This photo comes from L’Algérie Photographiée: Province d’Oran, by Félix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin, taken circa 1856/7.
This has to be the best horse news of the summer. Bev just wrote from Idaho to share the news that DA Ginger Moon (“Ginger”) delivered a healthy filly foal several hours ago, a week or even two before her due date. Four white socks and a winding blaze. Very long ears, fine muzzle. I am elated. Bev’s Subanet Jabbar SDA is the sire. This is his first foal. I am still looking for a name that starts with “K” (cf. her ancestors Kumoniet, Kumence, and Kualoha).
The photo below, shared with the kind permission of Janien Strauss, is of the Kuhaylan al-Mimrah stallion, Sidi Egyptian Nile (Thee Cyclone x Sahiby Juleemah), whose half-siblings have been featured on the blog before. The story of the Kuhaylan al-Mimrah strain in South Africa is already known to most readers of the blog, but here is a quick recap: in the 1940s, Claude Orpen imported three stallions and two mares to South Africa from Egypt. One of these mares was the three-year-old Barakah (Ibn Manial x Gamalat). In South Africa, she produced two foals by her fellow import, the stallion Zahir (Ibn Fayda x Zahra), a colt, Gordonville Ziyadan, and a filly, Gordonville Zahara. Unfortunately, Zahara died young, and Barakah’s next foals were not asil. The Kuhaylan al-Mimrah strain would have died out in asil form, had it not been for the intervention of Dr Valerie Noli-Marais, who acquired the aged Barakah, and the gift of the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisan, by Sheikh Isa bin Sulman Al-Khalifa. Barakah’s last foal, born when the mare was twenty-seven, was, miraculously, a daughter, Sahiby Bint Baraka. Sahiby Bint Baraka had four registered foals, but only one of her two fillies was asil, Sahiby Noura,…
KUHAYLAN AL-WATI OF DIYAB AL-SBEIH: a gray (born black, he later turned dark gray) asil desert-bred stallion; born c. 1977 (certainly after 1975 and before 1980); bred by Fawaz Ibn Ghishm, who is a lesser shaykh of a clan of the Northern Shammar; Strain: Kuhaylan al-Wati of the marbat of Hakim al-Ghishm of the Shammar; one of the sons of Hakem ibn Hsayni ibn Ghishm once told us that the father of their father got this strain from the Anazeh tribe. The Ghishm also mentioned they only bred their horses to each other, and that breeding to an outside horse was an exception. Sire: a desert bred Kuhaylan al-Wati bred by Fawaz ibn Hakem al-Ghishm of the Shammar tribe; Dam: a desert-bred Kuhayla al-Wati also bred by Fawaz ibn Ghishm; Comments: Fawaz gifted the horse, who was between one and a half and three years old to his inlaws al-Sbeih. A sister of Fawaz had married Mohammad, the eldest son of Diyab al-Sbeih. Diyab was a Mukhtar of the Shammar, a non Shaykh notable; Muhammad ibn Diyab al-Sbeih died in the uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood in the beginning of the 1980s). There is some disagreement between the four Ghishm…
One of the five mares brought back to France by the mission of De Saunhac and Chambry of 1902 was the tall bay mare Naeleh, born in 1898. Her photo below is from a 1902 article in French magazine le Sport Universel Illustre, which describes her purchase in Damascus. The caption for the photo in this article says she was sired by a Kuhaylan and out of a Shuwaymah. It could have been the reverse, because the Kuhaylan strain of the sire is in the feminine form (the article spelled it “Kahlaylet”), while the Shuwayman strain of the dam is in the masculine form (“Choueyman”). Naeleh is the maternal granddam of the beautiful Pompadour broodmare Noble Reine, by Dahman, pictured below (photo from the archives of Robert Mauvy, courtesy of Pierre Henri Beillard), and her full sister Ninon, photo further below. Both inheriated the long, horizontal croup of their sire Dahman.
I happened upon two online editions of the French magazine Le Sport Universel Illustre from the year 1902. They feature an extensive and fascinating account, in two parts, of a French government buying mission to the Orient. The mission started in Constantinople, made its way to Beirut by sea, then traveled to Damascus by rail over Mount Lebanon, before returning to Beirut. It then followed the coastline northwards from Beirut all the way to Antioch where it bought several horses, before staying at Aleppo for four days. In Aleppo, it met the military governor Hasan “Mousim” Pasha, and saw his horses. I wonder if he was not the Hasan Tahsin Pasha whom Davenport met four years later. The mission tried to make its way to Deir Ezzor but a rebellion prevented it from reaching the Euphrates, so instead it went from Aleppo southwards towards Maarah, Hama and Homs. From there it went back again to Beirut and from there traveled south to Sidon, Safad, Nablus and Jerusalem. The mission was led by General Inspectors Chambry and de Saunhac, with the veterinary doctor Manoury. It brought back 12 stallions and 5 mares. Among these was the impressive stallion Khouri, sired by…
I am so happy with how true to his origins he has proven to be. One of my favorite arm-chair horse activities has been to trace his pedigree as far back as possible. Photo by Severine Vesco.