Ibn Ibn Wathnan, original stallion from Qatar
Photographer Irina Filsinger took this nice photo of the stallion Ibn Ibn Wathnan, one of the handful original horses of the state of Qatar. He was registered in Volume 1 of the Qatari studbook. Thanks to Wilton for posting it on social media, where I picked it up.
He looks like the Bahraini royal stud horses and I would not be surprised if he traced to him at least in part
The way the sunlight outlines hip shows that the cradle country Asils did not have FLAT CROUPS!.. I bet he was a great mover.
best
Bruce Peek
Of course you are correct, Bruce. A flat croup would put the whole organism out of balance. Breed standard says “relatively” flat, meaning less sloping than what western breeders were used to.
He is a handsome horse!
The wide blaze and four high white socks is also always of interest to me. I hadn’t thought the Bahraini’s had much white spotting in their horses, but revisiting Jenny Lees and the Doyle albums disabused me of that notion: lots of white noses and white legs.
I clearly haven’t shared enough Mutab photos with you – he’s a chromey boy!
In the January 1980 issue of Arabian Horse World, Margaret Greely wrote an article, pp 416-418, about The Horses of Qatar. She gives a little background on the Al-Thani family. She was invited there, (presumably a year or two before the article) and she comments on some of the desert bred horses she saw, also providing photos. One of them is the stallion Wadnan. She includes a head photo and says: “WADNAN is aged 16 and is a lovely old Qatari chestnut with particularly good limbs. Sired by WADNAM AL-NAIJAH, he is out of RISHA BINT AL-WADNA. Ms. Greely does not comment on this horse’s origin but I wonder if her is the grandsire of the stallion Ibn Ibn Wathnan that you have featured here. Ms. Greely goes on to comment on some other desert breds she saw, one from Beirut, another from Iraq, and also another one, six-year-old chestnut stallion AL-SABEK sired by GOLDEN ARROW and out of KHAILA, who raced well in Beirut, Jordan and Qatar. It is an interesting article if you find it.
Fascinating, Joe. This should be the same Golden Arrow represented in the pedigree of my Kuhaylah Khallawiyah mare.
(excuse my typos above)
Yes Edouard, it would be the same Golden Arrow. The Greely article is not long and and somewhat brief in ancestral detail of horses that were presented to her. I am guessing that her Qatar visit was either 1976 or 1977. I looked up all horses mentioned and/or pictured in the article, in Datasource and in ABPDB. None of the horses pictured in her article can be found.
I only have the Qatar SB volume 5 but it appears that even by 2000-2002 the Diwan Amiri was still breeding some straight desert bred horses from Ibn Ibn Wathnan. I found 4 horses that are grandget, sometimes double grandget of Ibn Ibn Wathnan. In QSB V5, it does give 3 gen pedigrees of these 4. ABPDB shows a daughter of Ibn Ibn Wathnan, Gadrah Al Shaqab, but with an outrageously wrong dam pedigree. Not surprising as that resource so often stumbles when dealing with sorting out ancstors with similar names.
In the QSB V5 it shows the mare Hamdania Al Shaqab #2011 as going through Gadrah Al Shaqab to Al Hamdania, which is probably the same dam of the senior stallion presented in the late 1970s to Ms. Greely.
It would be interesting to track down the rise and fall of this group of original Qatari desert breds and more detail of their first sources, if in fact any still survive somewhere.
Be still my heart. What I would give to have an asil Arabian such as this.