Some thoughts about the strain of the desert-bred horses *Munifan and *Munifeh

The account of the visit of Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian RAS to Prince Saud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi (or Jluwi), Governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in 1936 can also be used to shed some light on the desert-bred stallion *Munifan. The same reasoning used in the recent blog entry about *Al Hamdaniah also applies to *Munifan. *Munifan was also born in 1940, four years after Mabrouk’s visit. He was gifted to George O’Brien by Ibn Jalawi, and imported in 1947 to the USA by O’Brien. His Saudi export document indicates that he was by an ‘Ubayyan out of a Kuhaylah. His sire could be any of the five Ubayyan horses Dr. Mabrouk saw on his visit two Ibn Jalawi: a 7 year old bay stallion, an 11 year old dark bay stallion, a 7 year old chestnut stallion himself sired by a chestnut ‘Ubayyan stallion, and two bay colts, both sired by a bay ‘Ubayyan, likely the first one on this list, who appears to have been the head sire. Dr Mabrouk’s list of the mares he saw at Ibn Jalawi includes several mares of strains typically classified as branches of the generic Kuhaylan strain.…