Linda Cottle from New Zealand shared this treasure of a photo on the page of Rehan Ud Din Baber on Facebook. The photo was taken by her grandfather, a soldier from New Zealand who visited the Sheykh Obeyd Stud of Lady Anne Blunt during World War One. The photo shows Lady Anne Blunt and a mare Cecil Covey told Linda Cottle was Fasiha. History comes alive.
This colt is growing into superb young stallion. He was bred by Jenny Krieg, with help from the Doyle family and their stallion Tamaam DE, out of a mare from the single rarest lines in Al Khamsa Arabians: the blood of *Euphrates, *Al-Mashoor, and *Mirage flows through his veins. Bashir Al Dirri, 2014 Stallion Bashir Al Dirri, 2014 Stallion?????? ????? ??? ???Tamaam DE x Sarita Bint Raj Posted by Doyle Arabians on Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Kirby Drennan and Jeanne Craver shared this beautiful photo of two Craver Farms mares, the 1986 Hamdani Simri Chinoiserie CF (Dharanad x Levant), on the left, who died in the stampede that followed the 1993 Illinois River flood at Craver Farms, and the 1984 Kuhaylah Krush Minaret CF (Heir Apparent x O-Henrietta), on the right.
From Rehan Ud Din Baber’s beautiful Facebook page. From Gertrude Bell’s archives at the British Library?
Some eight years ago, Louis Bauduin wrote a wonderful article about riding the Tunisian Asil Arabians of Mrs. Bergmann in the Sahara desert. Of these were Mrs. Bergmann’s stallions Jehol Sahraoui and Marzouk. Yesterday, Severine Vesco posted this photo of Marzouk, a stout little stallion of Jiflan bloodlines, ahead of this ride.
When I first opened Volume One of the Syrian Studbook some twenty five years ago, the first thing that struck me was the very limited number of horses that traced to the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe. After all, this powerful and wealthy tribe which is part of the larget ‘Anazah confederation spent its summer quarters in the area directly east of the city of Hama in central Syria. As a result it was familiar to Western travelers and government agents who took off from Aleppo, Damascus or Beirut, in search for Bedouin Arabian horses. Another result of this geographical location was that many of the early desert-bred imports to the West and Egypt, which form the antecedents of many of today’s Arabian horses, hailed from the Sba’ah tribe. Major Roger Upton, for instance, spent some time with Sba’ah leader Shaykh Sulayman Ibn Mirshid in 1874, and bought horses like Kesia, Yataghan and Haidee from his tribesmen. Similarly, Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt visited with Beteyen Ibn Mirshid a few years later and some of their best known early desert imports were bred by the Sba’ah: Queen of Sheba, Meshura, Azrek, Pharaoh, Dajania, Hagar, etc. Some of the horses imported by Homer…
Hurrian Hymn N.6, also called the “Hymn to Nikkal” is the most ancient piece of music in the world to have reached us, dating from 3,400 years ago. Nikkal was a Canaanite goddess of fertility (of the soil and of humans). French archaeologists discovered the melody in 1955 on a clay tablet in the ancient Canaanite site of Ugarit, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast (not far from my mother’s town). I was reminded of it yesterday while listening to Ibrahim Maalouf’s “Levantine Symphony N.1” (extract here).
Una CF (Saranad x Femina by Ibn Alamein) is the rarest mare in Davenport breeding. She has no lines to Tripoli, no lines to Schilla, and is of the Kuhaylan Haifi strain. Here with her owner’s daughter, who is very proud of her. The mare looked thin in that photo taken last July and had just arrived from Oregon a couple months before. Una CF is in foal to Gilad Ibn Dubloon and due in April 2018. They are wishing for a colt.
From his new owner Jessie Heinrick. He has never looked better.
I have been working on a translation of Abu ‘Ubaydah al-Taymi’s (died 822-823 AD in Basra) masterful “Book of the Horse” for close to eight years now, on and off. I am doing for my friend Radwan Shabareq, on my free time — meaning some nights and some weekends, with Jeanne Craver as editor and Joe Ferriss as designer. All of us believe its publication will be a big deal. Yassine raised the issue of the mysterious, hidden signs of purity by which Bedouins determined the purity of the Arabian horse. I have heard some of these from XXth century Bedouins, and written about them before (here), and ‘Ubayd al-Hafi al-‘Utaybi has also written about them on this blog (here), a few years back, and a fascinating conversation ensued. Here is on one of these signs, by Abu ‘Ubaydah, some twelve hundred years ago. Translation mine (as part of the upcoming book). Arabs like the forelocks [al-nasiyah] and the downy hair [al-zaghab] circling their root [al-shakir] to be soft, and the place from which the forelocks grow [al-’usfur] to subside; all this is for beauty. The softness of the forelocks and the softness of the downy hair at their root…
Two rare photos of Egyptian stallion El Sud El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), born in 1957 at the Egyptian Agricultural Organization and gifted to the King Mohamed V of Morocco in 1960. Original post from the Facebook group Straight Egyptian Arabian horses in Morocco through Sheila Cone and Olivier Wibihal. A full brother to Hansi’s Serenity Ibn Nazeer (aka Lateef).
