Photo courtesy of the Facebook Page “The Old Bahrain“. This image is timeless. The buildings, the street, could have looked the same 500, 1000, 2000 years ago. Compare this picture with depictions of ancient Mesopotamian cities based on archaeological evidence.
Photo courtesy of the Facebook Page “The Old Bahrain“. Historians believe that the transformation this part of the world has witnessed over two generations had no precedent in world history.
The photo below, by Sport and Press General Agency, comes from the article, ‘Arab Horse Society’s Endurance Test’, printed in the 7 October 1921 edition of the Live Stock Journal, The original caption reads: Belka, Mr. H. V. M. Clark up, in the concluding stages of the Arab Horse Endurance Test. This was the second of the three endurance tests held by the Arab Horse Society between 1920 and 1922. The first and the third were won by Shahzada (later exported to Australia), while the Crabbet-bred Belka won the 1921 ride, having finished third in the inaugural 1920 ride. The 1920 ride had been 250 miles, but in 1921 the distance was increased to 300 miles, with the horses covering 60 miles a day. Nine horses entered, all of them carrying 13 stone, or 182 lb, at the weigh-in. Six of the entrants were purebred Arabs. The article gives their names, ages, weight, height, owners and riders as below: Mr. H. V. M. Clark’s mare Belka by Rijm out of Bereyda, 9 years, 798 lb. , 14 h. 3 in. (owner).Mr. L. Edmunds’s stallion Shahzada by Mootrub out of Ruth Kezia, 9 years, 777 lb., 15 hands (Mr. Morgan D.…
Also from the Facebook page “The Old Bahrain” this photo labeled: “Arab traders can be seen in a photo taken at the Arabian horse market in Bombay, India, around 1898“ Of course many of the Arab “social media horse sharks” took this photo and reposted it as if it was taken in Cairo. I even fell for it.
DeWayne was at the Doyle ranch this weekend and took photos of two year old Shamsah Al Arab (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere, b. 2023), the dark chestnut one; and long weanling Karma Al Arab (Bashir Al Dirri x Kinza Al Arab, b. 2024), the lighter chestnut one. I am equally pleased with both in general. Good blood does not lie and always delivers, the challenge is to recognize it.
The nice Facebook page “The Old Bahrain” published these photos. The first photo has this legend: 1950s: Sir Charles Belgrave, Advisor to the ruler of Bahrain, astride his Arabian mare Oleander during his daily inspection of the Bahrain’s Police Camel Corps. The second photo has this legend: Sir Charles Belgrave, the advisor to the ruler of Bahrain, taking one of his frequent morning rides in Manama. Volume 1 of the Amiri Arabian Studbook has the following about Oleander: In 1939 a Saqlawieh mare in foal was brought as a gift from King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud to Shaikh Hamed bin Isa. The foal, a filly , later became the personal mount of Sir Charles Belgrave who named it Oleander for her beautiful pink-chestnut coat. Oleander was mated to Speckled Jellaby II and she had a filly, Saqlawieh bint Oleander. Bint Oleander lived to a ripe old age and she had several offspring by the different stallions standing at stud over the years. Two of her fillies are included in the Amiri Stud. This line is now lost per the website of the Royal Stud.
Below is a photo of the grey mare Sabine, foaled in 1900, who is presumably the daughter of two of M. Portalès’ imports. The picture comes from the article, ‘Les chevaux du midi’, printed in the 27 October 1907 Le Sport universel illustré. Mossoul’s entry in volume 11 of the Stud-Book français (1894) says he was out of a Saqlawiyah, and came from the ‘Anazah. Kadidja’s entry, in the same volume, says she was from the Mawali. Her sire was a Kuhaylan al-Kharass and her dam a Saadat; in Edouard’s post on Georges Tabet’s 1937 Ansaab al-Khayl al-Arabiyah the Sa’dan Tuqan, Sa’dan al-Hassun and Sa’dan al-Najr are all three said to be “with the Mawali”. There are photos of Mossoul and Kadidja in two prior posts on imported stallions and mares at Pompadour.
