Jeannie Lieb recently provided an update on social media on the Davenport Hadban horses that she helped put in Al Khamsa preservation homes in 2010. Quoting her: Updated March 2024: 1998gg RL Thunder Cloud (DDA Tyreb CF x DDA Hadba) Owner: Kathryn Toth, OH 2003gm RL Shelby Girl (RL Thunder Cloud x DDA Shalaana) Owner: Jessie Heinrick, OR 2011gm Wordah CW(RL Thunder Cloud x RL Shelby Girl) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2013gs Zubayr CW (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Shelby Girl) Owner: Karlee Mason, Alberta Canada 2006cm RL Bilquis (DDA Rasan x RL Boomerette) Owner Jeannie Lieb, MA 2013cm Suri Al Sahra (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Bilquis) Owner: KathyWerking, KY 2010bm Zuraidah Assahara (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Kadbat Abril) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2018bm Free Reins Tahir’s Lotus (pending)(Wahid CW x Zuraidah Assahara) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2010cm Zubaidah Assahara (Rl Thunder Cloud x R L Angel Girl) Owner: Hazaim Alwair, NC 2020bs Nawaf Alasil
These two figures from the seminal paper Remer et al, 2022 on Y-DNA in Arabian horses will become the subject of much attention in the coming years.
Severine Vesco and I were doing some background work on the Tunisian sire lines today. We found that the Volume IV of the Tunisian Studbook (1977-8-9) had the strains of the horses assigned in the good-old-fashioned European way… by using the strain of the tail male ancestor. The stallion Rial, for instance, was given the strain of “Seglaoui” while he was actually a Jilfan Dhawi, because his dam traces to Wadha. Rial goes back to the Tahawi-bred stallion Nasr in the sire line (Rial-Esmet Ali-Hazil-Fadjer-Nasr), and Nasr was a Saqlawi or “Seglaoui”, hence the mistake. Similarly, the stallion Soufyan, was given the strain “Hamadani El-Samri”. That’s the strain of the desert-bred stallion in his sire line, a horse called Dynamite II. Dynamite II was himself recorded as being “de race Hamdani Semri”. The error becomes even more conspicuous when you notice that Soufyan and Sibawaih, the stallion right above him on the screenshot above, are assinged the same strain while tracing to two different dam lines, one to Mansourah, and the other to Emtayra. Finally, the strain of the fourth stallion on the screenshot, Raoui, a head sire at the government stud, is listed as Hamdani. However, Raoui’s tail female…
This morning my neurons’s synapses made a long-overdue connection concerning the strain of the 1899 grey desert-bed stallion Ibrahim, who was famous for siring Skowronek. Ibrahim’s recorded strain is “Saklawi Faliti” (cf. the comprehensive list of sources of information on him on allbreedpedigree.com). There has been much speculation about this Faliti qualifier, some of it involving a fake pedigree of Skowronek drawn by Lady Wentworth (but that’s not the point of this article). This morning it occurred to me that the Faliti were none other but the leading clan of the Frijah section of the Ruwalah Bedouin tribe (see here for example, spelled Fliti). That Ibrahim was a Saqlawi by strain makes this inference very plausible. That’s because the Frijah were the wellspring of the Saqlawi Jadran and Saqlawi Ubayran strains, as shown in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. The Qidran (or Gidran, hence Jidran and Jadran) are one of the ten or so subsections of the Frijah. The Ubayrat are another section of the Frijah. One of the many, many Saqlawi mares Abbas Pasha acquired from the Frijah was known by his agents as the “Mare of Yahya al-Faliti”, after the Bedouin leader of the Frijah Ruwalah (cf. the Abbas Pasha…
The striking1985 chestnut Kuhaylan al-Ajuz stallion Samir (Sibawaih x Chajaret Eddour by Esmet Ali) was the other chief sire at the government stud of Sidi Thabet, together with Dynamite III. I saw him at Sidi Thabet in 2005. He reminded me of Regency CF at the time. Photo from the social media account of the Tunisian national federation of horse breeders.