My favorite city in the entire world: Shibam, in Yemen, the “Manhattan of the desert”, and it’s six-centuries old mud skyscrapers. One day, I will go back there, and give back to Yemen and its wonderful civilization and people a sliver of what it has given me.
“And a crest like a tall frankincense tree set on fire by an offender” (“wa-saalifatun ka-sahuuqi al-Labaani adrama fihi al-ghawiyyu al-su’uru”) The vision of a blazing frankincense tree is fitting for a chestnut horse. Below, a frankincense tree:
To the upper right is Bab Tuma, one of Damascus’ Christian neighborhoods, with the Armenian Catholic church standing out. In the upper left is the neighborhood of al-‘Amarah. In the lower right is the Jewish quarter, ‘hayy al-Yahud’. Note the inner courtyards of many of the houses. In the center, the Mariamite church; in the center left is the prestigious Maktab ‘Anbar, which at the time the photo was taken was school for the Damascus elite, and before that the house of one of the city’s Jewish notables, ‘Anbar. Below, the women’s courtyard of Maktab Anbar as it stands today.
This spring Wadha’s mate will be the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais, thanks to Jenny Lees. He is seen here competing in endurance at Windsor, UK. Other recent photos that show the breadth of his chest, the length of his neck and that of his forelocks, the depth of his ribcage, the length of his hip, and his good disposition.
This spring will be the time to breed my Ginger, who is now at Bev Davison’s in Idaho. A strong contender is Bev’s junior stallion, Subanet Jabbar SDA (Summer Sonnet SDA x Bint Bint Subani by Ibn Saafaddan), a tail female Gulida, and an even blend of old Doyle and Babson bloodlines. I find it almost miraculous that this female line of Saqlawis to Ghazieh has more survived 170 years outside the desert first in Egypt, then in England then in the United States, uninterrupted, in asil form.
Another stallion imported from Arabia to Tiaret. Click to enlarge.
An absolutely superb male specimen of a Desert Arabian horse, in Algeria. The legend says “syrian stallion”, yet so far I was not able to match with him with any of the grey stallions the French imported to Algeria from the East. Not Bango, not El Nil, not Sidi Gaber, not Aziz. If you know him, let me know. Photo courtesy of Farid Chaoui, of Algeria.
Those Lysander grand-daughters look like they came straight out of Arabia. So special. So stylish. They age well, too. It also helps that this one, Wotans Windancer (Wotan x Danceuse CF by Lysander) is a Wotan daughter. Note the fine mane and muzzle. I love the straight profile.
The first picture features Dixie Cup (Prince Hal x Dixie), which must have had one of the nicest set of ears on an Arabian of Davenport bloodlines. Abu ‘Ubaydah’s “Book of Horses”, written ca. 803 AD, has more than eighteen description of horses’ ears, and of features Arabs appreciated in them, long, upright, pricked, finally shaped, with soft fur inside, like Dixie Cup’s. The second photo is of Viola (Prince Hal x Cressida), and shows her beautiful flowing forelocks. Forelocks were really important to Arabs, and Abu ‘Ubaydah’s “Book of Horses” has no less than twelve descriptions for them. Ancient Arabs composed and recited poetry about forelocks, which they liked to be long, smooth, abundant and covering horse’s foreheads and even eyes, like Viola’s.
