Taken at Sue Moss in Pennsylvania, shortly after she arrived there. This mare is top crossed with 6 generation of Straight Egyptian sires on a Crabbet tail female of Milanne/Ferida. I believe she is in foal to Monologue CF.
From 2007, but it now seems like it was ages ago, from the good old days of tracking old Bedouins in Syria with Hazaim Al Wair and asking them about their horses and all sorts of other things. I re-read it now, fascinated by the wealth of information — like a Abbas Pasha Manuscript entry, and am grieving over what is lost. —————————————————————————————– Conversation with Abdallah Abu Sayfayn, Bedouin horse breeder (03.31.07) Revised after a visit by my friend Kamal Abd al-Khaliq to Abdallah Abu Sayfayn on April 5, 2007 1) The man: ‘Abdallah, son ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, said he was 55 years old. He is the owner [sahib] of a marbat of the Maanagi Sbaili known after his family. 2) His clan: He said his family is from the Shumaylat [a section of the Fad’aan], and that there were four Fad’aan sections that are “brothers” [i.e., very closely related to each other]: al-Mhayd, al-Shumaylat, al-Sari, and al-Rus. He mentioned that the Mhayd were the senior section, and implied that the other three sections, including his, acknowledged the authority of the Mhayd. He also asked me to check with Thamir ibn Mhayd [who seemed to be current Shaykh of the…
The visit of Judi Forbis to Bahrain adds another piece of extra information not otherwise mentioned in Bahraini studbooks, with regards to the mare Dahmah Al Tawilah, the dam of Dahman II (Dahman Al Thaani): “…then came an interesting contrast between two elderly Dahmah matrons, both chestnuts, both very distinctive but of a very different type and sire line. One was half sister to the old Dahman stallion [Dahman I or Al Awwal], but sired by a Krush, and far more refined than he.” The caption of a photograph of a chestnut mare in the same article reinforces this identification: “Dahma, a chestnut mare at Sakhir. Dam of Dahman II and IV, who are breeding stallions used by Sheikh Isa, she is also a sister to old Dahman I. Pictured in her 20s. Forbis photo.” From this we learn that the sire of Dahmah Al Tawilah is a Krush (in the Bahrain studbook this horse appears as OA Original Arab with no strain mention). This Krush may be “Krushan Bay” (aka Krush Al Asday, meaning the Bay Krush) who is the sire of the Jallabiyah dam of Jellabi II (Jellabi Sakhir), a mare contemporary to Dahmah Al Tawilah.
Another interesting snapshot is the information Judi Forbis reports about Hamdany Riadh, a stallion at Sheykh Mohammad B. Salman (brother of the then ruling emir and uncle of the present King), during her 1970 visit to Bahrain: “Despite deep chuck holes and the rocky desert, the car succeeded in reaching Ganabia safely where Sheikh Mohamed’s farm was located a few kilometers away. An old grey Hamdaniyah mare from the Saud’s stud and a desert-bred [implied — not from Bahrain and not the Saud’s studs] grey Obeyah mare were the most attractive of some fifteen broodmares. Sheikh Mohamed had also kept a good Hamdani stallion which he received from the Saud’s as a gift, but unfortunately the horse had died recently.” A few years ago, a discussion on this blog had come to the conclusion that Hamdany Riad was in all probability the Saudi stallion Faris (Al Harqan x Al Hadbaa), #84 in the Saudi Studbook, which gifted to Bahrain in 1964 along with a number of Hamdani mares.