For a long time there was a shadow hanging over the lineage of the senior Tunisian stallion Dynamite III (Esmet Ali x Nachoua by Madani), photo below. He and his many sons (Akermi, Safouen, Bardo, Halim, Touwayssane, etc), were accomplished racehorses of the first order and sires of racehorses in Tunisia and beyond. They were so fast, won so many races, were so powerfully built that some doubted their origins and felt that there must be some English Thoroughbred blood in their male line. As part of a broader project on sire lines, some of us — names are withheld for now — decided to compare the racing sire line of Dynamite III with the non-racing, preservation-focused, sire line of Jahir (Iricho x Ciada by Ghalbane OA and Malika by Masbout OA and Themis by Bango OA), photo below. On paper, the two lines are closely related. Dynamite III was the son of Esmet Ali (bred by Admiral Cordonnier), son of Hazil, son of Fadjer, son of the famous RAS stallion Nasr of the Tahawis). Jahir was the son of Iricho (bred by the same Admiral Cordonnier), son of David, son of Hazil, son of Fadjer, son of Nasr. So…
This iconic photo of the 1967 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres), taken by Anita Westfall, was republished on Facebook recently, and received many “likes” and nostalgic recollections. The late Charles Craver holding the bridle.
لاحظ حجم واستدارة الحنك ودقة الخشوم ورقتها وهي من صفات العتق في الخيل ولهذه الصفات تأثير مباشر على شكل الرأس فيصير مثلثًا وهذا مستحب أما الرأس المستطيل فهو مستقبح لما يدل عليه ضمنًا من ضعف الحنك أو غلاظة الخشوم أو الاثنين معًا
This blog entry features a conversation that recently took place on Facebook between two friends of mine, both bold and provovative thinkers (and doers). Yassine Jamali is a farmer and occasional horse and dog breeder who lives in Morocco. He recently authored an important book on the past, present and future of Barb horses. Severine Vesco is part of the Beni Sakr breeding program in France, which breeds solid, authentic Arabian horses of North African lines for utilitarian purposes. Her stud is one of the very few to have incorporated the bloodlines of the Syrian imports to France. They are both active on Facebook, where they often engage in substantive debates, sparring occasionally and agreeing some times. I translated and lightly edited an excerpt of this conversation, which was triggered by Severine (S) sharing a video which some “online content creator” had posted of a short 1km (0.6 miles) race somewhere in the Middle East, and Yassine (Y) reacting to that. Y: From 20,000 meter races to 1,000 meter races. I mean ,it’s a nice race, but it’s against the nature of these horses. And it speaks volumes about the lack of understanding of tradition, and the influence of Western…
I don’t know if these two photos of the desert-bred mare *Ghalia was published before. According to Al Khamsa’s online roster, *Ghalia was a 1956 bay Hamdaniyah bred by the Sa’ud Royal Stud at Khafs Daghrah, Saudi Arabia. She was purchased in 1958 and imported to the USA in 1961 by Donald A. Holm. She was by Murjan, a Hamdani of Sa’ud and out of Falhah, a Hamdaniyah of Sa’ud. She appears to have been registered by the International Arabian Horse Registry of North America Stud Book (Vol. 1), rather than the AHA. Pictured here in old age, but still looks like a nice mare, noble, and dry, with an intelligent and sweet look in her eyes, reminiscent of the best desert-bred mares I saw in Syria in the 1990s.
The handsome Dahman stallion Ibn Mahrouf, bred by the Babson Farm stood for breeding at the Sheets in the 1980s, when this picture was taken.
Not sure I published this one before. It’s from the collection of Billy Sheets, which he left me.
