It is hard to find more balanced and better conformed desert-bred horses than the 1999 Syrian stallion Jurnass (Ghaseeb x Raya) and his close relative Zayn al-Khayl (Ghaseeb x Raghdanah), both Rabdan by strain. Photo of Jurnass from Facebook, not sure who took it originally.
I just stumbled this AK PTF update from 2013. The early 2010s were a critical time for many of lines, as many breeders/owners were reeling from the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. However, most of these horses went to good breeding homes, and now have descendants. Ten years later, the results are encouraging.
Gleaned off Facebook. By the way, in case I haven’t written this before, I don’t believe these was yet such a thing as an “Arab horse breed” — the term ‘breed’ is a socio-cultural construct — at that early time, but there clearly was an oriental horse, some descendants of which eventually came to form the Arab breed. Notice the long, thick tail and the trimmed mane. The pair does look like my Jamr. Just saying.
Colin Pearson and Kees Mol’s “The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt” has this story, at once beautiful and sad, about the relationship of the Sharif of Mecca (and King of the Hijaz from 1916-1924) Hussein ibn Ali, head of the Hashemite royal family with one of his mares, Zahra. The story is buried in an endnote on page 149: On his abdication in 1924, [King Hussein of Hijaz] went to live in Cyprus and took with him two mares and two stallions. Sir Ronald Storrs, the then British High Commissioner of Cyprus, relates how Zahra “the gentlest and most graceful, would step delicately up the flight of many stairs from the garden and walk without shyness to the Salamlik, to be greeted by cries of “Ahlan”, “Ma Sha Allah”, “Allahu Akbar”, or “Qurribi, ya bint ammi” (“Draw nigh, oh daughter of my paternal uncle”). The king would call her “Qurrat al-Ain” — “cooling of the eyelids” — and offer her dates which she would eat slowly, never failing to eject the stones onto a plate.” But tragedy followed. A groom who had been dismissed took his revenge upon the horses and fatally maimed two of them, including Zahra. King Hussein…
Barakah, who will be eight next year, is turning into a solid mare. She is increasingly looking like her dam, with a deeper girth and the shorter back that her sire Wadd contributed. She is seven months in foal to Monologue CF. Monologue, by the way, is now at a semen collection and freezing facility. Darlene Summers and I are hoping for enough frozen semen to cover ten mares.
He looks better each time I see him, if you can see past the mud and the winter coat. It’s not just his improving condition, but also his reaching maturity stage, at 8 years. He exactly what you would expect from his pedigree, the linebreeding to *Muhaira in particular. I am looking forward to what he produces.
Finally I feel confident about sharing a photo of Madinas Miracle, who arrived last year in poor shape, and has taken a long time to recover. I will try a breeding to Jamr in the spring, after treating her uterine infection. There are a lot of things to like about this mare. First, her origins: she is a direct great-granddaughter of *Muhaira, imported by Dr Esther Ames from Arabia, so she is very close to the desert. She hails from a Central Arabian lineage, of the ‘Ubayyan strain of Prince Ibn Jalawi. Second, she has prominent withers, extending long into her back. That’s a characteristic of good endurance horses. Third, the very deep jowls, a sign of asalah in Arabian horses. Fourth, the very thick tail set, also a sign of authenticity and quality. Fifth, the deep girth and round barrel. There are also things I like less: the short ears (an Arabian mare’s ears must be long); the straight hocks; the small-ish croup and short-ish hip that is typical of the *Muhaira descendants. Nothing that Jamr can’t fix, however, if she were to take. Photo by Monica Respet.
I went up to Pennsylvania with Jenny Krieg to see the horses this past Sunday. Monica Respet and Linda Uhrich met us there. We spent a nice afternoon catching up. All the horses looked great. Jamr in particular looked drop dead gorgeous, muddy winter coat and all. He was let loose in the upper riding paddock and put on a big show. May he and others like him live long and have many foals. I keep saying that — that such horses still exist in the current circumstances is a miracle. Some fifty years ago, speaking of the last asil horses of France, Robert Mauvy was already writing: de bons et beaux chevaux, sans mievrerie romantique — “good and handsome horses, without romantic soppiness”, i.e., nonsense].
This is another video of Rhoufi, the 20 year old stallion I imported to France this past August. I got him from Skander Karoui of Tunisia. Skander, the rider in the video, had found him and bought him from an Italian man, who had obtained him from an equestrian club near Tunis. The horse had gone from one club to the other since the age of three. Rhoufi was one of the last horses bred by Gisela Bergmann. She and her husband were old-time breeders of asil Tunisian lines of the stout, sturdy, endurance type. Their stud in Ghardimaou, on the Tunisian desert border with Algeria, was a destination for European purist breeders looking for the real Arabian horse, a bit like Helga Tahawi’s farm in the Egyptian delta. I will eventually dedicate a separate article to Tunisian asil horses in general and the horses of the Bergmanns in particular. For now, I just want to talk about the reason that led me to acquire him. It has mostly to do with my home country of Lebanon. Rhoufi’s strain is Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz, one of the original Arabian horse strains, and my personal favorite. Rhoufi traces in the dam line to…
الفحل كحيلان العجوز الازرق من خيلي الاسم الغوفي العمر ٢٠ سنة المنشأ تونس يعود اصله الى كحيلة العجوز فرس خليل بك الاسعد من ال علي الصغير زعماء جبل عامل وقاعدتهم بلدة الطيبة في جنوب لبنان اليوم والمعروف عن ال علي الصغير انهم احفاد محمد ابن هزاع السالمي الوائلي احد اعيان عشيرة السوالمة من عنزة اتى من بادية نجد الى جبل عامل في عهد دولة المماليك وساد احفاده على جبل عامل وهناك صلة قرابة بين خليل بك الاسعد ال علي الصغير وبين أعيان قبيلة عنزة عامة والسوالمة والرولا خاصة اصحاب اهم مرابط كحائل العجوز مثل كحيلة الروضان وكحيلة عبهول وكحيلة المعبهل والكحيلة التامرية وغيرها
Above, a famous drawing by French nineteenth century artist Victor Adam. Below, the Kuhaylan Ajuz stallion Rhoufi, my pride and joy, and the lone surviving treasure of the 150 year old Tunisian asil breeding program, bred by Gisela Bergmann in 2003 and photographed in 2023 by Arnault Decroix at his farm in Normandy.