The set of articles on the Arabian horses of Bahrain which Judi Forbis published in the Arabian Horse World in 1971, and reprinted in her Authentic Arabian Bloodstock contains so much information that it has become one of those snapshots that help chronicle the history of Arabian horses, often complementing existing pedigree and studbook information. One example where her material add extra information not otherwise available is her description of the stallion Dahman I (1938-1970) whom she saw in extreme old age: “Of particular interest at this stud [Jezra] was old DAHMAN, well over thirty years of age. He had been used extensively and while having size and great forehand depth, he was light behind, short and somewhat rounded in croup and possessed a strangely pointed triangular head which was very large, convex, bony and coarse, though dry. It is said he is responsible for many of the plain heads on Bahrain today. Sired by a Mlolshan, he was out of a chestnut Dahmah [Dahmah Al Shaqra] who was one of the old Khalifa mares left on Qatar and eventually sent back to Bahrain as a gift from Abdul Jasim [in reality Abdallah bin Jasim] al Thani, the ruler of Qatar.” The…
Jean-Claude Rajot tells me that Robert Mauvy’s favorite desert bred Arabian horse imports to France were Dahman (a Dahman x a Rabda) from the Shammar, and Diab (a Hamdani Simri x a Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah). Diab was the sire of the mare Bad dam of Bad Afas in Poland. I am looking for a photo of him. The desert bred Nibeh, hailing from the Fad’aan was also one of his favorites.
This news from the Bahrain News Agency from August 2014 was just displayed on Philippe Paraskevas’ “Egyptian Alternative” Facebook page. I find it fascinating that more than 80 years after the importation of the first Kuhaylan Afas to Poland by Bogdan Zientarski, a stallion from same bloodline joins the Polish State Studs. Below a photo of this gorgeous stallion.
I just tried and it works for me. Not sure if you must be signed in or not.
“At Cairo we heard from sportsmen, that from time to time one or two horses ‘asil’ from the stud of the Sheikh of Bahrain came up on the race track; they always ran with great success. This stud, existing since 1785, is pure-in-the strain bred. The same was confirmed to us by the Bedouins of Damascus.”
Solomon picture taken in 2010 by Jenny Krieg. I love how much we know about his sire line, which dives deep into Arabian and Bahraini history. He is 28 years old this year. He is Mlolshaan (M118 in the Bahrain Studbook), born in 1986, bred by Sheykh Mohammed Bin Salman, brother of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Salman (ruled 1961-1999), and uncle of current King Hamad (ruling 1999-present), out of Mlolesh Asila M105. His sire is Rabdan Al Wasmy (M19), born in 1979 (out of a Rabda M16 — M indicating a mare/horse at the stud of Sh. Mohammed), photo below His sire is Managhy Al Ahmar, born in 1971, died in 1989 (M20) His sire is Dahman II of Jesra (one of the Amiri Studs), born 1962, died accidentally in 1977 photo below from Royal Bahraini Stud website His sire is Jellabi Al Wasmiya (another Stud), born 1943, died 1973, favorite stallion of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Salman, a.k.a Old Jellabi I, photo below His sire is Dahman I, born 1938, died in 1970, photo below His sire is Mlolshaan Al Marshoosh (speckled), born 1930, died 1968, perhaps the longest living known Arabian horse His sire is sire is Jellabi…
A fascinating and nostalgic interview in Arabic of Princess Badiaa, daughter of King Ali of Hejaz (1924-1925), sister of regent of Iraq Abd al-Ilah, sister of Queen Aalia the wife of King Ghazi of Iraq, with beautiful memories of then-enchanting Bagdad. Please, never forget that Bagdad was at that time (together with old Aleppo now gone, old Jeddah now gone, and old Sanaa still standing but for how long?) one of the most beautiful cities of the Middle East. It was not the sprawling jungle of concrete and backwardness that it is today.
Of course, the ultimate objective of tallying and identifying the horses of Ali Pasha Sherif breeding not owned by the Blunts would be to be able to put a reasonably solid pedigree on horses like Saklawi I, Sabha El Zarka, Roga El Beda, Farida El Debbanie, Muniet El Nefous (the old one), Nader El Kebir, Bint Yemama, and perhaps above all, El Dahma. I don’t despair of being able to do this some day.