This blog article quotes the famous and very funny exchange between Lawrence of Arabia and his proofreaders during the process of preparing his Seven Pillars of Wisdom for publication in 1926:
The other day Moira Walker pointed me to the book “A trip to Baghdad: With an Appendix on the Arab Horse” written in 1908 by an Indian senior official, Nawab Hamid Yar Jung. He traveled with his father, Colonel Nawab Afsur-ul-Mulk, and another man, Mahboob Ali Beg, to Baghdad in March 1907, and its vicinity, in search for Arabian horses. The following is the account of his purchase of a chestnut stallion, Faleh: “My father had seen almost all the horses in Baghdad and had a great desire to purchase a chestnutof the Nejd breed; but the owner of the horse, who was a wealthy Arab, absolutely refused to part withit, saying: “You can take any horse you like from this herd, but I cannot allow any of the SaglaviJadrania breed to go out of the land, which breed is especially brought up in our clan, and the rest ofthe Arabs have not got this kind.” When my father saw that nothing could persuade the Arab to give up the horse, he could do no better than ask Huzrut Syed Mahamood Effendi (son of Huzrut Nakeeb-ul-Ashraf), who is the religious Preceptor of all the Arab tribes and is held in…
The latest edition of the Swift Runner newsletter has an article by Betty Finke about the Crabbet foundation stallion Mesaoud being the most influential Arabian stallion of all time, an observation I agree with. The article also includes a nod to the new pedigree of Mesaoud on the sire line, which was published in the new book: “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha”. This new pedigree, stemming from the re-discovery of the Abbas Pasha Sale Catalogue of 1860, and other original Arabic documents from the time of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sharif, traces Mesaoud’s sireline all the way back to Ghadir, the foundation stallion of Abbas Pasha.
I am awaiting three foals this year, all representing the second generation of my breeding. Kinza Al Arab (to Bashir Al Dirri), Barakah Al Arab (to Monologue CF) are due in April, and Mayassa Al Arab (to Anecdote CF) in the fall. Fingers crossed after Wadha’s filly’s tragedy last year. In my fantasy world, there are thirty Al Arab foals a year, not three, from my mares and the mares I would like to have.
A picture of Monica Respet’s JDA Husaana as a younger mare. Husaana, born in 1999, has one of the nicest old pedigrees on a US Arabian horse, with a rare tail female to *Urfah and plenty of old American blood. Her line was bred by Mrs. Ott and her daughter Jane Ott for three generations. Husaana, was bred by Pam Baker, and has one daughter born in 2004.
Facebook has these superb photos from the ancient Sabean capital city of Marib in Yemen in 1987. These were likely taken by archaeologists working on excavating the temple of South Arabian god Ilmuqah (known locally as Mahram Balqis, Balqis being the Islamic name for the Queen of Sheba). No credit were given.
The last Al Khamsa mare of the Ferida lineage, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, was put down last month. I had given CSA Baroness Lady to Sue Moss in 2023 as a pet companion to one of her horses. She leaves behind a 2015 bay gelding, Haykal Al Arab (registered name Lucero De Santana, why? long story), who now belongs to Sue Moss. I also have four frozen embryos from her, at least one of which I hope is a female so that the line can keep going. Below, Lady and little Haykal.
