Edouard Aldahdah

In Arabian horses, strains are traditionally transmitted by the dam. This is how Bedouins did it for about half a millennium, for reasons I discussed elsewhere. Strains, and their transmissions are intimately connected to the concepts of asil/atiq (roughly, authentic) in an Arabian horse. In other words, the daughter of an asil/atiq Hamdaniyah Simriyah and … Read more

Yesterday Arnault Decroix sent me this photo of his Syrian stallion Dahjani al-Arab, a Kuhaylan Da’jani born in the Syrian Jazirah (Upper Mesopotomia) in 2008. Dahjani al-Arab was part of the same batch of Syrian imports to France in 2009. The lot also included the stallions Mahboub Halep (a Shuwayman Sabbah); Dahess Hassaka (a Kuhaylan … Read more

A photo of the wonderful Syrian-bred Shuwaymah Sabbah stallion Mahboub Halep at Jean Claude Rajot several days ago. To me, this horse exemplifies the desert Arabian horse as he should be. I wish he had opportunities to cover mares from more diverse lineages. As Lady Anne Blunt said of Aziz in his prime: “He looks … Read more

Kuwaiti researcher Yahia al-Kandari edited a treatise on Arab horses by Father Anastas al-Karmali (1866-1947), the Lebanese Carmelite priest and linguist.  The treatise “al-Khayl al-‘Irab 3inda al-Arab wa al-A3raab” was published by Bait al-Arab. Interestingly, the title of the book features three difference uses of the term ‘Arab’.

Power and grace in motion at 25 years young. I have a sense this will become a beloved picture.

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 … Read more

 من بنات كروش جهيم المطخان ومن نفس رسنه ومربطه

لاحظوا دقة اذني الفرس وعرض حنكها فهكذا كانت خيل الملوك لاحظوا ايضا اللجام العربي بالاضافة للرشمة من ارشيف مدرسة الاخوة الماريين  

Over 5000 of them online. Take the plunge! One of the most significant pictures is this one of Shaykh Sultan Bin Zayid Aal Nahyan, taken in 1948 (pre-oil). He was not yet the ruler of the UAE.

I happened upon this Gazetteer of Egypt in the French language from the year 1891 — the “Annuaire egyptien administratif et commercial” on the wonderful website of the French national library. Under the “Conseil Legislatif”, the legislative council, it has “S.E. Aly Pacha Cherif” as the President. See below.  

تواصلت مساء اليوم مع الصديق محمد معصوم العاقوب ودار الحديث حول الفرس العبية السحيلية العود فرس مطر السراي “مطوري”  فشاركته هذه الصورة للعود مع فلوها ابن الحمداني الاعور. الصورة من تصويري سنة ١٩٩٤ او ١٩٩٥ بضواحي حلب عند رضوان شبارق ابو ابراهيم وكانت العود آنذاك ملك للشيخ ميزر عجيل العبدالكريم الجربا وهناك التباس عند البعض … Read more

السمن من السمون من المنشأ من ضنا عربان من الخرصة من ضنا ماجد من الفدعان وهو صاحب مربط صقلاويات السمنيات )

The palace of Prince Yusuf Kamal in Qina, Upper Egypt. Built in 1908 in the Neo-Mamluk style. Prince Yusuf was the son of Prince Ahmed Kamal but did not share his father’s interest in Arabian horses. His archives survive in a museum in Coptic Cairo.

The source is a British handbook on the Turkish army from 1916. Note “Liva”, Egyptian Lewa, Major-General.

To the left, the late Wegdan (Dani) El Berbary. In the middle, my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah. To the right, Basil Jadaan. Lower right, Rosemary Doyle. Photo by the late Hansi Heck-Melnyk, in Karsten Scherling’s archives.

She really does look good and I am very pleased with her. Yasser tells me she has really fine skin and many of the personality traits of the desert horses. She may be barren this year. If so, we will try a breeding to one of the Bahraini stallions at the EAO, either the Jallabi … Read more

Yasser Ghanem took that screenshot from the virtual AK Convention yesterday. It’s nice to see all the friendly faces on the same screen: Yasser, and Jeanne and Basil and Monica and Moira and Jeannie and Edie and Bev and Kim and PJ and Joe and Rosemary and Kate and all the others.

اتوجه بالشكر والتقدير الى الصديق باسل جدعان على سعيه باستضافتي في الحلقة السابعة من برنامج مساء الخيل الذي بمحاورة الدكتور محمد مشموم وتقديم السيد سعيد سامي  

..for who she was, the horses she bred, the ideas she promoted and the values she stood by. And may she rest in peace forever. A visit to her was a life lesson.

The stuff you learn on Facebook.. Today I learned the registered name and strain of the Arabian stallion that stars in the movies “The Black Stallion” and the “The Black Stallions Returns”. He is a Ma’naqi Sbayli tracing to the Blunt’s Ferida in the tail female, and his name is Cass Ole. I can already … Read more

So there will be nothing left from my beautiful Shadows. The vet clinic wrote this morning that the last egg they had harvested from her had failed to result in an embryo. This marks the end of a heart-wrenching five year adventure with that beautiful mare. She was beautiful inside out.  Shadows with the large, … Read more

Keep your fingers crossed but I guess I will not end up with seven foals from Shadows: “Of the 7 oocytes we received, only two oocytes were able to mature. They were fertilized and one cleaved and started to divide and grow. We need it to continue to develop until it becomes a blastocyst. I … Read more

After a twelve year wait, DOW finally has Arabic language functionality. I am over the moon. Thanks to Yasser the magician, who revived his programming skills from 20 years ago and took a dive in this blog’s underbelly. Guest bloggers and I can write in Arabic, and Arabic speaking readers can post their comments in … Read more

This quote in the recent DNA study led by Samantha Brooks in the journal Nature is pretty damning, I thought: The presence of Thoroughbred-specific Y chromosome haplogroups among Arabian racehorses indicates that the large chromosomal blocks of Thoroughbred origin detected in flat racing Arabian horses are likely derived, at least in part, from crosses with … Read more

Update: that Arabic font is not working. I am giving up. Please bear with me as I update the look and feel of this blog. It’s been twelve years since the last update. Blog design has changed a lot since then. I am also trying to enable Arabic language entries. Let me know what you … Read more

In other happy news, Wadha was checked in foal to Monologue CF today. I had been trying to get this mare in foal for three years.

My beautiful Shadows left us today. What a sweet, gentle, soulful mare she was. Shadows was euthanized this morning, and her ovaries collected for shipping to the University of Pennsylvania veterinary center in New Bolton, PA. There, oocytes will recovered and sent to the Equine Medical Services clinic in Columbia, Missouri. This clinic is a … Read more

A large DNA study published in the Journal Nature (link to full study here) comes to confirm what we purist breeders have known for a long time: that so-called “Arabian” horses of flat racing lines have a significant blood of English Thoroughbred running in their veins. The author, Samantha Brooks, very elegantly suggests a different … Read more

This year the Al Khamsa Convention will be virtual (on Zoom), but the lineup of speakers is great as always. Make sure you register here. RJ Cadranell and I are also making a presentation on Saturday, on a surprise topic.