There are not many of these. Lady Anne reviews four of them in a letter to Wilfrid Blunt, dated December 13, 1914: “Up to last year Yusuf Bey was the only one of the sons owning a stallion from that Stud [APS’s] — a beautiful white horse about 15 years old. But its name was ‘Kaukab’ not ‘Valentino’… Ibrahim Bey had a horse but that was done away with two or three years ago when the glanders scare occured. Of outsiders Moharrem Pasha and Ahmed Fathi, formerly wakil of the Daira, each had a stallion. I know Moharrem P. still has his. A. Fathi’s was not remarkable and would hardly fetch 500 pounds but that can be found out without much difficulty. Mutalk is pretty sure there is nothing else…” — The first one with Yusef Bey is clearly Kaukab (Ibn Sherara x Bint Nuar El Shakra) and is identified by name here. Lady Anne saw in 1914 and described him. See earlier entry. — The second one, the one that was with Ibrahim Bey Sherif but died a few years before, appears to have been the horse mentioned in a February 24, 1902, entry of Lady Anne’s Journals: “He…
As I continue perusing Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence and what was published of her Sheykh Obeyd Studbook looking for information on those horses of Ali Pasha Sharif breeding she did not own, I came across this conclusion, which others might have already reached before. Excerpts from the Sheykh Obeyd Studbook published in Pearson and Mol (1988) list an entry for the mare Bint Helwa Es Shakra (Johara), which was purchased from Ibrahim Bey Sherif, son of Ali Pasha Sherif, on April 19, 1897, and sent to England the same year, after having been covered by “Ibn Bint Nura Es Shakra (white about 7 years) by Ibn Sherara in Cairo and barren“. I was wondering who that stallion could be. He obviously was not one of Lady Anne’s horses. He stood in Cairo, not in its outskirts where the studs of Prince Ahmed (in Matarieh) and of the Khedive Abbas Hilmi (in Qubbeh) lied. Downtown Cairo was the location of one or more of the palaces of Ali Pasha Sherif — who had died earlier in the same year. Could this stallion have been of the few horses that remained with Ali Pasha Sherif’s sons, for riding purposes, when the stud…
I recently acquired DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI), a 1998 Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, from Sheila Harmon of Destiny Arabians, Idaho. She is tail female to the Blunts’ desert-bred mare Basilisk through Rabanna, and has lots of Blunt/Ali Pasha Sharif blood throughout the pedigree. Photos below, taken by Sheila in 2009. I have long been a fan of these highly authenticated Blunt and Ali Pasha Sharif lines, which, a hundred and fifty years after their importation from the Arabian Desert to Europe then the US, continue to produce high quality horses from time to time, close to the original Arabian type. These lines also do very well in endurance (cf. Bint Gulida and Linda Tellington Jones, see photo), and are being increasingly recognized and celebrated in this field. Her pedigree is composed of three lines to Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr, 75% Crabbet/SO), three lines to Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to the Doyle foundation mare Gulida (Gulastra x Valida, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to *Rashad (Nazeer x Yashmak II who was out of the Crabbet mare Bint Rissala, almost 50% Crabbet/SO), and three to *Bint Moniet El Nefous (Nazeer x Moniet El Nefous, low percentage Crabbet/SO), as well as one line to…
Kina Murray just wrote to me that a gelding son of the asil Tunisian Arabian stallion Okba, out of a Polish/French/Russian mare, won the 100 mile Tevis Cup endurance ride. Kina tells me that “the winner, ridden by experienced endurance competitor Heather Reynolds, is called French Open (Okba x Selma Croixnoire, by Ala Croixnoire) – he raced for 7 years, earned over $78,000 and was stakes-placed 3 times.” This is great news and bodes well for Tunisian and Algerian asil lines in the USA in the future.