Jeanne is the mother of Al Khamsa. Her involvement with the organization she helped found, which she documented in a recent post on Facebook, reads like a history of Al Khamsa of sorts: I was graduating from college, and realized that I could now fulfill a dream and have a horse. Fell in love with Arabians by seeing one presented at a clinic. Read the Ott articles in Rider and Driver, and wrote to them. I got a gracious reply from Mrs. Ott, who told me to get educated by visiting Walter Schimanski, HB Stubbs, and Charles Craver. All three were wonderful to newcomers. I fell for Lothar at Walter’s, and will always remember the special quality of the *Al Hamdaniah daughter, Al-Ka-Han. Skin like oiled silk, which gleamed. Walter sold me a mare bred by “Chubb” Stubbs named Fatimah, by Julyan x Fadaa. And I bought another Julyan daughter out of Sirrulla, named Sirrulya. Leased Sirrulla, and she was a real treasure. And of course, Charles and I fell in love and got married. Before that, Jane Ott had stopped publishing annual updates to the Blue Catalog, and the “Blue” community was losing contact. So like the idiot kid I…
I wrote about H.R.P. Dickson’s 1949 book “The Arab of the Desert” in an earlier blog entry about the Ubayyan strain of Ibn Jalawi. This entry is about about the horses of the rulers of Bahrain, in the context of Dickson’s mention of specific Arab leader being famous for keeping a certain strain of Arabian horses, their rabat or marbat: Every Shaikh of standing is supposed to always keep his rabat, i.e. a mare or mares from which he breeds a certain particular strain. He gets name and prestige by doing this. […] The Shaikhs of Bahrain similarly keep the Roman-nosed Shawaf (Kuhailan) breed. Kate referred me to this quote a few weeks ago. Several things struck me about it. First, how Dickson, who collected information for his book between 1929 and 1936, primarily associated the Bahraini rulers with the Shawaf strain rather than the Jallabi strain for which they are usually better known. Second, how Judith Forbis, who visited the royal studs of Bahrain in March 1970, forty years after Dickson (or his informants) made their observation, essentially echoed him about both the look and the status of the Shawaf strain. In her 1971 seminal Arabian Horse World article…
A rarely seen photo of the Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz stallion Ibn Fadl (*Fadl x *Turfa), chief sire at the Babson Farm. Photo through Jeanne Craver. It’s worth noting that, of the *Fadl sons, he was the only one the Babson Farm deemed worth naming after his sire (a bit like Ibn Morafic at Gleannloch). Do you see a dished face?
Lebanese-American poet and advisor to first Saudi king Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud with *Noura, a desert-bred Ma’naqiyah Hadrajiyah. Noura, born in 1917, was a gift from her breeder Ibn Saud to Rihani, and was imported to the USA in 1928. She has no asil progeny left. As an aside, this mare is living proof, if more proof was needed, that the preeminent rulers of Najd bred and owned Ma’naqi horses. So much for those who pretend that Najd people did not have that strain. They had no reason to. It was and still is as good as any other desert blood. Photo from the frontpage of the website of the Ameen Rihani organization, dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of this “founding founder of Arab-American literature”.
Shamsah Al Arab (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere) is the Ma’naqiyah filly I had been planning for several years. She has her dam’s very dark chestnut coat color, strong build, short back, and … short neck. Pictured here with her dam running behind her. Photo DeWayne Brown.
Another horse from my breeding that went to a friend is the 2020 chestnut Ma’naqi Sbayli colt Shaykh Al Arab (Tamaam x DaughterofthePharaohs), owned by Terry Doyle. Shaykh, who Terry calls “Notch” (because he says he is top notch!) is going to be Terry’s trail riding horse. DeWayne, who owns his dam sent me this fuzzy yet representative photo of him last month.
I had published this beautiful photo of the 1994 Syrian Kuhaylan Khallawi stallion Al Sabik (*Ta’an x Hallah) some ten years ago. Recently Arnault Decroix shared with me another photo of the same handsome horse taken a few moments before or after the first one. This was truly a special horse.
Landrace Belisasius turns one at the end of this month. He is the son of Jamr out of Belle that went to Moira Walker in utero. He is a light bay, the color of his damline ancestor, *Nufoud. I like very much, as to me he exemplifies the permanence of the old type of Arabian horses, which is the true type.