The photos below come from ‘Le haras de Pompadour’, printed in the 14 April 1900 edition of Le Sport universel illustré. Mossoul, an ‘Anazah stallion, imported in 1892. The article has a brief description of Mossoul, praising his forehand, chest and haunches, while casting a critical eye at his top line: Mossoul, de la tribu des Anésés, importé en 1892 par M. Portalès, inspecteur général du 2e arrondissement; cet étalon, auquel on ne peut guère reprocher que son dessus, accuse une très grande noblesse: ses tissus sont très fins, et il est bien fait dans son avant-main, dans sa poitrine et ses hanches. Beni Kaled, imported in 1896. The article names three of the other stallions M. Portalès acquired during his 1896 trip: a black Ubayyan named Moudir, Sham and Mzérib. Moudir and Beni Kaled both stood at Pompadour. In the description of Beni Kaled below, he is praised for his top line, the depth of his chest, his good legs and his remarkable movement, while his forehand shows the “oriental stamp”: Dénotant bien le cachet oriental, dans son avant-main, avec un très bon dessus, de la profondeur de poitrine, des membres de bonne nature, Beni-Kaled remarquable en mouvement, s’affirme…
Notice the intelligent eye, large without being oversized, and the dry and bony face, with flat jowls, not meaty. Also note the very delicately chiseled arch of the throat. All these features are hallmarks of the breed.
The photos and text below come from ‘Le haras de Pompadour’, printed in the 21 April 1900 edition of Le Sport universel illustré. Kadidja, imported in 1892. Malakaa, imported in 1896. El-Zhora, imported in 1896. She was nicknamed The White Pearl with a Black Collar, due to her tattoos. An excerpt from the article follows below, naming the importer, M. Portalès, and the dates of his buying missions. The mares from the 1892 expedition are said to be small in size, with Hamaïda, Zaaleh and Kadidja notable dams of stallions. The mares from the 1896 expedition – Malakaa, El-Zhora and Zibda – are larger. Zibda, described as powerful with good legs, nearly did not make it to France: one of the first horses that M. Portalès purchased on his second trip, he left her in El Ghor while he ventured into the desert, only to find that she had been secreted away in a stable in his absence (pp. 247f.). Les arabes forment deux groupes: les unes venant d’Orient, les autres nées à Pompadour de parents importés.Les orientales ont presque toutes été ramenées par M. Portalès, l’inspecteur général du 2e arrondissement. Harmonieuses dans leur ensemble, puissantes dans leurs hanches, dénotant…
MD Turfairan (“Turf”) left for a new home yesterday. Turf was Jessie Heinrick’s gift to me, in return for my gifting her Wadd Al Arab. I regret that Turf did not have any opportunities at stud in my ownership. He would have nicked especially well with the *Nufoud mares. Despite his short height, he has quality, lots of style, in addition to the old desert type. His new owner will train him under saddle, and will be looking for mares for him. He is not at his best in the video below, likely because his teeth need floating. Video by Lyman Doyle last week.
Karma Al Arab is last year’s filly out of Kinza Al Arab (Subanet Jabbar SDA x DA Ginger Moon), my Saqlawi Marighi mare. She is very balanced, with near perfect conformation. Her sire Bashir Al Dirri is really an outstanding horse. Photos by Lyman Doyle this morning.
My lovely Bassma Al Arab (Jamr Al Arab x Jadah BelloftheBall) is turning four this year. She is growing by leaps and bounds. She is on a temporary lease at Monica Respet’s, who took this nice photo.
My Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah filly Shamsah Al Arab (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere) is now two years old. She is not my favorite by any means, but she’s been improving steadily, and will grow into a solid mare. The ears, muzzel, jowls and loins are all nice. It is too early for the shoulder and the wither to show. The croup is typical of this lineage. Photos by Lyman Doyle at the Doyle ranch in Oregon this past week.
