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,…