Lyman Doyle sent these photos of this year’s last arrival, another colt and another Ma’naqi Sbayli: Shaman Al Arab (Tamaam DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince) was born two days ago. I am leasing his dam from DeWayne Brown. Shaman, pronounced SHAAH-MAAN, means “the one with a distinctive mark”, shamah. His odd blaze is certainly one. He also takes his name from a handsome Shammar desert-bred stallion in Syria, which I have been coveting for a while. He is the maternal uncle of the young Shaykh Al Arab. I will retain one of the two, not sure which one yet.
Radwan is looking for a new stallion for his growing herd. I advised him to purchase this young Mlayhan stallion, whose sons have been winning races. He is quite small but his origins are top notch. The Tai tribe, the clan of al-Nahhab in particular, have owned a marbat of the Mlayhan strain for a long time. They brought it with them from Iraq a long time ago, maybe two hundred years. His maternal grand-dam was part of the second wave of registrations in Volume 7 of the Syrian studbook. She had several sisters and relatives, but only she was registered. I don’t know if he is a Mlayhan Shahm al-Rass or from another branch. This is the strain of the “parrot-mouthed mare” which Major Roger Upton saw among the Sba’ah Bedouins in 1874, and which Lady Anne Blunt saw again in 1878. Upton and Blunt spelled it “Meleyhan”.