Month: September 2019

For those who haven’t seen it, since Jeanne was mentioning it.

Also from Ibn al-Kalbi’s Book of Horses, my translation: David, the Prophet of God, was very fond of horses. He could not hear of a horse cited for his bloodline (‘irq), its authenticity (‘itq), it’s beauty (husn) or its speed (jari) without sending for it, until he gathered a thousand horses. There were none other on earth at the time. When God called David back [to him], Solomon inherited his kingdom and his inheritance. He sat in his father’s seat and said: “David did not bequeath me an asset I like better than these horses”. He trained them and served them. Note the order of the qualities David was said to be seeking.

I always found this story very touching. It is related in Hisham Ibn al-Kalbi’s book of horses, one of the earliest such compilations by Muslim authors: We were by the coastline; a stallion was brought to be bred to his mother; he refused. So they brought her into a house, threw a cover the door, and put a blanket on her. When he was done covering her, he smelled the scent of his mother. He put his teeth on the root (asl) of his male organ, cut it off and died. The story was related by al-Awza’i to Abu Yusuf to Ibn al-Kalbi.

From Jeanne Craver comes this photo of the Davenport mare Adorned (Prince Hal x Moth by Tripoli), with the reference to the earlier discussion on pronounced white markings.

This is Royal Court Jester. He is not an Arabian horse (no panic yet). He carries less than 0.2 percent pinto blood from a single cross at the 10th generation. The remaining 99.8 is general list Arab blood. Tobiano is a dominant gene, so at least one parent need to carry it. I wonder, through, whether this is the same gene as that responsible for extra white markings? My question reflects my ignorance of equine genetics.

I am looking up the horses Kate mentioned in the previous entry. Below is Fenwick Orion, another 100% Crabbet of Australian lines. His markings are quite striking. They are so unusual that one is tempted to look for non-Arabian blood (of which there is a little, way back), and attribute his coat color pattern to it. I think one should instead look for the resurgence of markings that were more familiar in the past, but have been bred out. Arabic books on horses from 1200 years ago mentioned such markings and colors in great detail. While it remains unclear whether their authors were referring to Arab horses only, the sheer number of Arabic terms used to describe these unusual coat color patterns is in itself evidence of the familiary of ancient native speakers of Arabic with such horses with such markings. This one is FV Aul Rabba, who is CMK with a majority of Crabbet lines.

Very interesting white markings on this 100% Crabbet stallion (with multiple lines to Skowronek and Dargee) and a tail female line to the Kuhaylat al-Krush desert-bred mare Dafina. The VIIIth century CE Arabic horse books (kutub al-khayl) describe such markings at length. There must have been more Arab horses with such markings in the past, before these were bred out, and it’s interesting to see them pop out again in a pedigree like this one. Some eleven years ago, the late Joe Achcar posted the photo below, showing a similarily marked stallion of Syrian and Egyptian bloodlines.

Much ink has been spilled on this subject, and I guess the short answer to the question is that one can say both. “Arabian” refers to “Arabia” the land, like “English” does to “England”. When one says “Arabian horse”, they link the horse to “Arabia” the land. When one says “Arab horse”, they link the horse to the “Arab” people. “Arabia” the land and “Arab” the people are related, because “Arabia” is how the Romans called the “lands of the Arabs”. The term was carried over from Latin to other European languages. So you’d think that the difference does not really matter, because both “Arabian horse” (the horse of/from the “land of the Arabs”) and “Arab horse” (the horse of/from the Arabs”) eventually go back to “Arab” in the end. But “Arabia” and “Arab” are not exclusively related: not all the people who ever inhabited (or still inhabit) Arabia were (are) Arab. Persians, Hebrews and Ethiopians did live there too. So did a lot of non-Arab ancient people who were native to Arabia. Of these, the Sabaeans of Queen of Sheba fame are the best known today. Personally, I would go for “Arab horse”, although I have used both terms…

A nice photo of the 1896 Hamidie mare Zitra (Mannaky x Galfia), a Hamdaniyah Simriyah. She has this “upper class” look for an Arab horse. This is the tail female to Antan, Regency CF and other greats at Craver Farms. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Craver.