A wonderful blog about Egypt’s Grand Hotels and golden era. On the Shepheard, quoting from this blog: “Long before London’s Savoy or the Paris Ritz, Shepheard’s of Cairo was the epitome of glamour. It was a hotel from which explorers set off for Africa, where kings entertained mistresses, where movie stars rubbed shoulders with of?cers on leave from the desert and spies hovered in the hope of minds being softened by the congenial atmosphere. […] Everybody stayed at Shepheard’s from Mark Twain and Arabian adventurer Richard Burton to Noel Coward and Josephine Baker. Its parties and balls were legendary, its barmen the souls of discretion. When the hotel was burned to the ground in rioting in 1952, it marked the end of an era.”
From Wikipedia: “Shepheard’s Hotel was the leading hotel in Cairo and one of the most celebrated hotels in the world from the middle of the 19th century until it was burned down in 1952. A modern hotel called the Shepheard Hotel was built nearby in 1957” and “in the First World War, the hotel served as British Headquarters in the Near East.” It is frequently mentioned in Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence.
Another character who makes occasional appearances in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals is Thabit Pasha, who acted as Wakil (Trustee) for Ali Pasha Sherif’s estate in the later years of his life, and who was a central character in the process of Lady Anne’s acquisition of the remnant of the Stud of Ali Pasha Sharif in December 1896 and January 1897. The genealogical tree of the royal house of Mohammed Ali the Great has his as: “Muhammad Sabit Pasha (b. 1820; d. 1901), Private Secretary to Muhammad ‘Ali the Great 1847-1848, Minister for Justice 1878, of Charitable Endowments, Education and the Interior 1884, Khedevial Envoy at Istanbul 1881-1882, President of the Privy Council. 1884-1901, a younger son of the Circassian Chief of the Nahoush.” According to the same tree, Sabit/Thabit Pasha married a daughter of Zohra, who was one of Mohammed Ali the Great’s sisters. He appears to have been one of the country’s highest officials, and the head of the Khedive’s advisers when he acted as Wakil for Ali Pasha Sharif. The site goes on to list Aziz Bey Sabit as one of his sons, this being the same Aziz Bey Thabit whom Lady Anne mentions as a visitor to Sheykh Obeyd Stud…
Both Ahmad and Fathi Bey Yeken (Yakan, Yeghen) make fleeting appearances in Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence (where their name is sometimes mis-transcribed as Bekin) whether as visitors of the Sheykh Obeyd Stud or occasional buyers of surplus stock. Either Ahmed or Fathi Bey is mentioned as the buyer of the colt of Fasiha (Ibn Sherara x Bint Fereyha) by Antar (Aziz x Sobha) in 1908, and Fathi Bey was the buyer f the colt of Ghazieh (Ibn Nura x Bint Horra) by Feysul in 1907. The genealogical tree of the royal family of Egypt mentions the Yeken as an allied family descending from a certain Mustafa Bey, who married Zubayda Khanum, sister of Mohammed Ali the Great, founder of the Egyptian royal family. Mustafa Bey’s sister, Amina Khanum, was also Muhammad Ali’s principal wife. So the sister of the first married the second, and the sister of the second married the first. Both Mohammed Ali and his brother-in-law Mustafa Bey were born in Kavala (in today’s Macedonia, then under the Ottoman Empire, like Egypt). Most of the senior military commanders around Mohammed Ali the Great were from Kavala, including Mohammed Sherif Pasha, the father of Ali Pasha Sherif. One of Mustafa…
These Journals are a gold mine. There is not a single horse related entry which does not yield new information about the horses of yesterday and today. Look at this set of entries: July 17, 1911: “In the evening Teddy arrived with the (reported wonderful) bay stallion which Mr. Learmouth took to Australia and brought back not being allowed to land it — he bought the horse at Damascus and H.F. [Wilfrid] went to see it at Tatterstalls where today it was sold for 100 gs. Teddy bidding for H.F. It seems that H.F., if the details of pedigree show it to be genuine, intends to breed from it — the advertisement particulars were not convincing: I saw them in the Morning Post.” July 18, 1911: “The horse is a fine horse but does not carry conviction to me. We shall see what is said of pedigree later. Damascus is not a good starting place nowadays. August 3, 1911: “H.F. sends the bay horse’s certificate asking what I can make of it. The horse does not convince me to look at and as far as I can see there is no date or year on the document not clue…
