اقول ويلفظها البعض التخيرة بالتاء
.وأضيف الكحيلة الشكيلية هي وكحيلة العشيّر رسن واحد
The mare in the photo below is Al-Qahira, daughter of the mare ‘Abeerah from Edouard’s earlier post, bred and owned by Basil Jadaan. Her sire was Mokhtar. The photo was taken at the Pure Syrian Show in 2008. Picture purchased from In The Focus.
This horse is actually Montezuma (Sir x Tara), a Kuhaylan Hayfi of Davenport lines that was mostly used to produce half-Arabs.
First time I see a photo of this mare. She was beautiful. I wish that her type had prevailed in these *Turfa horses. She was 44% *Turfa.
I usually try to follow these news, but this one escaped me: a cuneiform inscription — 26 lines, the longest discovered in Saudi Arabia so far — along with a stone relief of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, was discovered this past July in the ancient Central Arabian town of Fadak, south of Hail*. So far the best known representation of Nabonidus was in that in Harran Stela (below), which features him along the effigies of the moon-god Sin, the winged sun-god Shamash, and the goddess of Venus, Ishtar. The snake must refer to either Nabu or Marduk. Why Nabonidus (the wikipedia article is good) left his son to co-rule in Babylon and established his residence at Tayma in Central Arabia, remains a matter of debate. Some specialists say he went there to control the South Arabian trade routes, which forked at Taymaa — one road went to Syria and the Mediterranean cost and the other to Mesopotamia. Others say he was exiled there by the religious elite, who did not appreciate his attempts at religious reform, above all how he tried to put the moon god Sin atop the Babylonian pantheon. Soon after his return to Babylon, the elite…
Another rare set of photos, these of the Dahmat ‘Amer mare Ridaab also a the farm of Basil Jad’aan — with a young Basil holding her. She has a nice colt by Marzuk that year. Her sire was the Dahman ‘Amer stationed at the Military Housing in al-Hasakah in North-East Syria, and her dam one of the two Dahmat ‘Amer mares of Khidr al-Dairi of Ma’daan near Day al-Zur. Both sire and dam Dahman ‘Amer, but from different branches, the sire from a Jubur strain, but taken in war by them from the ‘Ajarrash clan of the Shammar ca. 1935, and the dam from a Sba’ah strain. Back in 1992, she was already the last Syrian mare from this precious strain, but her line survives today, thirty years later.
I took these two rare photos of ‘Abeerah, the black Shuwaymat Sabbah at the farm of Basil Jad’aan in 1992. Sired by the dark Ma’naqi Hadraji of the ‘Ufaytan clan of the Shammar, and out of a grey mare by the Saqlawi Jadran of Farhan al-Nayif of the Tai, and out of a black Shuwaymah by the ‘Ubayyan Suhayli of the leader of the Jubur, ‘Abeerah was one of the most beautiful desert-bred mares. She was much prized by Basil, and give him a beautiful black filly by Mokhtar, which he named al-Qahirah. ‘Abeerah traced to the horses of Sfuq al-Rahbi (al-Jarba), who obtained the damline from the leaders of the Bu-Mutaywit (a sub-tribe of the Juhaysh between Sinjar and Tall ‘Afar) who in turn got her (again) from the Jarbah leaders of the Shammar, who owned the strain. ‘Abeerah (alt. spelling Obeirah) was the dam of Khaldee, a horse present in almost every Syrian pedigree today, by the seal brown desert-bred Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan sire al-Asda’ (Khaldee was not by the Hadban Enzahi stallion Burhan, his official pedigree notwithstanding).
