This is another photo of the “Black Lady”, about which I had written before, here. I took this photo in 1999 or in 2000 in the countryside outside Aleppo. She is one of my two or three favorite Syrian mares. She is a Kuhaylat al-Krush from the breeding of ‘Atallah al-Nassar al-Jarba of the Northern Shammar. The latter got the strain from his cousin Mayzar al-Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba (ca. 1960s), whose family had it from Muhammad ibn Rashid of Hail (ca. 1880s) who in turn had it from the Sheykhs of the Mutayr tribe. After the Ottomans quelled the rebellion of the Northern Shammar and hung their leader ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba on a bridge in Mossul in 1875, ‘Amsheh, the mother of ‘Abd al-Karim (and the daughter of the Sheykh of the Tai) fled with her younger son Faris and sought refuge with Muhammad ibn Rashid, the leader of the Southern Shammar in Hail. When peace was made with the Ottomans, she and her son returned to their tribe, and a Kuhaylat al-Krush from the horses of Ibn Rashid came with them.
Another set of old photos I just scanned today features the Syrian desert bred mare Ghallaieh at the farm of Radwan Shabareq north of Aleppo, near the town of ‘Azaz. She was old and lame (you can see the broken front leg) and rather plain in the head, but what a grand and powerful mare she was. I took the first photo in 1998. My father took the second photo in 1996, and you can see a youthful me (the hair!) holding her halter. She was a bay Kuhaylat al-Krush from the breeding of Rakan al-Nuri al-Mashal Basha al-Jarba, from the leading family of the Shammar. Mashal was the son of the famous Faris al-Jarba. The strain reached this family of the Jarba Shammar Sheykhs from their maternal uncles the Sheikh of the Tai Farhan al-Abd al-Rahman sometime in the 1950s or even 1960s. From here, there are two stories. One story is that the Sheykhs of the Tai obtained it from the Shammar who had it since the time of ‘Amsheh and Ibn Rashid (see next blog entry on the black mare). Another story is that Tai got the strain from the Fadaan. Ghallaieh was the daughter of a…