*Werdi was one of the Davenport imports. I may have identified the owner of her dam, as mentioned in her hujjah, but I am awaiting confirmation from sources in Hamah. Here is the available information meanwhile: It can be inferred from *Werdi’s hujjah that her dam was the “grey mare of Faris Agha al-Turkmani of the people of Hamah“. This gives out the owner’s first name (Faris), his title (Agha), his ethnic origin (Turkmen), the city he was from (Hamah in central Syria, south of Aleppo), and the approximate date he lived (1893). A quick internet search with the keywords “Faris + Agha + Hamah” in Arabic yielded a Faris Agha Tayfur who fit all five criteria above. This was encouraging because I already knew that the Tayfur were one of Hamah’s most prominent families. I met several horse breeders from this family in Hamah in the late 1980s . Gertrude Bell, on page 224 of her book “The Desert and the Sown” (I downloaded a free online copy here) mentioned the Tayfur among Hamah’s four prominent families along with the Barazi, the Azem and the Kaylani (who held the position of Naqib al-Ashraaf in the city). The Tayfur are…

*Werdi was one of the mares imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. Her hujjah (certificate of authenticity) is particular among the hujaj of the Davenport imports in that its front side is for a bay mare that is *Werdi’s close relative, most probably her sister, but not *Werdi herself. The hujjah belongs to a bay or dark brown mare without markings, purchased by a man from Aleppo. This bay mare’s sire is a Ma’naqi Sbayli, the horse of “Nawras Effendi the Naqib of Ma’arrah which is a dependency of the vilayet of Aleppo“. Her dam is the “grey mare of Faris Agha al-Turkmani of the people of Hamah“. The bay/brown mare is a Kuhaylah Krush to be mated. I did a little bit of research on Nawras Effendi. He turned out to be a prominent man in the town of Ma’arrah. Perhaps he was the most prominent person in the city. Ma’arrah is a large, ancient, historical town south-west of Aleppo. It suffered a lot in the Syrian civil war. The “Naqib”, short for “Naqib al-Ashraaf”, is the head of the congregation of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, the Ashraaf (in the plural, the singular is…

This is the third time I come across the name of this Damascene horse owner in primary sources about horses exported to the West. He amazingly connects together three Western horse figures: Wilfrid Blunt (concerning Saladin), Homer Davenport (concerning *Simri), and Khalil Bistany (concerning *Al-Mashoor). Check this out: From Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence, October 6, 1911   “Fauzan brought to Mutlak who brought it to me the answer from his Damascus friend Said Abu Dahab about the horse (Mr. Learrmouth’s purchase then nearly two years ago). It was bred in the village of Jerud (near Damascus) and bought from [the] Juardly [ie, a man of Jerud] who bred it by Musa el Seyyid, they telling him it was Hamdani — no mention of Simri. That was what had been ascertained. A quite different story to that of the “pure as milk on a dark night” pedigree.”   From the hujjah of *Al-Mashoor: And the sire of that horse is the Hamdani Semri of the well-known Musa al-Sayyid Abu Hamdi from the neighborhood of al-Midan Bab Musalla” From the hujjah of the Davenport import *Simri, purchased in Damascus: His sire is Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, of the horses of Sa’id Agha [hard to read, most probably al-Daquri,…

I also read “the Horse” by Al-Asma’i today. I came across this mention: It was mentioned that Hisham [the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik, died in 743 CE] said: “I desire to see al-Dhaa’id [a horse] defeated. So they brought him a birdhawn of the Berbers [birdhawn barbari], called al-Mukatib, after a disease had weakened the legs of al-Dhaa’id, who had been undefeated for twenty years. He put them together […]. They tied and he [al-Mukatib] did not outdistance him at all. We have here an indication that by ca. 740 CE, the horses of the Berbers, however fast they were, were considered birdhawn. These would be the ancestors of today’s Barb horse. The Barb is the historical horse of the Berbers.