I am now reading a 2002 French-language edition of Count Waclav S. Rzewuski’s manuscript “Sur les Chevaux Orientaux et Provenants [sic] des Races Orientales“. Rzewuski wrote his book sometime after his stay in Arabia from 1818 to 1821, where he lived among the Arabs and bought up to 100 stallions and 35 mares for European royalty and nobility, including for his own stud. One mare he bought for himself is “Mliha”. Below, in italics are some passages where Mliha is mentioned, followed by my own comments: “Mohammed pacha, surnommé Gensh, emir des Metoualis [sic] avait une jument de la race Koheyl Adjouz surnommée Mliha […] Le soldat fut pris avec sa belle Mliha par les Fédaanes, chez qui je la vis et l’achetai.” Here we learn of the mare’s strain: Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz (or a strain derived from it); her name, “Mliha”, which could also be her strain — Mlihan/Mlayhan/Meleyhan. We also learn that Rzewuski got her from the Fad’aan ‘Anazah tribe. “Mliha est la fameuse jument de Mohammed pacha Gensch, émir des Mewalis”. Here we learn of the mare’s original owner, Muhammad al-Kanj (“Gensh”), Amir of the Mawali Bedouin tribe. Unlike all other tribes, which have Shaykhs as leaders, the…
In French first, then Deepl.com’s translation to English: Le défaut de proportions gracieuses de la tête ne fait naitre aucun dégoût chez les Arabes, qui font surtout attention a l’origine du cheval et a ses autres qualités. La tête est en général plutôt petite et décharnée. Une tête un peu plus allongée ne serait considérée ni comme un défaut, ni comme un inconvénient. J’ai même vu des coursiers très estimés, réservés comme étalons dans les tribus, avoir la tête moins élégante que beaucoup d’autres, et même la ganache forte. C’est faire l’éloge de la beauté de la tête que de dire que le cheval pourrait boire dans une tasse a café. The head’s lack of graceful proportions does not give rise to disgust among Arabs, who pay particular attention to the horse’s origin and other qualities. The head is generally rather small and gaunt. A slightly longer head would be considered neither a defect nor a disadvantage. I have even seen highly esteemed steeds, reserved as stallions in tribes, have heads less elegant than many others, and even strong jowls. To say that a horse could drink from a coffee cup is to praise the beauty of the head.
Jeanne Craver shared these really nice and new-to-me (except the bottom one) photos of the mare Dharebah (Dhareb x Antarah by Antez), the cornerstone mare of the 50+ years old Craver Frams breeding program. Please stare at these photos as closely as you can, and try to replicate her features in your breeding programs, whatever lineages you breed.
She was bred to Hamdaany Dafuq. In the background, her full sister Dhahabiah, whose loss two weeks ago was a real blunder.
Google Translate has a very cool feature that allows you to translate text for an image as opposed to a word processing document. I used it to translate the introductory text of George Philippe Tabet’s 1937 booklet “Les Noms de Famille des Chevaux Arabes” — The family names of Arabian Horses. I miniminally edited the output for more clarity. I have been studying the Arabian horse for over twenty-five years, having learned to love it from my early youth. At first, I heard this horse praised as being a Hamdani, that other a Séglawi, etc. I marveled over these titles of nobility, but I understood nothing about them. Later, when I began my first purchases of horses for racing, I was led to delve deeper. I learned, little by little, that some families were more highly regarded than others; but I was most often disappointed when, to learn more, I turned to well-known horse dealers or even illustrious owner friends. Faced with this ignorance, I decided to turn to the very source of Arabian horse breeding; and it was then that I began to understand the reasons for all these names, and what differentiates them from each other. There are…
Yesterday Jens Sannek shared with me a pair of pictures of the absolutely stunning Iranian Asil stallion Barout Lami, a 2017 Wadnan Khursan. This stallion oozes true Arabian type. Compare with Eldar HD, the Hamdani Simri stallion of Davenport bloodlines, at Michael Bowling’s.
The 1919 broodmare Nusara (Abu Zeyd x Noam), a Kuhaylah Da’janiyah, bred by W.R. Brown then sold to W.K. Kellogg, is a very present in pedigrees of Crabbet horses from the Doyle family. I had not seen a photo of her before.
Two photos of Darak upon departure from his old home and arrival to this new one. Top photo by Marion Wassilewski, bottom photo by Jeanne Crousaud. Darak, bred by Danah stud is so rich in the Kuhaylan Jallabi blood, even by Bahraini standards. His sire is Jellaby Radad, his dam’s sire is Jellaby Mojaahid M151, and his granddam’s sire is Jellaby Alasil 274. Also, the maternal grandsire of his sire, Jellaby Kher M45, is a personal favorite. Darak is also notable in that he traces three times and rather closely, to the 1958 stallion Mlolshaan Almarshoosh M37 (photo below). He also traces six times to Hamdaany Riyadh, a gift stallion from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Sh. Mohammed bin Salman Aal Khalifah in the 1960s. Hamdaany Riyadg could have added a second sireline in Bahraini but unfortunately it didn’t happen.