I grew up reading Lady Wentworth’s massive book “The Authentic Arabian Horse” as well as Robert Mauvy’s little book “Le Cheval Arabe”. I had a great deal of trust in the first, and the second was bedtime reading for me for many years. Both books featured intriguing mentions of an Arabic legend about “Hoshaba” and “Baz”, a pair of free-roaming wild horses in Yemen that were tamed by Biblical characters of same name (?), becoming the ancestors of today’s Arabian horses. Baz was supposed to be the female progenitor and Hoshaba the male one. The legend, according to both Wentworth and Mauvy, led credence to the belief that the Arabian horse was indigenous to the Arabian peninsula from time immemorial. I remember searching for both characters in the Bible and not finding anything remotely related, but still trusting the authorities’ word on it. A cursory Google search for the “Wild Mare of Baz” shows that, from the “Horse Encyclopedia” and “The Story of America’s Triple Crown” to the “Ultimate Guide to Horse Breeds”, the legend of Hoshaba and Baz is alive and well in recent mainstream equine literature, having spread well beyond Arabian horse books. See here for instance: …
In the French “Journal des Haras” much is said about the French Government missions to purchase Arabian stallions (and sometimes a couple of mares) during the 19th century. Although private initiatives may have occurred before, the first and oldest record I have found so far is the breeding program of Count of Tocqueville, with a strong emphasis on purebred Arabian breeding. The Count of Tocqueville was then owning the castle of Gueures in Normandy (photo above). Besides being involved in his earlier years in Arabian horse breeding, he also held in Gueures, the first racing events that would lead to the famous Dieppe City’s Racing Events in Normandy. The Count owned also talented Thoroughbred horses but he is likely one of the very first horsemen of his area to purposely create a separate breeding program focused on Arabian horses. By the late 1820’s he had managed to secure a group of Arabian mares and stallions. He thought of them as a “superior quality” compared to the oriental ancestors of the English Thoroughbreds and possessed “authentic titles” certifying their origins (probably some hujjaj which are left to be found!). Let me introduce them to you, translating their review in a 1828…
An excerpt by the French Gamont, who was in charge of Mehemet Ali’s stud of Choubra between 1828 and 1842. Google Translate will get you a good translation. Haras d’abas-pacha. — Le haras d’Abas-Pacha est situé dans une plaine de sable, auprès d’Héliopolis. Ce haras est une copie de celui de Choubra. Longtemps, Abas-Pacha a tenu ses chevaux en plein air, au soleil, à la pluie, sans qu’il en résultât d’accidents. Juments et étalons du Nejd; les plus belles variétés. La direction du haras est confiée à un homme de l’Hedjaz. On n’y voit point de maladies de misère, comme morve et farcin. Beaucoup de naissances, mais moins qu’à Choubra. Les poulains sont nourris avec du lait de chamelle et des dattes; Orge concassée; luzerne; paille hachée. Admission de quelques principes mis en pratique par nous. Appareillements comme à Choubra. Bonne tenue des écuries. Poulains en liberté. Pas d’entraves. Très beaux produits. C’est le haras le plus riche de toute l’Egypte, par la qualité très supérieure des étalons et des juments. Cet établissement renferme de cent cinquante à deux cents têtes. Abas Pacha aime extraordinairement les chevaux. De tous les enfants de Méhémet-Ali, c’est lui qui les connaît le mieux.…
Finally, a photo of Shaykh Ahmad al-Taha, leader of the Juhaysh tribe in Northern Iraq. The Juhaysh were a large sheep-herding tribe. The belong to the larger Zabid confederation, which migrated northwards from Yemen to the Euphrates valley some 500 year ago. Only the leaders of the tribe kept horses. The Juhaysh had two main strains: Kuhaylan Da’jani (of which the RAS El Nasser, bred by Ahmad al-Taha, was the best known representative) and Hadban al-Malali. They also had a Dahman ‘Amir strain, which I think they got either from their Shammar or their Jubur neighbours. The leaders of a Juhaysh peasant subtribe, the Bu Mutaywit, owned a strain of Shuwayman Sabbah which is they got from the Jarba Shammar in the early 1900s. This is the strain of the stallion al-Khaldi, who is now in most Syrian pedigrees.
I am sure many of you have alreay seen the piece Yasser Ghanim al-Tahawi recently wrote for the Kuwaiti Bait Al-Arab’s magazine. Yasser has emerged as one of most precise and boldest thought leaders on the subject of the identity of the Arabian horse. Scroll down to the end of the pdf for the piece.
This is Jamr again, in stills. I want to see similarities with the Blunt horses in this 1922 video by British Pathe. Again, I wish the neck was a tad longer; and if he had three more inches to him. Part of it was due to poor nutrition because he was weaned at three months old;
I feel very comfortable with Jamr‘s head, because of the combination of the straight profile, the small muzzle, and the deep jowls. I think one needs to see beyond the flashy, in-your-face, provocative, even disturbing “beauty” of present day heads of Arabian horses of the showring kind, with its exaggerated features. One instead needs to learn to look at the proportions and the interrelation of all the individual elements of the head together. A relaxing sense of harmony needs to prevail, one that draws you in, and makes you want to look longer, and look slower.
In relation to the previous post, I am showing here two screenshots from the book Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition, by Dwight Fletcher Reynolds (Cornell University, 1995). They provide a good introduction to the epic of the Bani Hilal.
