The acquisition of the majority of the horses of Danah Stud of Sh. Rashid bin ‘Isa bin Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifah, son of the late Danah Al Khalifah, marks the beginning of a new venture in the nearly 20-year old trajectory of the Al Arab stud. After a focus on some of the best old American Arabian horse lines, the time has come for me to infuse these with some of the best lines from the Arabian homeland.
I am very proud to announce the acquisition of the black roan stallion Kuheilaan Umm Zorayr Zyad D23. Zyad was bred by the Royal Arabian Studs of Bahrain in 2001 and given to Danah Farms as a foal. Zyad belongs to the extremely rare strain of Kuhaylan Wuld Umm Surayyir that is now unique to the Kindgom of Bahrain. Originally the “house strain” of the Bedouin clan of Ibn Hathleen, leaders of the Ajman Bedouin tribe of East Arabia, it passed to their neighbors the rulers of Bahrain around the turn of the XXth century. The Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM), compiled around 1850, lists at least three stallions from this strain as herd sires, including one acquired by famed Najd ruler Faisal Ibn Turki Al Saud (below my rendering of the strain genealogy based on the APM entry for this strain). In Central and East Arabia in the XIXth century, the mares from this strain were known as the “Duhm” — the black ones — and the stallions as the “Kuhaylans named Dahman” (no relation to the better known Dahman strain), because of their consistently dark color. The foundation mare from that strain in Volume I of the Amiri Studbook…