Lyman sent me this photo of Jellaby Maroof M30 from one of the later Bahraini studbooks. My kind of Arabian stallion. Maroof is the maternal brother of Jellaby Radad, who is the sire of my Hamdaany Darak and Lyman’s Hamdaany Daneer. Daneer is coming to the USA.
From Judi Forbis’ Hoofbeats Along the Tigris, her first and in my opinion, best book: The greatest number of horses bred by Arabs [ie, Bedouins] seems to be found in practically a direct line from Mosul to Aleppo and above that area into Turkey along the Turkish-Syrian-Iraq border, where horses are still occasionally used for transportation as well as racing. Among the tribes still inhabiting or migrating in those areas and breeding Arabians are the Northern Shammar, […] Amarat, Fidaan, and others of first and second rank. It was during one of our sojourns in Northern Mesopotamia near the Euphrates River that we located two exceptional stallions bred by the Northern Shammar. We had been traveling in this area while war clouds resulting from the King Feisel II’s and Nuri es Said’s tragic deaths hovered above the borders. After searching for days and finding the usual common animals, we came upon a small well-vegetated village situated amid the hot cheerless waste. Our friend the “Pasha” knew the village and suggested we stop at the local blacksmiths who reputedly owned several good horses. We did, and the animals far exceeded our expectations. The affable mustachioed smithy motioned us to a dimly…
The following are excerpts from a precious article, Introducing the Asil Horse Of Khuzestan, written by the late Mary Gharagozlu and published on the WAHO website. This is one of those rare informative articles that lets Arab voices speak about what features to look for in an Arabian horse. The Bedouin quoted here is a leader from the Aal Kathir, a large branch of the Bani Lam Bedouins settled in Khuzestan (ex-Arabestan) in Southwestern Iran since the 1600s. Mary Gharagozlu (photo below) is the narrator. The foreign words used are in farsi, her native language. Read on, and savor the description of a good horse according to a Bedouin authority, all the way down to what he thinks of the “dish” and the flat croup. There. Sheikh Hajat of the Al Kathir, said to be one of the most authoritative men on the dispersal and fame of the strains of Khuzestan, lived not more than forty kilometers away. It was at the risk of becoming stuck in the mud that we decided to attempt to go to him. We had a fantastic drive which was more like sailing on a sea of mud than driving, but we eventually got there,…
There are a handful breeding programs in the USA that I follow closely, like Carrie Slayton’s in California, and Bev Davison’s in Idaho. They have the same bloodlines as I do, more or less, and we collaborate. Bev now has a few high-percentage Abbas Pasha Saqlawi horses for sale or lease, mostly males and some females. The grey five year colt, SpiritWind AhsahmMoon, is one that caught my eye. The senior stallion Subanet Jabbar SDA is also for sale. He is the sire of my Kinza. He has a nice chestnut 3 year old colt below, SpiritWind Jabani. Jabani is not for sale.
The late Danah Al Khalifa sure knew how to pick stallions for her Sitah-linebred mares. Georgous Rabdaan Muttaawi (Musannaan Al Meemar x Rabda Shaawieh by Burkaan D3) is just one example. He is the sire of the two full sisters Danika and Dhahabiah, bred by Danah. Dhahabiah is the one that died last week, sadly. Photo credit Jehangir Rustomjee, who has all the archives of Bahraini horses.
Bint Mayadah is doing very well for her new/old owner Steffi Weirich, who took the pictures in her pasture. I am very happy that Steffi took her on.
Badia Al Arab (Monologue CF x Barakah Al Arab by Wadd Al Arab), now a yearling, is slowly growing into an excellent filly. Thrilled about her, and sad about her half sister out of Wadha, which I lost a day after birth to an infection. The traditional Arab way of presenting Badia would be: Grey Kuhaylat al-Ajuz filly from the strain that was in the stud of King Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud. Her sire is al-Hamdani, her dam’s sire is al-Haifi, her grandsire is Krushan, her great-grandsire is al-Haifi. Implicitly, all stallions listed are in the maternal line, and all are authentic, so there is no need to delve into their own ancestry, and identification by strain is enough. The fact that they were chosen to reproduce should suffice to authenticate them.