A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Photos by Monica Respet.
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
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: … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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.