Today I read Hisham Ibn al-Kalbi’s (d. 819 CE) “Horse Lineages in the Jahiliyyah and Islam” from cover to cover. It is a a quick read, and the earliest of the Arabic books on horses. I was looking for specific things, but I found this fascinating story, about a specific horse named al-Dubayb. My translation: Al-Dubayb: the horse of Hassaan ibn Hanzhalah al-Taa’i. He carried Khosrow Anushirvan [on his back] when he [i.e., Khosrow] was defeated by Bahram Chobin, so he [i.e., Khosrow] survived. And there was a long story about him. So Hassaan ibn Hanzhalah recited: “I avoided Khosrow being trounced; I was not going // to leave him looking for a horse on foot! I offered him the chest of al-Dubayb // as the mare of the Turks and Kabul went off” Khorsow’s birdhawn had reared and thrown him. When his reign stabilized, Hassaan came to see him [i.e., see Khosrow], and he [i.e., Khosrow] granted him the district [tassuj] of Khutarnia. This amazing story relates how Hassaan ibn Hanzhalah, an Arab knight from the tribe of Tay in the army of Sassanian Persian King Khorsow, saved the king in battle by putting him on his horse and…

Muhammad Othman Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi, also known as El Tahawy Saoud, is a folk historian of the first order, a preservationist extraordinaire and the guardian of this tribe’s heritage and history. With yours truly at my house in Cairo in 2014. How I miss those Cairo evenings, the endless conversations, the taste of sugarcane juice, and the smell of nightblooming jasmine from the garden outside.

It is so nice to see Hazaim Alwair’s Davenport breeding program grow. His two Hayfi mares Provance CF (Triermain CF x Anjou CF) and Confetti CF (Triermain CF x Domina CF) produced beautiful colts by Gilaad Ibn Dubloon (Dubloon CF x Genuine Tes by Tesio CF) in 2018. They are Jabal Alasil to the right, and Sakhr Alasil to the left, both in the Core Haifi group. There is a third colt, by Gilaad out of Una CF, who is apparently the best of the three.

This beautiful, well balanced mare is now with Michael Bowling. If I am not mistaken, Valse Triste TW carries the highest concentration of Tripoli blood in a living Davenport Arabian. She is by Trilogy (by Prince Hal who was by Tripoli out of Trill by Tripoli out of Moth by Tripoli) out of a Brigantine daughter (Tripoli x Portia by Tripoli) who was by Sir (a Tripoli son).

In the name of God the Most Merciful and Compassionate City of Riyadh Region of Najd Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 11 Rabi’ the second 1378 corresponding to 25 October 1958 I, Mutlaq al-‘Atawi, supervisor of the royal horse stables of his Highness King Saud ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, declare that the following testimony is correct: The filly “Halwaaji”, characterized by the following: The color of her body is red [“ahmar”], and her tail and mane are “red”, she has a big white blaze on her forehead, her upper and lower lips are white on their right side, and dark on their left side, she has a bunch of white hair on her neck, under the left side of her mane more specifically, she has an irregular string of white hair on the back side of her neck, her left hind left leg has a white stocking with a white hoof; as to her other hoofs they are dark, and on her left upper hind leg she has three white spots of white hair; she also has a three small white dots on her upper front legs; She was born in the stables of his Majesty’s horses in Khafs Daghrah in the…

There has been a lot of speculation about the sire of the desert-bred Davenport import *Mowarda, in particular whether he was the horse that was imported to the USA by one of Davenport’s companions and later registered as *Abbeian 111. The Arabic language famously lacks the verb “to be”. Phrases like “the dog is big” and “the big dog” are harder to differentiate than in English. The presence or absence on the definite article “al-” in the ajective is the way they can be differentiated. This is how it works: al-kalb al-ahmar, literally “the dog the red” means “the red dog”. al-kalb ahmar, literally “the dog red”, means “the dog is red”. Accordingly, the hujjah of *Mowarda would read as follows: Wa-inna umma al-hisani al-madhkuri tushabba wa-abuha al-hayfi; wa abu al-hisani al-madhkuri al-mawjudi bi-yadi al-mushari ilayhi ubayyan sharrak Note the bold “al-” for now. Literally: And mother of the horse the referenced to be mated [feminine] and father of her the Hayfi. And father of the horse the referenced the present in the hand of the aforementioned Ubayyan Sharrak. The ajective “referenced” modifies “horse” (*Mowarda, age and coat color described earlier in the hujjah) in the first sentence. It does…

She is growing by leaps and bounds, and has filled up. I like the dark skin around the muzzle, and the long ears, and the setting of the neck. I would like to calculate the percentage of Crabbet and Abbas Pasha blood there (Gulida, Ghadaf, Rabanna, Bint Serra, Bint Rissala, Bint Durra, Kazmeen, Nusi, etc). She certainly looks like a Crabbet filly of the old type. I always wanted a filly from the Rabanna line. Here she is.