These 1929 photo depict the entrance gate of the royal palace of Guzana (modern Tall-Halaf, in Northeastern Syria), capital of the Aramaean kingdom of Bit Bahiani. King Gabara of Guzana built the palace in the Xth century BC (so three thousand years ago). The palace was discovered by Max Von Oppenheim (of “Die Beduinen” fame, for Arabian horse enthusiasts) in 1911, who dismantled it and took it to Berlin with other artifcats (below) where they was displayed in a museum especially dedicated to Tell Halaf. In 1943, a British warplane dropped a phosphorus bomb on the museum, which burnt down to the ground. The royal gate and all the other artifacts were smashed into dozens of thousands of pieces, some of which were stored away, awaiting their reconstitution. Before leaving Syria, Oppenheim had casts made of the entrance gate of the palace (and some of its sculptures), which now form the entrance of the Aleppo Museum. I saw it there several times (below). The casts are a poor, plain copy of the originals. Between 2001 and 2010, some 30 sculptures were painstakingly reconstructed from 27,000 fragments. The reconstruction of the palace gate will be completed in 2025. That’s 92 years after…
For several years, Hansi ran the same ad about Serenity Arabian Farms in the Khamsat magazine, featuring some of the several hundred horses she and her first and second husbands Bradford Heck and William Melnyk bred over the course of more than four decades. I recall being in awe of three stallions in particular (photos from this ad below): Serenity Sharaf, with a depth of girth like no other stallion; his brother Serenity Lamir, who was an ode to balance, and above all, racehorse champion Serenity Mamlouk, whose photo below exudes power, balance, perfection of conformation, nobility and … these staring sparkling eyes. Hansi was indeed a master breeder (and master breeders in this country can be counted on the fingers of one hand), with an eye to functional conformation like no one else’s. As a race horse trainer and an owner of horses that have excelled in halter, flat racing and endurance alike, she knew what makes a superior, athletic performance horse, and even more so, she knew how to breed one, working with a closed pool of Egyptian lines. I am particularly worried about the fate of her immense and immensely precious collection of photos, letters, documents and books,…
From an Al Khamsa news bulletin: “The Arabian Horse community worldwide lost a fierce advocate this morning. Hanna Luise Heck-Melnyk, known to all as Hansi, passed away at 11:43am EST, Sunday January 14, 2018, at her farm in Hawthorne, Florida, at the age of 86. Founder of Serenity Arabians, Hansi has been a long time supporter of Al Khamsa, Inc. The summer 2018 issue of the Khamsat will feature Hansi, her breeding program, and her accomplishments.” Hansi introduced me to western Arabian horse breeding and breeders, and instilled in me the passion of defending asil bloodlines. We met in 1994 and remained friends since. This page is a tribute to Hansi, her horses, her legacy, and her achievements.
Ten years already. I can hardly believe it. I feel so blessed for the old friends it has allowed me to keep in touch with, and the new friends it has allowed me to make, from around the world. Above all, I feel blessed for the collective knowledge and memory gathered here. One day we will all meet face to face, from Germany and the USA and France and the UK and Chile and Hungary and Canada and Croatia and Tunisia and South Africa and Australia and Spain and Pakistan and Belgium and Morocco and Egypt and Lebanon and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Iran and Israel and Palestine and many, many other places around the world. And we can all already tell what will be on the menu of discussions.
Don’t you love that strong, powerful neck and broad chest. Shueyman Redjem exudes power, and is reminiscent of his sire Murad Dahman (Ahshwan x Murad Hadiya by Ourki x Hamada) whom I rode across the fields and trails of Burgundy in the summer of 2010, with Jean-Claude Rajot. I also rode his dam Shueymah Sabbah (Mokhtar x Murad Haouda by Cherif x Hamada). r
Another daughter of Mach’al, this time a Ma’naqiyah named Cha’lah, also from an old strain of the Dandashi lords of Tal Kalakh. Sire of dam: al-Jazzar, a Kuhaylan Nawwaq; sire of granddam: Ghazwan, a Kuhaylan al-Kharas; pictured with a foal by a partbred stallion. Photographed by my father somewhere in Western Syria, most likely in Tal Kalakh in the late 1970s, and pedigree in his handwriting on the back of the photo. How much I would give for just one of those mares now. There numbered in the low hundreds at the height of the Lebanese national program, before the civil war of 1975-1990. In 1991, there were only 25 mares left, most born between 1965 and 1975. Today, zero left in asil form.
An asil Saqlawiyah, daughter of Mach’al (and hence paternal sister of the stallion Achhal, the sire of the tree mares in the previous entries), from an old strain of the Dandashis (perhaps the Saqlawi Ibn Zubaynah strain tracing to Umm al-Tubul), photographed by my father in Tal Kalakh, Syria, in the late 1970s. She was exported to Qatar during the Lebanese civil war. Many of the best asil Lebanese mares were sent to the Gulf countries, where they were wasted.
