al-Qamishli, North Eastern Syria. The photo belongs to the sons, now grown men in … Read more
The first one was taken at the desert festival of Palmyra in the mid-1990s, so before its destruction by ISIS. You can see Mobarak in Bedouin gear, standing by one of the tower tombs (now destroyed), next to a female performer in traditional Bedouin costume. The second photo was taken at Basil’s old farm in … Read more
Christine Emmert is a great photographer of horses. She took this photo of Bonnie Duecker’s Davenport gelding Mai Raisuli (Indie Star x Pretty Fancy by Lysander). You see the resemblance with Anita Westfall’s iconic photo of Lysander (below): the ears, the jaws, the forehead.
They are from Basil Jadaan’s pre-war breeding. I believe, but I am not sure, that the one to the right is Yaqut, a daughter of Marwah, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah. The one to the left would be Bent al-Sham, but I forget who her dam was. Professional photo by Rick Van Lent, for Basil, who gave … Read more
Latif is best known as the sire of Denouste, and as such a premier French racing sireline. I had written about him here, some ten years ago.
The 1987 Hamdani ibn Ghurab Mobarak was Basil Jadaan’s foundation stallion. The photo was taken at Basil’s farm, and first published online by Hazaim Alwair. I first saw Mobarak at the farm of Hisham Ghrayyib in Damascus as a three year old. He had come a few days before from his native Shammar Bedouins, and … Read more
The 1983 stallion Mas-huj stood at the farm of Basil Jadaan near Damascus for one season, when this photo was taken. Basil gave a copy of the photo to Hazaim Alwair who published it online for some time. Mas-huj was from the city of Hama, from an old lineage of Ubayyan Sharrak tracing to the … Read more
At the old farm of Basil Jadaan near Damascus. Note the short back, the strong coupling, the arched neck, and the huge eye. The overall balance. Stare at him: he is a concentrate of Arabness.
The findings of recent genetic research by Dr. Barbara Wallner on the sire lines in Arabian horses is likely to cause a lot of stir in the Arabian horse world, from racing “industry” circles to purist ones. The research points to, among other findings, English Thoroughbred ancestry in the sireline of the Saudi/Qatari stallion Amer. … Read more
A recent entry on this blog witnessed a discussion between two French breeders on the notion of “le sang” as applied to Arabian horses. I would like to come back to it, as I believe it to be fundamental to understanding the kind of Arabian horses this blog advocates. This notion is not well captured … Read more
A thought had in passing the other day: one notices a significant increase in the use by French and other European horsemen of the term “Nedjdi” (among other spellings) in the first decades of the XIXth century, to refer to some Arabian horses. I believe this increase was probably associated with the influx of Bedouin … Read more
Mardschana Bint Mahra traces tail female to the Dahmah Shahwaniyah mare Malacha, foaled at the EAO in 1955, and imported to Germany with her dam Moheba (pedigree here). Moheba, like Marbach’s other EAO Dahmah Shahwaniyah import Nadja, traces tail female to Farida, the 1921 daughter of Nadra El Saghira; Moheba descends from Farida’s daughter Ragia … Read more
The previous post triggered some memories, which I am eager to put in writing so they don’t vanish — especially as my father, now 86, cannot be persuaded to write his memoirs. Starting from the mid-1980s, my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, would regularly take me with him to the Beirut racetrack, l’Hippodrome du Parc de … Read more
Just a note to say that the author of one of the obituaries of Henri Pharaon (1901-1993) in the Independent is wrong about him hailing from a Triestine family. The Pharaons are originally from Damascus, and one of their branches emigrated to Egypt then Trieste, which was then the only outlet of the Habsburg Empire … Read more
A previous entry by Kate McLachlan on the modern descendants of the Weil Stud foundation mare Murana I led me to the family of Cassis-Faraone of Trieste. Murana I was acquired in 1816 by Baron Fechtig for Weil by way of the port of Trieste. Some of Europe’s most illustrious foundation Arabian horses were associated … Read more
In 1955, the filly Nadja was imported to Weil-Marbach alongside Hadban Enzahi. Bred by the EAO, she was a daughter of Nazeer out of the mare Nefisa (pedigree here). The mares in this post all trace to her through her daughters Noha and Nabya, both sired by Hadban Enzahi. Photos shared here by kind permission … Read more
Daughter of the Pharaohs, aka “Pippa”, the 2015 Ma’anqiyah Sbayliyah filly I leased from DeWayne Brown, is confirmed in foal to Tamaam DE for March 2020. I am very much looking forward to this foal, whatever its gender. Terry and Lyman Doyle brought me the good news.
Excerpt from an Art Newspaper article: The Arab Image Foundation, Beirut’s pioneering non-profit archive of Middle Eastern photography, has launched an online platform that makes 22,000 images from the collection accessible and searchable for the first time. The foundation’s building, which has been closed to the public since 2016, will also reopen this summer, a spokesman says. … Read more
Photos shared here by kind permission of Oliver Seitz.