I have writtten about the Ubayyan strain specific of Ibn Jalawi several times before, mainly here, here and here. It is the strain of my mare Madinas Miracle, and my stallion AAS Nelyo, which trace back to the Ubayyah mare *Mahraa, a gift from Saud Ibn Jalawi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to Esther Ames, an ARAMCO woman doctor. Recently, Kate pointed me to a quote about the Ubayyan strain of Ibn Jalawi in the 1949 book of H.R.P. Dickson, “The Arab of the Desert: A glimpse into Badawin life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia”. Dickson, who was the British political representative in Kuwait, reportedly began collecting material for his book in 1929 and finished research for it in 1936. He wrote: Every Shaikh of standing is supposed to always keep his rabat, i.e. a mare or mares from which he breeds a certain particular strain. He gets name and prestige by doing this. […] I will only mention one more instance, and that is the ’Ubaiyan strain of the late ’Abdullah bin Jiluwi, the Governor of Hasa. He was a great horse fancier like all the family of the Al Sa’ud, and had many famous mares in…
I have long been a fan of *Al Hamdaniah, the desert-bred mare that was imported to the USA in 1947. This “bloody-shouldered” mare bred by Saudi prince Saud ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Jalawi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia — was the subject of the first entry on this blog, more than 16 years ago. Joe Ferriss had commented on that thread about mares from her lineage that he had seen and liked at the Otts, noting their clean bone. RJ Cadranell had observed how someone whose “eye” he trusted had told him that a daughter of *Al Hamdaniahs, a mare bred by the Otts and named Blue Star, was one of the best mares he had ever seen. More recently, I wrote about the connections between *Al Hamdamiah, born in 1940, and the 1936 visit of Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) to the stud of Ibn Jalawi, where he saw a heavily fleabitten grey mare of the Hamdani strain that was likely the mare’s dam. Today, I am excited to announce that Becky Stanfield Burckheart and I are working on putting a close descendant of *Al Hamdaniyah into production. This is Becky’s mare…
I thoroughly enjoyed reading — and learned a lot from — the short article presenting the ninth century CE treatise of Ibn Akhi Hizam al-Khuttali’s “Book of Horses and Hippiatry” (Kitab al-Khayl wa al-Baytara, its most commonly used Arabic name). This 2021 article by Jamal Hossaini-Hilali and Abdelkrim El Kasri follows their French translation in 2018 of Ibn Akhi Hizam al-Khuttali’s treatise, based on three of the surviving Arabic manuscripts. Prof. Hossaini-Hilali informs us that Ibn Akhi Hizam was master of the horses (i.e., stud manager, in today’s parlance) for the sixteenth Abbasid Caliph al-Mu’tadid (892-902 CE) in Bagdad, then the economic, scientific and cultural center of the world. His paternal uncle, Hizam (“Ibn Akhi Hizam” means the “son of the brother of Hizam”), was master of the horses for the eighth Abbassid Caliph al-Mu’tasim (833-842 CE), while his father, the senior al-Khuttali, was the head veterinarian for the tenth Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawwakil (847-861 CE). Horse husbandry and management were clearly a family affair in their case. The first part of his treatise, a lexicographical compendium of names for horse body parts, teeth, colors, markings, behaviors, qualities, etc., draws heavily on Abu ‘Ubaydah (d. 826 CE) Book of the Horse,…
Over the past couple of years, I have been working on several projects with likeminded friends and preservation breeders from around the world. These projects seek to complete and expand the original mission of DOW, which has always been to raise awareness about the true Arabian horse, its people, history and heritage, in a way that builds bridges between the East and the West. One of these projects is my sire line project. It first germinated in my head some years ago, when a quick survey made me realize that there were only 10 asil sire lines left in the West. Since then a few more were added, thanks to importations from Syria. Sire lines can vanish particularly quickly. Once a few stallions from one sire line become fashionable, everybody uses them, then more people use their sons, horses from other sire lines don’t get as much of a chance, and disappear within two or three generations. This is what is currently happening in the general (ie, non-asil) Arabian horse population, with Marwan Al Shaqab and WH Justice, both from the Saklawi I sire line through Nazeer, dominating the breed. Within the sub-population of the asil Arabians, the Saklawi I…
Arabic language Facebook pages concerned with historical photographs of the Arab world, its populations, and its culture occasionally turn up photos of Bedouin Arabian horses. Below is one example: The text under the photo is in Ottoman Turkish, a language I don’t read, but close enough to Arabic for me to make up that the mare was a Kuhaylah, aged 7 years old, 148 cm tall, color “coral grey” (marjan gri, if I am reading it correctly), and that she was gifted to a senior Ottoman official (perhaps the Sultan himself) by Far’un al-Yaqut, one of the leaders of the Bedouin tribe of al-Fatlah. The Fatlah are one of the main branches of large Bedouin tribe of Dulaym, whose territory lies in the Lower Euphrates valley, in and around the Bedouin cities of Hit, Fallujah and Ramadi. The Dulaym, themselves a branch of the larger pre-Islamic tribe of Zubayd (to which the Jubur and the Juhaysh also belong) have a reputation of bravery and fierceness in battle. Although the tribe was largely settled from early on, the leaders of the Dulaym were considered by the shaykhs of nomadic Bedouin tribes such as the Shammar, the ‘Anazah, the Dhafir, etc., as…
Laszlo Kiraly’s Hungarian magazine Lovas Nemzet is holding its 2024 photo competition. Participate if you can.