This is Nawakiat ‘Akkar, a Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah, and yet another Achhal daughter, born in 1976. She was the most valuable mare my father owned, and had established a dynasty of (part-bred) race winners of her own. She was a gift from Henri Pharaon at three years old, and was sold in 1992 to Henri’s cousin, Pierre Pharaon, along with Zenobia and a third mare (part-bred). This was when my father was transitioning to “purebred Arab” horses of international lines, which he then felt were equally “asil”, and had just acquired two mares of predominantly Crabbet lines from Jordan, Ziba (Dancing Magic x Shazla) and Shela (El Batal x Siva).
This mare, also a ‘Ubayyah, and also a daughter of Achhal, was the last two “asil” Lebanese mares. She was owned by Abd al-Hamid al-Halabi, who bred her to French stallions (non-asil) that my father had selected for Lebanon in 1992. She left no “asil” progeny as a result. Like most everyone in the Middle East at the time (and until today), he had no idea at the time that the notion of “asil” and the Western notion of a “purebred Arab” registered in a studbook were not the same. Years after that, we eventually understood that not all “purebred Arabs” traced to Bedouin-bred horses in all their lines, but it was too late for the Lebanese breeding from an “asil” perspective. When the Lebanese studbook was accepted by WAHO, it already consisted of 25 or so elderly mares, and one gelding racehorse. Stallions had to be imported from aboard. This mare was one of the youngest, born in 1980 I believe. I think her name was Chahla, but I am not sure.
Zenobia, born in 1977, was one of the prettiest asil mare in Lebanon, my father’s favorite horse, and a notoriously difficult producer. A ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah tracing to the marbat of Ibn Thamdan of the Sba’ah, with a regal pedigree that was linebred to Mach’al, the foundation stallion of Lebanese asil breeding. She left no asil progeny, and my father sold her in 1992 at the age of 15. Sire: Achhal, a son of Mach’al; dam: Bint Su’ad; sire of dam: Wazzal, another son of Mach’al; dam of dam: Su’ad; sire of granddam: al-Jazzar; dam of granddam: Mash’al’s sister, a daughter of Shaykh al-Arab.
While scanning old photos this morning, I happened on these two photos. There is a story to them. One evening in 1985 or 1986, a Lebanese visitor came to see my father in Beirut, and left the two photos behind. He spoke emphatically about his trip to the Syrian Jazirah (Upper Mesopotomia in North Eastern Syria today) and the desert-bred horses he had seen there. I was seven or eight years old, I did not catch much of the conversation but the photos made a lasting impression on me. It was in the middle of the Lebanese civil war, communications between Syria and the part of Lebanon we lived in were infrequent and difficult, and most Lebanese horsemen involved in the Lebanese horse racing scene, including my father, were convinced that no more good, authentic, pure desert-bred horses were left in the Syrian desert, because of the degenerescence of the breed and its contamination by part-bred Arabs from Iraq. “You will only find leftovers there”, my father was once told. These photos and the visitor’s description showed otherwise, just at a time when the Syrian breeders were launching a large-scale effort to register all the horses of the Bedouins. Indeed,…
“If you’ve ‘eard the East a-callin’, you won’t never ‘eed naught else.” No! you won’t ‘eed nothin’ else But them spicy garlic smells, An’ the sunshine an’ the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells; On the road to Mandalay . . .
The neighborhood of al-Darb al-Ahmar. Photo from the Facebook page Ahl Masr Zaman.
Pauline Du Plessis’s Saruk Arabians is standing the bay 1999 Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Mutab (Mlolshaan Hilal x Mlolesh Durra by Jellaby Adari) at stud in South Africa. He was bred by the stud of Sh. Mohammed Bin Salman Aal Khalifah, and is heavily linebred with Mlolesh (Mulawlishan) blood. He is a sire of endurance winners. Photo from Saruk’s stud Facebook page.