The Kuhaylat al-Krush Nuri Al Krush (Janub Al Krush x Mystalla by SL Jacob) has just foaled a most wonderful colt by Quantum LD (Mandarin x Leafs Ivey by Wotan) for Kim Davis. The dam is a concentrate of rare lines from old American breeding with lines to Mainad (Hanad x Charmain by Abu-Selim), Royal Amber (Ribal x Babe Azab), Oriental (Letan x Adouba) and Kapiti in the tail female (Harara x Tamarinsk). I can’t get enough of looking at the pictures of this colt Kim sent to a few of us, and I think he is the strongest, most handsome, best built and most promising young fellow I have seen this year. He is certainly stallion material for any CMK or any old American breeding program, and even think he can improve the breed overall. In any case, he is testimony to what you can get by preserving some of these really old and rare lines. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Congratulations Kim! By the way, his dam Nuri had foaled another most special horse at Trish Stockhecke in Canada some years ago. His sire was a quasi Al Khamsa stallion with lots of lines to Hallany…
The 27 year old Kuhaylah Hayfiyah Jauhar El Khala (Sporting Life x HB Tiffany by Thane) seems to get more and more and more beautiful with age. Photo by owner Christine Emmert. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
Are those of you who are trying to post comments on DOW able to do so? I still have some problems with the blog.
I am in Yemen for the week. I am done with work for today, and the only book I brought with me is Lady Anne Blunt’s invaluable Journals and Correspondence (Archer and Fleming, 1986). Lately I have been combing the Journal entries for references to non-Blunt, non-Ali Pasha Sherif early foundation stock of Egyptian Arabian breeding, in the hope of finding new direct or contextual information about these horses. I believe I have just made an interesting discovery which I am eager to share with you here. During the later years of her life in Egypt, Lady Anne paid many visits to the studs of members of the Egyptian royal family like those of Prince Ahmad Pasha Kamal, Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq and other notables, and described their horses in her Journals with remarkable consistency and accuracy. Most of the horses she describes during these visits have bred on to become foundation horses of modern Egyptian Arabian horse breeding, including Bint Yemama, Om Dalal, Dalal, Tarfa, Doga, Radban, Saklawi II, Dahman El Azrak, Farida Debbanie, Roga El Beda, Sabha El Zarka, Jamil El Ahmar, Koheilan El Mossen, El Sennari, etc, etc. Lady Anne’s description of them and the information she provides on the…
Hopefully, on Sunday the Ma’naqiyah mare I recently acquired, CSA Baroness Lady will be bred to MSF Hamdani Simri (Faydin x IMF Badia Nafila by PRI Gamil Halim) of Lesley Detweiler, a stallion of very similar pedigree. It is a preservation breeding. Both have highly unusual (within Al Khamsa) Blunt/Crabbet tail females, the mare to Ferida (Ma’naqi Sbaili of the Shammar) and the stallion to Sobha (Hamdani Simri of APS). Both are sired by stallions bred at the Babson Farm. Both are heavily top-crossed with new Egyptian blood (mainly Ansata with lots of Nazeer), and both have tiny amounts of Early American blood (Davenport, Hamidie, Huntington, and Nedjran) at the back of the tail female through Tizzy for the stallion and Milanne for the mare. MSF Hamdani Simri struck me when I saw him at the 2011 AK Convention in PA in 2011. The large truly Arabian eye, the nostrils made of velvet, the long and arched neck, the curved mithbah, the nice shoulder, and the high tail setting impressed me. Back then I thought I wanted to see a stronger, broader croup and hindquarter (Doyle style) and a broader chest, but that’s okay and the mare has plenty of both. Also, what style he had, what…
I am breathing a heavy sigh of relief after hours with the hosting service’s technical support. I almost lost all the data on this blog, and this reminds me how precious the interactions with all of you has been over the past 6.5 years and how much knowledge was accumulated on this blog. Thank you.