The latest edition of Swift Runners, the refreshing and much welcome monthly newsletter launched by Denise Hearst, Betty Finke, Scott Benjamin and a few others features a reprint of an earlier article by Charles and Jeanne Craver, Wisdom from the Breeding Shed. It deserves to be read and reread far and wide.
Dr. Sandra Olsen published this article in “Arabian Humanities” on “Insight on the Ancient Arabian Horse from North Arabian Petroglyphs”. If you don’t want to read the entire article, skim through it, look at the pictures and compare with your own horses. Stylized depictions of the horse did not begin with the Orientalists.
One of the most stunning Davenport pictures ever taken is this picture of the Davenport broodmare Bint Anta (El Alamein x Antan by Antez), the dam of Regency CF, Fiddledeedee, Orient, Reprise, Levant CF, and many others, a Hamdaniyah Simriyah. Photo by the most talented photographer, Anita Westfall. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Craver. You cannot unsee that look, and you cannot but help looking back.
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.
حديث ابراهيم الدواس السعدي من ال سعدي عوارف شمر أجراه إدوار الدحداح وحازم الوعر عام 2006 :عن كحيلة الشريف هم اصحاب رسن كحيلة الشريف جابوا الرسن معهم من نجد من أكثر من 150 سنة الحين عندهم فرسين واحدة بنت صقلاوي السبيه والثانية أمها بنت صقلاوي أحمد الدهام الاثنين عشار من صقر سوريا حصان حمداني كحيلة الشريف هي نفسها كحيلة العاجوز سمعنا عن أجدادنا أن العاجوز يعني الاختيار وأن الشريف هو العاجوز وخيلنا اسمها كحيلات العاجوز الشريف من دور أهلنا و بعدين أسقطت كلمة الشريف وبقي اسمها كحيلات العاجوز :عن منيس السعدي منيس ودواس إخوان منيس كان يحب الخيل وكان عنده دهمه وحمدانية وكروش من زمان :عن ابو كتف حصان منيس السعدي ابو كتف أحمر محجل له صرة أي سيالة صغيرة ذيله طويلة كانوا يشبونه عندما ابراهيم الدواس كان عمره عشر سنين :عن الحصان الصقلاوي حصان عباد الدادان عباد الدادان من عبيد دهام الهادي حصانه الصقلاوي يكون ابو حصان ابراهيم الدواس السعدي كحيلان الشريف ابو فرس مدحي السحيان العبية الام كانوا مربعين قرب عباد الدادان فشبوا كحيلة الشريف من حصانه الشبوة تمت عام 1972 جابت حصان أدهم عاش ستة سنين شبا مدحي العبية منه عام 1975-1976 الدادان الآن في تل عنتر عن ُحميد بن مَدحي السحيان يسكن قرية خويتلة من خرصة…
I love it! Check out Mayassah’s entry for example. You can even hover over the photo icon and see the photos of the ancestors without having to click on each ancestor.
An interesting trend common to both Syrian and Bahraini Arabian horses is the disappearing of the old Bedouin concept of “Shubuw” or “Yishabby”. The concept means “fit for breeding” or “good for breeding”. Before the 1980s in Bahrain, and the 2000s in Syria, there was a distinction between the strains that were considered “fit for breeding” and the strains that were not. Within Syria, there was no broad agreement on which strains were “fit for breeding” and which were not, as each region, each tribe, even each group of people had their own opinion on the issue, but the concept did exist and was part of the conversation about Arabian horses. I recall that back in the 1990s a Syrian breeder could be chided for breeding his mares to a Sa’dan, a Rishan, a Rabdan or a Da’jani stallion. Today the distinction has become moot, and all strains are being bred from in both countries — for now.