“Belle” (photo below) is one of just four Al Khamsa mares from the female line of *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from the stud of King of ‘Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud of Saudi Arabia, imported to the USA in 1931. When *Nufoud was born around 1925, Saudi Arabia was still known as the “Kingdom of Najd and the Hijaz”. Peter Upton, in the tables at the end of the book “Royal Heritage: The Story of Jordan’s Arab Horses”, mentions that *Nufoud was from originally from the stud of the Hashemite King of Hijaz, ‘Ali ibn al-Hussain, whose short-lived kingdom was overtaken by the Saudis in late 1925. I don’t know the source of Upton’s information, but it is certainly likely, since the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz strain was bred by the Hashemites in the Hijaz. A mare from this strain accompanied King ‘Abdallah (King ‘Ali’s brother) on the armed march northwards from Hijaz to Syria, during the Arab Revolt of 1916-17, and founded a line that still exists at the Royal Stud of Jordan. The Saudis maintained a stud near Ta’if, in the Hijaz, which Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egypt RAS visited in 1936. This stud may well have included horses taken…
The three imported mares of Jenny Lees (her photo): Hamdanieh Habiba, Shuwaimeh Bint Warda and Kray Mohammedia
Wadhah and Belle are now boarded at a farm near my home where the children can enjoy them and see them more often. They will return to Pennsylvania for breeding to the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais this spring.
A beautiful photo of the interior of one of the few remaining wonders of Syria still standing.
A photo of the desert-bred stallion Cherine from the magazine Le Sport Universel Illustre. Cherine, born in 1903, was one of the best looking stallions to be imported by the French to their government stud of Pompadour, and then on to their Algerian stud in Tiaret in 1909.
I have visited many great cities around the world, and nothing comes close to Aleppo before the Syrian civil war. Fes, in Morocco is a distant second. Photo from the Aleppo Photographic Museum
Jeanne Craver just shared this short note signed on a White House card by US President Theodore Roosevelt to the US ambassador to Turkey. The note reads: “June 13 1906. Dear Mr. Leisheman Mr. Davenport is an awfully good fellow in every way. I hope that you can make a special effort to help him in his arab horse scheme; and any courtesy you can show him I shall accept as personal. Sincerely yours T. Roosevelt.”
Wonderful photos of a time long gone.
Monica Savier has two articles on the Bahrain WAHO conference, one is Desert Heritage, and the other in Tutto Arabi.
Sharon Meyers has a comprehensive and nicely illustrated report in the Australian Arabian Horse Society New in two parts (Part 1 and Part 2) on the WAHO conference in Bahrain. Lots of great photos of Bahraini horses.
Al Khamsa is updating its online roster to include registrations from 2012 and 2013, and I was very happy to see two of my own breeding feature online: both Mayassa Al Arab and Jamr Al Arab now have their own pedigree page, and it’s very rewarding to see their old American pedigrees on an Al Khamsa page.
From Rehan Ud Din Baber on Facebook: “Here is a story about how “Azrek” was acquired by “Zeyd” — the Bedouin horse master of Lord Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (Zeyd was from the Muteyr tribe in Nejd). Zeyd says: “I will tell you how I bought the Seglawi [this was the stallion ‘Azrek’]. I did not, of course, tell them the truth, that I was the servant of the Bey (Lord Blunt). There is no shame in this. It is policy (siasa). I am a master of policy. I made a deceit. I said to them that I was of the Agheylat, looking for horses for India, horses from the north and tall ones, for those are the horses that bring most price in India. What did I want with the pure bred? I wanted to make money. And so I went to the Sebaa. I alighted at Ibn ed Derri’s tent, as it were by accident. But I made a mistake. It was not the tent of Mishlab Ibn ed Derri, but of his brother Fulan (the name Fulan is used as we say So-and-So). There are four brothers. Fulan and Fulan and Fulan and Mishlab. Mishlab was the owner of…
The Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Yemameh/Yamama was the dam of the Crabbet foundation stallion Mesaoud, and the progenitor of the female line of Saqlawi Jadran that runs through the world famous Mahroussa and her offsprings at Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq of Egypt, many of which were exported to the USA and Europe and founded important families there. Yemameh/Yamama (same spelling in Arabic, different pronunciation depending on whether it’s pronounced in Egpytian Arabic or Classical Arabic) was from the breeding of Ali Pasha Sharif and went to the Khedive Abbas Hilmi II in his Qoubbeh/Koubbah stables. Wilfrid Blunt entered the following entry in his diary: “11th Jan. [1896] — Took Anne and Judith to Koubbah to see the Khedive. He received us with great empressement… and showed us his stud. He has got together some nice mares, but nothing quire first class, except two of Ali Pasha Sherif’s, one of which is our horse Mesaoud’s dam, a very splendid mare, with the finest head in the world. He has bred some promising colts and altogether the thing is well done.” The veterinary records for the Khedivial Stud offer the following additional information on the mare’s production: 2 July 1900: “The colt ibn Yamama is…
Did you know that Mohammed Ali Foundation had deposited the archives of Khedive Abbas Hilmi (II) at the University of Durham? Michael Bowling, who had know this for years, suggested one of us visit at the first occasion, and I had the chance to go there last February, and spend 2.5 hours looking for references about Arabian horses. One of the more interesting things I found were the veterinary records of all Khedivial Studs (Montazah, Qubbeh, Ras El Tin, Ismailia, etc). These are handwritten, and are available for four years: 1898, 1900, 1904, and 1907. Records of veterinary visits cover horses, donkeys, cows, buffaloes, small cattle, and birds. Horses include Arabian horses, but also horses imported from North Africa, Switzerland, and Austria, among other places. I copied the sections relevant to Arabian horses, and came back with a wealth of information that, if analyzed in the context of existing information from other sources, can add to our – scant – knowledge about the Stud of Abbas Hilmi. I will be writing about some of these discoveries in subsequent posts. Stay tuned.