Bev’s mare GulastrasSpirit SDA had a beautiful filly by Sierre Cheyenne four days ago. I just love these horses. So much style, such true old type. Photos by owner Bev Davison.

This post continues the series on the Nasiri book. In an earlier post, I had referred to the ten groups of horses featured in one of the sections: that from Hijaz, Najd, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, North Africa, etc. They were generally classified by region, and called ansaab, which translates as “lineages”. I speculated about whether these lineages were “Arab”, since we now know that the Nasiri book featured at least one mention of “asil Arab” horses in 1333 CE. Another book written at the about the same time as the Nasiri book provides a clue. It is a book about horses, called “Kitaab al-Aqwal al-Kaafiyah wa-al-usul al-Shaafiyah fi al-Khayl“. It was written by the Rasulid king of Yemen, Ali ibn Dawud ibn Yusuf ibn Rasul, who reigned between 1322 and 1363 CE, his capital at the splendid Yemeni city of Ta’izz. Passages about a horse plague indicate the book was written some time after 1327-1328 CE. No English translation exists as far as I know. An Arabic edition from 1987 was published by the University of Qatar. I just ordered it. Meanwhile, we will have to make do with excerpts from a French translation by N. Perron, published…

This son of the Doyle stallion Tamaam DE and the rare Sarita Bint Raj does not cease to amaze me. Look at the withers-shoulder-neck complex! Photos by Lyman Doyle. Pippa is the mare in the bottom.

This black mare, of the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain tracing to Haidee, is the maternal grandmother of my SS Shadows Aana. Her formidable build, her high withers and her very deep girth, are some of the reasons I like this line so much. Mares like her can be the cornerstone of an entire breeding program.

Ma shaa Allah, as we say in Arabic. At 27 years old, Popinjay (Banter CF x Persimmon by Brimstone) just looks glorious. Photo by his owner Maria Wallis.

[Updated on September 12, 2019] I just happened upon an online copy of an animal dictionary from the XIVth century, “Hayat al-Haywan al-Kubra” (“The Great Life of Animals”). It is by a Cairene author, Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Musa ibn ‘Ali al-Dumayri (1341-1405). It defines several horse-related terms like hisan, khayl, and faras. I realized that the Arabic word khayl does not seem to have a direct equivalent in English. It does mean a “group of horses” considered collectively, just like the English word “people” means a group of human beings, considered collectively. Compare “a horse” with “a human being”, the plural “horses” with “human beings”, and you will realize that there is no single horse term that is the equivalent of “people”. Khayl is such a term in Arabic. So here is my translation of excerpts from the work of al-Dumayri: al-hisan: the male one of the khayl (al-dhakar min al-khayl) al-khayl: a group of horses (jamaa’at afraass), it has no singular, like “people” (al-qawm). It is in the feminine; the plural [of the plural] is khuyul. al-faras: a single one of the khayl (waahid al-khayl); the plural is afraass. Faras is equally used for the male and the…

[Edited September 1, 2019, with new sections translated] From the Nasiri book: The breeding of horses (al-khuyul) is divided into three parts: one is the breeding of Arab horses (al-khuyul al-‘arabiyyyat); the second is the breeding of the hamaaliij and countrybreds (al-biqaa’iyyat); the third is the breeding of donkeys and Armenian mules. In this chapter, we describe the breeding of the Arab ones (al-‘Arabiyyat); the others will be mentioned later, in due course, if God Most High is willing. As to the breeding of Arab horses (al-khuyul al-‘arabiyyat), it is said that the horses fit for breeding are […] and fast, and are not […], because these defects, when present in the fathers, are passed on to the sons. If the stallion were from a good origin (asil), and suffered from a blemish like being hairless, or one-eyed, or amputated, these are not passed on. It was said, in a proverb of the Arabs: “Look for the qualities in the stallion, and let go of the rest all you want”, because (dawaab, plural of daabbah) take after their fathers more than they resemble their mothers. It is preferred that one stallion (fahl) be assigned for every ten broomares (hajurah) [a…