The Facebook page for the publishing house, al-Dar al-Sultaniyah lil-Dirassat wal-Watha’iq al-‘Uthmaniyah publishes documents in the Arabic language from the Ottoman imperial archives in Istanbul. The publisher’s knowledge of Arabic and his apparent lack of familiarity with Ottoman Turkish, the official language of the Ottoman Empire, means that all the documents on the page are letters to Ottoman high-ranking officials from their Arabic-speaking subjects, usually urban notables, provincial leaders, or Bedouin tribal chiefs. They generally relay grievances, concerns, requests to officials in Istanbul. Occasionally, one finds documents about Arabian horses. The document below is one of these: The Facebook post mentioned that this was a list of horses sent by the Shammar to the Ottoman Sultan or his Grand Vizir in 1891. The document’s beginning and end appear to have been cropped by the publisher. This is my translation of the published excerpt: The blonde/chestnut Kuhaylah; also, the red/bay Kuhaylah, three legs white except the left foreleg, with a blaze (sayyalah); also they yellow and she is the Tuwayssah; also, the Kuhaylah Umm ‘Arqub, light grey; also the yellow/grey Kuhaylat ‘Aafess; also the red Kuhaylah, both hindlegs white, with a blaze; also the black Kuhaylah, right hindleg white, with a…
The British Arab Horse Society (AHS) celebrated its centennary in 2018. For this occasion, it curated an exhibition in Newmarket, England, where it showcased three hujaj of desert-bred mares imported to the UK, among other original documents. Kina Murray, who was then WAHO Secretary, had asked me to translate these for AHS. Below is the translation of the first hujjah. “Testimonial paper We, the undersigned from the tribe of al-Ghurayr, testify by God concerning the bay mare, a stripe in her forehead, named Nuha Khanum, the daughter of Salma, her origin is Kuhaylat Aba Snun al-Nawwakah, her sire is the Saqlawi of Ibn Mahmud, she belongs to Hazza’ al-Rashed of the tribe of al-Ghurayr; for this [reason] we composed this testimonial paper concerning the origin of the mare; God is a witness to and a trustee of what we say. About the sire of her dam he is the Hamdani, and the sire of her maternal grand-dam is the ‘Ubayyan al-Suhayli. Ubayd al-Jammagh One of the heads of the tribe of al-Ghurayr ‘Abdallah al-Rumman The head of the tribe of al-Masalihah Ibrahim al-Muhammad One of the heads of the tribe of Qartan Aswad al-Salbuh [uncertain reading] One of the heads…
An image of this document appears on page 79 of Peter Upton’s The Arab Horse (The Crowood Press, 1989). It is inconspicuously labeled as “Fig. 132. Facsimile of an Arab letter to Sir Gilbert Clayton“. Here is my translation, based off the image above, with my comments between the brackets: In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate [printed letterhead] The Hijazi and Najdi Kingdom and its dependencies [printed letterhead]The Diwan of His Majesty the King [printed letterhead] Number 87320 Dhul Qi’dah Year 1345 [printed year, date equivalent to Saturday May 21, 1927] From Abd al-‘Aziz son of ‘Abd al-Rahman of the House of Faysal [i.e., Faysal ibn Turki] to his Excellency the Sir Clayton:After greetings and compliments, we present Your Excellency with the horses, a male horse and a mare. As to the male horse, he is the Saqlawi of the most authentic [asaayil, plural of asil] horses of Najd; his sire is an ‘Ubayyan; the mare is Krush; her sire is a Kuhaylan.However, quite regrettably I saw today that their looks were not nice looks; the reason for this is the length of the journey, because they’ve been in the wilderness [al-barriyah, literally, “the bush”] for a…