On a very old strain, from the Arabic original of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, translation mine: The Gmassah [a branch of the Sba’ah tribe] were asked about the [strain of] ‘Ubayyah of Ibn ‘Alyan, which marbat she is from? The elders of the Sba’ah informed that: ‘She is ‘Ubayyah Huwaynah, [belonging] to [the tribe of] Bani Sakhr; she came to them [i.e. to Bani Sakhr] in ancient times; when they [the Sba’ah elders] asked about her, they found out that she was from an ancient marbat, and is to be mated, so they started mating her; it is said that she belonged to Bani Hilal; the Qudat [a branch of the Bani Sakhr] took her in war [qila’ah] from under the Sultan Hasan [the leader of the Bani Hilal] when the Bani Hilal went westards [gharrabu, i.e. to North Africa].‘ Some context here: The tumultuous XIth century migration of the Bani Hilal and other tribes from Arabia to North Africa, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the defining moments in Egyptian and North African history. The historical events were described by XIVth century historian Ibn Khaldun. The saga of their migration was transmitted in verse by…
The following are excerpts from the RAS Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk’s book “A Journey to Arabia”, pertaining to his visit to Eastern Arabia in 1936: [King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia] gave me two recommendations, one to H.H. Prince Seoud Ibn Galawi, Ruler of El-Ehsa […]. The well known hospitality of H.M. The King and his Governors in Arabia was evident in H.H. Prince Ibn Galawi. In the Prince’s stables, near his private palace, I saw about 80 horses. These I believe ar the most pedigreed in Arabia owing to their concentration in a limited spot and the conseuqent exclusion of any outside blood. Nevertheless, I do not consider them bedouin bred horses but stable bred like those in Egypt […]. Photographs and descriptions of some of these horses follow. Among the stallions he noted, there were three of the ‘Ubayyan strain, two bays (one dark) and a chestnut; he also noted two ‘Ubayyan bay colts; two ‘Ubayyah mares, one a safra (light grey) the other a hamra (bay). Other strains he saw horses from include Krayaan (which he wrote was a branch of the Krush), Harqan, Krush, Musinn, and Kuhaylan (no details), and Hamdani. Mabrouk also noted the horses markings,…
A mes lecteurs francais: je vous conseille vivement ce livre, auquel j’ai eu le plaisir de contribuer il y a quelques annees: Homer Davenport’s Quest of the Arabian Horse. Les images sont superbes et les annotations tres documentees.
I bought AAS Nelyo last July from Edie Booth as a potential outcross for my horses down the line. He is a ‘Ubayyan, from the line of *Mahraa, a 1943 mare of the horses of Sa’ud ibn ‘Abd Allah Ibn Jalawi Aal Saud, the governor of the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. I think the full strain is ‘Ubayyan al-Suyayfi, a branch of Ubayyan Hunaydees, which is itself among the best of branches of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, but I can’t prove it yet. AAS Nelyo, who is six years old, is closely linebred to a few of the early horses imported from Saudi Arabia, including close crosses *Taamri (9 crosses), *Rudann (8 crosses), *Munifan (8 crosses), *Munifeh (8 crosses), and Muhaira, his female line (7 crosses). He was being training for endurance racing. He is very different in type, temperament and coat color from anything else I have seen before. He is registered as bay, but he looks to me like he could be a seal brown or a dark shade of chestnut.
Barakah is now 5. I think she may have more growing (and widening) to do. She is 95% Davenport (four generations of Davenport stallions on top) but she looks nothing like full-Davenport horses. She is leggier, and differently balanced, with flatter bone. She has her sire’s drooping quarter (when moving this does not show). Pity she did not inherit her dam’s beautiful level croup, highly set tail, extra-long ears or blood mark. There may also be a looser coupling than either sire or dam, and I am not sure where that came from, or if it’s here to stay. Still, she has her sire’s deep girth and his broad chest. Overall, her build is an improvement over her dam’s, and I believe the line is now ready to be crossed with Monologue CF, who will bring extra balance. Like her dam, she has a lot of style, and a “dry”, “deserty” look.
Wadhah is now 11, and looks truly magnificent. She is in foal to Monologue CF, and due in mid-May for her first foal. She really looks like the Thadrian daughter that she is. She has fully transitioned from the zarqa (darker, blue-grey) to the safra (light grey, almost white, with yellowish mane and tail) shade of grey. That’s when you wish you had brushed her before the photoshoot.
I am about to state the obvious about horses that combine different, well-established bloodlines: sometimes they look like horses of one bloodline, and sometimes like horses of the other bloodline, depending on the angle, the stage of growth, the light, etc. Jamr, who is roughly half Davenport, half Doyle (i.e., Blunt), sometimes reminds of me his sire Vice Regent CF, like in the picture below; at other times, he reminds me of his paternal grandsire Regency CF (but he’s not nearly as good); and yet at other times, he looks like his material grandsire Dib, a Crabbet/Doyle horse. Vice Regent has a longer neck; his son has a better coupling, and longer hip (at least in this picture of Vice Regent, I have never seen him in real life). Both are smooth-bodied. The heads also look the same, with the small muzzle and the deep jowls. Vice-Regent’s eye is larger, but I think it’s because the muscles around the eyes, including those of the eyelids, are stronger and more dense in Doyle horses than in Davenports.