Khalid Rakhlani runs a beautiful page on Facebook, called Arabian Horses in Syria. It features numerous photos of Arabian horses of 100% Syrian stock, registered in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook. This morning’s photo of the stallion Barazan caught my eye. He represents a type of desert horse that is rapidly disappearing: small, yet well built, with this wild animal quality to him. His sire Odeilan, a seal brown Ubayyan Suhayli, was very small, but this was from malnutrition. Barazan is jet black without white markings, in the pure tradition of old Saqlawi Marzaqani stallions. In the 1950s, the Maraziq Bedouins who have owned the strain since the 1850s stood a famous stallion called the “Black Marzaqani”, who sired the famous race winner Mawj al-Athir (who was also his brother, the black Marzaqani having bred his own dam as a young colt). Later in the 1970s, the daughter and wife and mother of Tai leaders, Anud al-Nayif also stood a black Saqlawi Marzaqani stallion — the “horse of al-‘Anud”. Below, an early photo of his maternal grand-dam Tairah when she was still in the Syrian desert, with her Bedouin owner Sabah Munawikh al-Uthman of the al-Luhaib clan of the Shammar.…
There was another important aspect of my recent series of conversations with Abu Tamer, Hammad Jaddu’ al-Jaz’aa, the venerable Tai Bedouin owner of a hundred year old marbat of Saqlawi Jadran Arabian horses known as the Saqlawiyyat of Dari al-Mahmud (or Saqlawiyyat Dariyyat as they have been calling them these days). It relates to the stallions him, his brothers and their father Jaddu’ al-Jaz’ah before them used to breed to their mares. He mentioned them using the following desert-bred stallions over the decades: The grey Kuhaylan Krush of Juhayyhim al-Mitkhan of the Tai, a horse Juhayyim got from the Shammar Jarba (early 1980s and 1970s) The black Kuhaylan Haifi of Juhhayim al-Mitkhan, a horse of Tai lineage (early 1970s and 1960s) The stallion of Muhammad al-Fajri of the Shammar, a Saqlawi Shaifi of the strain of Ibn Bisra (1970s) The fleebitten grey stallion of Bunyan al-Mujwil (al-Jarba), named “al-Sarukh”, a Saqlawi Shaifi of the strain of Ibn Bisra, born with the Jawwlah of Tai, but originally of Shammar stock (early 1970s and 1960s) The chestnut Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan of Bardan ibn Jlaidan of the Shammar (early 1970s and 1960s) The second horse of ‘Ebbo al-Humayyid, a bay Saqlawi Jadran of…