Everyday I see dozens of photos of mares on my Facebook accounts and on the pages and groups I follow. This mare, Moonflower TA (Oracle RSI x White Iras Moon by Sir White Moon x CH Lyras Moniet by Tomoniet RSI x Lyras by Lysander x Iras, and hence a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah) struck me, pedigree and looks. I love the shoulder, the prominent and bony withers, the well let down gaskins and clear hocks, the strong and round croup, and the deep girth. She looks like she is a real athlete. I also like the look on the face, a combination of the Moniet look in Egyptians and the Iras one in Davenports. The pedigree is a nice mix of both. Just look at what breeding these different groups of asil Arabians together can produce. Pity it is not tried more often. She is owned by Carly Cranmore in Michigan (and she is for sale, by the way).
There is not a single mention in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence of a Dahman of Ahmed Pasha Kamal sired by Jamil out of Farida of Ahmed Bey Sennari. There are only two such Dahmans of Ahmed Pasha mentioned again and again in these Journals, both sons of Farida of Ahmed Bey Sennari (a Dahmah Shahwan of Abbas Pasha lines): the first is mentioned as the sire of Rabdan, Tarfa, etc, and the old white Seglawi of Ali Pasha Sherif (then to Ahmed Pasha then to Khedive Abbas Hilmi) is mentioned as his sire; the second appears a couple of time and his sire is said to be the Koheilan El Mossen of Sennari. The lengthy footnote in the Foundation Tables of the precious book by Pearson and Mol (“The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt”) about the Dahman sire of Rabdan and the other horses being in all probability the son of the old Seglawi of Ali Pasha Sharif then takes all its meaning. I am reproducing parts of this footnote here: Dahman (Jamil El Ahmar x Farida El Debbani); ca. 1893. Grey: “This is the breeding attributed throughout EAO Vol. I to the Dahman given as the sire of Rabdan and others.…
He was born in 1875, so he was only 5 when the Blunt met Ali Pasha Sherif for the first time, 24 when he owned what was probably his first Arabian (Saklawi II) in 1899 (according to his herd book), and 32 when he decided to dedicate himself solely to the breeding of Arabian horses (according to Lady Anne’s Journals). His brother Abbas Hilmi II was born in 1874 a year later. Prince Yusuf Kamal was born in 1882, and was only 25 when he dispersed the stud of Prince Ahmed Kamal his father. This puts things in perspective.
This asil 1977 stallion, Wahhabit, is by Siglavy Bagdady VI, a Babolna stallion, out of Delicate Air (Laertes x June), a Davenport mare. I had not seen this picture before.
This is a picture of Ghazieh gleaned from the internet. Born in 1897 at APS. Bought by the Blunts in 1897 at the APS sale, died in 1917 at Sheykh Obeyd Stud. By Ibn Nura out of Bint Horra by Aziz out of Horra by Zobeyni. Dam of Feyda by Jamil (Aziz x B. Jamila), who is in turn dam of Ibn Fayda (at Inshass Stud in Egypt) and Ibn Fayda I (at Sidi Thabet in Tunisia) both by Ibn Rabdan. Also dam of Ghareb who was used by Lady Anne as a sire at Sheykh Obeyd stud, and her daughter Feyda and Ghazwa and grand-daughters faiza adn Falha were admired by visitors to Sheykh Obeyd Stud from the world over. Funny, I don’t see a dished face or a flat topline. Maybe Lady Anne Blunt and Ali Pasha Sharif did not know enough about breeding Arabian horses to breed for these. Maybe show judges know better. Personally, I would die for a mare like this one.
CSA Baroness Lady, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, joined the Al-Dahdah herd yesterday from her breeder Carol Stone. Oh, how I love this strain, and could write pages and pages of non-stop praise for it. This is the tail female of Milanne, Ferseyn, Farana, Amber Satin, and other American greats, back to *Ferida of Lady Anne Blunt. She will be bred this year to a stallion to be determined.
