Edouard Aldahdah

The epitome of the Arab horse, and a hero of the British Afghan campaign.

My quick translation of this creation story from the Nasiri book, which took it from a much earlier account by VIIIth century chronicler Wahab Ibn Munabbih; the translation can be improved, but this is a good start: From Wahab ibn Munabbih, who said: “I was told that when God Most Glorified and Most High wanted … Read more

The Damkhiyyat (feminine singular Damkhiyyah, masculine singular Damkhi) are most likely a reference to Damkh, a mountainous range in Najd and its surrounding area (photo below). It lies some 300 km west of Riyadh, by Halban, on the highway from Riyadh to Mecca. Arab geographers and poets starting from the 700s CE alike made several … Read more

[Edited September 1, 2019] I have been enjoying reading a scanned Arabic copy of the manuscript “the Complete Guide to the Professions of Veterinary Medicine and Horse Breeding”, which Hylke Hettema recently pointed me to. This is the medieval treatise otherwise known as the “Nasiri Book” in English or Le Naceri in French. It was … Read more

This afternoon, I spent a good two hours with Hylke Hettema combing through her online version of al-Kitab al-Nasiri (The Complete Guide to the Professions of Veterinary Medicine and Horse Breeding, Called “The Nasiri Book”). This is the equestrian treatise which Nicolas Perron famously translated and published between 1852 and 1860 under “Le Naceri, la … Read more

This is my fourth and last attempt to breed — please don’t make fun of me — my lame, old, maiden mare SS Shadows Aana for a 2020 foal. She came in heat last week and Sue Moss had her bred by Jamr. We know he is fertile since another old mare of mine, Nuri, … Read more

Of course, many of you have already seen this important article, which Gudrun Waiditschka published in her online magazine In the Focus, about her recent trip to Syria and her covering the recent Arabian horse festival there. It is in the German language.

Now formally introducing Kinza Al Arab (Subanet Jabbar SDA x DA Ginger Moon), 2019 Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah filly. Kinza: very long ears, superlative shoulder, long withers, low-set eyes, fine muzzle, long hip and a fun disposition. Photos by Bev Davison.

I just happened on Stephanie Sears well illustrated article from 2003 on Arabian horses in Syria. It was published in Canadian Arabian News. Lots of photos I see for the first time, and a nice account of her travels around the country. The link is here. Save it before it disappears!

Karsten Scherling took this photo of Joan DeVour’s stallion Le Coquin some ten years ago in Oregon. That is one of the few Al Khamsa horses with a line to the legendary *Mirage. He now has a new filly.

A random thought unrelated to horses and perhaps better suited for social media: this morning I found myself longing for a glass of chilled karkade, the hibiscus infusion popular in Egypt and Sudan. I recall the one Gulsun Sherif served me in Maadi on a hot August afternon some five years ago. Check this blog … Read more

Yesterday, Hylke and I were discussing when the word “asil” (authentic, original in Arabic) first came to be used in reference to Arab horses, and by whom. I do not believe Bedouins were the first to use the term to refer to their own horses. Even today, they seldom do. Rather, I believe it is … Read more

I really look forward to the publication of Hylke Hettema’s academic work. It revisits a lot of assumptions about the genesis of the Arab horse, links it to the emerging of a collective Arab ethnic identity, and highlights the role of Orientalism in creating an imagined classic Arabian horse in modern times. I have learned … Read more

I happened upon two online editions of the French magazine Le Sport Universel Illustre from the year 1902. They feature an extensive and fascinating account, in two parts, of a French government buying mission to the Orient. The mission started in Constantinople, made its way to Beirut by sea, then traveled to Damascus by rail … Read more

I am so happy with how true to his origins he has proven to be. One of my favorite arm-chair horse activities has been to trace his pedigree as far back as possible. Photo by Severine Vesco.

The more time passes, the more I cherish those precious few horse photos that also happen to show a glimpse of the people around the horses. I used to believe that good horse conformation shots should not show the handler, and certainly not the people in the background. When they did, I would relentlessly crop … Read more

They are from Basil Jadaan’s pre-war breeding. I believe, but I am not sure, that the one to the right is Yaqut, a daughter of Marwah, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah. The one to the left would be Bent al-Sham, but I forget who her dam was. Professional photo by Rick Van Lent, for Basil, who gave … Read more

Latif is best known as the sire of Denouste, and as such a premier French racing sireline. I had written about him here, some ten years ago.