I had never seen this photo of the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Bango, bred by the Shammar in 1923, and imported to Algeria by the French government in 1928, from an Egyptian racetrack. The photo was taken from an article on the Algeria stud of Tiaret, which appeared in the magazine Le Sport Universel Illustre N1375 of 1929/07/06. Although French studs did not favor grey horses at the time, Bango left behind 142 offspring in both Algeria and Tunisia, including the stallions Sumeyr, Beyrouth, Titan, Caleh, and the mares Tosca, Salome, Palmyre, El Balaska, Gafsa, Themis, Diyyena, and others that stamped Northern African studs with their quality.
A very exciting development is the digitizing and online publication of eight Middle Eastern library collections, the result of a collaboration with the French National Library. There are so many Arabian horse related treasures in the French National Library, and I can’t help think how many more lie in the Middle Eastern ones.
Better resolution photos from the Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Mahboub Halab in France this summer.
I spent some time with my friend Jean-Claude Rajot and his companion Fabienne Vesco and her daughter Severine this past summer. His imported Syrian stallion Mahboub Halab is looking glorious. I have other better photos too.
A photo of the desert bred stallion Telmèse, born in 1903, imported to France by Quinchez in 1912 has surfaced on allbreedpedigree.com. His name is spelled “Telmez” there. There is no strain recorded for Telmese, only that he was an “Asil de la tribu des Chammars”. This marks one of the first usages of the term “Asil” for an Arabian horse in French official records. His most important progeny includes the stallion Djebel Moussa, sent to Tunisia, out of Dragonne, and the mare Medje, out of Dragonne’s daughter Dourka.
The desert-bred Arabian stallion Dahman, born in 1900, imported from Syria to France’s Pompadour stud in 1909 by Quinchez, remains one of the prototypes of the authentic Arabian stallion. He was bred by the Shammar, by a stallion of the Dahman strain, out of a mare of the Rabdan strain. This photo is in a 1923 article from the magazine “Le Sport Universel Illustre”, from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Sleigh Roberts was the commander of the British expeditionary forces — the Kabul Field Force — that fought the second Anglo-Afghan war from 1878 to 1880. General Roberts led his 10,000 troops, including 2800 British soldiers, on the legendary march from Kabul to Kandahar, where he defeated the forces of Ayub Khan. The war horse General Roberts rode on the 20 days march from Kabul to Kandahar and on much of the campaign was Vonolel, a desert-bred Arabian stallion (photo below, at the National Army museum). Vonolel ranks high in the pantheon of history’s most famous war steeds
The French military airport in the foreground, the Euphrates and its modern bridge in the background. The bridge was built by the French in 1927 and destroyed by ISIS in 2013.
I will never, ever tire of watching that mythical photo of the Kuhaylan Haifi stallion, Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres). Thank you Anita Westfall, for taking it. My Thalia (Javera Thadrian x Bint Dharebah by Monsoon) is a Monsoon granddaughter.
This week, my beautiful Ginger (DA Ginger Moon) left for Idaho, on lease to Bev Davison. She will be missed, but I could not give her the chance she deserved over the past three years, for lack of a suitable stallion, and competing breeding projects (and programs). Her 2015 miscarriage after a successful breeding to the aged Bahraini Mlolshaan stallion in Michigan still haunts me. Bev will attempt a breeding to Buckner (photo below), on lease from Rosemary, Terry and Lyman Doyle, and then to one of her handsome Babson-Doyles, if all goes well. Buckner is double Greggan and double Subani, and it does not get better than that!
This beautiful photo of Pericles appeared on Facebook yesterday, courtesy of PG Gregory.