I am definitely not a fan of Tom Friedman of the NYT — far from it — but I thought that the last paragraph of his most recent NYT opinion piece applied well to the urgency of preserving rare Arabian horse lines (and whatever else needs to be preserved, for that matter): As I’ve noted before, when we were growing up “later” meant that you could paint the same landscape, see the same animals, climb the same trees, fish the same rivers, visit the same Antarctica, enjoy the same weather or rescue the same endangered species that you did when you were a kid — but just later, whenever you got around to it. Not anymore. Later is now when you won’t be able to do any of them ever again. So whatever you’re planning to save, please save it now. Because later is when they’ll be gone. Later will be too late.
To continue with the series of this year’s foals, here are a couple from Regine and Warren Staas in Germany, from desert Saudi-Bahraini lines, tracking to *Savannah in tail female. This black filly is alredy on allbreedpedigree.com (here) by AAS Japik (AAS Sail out of AAS Al Kamila) out of AAS Ghazala, and both dam and daughter look splendid! The chestnut colt below is also a Dahman, by AAS Japik out of AAS Muharraq (AAS Theeb x AAS Ghazala), and is also a promising one. These are all close lines to the desert, and as Lady Anne Blunt wrote in her Journals about a mare of same strain and same origin (Bint El Bahreyn) “the Dahmeh Shawanieh from Ibn Khalifeh, she is a fine mare and authentic” (Dec. 22 1907) and “authentic blood from eastern Arabia is rare” (Dec. 30 1907). It still is.
I am catching up on weeks of backlog in correspondence. Here is Mayassah Al Arab (Clarion CF x Cinnabar Myst by ASF David). Photo credit to Kim Davis who is boarding her for me.
Yasser Ghanim is issuing News Letter 1 about their horses twice a year.
This one was bred by and belongs to Jenny Krieg and is a reward for the efforts of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force. Her sire is Tamaam DE, a Doyle/Straight Crabbet stallion belonging to Rosemary Doyle and the dam is the wonderful, old-style, classy, grand and stylish Sarita Bint Raj, who in addition to her good looks, is our last asil link to *Euphrates, *Al-Mashoor, one of the last ones to *Mirage, as well as being tail female Basilisk through Slipper. By the way, Jenny Krieg has a nick for carefully and expertly choosing stallions to match her mares, and these matings always result in exceptional individuals. Photo credit to Terry Doyle.
This one is from the Deblaise stud in France, a daughter of the Syrian Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq import Husam Al-Shamal out of their mare B’Oureah (Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak).
The Tahawi preservation breeders have the last (with her dam) asil Kuhaylat al-Kharass filly, by a Straight Egyptian stallion from US lines and out of the desert mare. I have not seen her yet, but from the photos Yasser took, she seems quite something. There was only one horse from that strain, an aged stallion, in the Syrian Studbook and he died a while ago. There was an old mare from the same strain in the Lebanese studbook, but she died too. The strain is originally from the Sba’ah ‘Anazah, where it was much prized and sought after especially for racing. It is well represented in the sire and dam lines of many of the Hearst imports. It was also the strain of Proximo/Jadaan, the personal mount of the head of the Fad’aan Jadaan Ibn Mhayd, seen by the Blunts in their second desert journey in 1881 (Lady Anne spelled the strain as Kuhaylan Akhras) and bought by them in India where he had been sold for racing. Proximo failed to produce anything at Crabbet (not very fertile), and was eventually sold to Poland yet at some point it was considered likely that the Crabbet foundation mare Nefisa was his…
Select pictures of new asil foals from around the world. This one is special, because she traces to the only desert-bred stallion in America, the old Mlolshaan Hager Solomon; he is a son of DB Khrush, so close up Davenport and Saudi imports there, and out of a daughter of Mlolshaan. Her breeder and owner is Cathy Fye, and judging from both the pedigree and the conformation, she will be an endurance athlete.