In the same vein as other articles on the original documentation on desert Arabians imported to the US from Saudi Arabia, this is my translation from Arabic of a hujjah about the breeding of the mare *Halwaaji of the Saud Royal Stud to the stallion Mas’ud: In the name of God the Most Merciful and Compassionate Riyadh Province of Najd Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 11 Jumadah al-Aakhar 1380 I, Mutlaq al-‘Atawi, the head of the royal horse stables of his Highness King Saud ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, declare that the following testimony is correct: On the 11th of Rabi’ al-Thani 1378, the ownership of the red Hamdaniyah mare “Halwaaji” was transferred to Sam Roach; and it was well-known that this mare was in foal to the grey Hamdani horse “Mas’ud” at the time of the transfer of her ownership; the horse “Mas’ud” bred the mare “Halwaaji” on the date of the 14th of Dhul Hujjah 1377; he bred her another time on the date of the 16th of Dhul Hujjah 1377. And I certify in front of God Most High that the mare “Halwaaji” and the horse “Mas’ud” are both from pure blood and a noble origin, tracing to horses whose…
Hujaj (plural of hujjah), the Arabic authentication certificates, come in all shapes and forms. Some consist of a few handwritten words scribbled by the breeder or owner on a piece of paper. Some are more elaborate, the work of government officials, with dates, stamps, letterahead, and formal language. Some are the words of barely literate men, some are high literature. Look at this hujjah for the 1945 grey stallion Walid El Seglawi (his photos below), the sire of the mare Jamalah El Jedrani imported to the USA by ARAMCO expatriate Fran Richards. This is my translation of it: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Testimony on the origin of a horseLet it be known that my mare, the Saqlawiyah, was bred to my horse the Saqlawi, and that this horse was born in August 1945 [implied: as a result of the mating]. My mare and my horse are from a deep-rooted origin in the steppe [badiyah] with the tribe of Bani Khalid; and this horse, named Walid, was sold to Mr. Nick Lederle of al-Dhahran. Hasan son of Mansur the Saihati The document is straightforward, but there is more than meets the eye. A few observations on both text and context: First,…
I have been reading a passage in the Arabic original version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript on the testimony of an elderly man of the Ruwalah Bedouins about a certain Kuhaylah mare. Here is my translation into English: “Some say that she is Kuhaylah, and other people say that she is ‘Ubayyah, and we don’t know which stud [marbat] she is from, and it slipped our mind; after some years of breeding the mare, she produced a bay filly, which turned into a beautiful [zaynah], nadhir, and speedy [sabuq] mare… these are the stories we know about her, other than this we don’t know“. [He] was asked about the sire of the mare; [he] reported: “It has slipped our mind, O ‘Ali; however, at that time, they [i.e., the Ruwalah] mated the Saqlawi Jadran and Kuhaylan Tamri of the horses of Ibn ‘Abhul; these were the dearest of the stallions we used to mate; but we don’t know who her sire is, and we haven’t pinned down which horses her sire is from“; [he] was asked about the mare’s dam: did she happen to beget anything else [other than the bay filly] or not? [He] reported: “By God, O ‘Ali,…
The authentication document — in Arabic, hujjah — of the Blunt desert-bred import Meshura is not done yielding more information. One year after having published its translation and commentary into English in the book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha, I keep learning new things about it. As background, Meshura great-grand-dam, “The Mare of Daghir”, a Saqlawiyah Ubayriyah of the Marighi strain, was imported to Egypt by Abbas Pasha. The episode of the sale of this mare is narrated in the hujjah, as follows: “This mare was bought by Abbas Pacha from the house of Dirri and the sale transaction took place in the house of Jad’aan in the presence of Mujayhim ibn Dari and her price was 4000 ghazis [two illegible words] Muhammad Ali Sharif with Ali Bek and he was our guest in [three illegible words, including one place name] before the uprising of Aleppo ([illegible word] (the verification of the date of the year needs to be done)“; I was unable to unlock the meaning of that “uprising of Aleppo” (in the Arabic text of the hujjah qawmat Halab), nor to date it precisely — until now. While browsing a selection of Ottoman archives online, I came across…