The findings of recent genetic research by Dr. Barbara Wallner on the sire lines in Arabian horses is likely to cause a lot of stir in the Arabian horse world, from racing “industry” circles to purist ones. The research points to, among other findings, English Thoroughbred ancestry in the sireline of the Saudi/Qatari stallion Amer. … Read more

A recent entry on this blog witnessed a discussion between two French breeders on the notion of “le sang” as applied to Arabian horses. I would like to come back to it, as I believe it to be fundamental to understanding the kind of Arabian horses this blog advocates. This notion is not well captured … Read more

A thought had in passing the other day: one notices a significant increase in the use by French and other European horsemen of the term “Nedjdi” (among other spellings) in the first decades of the XIXth century, to refer to some Arabian horses. I believe this increase was probably associated with the influx of Bedouin … Read more

The previous post triggered some memories, which I am eager to put in writing so they don’t vanish — especially as my father, now 86, cannot be persuaded to write his memoirs. Starting from the mid-1980s, my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, would regularly take me with him to the Beirut racetrack, l’Hippodrome du Parc de … Read more

Just a note to say that the author of one of the obituaries of Henri Pharaon (1901-1993) in the Independent is wrong about him hailing from a Triestine family. The Pharaons are originally from Damascus, and one of their branches emigrated to Egypt then Trieste, which was then the only outlet of the Habsburg Empire … Read more

A previous entry by Kate McLachlan on the modern descendants of the Weil Stud foundation mare Murana I led me to the family of Cassis-Faraone of Trieste. Murana I was acquired in 1816 by Baron Fechtig for Weil by way of the port of Trieste. Some of Europe’s most illustrious foundation Arabian horses were associated … Read more

Excerpt from an Art Newspaper article: The Arab Image Foundation, Beirut’s pioneering non-profit archive of Middle Eastern photography, has launched an online platform that makes 22,000 images from the collection accessible and searchable for the first time. The foundation’s building, which has been closed to the public since 2016, will also reopen this summer, a spokesman says. … Read more

Indi Miskolcsi has immortalized little Zalfa in this drawing.

Back in the 1990s, when Hansi Heck-Melnyk and I were trying to account for all Tunisian horses in Tunisia and Europe, there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of these beautiful, dry Arabians with lines that traced exclusively to horses imported from the desert of North Arabia. Tunisia was indeed had the one of the … Read more

Such reads the caption on the photo below, shared by Rehan Ud Din Baber on his wonderful Facebook page. Rehan tells us the photo is from the G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, which I will certainly look up. Also sharing Severine Vesco’s beautiful comment on that photo, in French: C’est en regardant ces … Read more

Zalfa had to be put down yesterday, at the veterinary hospital. In many ways, she was just too good to be true. I just hate breeding when this happens. I just hate it. You buy a rare old mare in her twenties sight unseen from far, far away, you do export papers, you ask friends … Read more

1908. A barber setting up shop by the train station of El Marg, North of Cairo. This is the closest train station to Lady Anne Blunt’s stud of Sheykh Obeyd. Her journals indicate she regularly used this station to go to Cairo and back to her stud, about the time that picture was taken. I … Read more

[My dashboard tells me this is blog post number 2000 on Daughters of the Wind, after more than eleven years of blogging] Marta Ulan has a page on Facebook where she shares photos of foundation horses. Not sure what the source is for this nice photo of the foundation stallion Kuhailan Zaid, the desert-bred import … Read more

Does it still exist in asil tail female? or did Sadana and her daughter Souha die without asil female progeny?

This photo is from the World Digital Library “from a collection of 65 projectable lantern slides relating to the Arab Revolt of 1916?18.” DOW readers and lovers of the true Arabian horse, click on the image to enlarge it, and please spend time gazing and squinting at each horse, and look at the chest, the … Read more

Mystic UF (Janan Abinoam x Astranah by Astrologer), 1987 Kuhaylan Hayfi of Davenport lines, was a powerhouse. Owner Aida Schreiber riding.

These posts weere initially published on the AKHorsemen Yahoo discussion group, over several days in August 2001. There is no evidence whatsoever that Bedouins ever bred according to strain theory. This is a myth. They most certainly never did it intentionally during the 20th century and the Abbas Pasha Manuscript is here at last to … Read more

My friend and mentor Chuck Humphreys sent me this poem by Latin American poem Pablo Neruda: HORSES From the window I saw the horses. I was in Berlin, in winter, The light was without light, the sky skyless.   The air was white like a moistened leaf.   From my window, I could see a … Read more

Severine Vesco took this beautiful photo of my friend Jean-Claude Rajot and his Syrian stallion Mahboub Halep, bred by Radwane Shabareq near Aleppo in 2007.