Lately I have been re-reading Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence to let steam off increasing workload. I try to read a few entries while in the car, in airport terminals, and — I confess — in the bathroom. I have been paying special interest to the entries about Ali Pasha Sherif horses — it’s probably the “I-now-live-in-Egypt factor”, trying to make sense of the various horses mentioned. Then I remember that RJ Cadranell had most of it figured out in this fascinating article, here. RJ, hats off to you.
This stallion of Ali Pasha Sherif’s (APS) has always been a bit of a puzzle for me. One more than one occasion in her Journals and Correspondence, Lady Anne Blunt, whose favorite stallion of all APS’s stallions he was, clearly states that he was a Saqlawi Jadran by Wazir. If that’s the case, then his name does not make sense, Nadir being a male’s name in general, and “Ibn Nadir” meaning the son of Nadir. After carefully reading all the entries about him in Lady Anne’s Journals, and noticing the pattern of the names of APS’s horses (stallions and mares) with “Ibn” or “Bint” after their dam’s names and never after their sire’s (Ibn Nura, Ibn Sherara, Ibn Horra, Ibn Zarifa, Ibn Bint Jellabiet Feysul, etc, for the stallions, and for the mares Bint Helwa, Bint Horra, Bint Nura, Bint Azz, Bint Bint Jellabyet Feysul, etc), I became convinced that “Nadir” must have been Ibn Nadir’s dam’s name, as odd as it may sound. Every visit record of the Blunts at APS was accompanied with a list of the horses, and a naming pattern emerges, similar to the way Bedouins and Syrians name their horses: there is an important root…
This last photo from 1990 or 1989 of the late Mustafa al-Jabri (on the left), Radwan Shabareq (on the right) and my father, Gen. Salim Al-Dahdah marks the end of the 40 days of celebrating Mustafa’s legacy as a major breeder of Arabian horses. May he rest in peace surrounded by his beloved horses, Mahrous, Ihsan, Basel, Halah, Nawal, Hallah, Ameenah and all the others which he loved and cherished so dearly.
So today my wife made me take a break from work to see the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo. I enjoyed the visit. In the evening I checked the website of the museum and found this reference, about the collections in its library: “The late Prince Youssef Kamal collection is in the Museum library with the French Expedition famous Déscription de l’Egypte.” That’s the son of Ahmad Kamal Pasha (APK), who inherited his father’s stud of Arabian horses, and sold it to Prince Mohammed Ali, Lady Anne Blunt (who bought three mares) and others in 1907. I will go back to the library to check out this collection, and look for horse-related materials.
I was always intrigued by the scarcity of references in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence to her encounters with the Dahman Shahwan horses of the lines of Nadra El Kebira and Obeya, compared to her numerous references to horses from the lines of Yemama (Saqlawi Jadran ibn Sudan), Roga El Beda (Saqlawi Jadran, no marbat mentioned) and Freiha (Kuhaylan Mimrah) at the stables of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq and Prince Ahmad Kamal. This is by far Egypt’s most famous and globally prevalent strain today, yet it is the one we know least about from contemporary sources. The most explicit of these scarce references occurs during a visit to the stables of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq at Manial on December 22nd 1908, where she records seeing “a beautiful grey Dahmeh Shah. the prince got lately from the Khedive who had her dam from A. Pasha Sherif (she had a foal 3 weeks old with her)“. This is either Nadra El Kebira or Gazza. Another reference is from one year earlier, on December 17, 1907, also during a visit to the Prince: “There was a handsome white horse from the Khedive, a Dahman — sire Seglawi, which headed the list of horses.” Could this be Farhan/Saklawi II, who…
The entry in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals about her last visit to Ahmed Pasha Kemal’s stud (shortly after the Pasha’s death) on March 10th, 1907 is extremely informative. It was the last of several visits of Lady Anne’s to that stud, she remembered a lot of the horses from her previous visits, she spent a long time looking at the horses (1.5 hours), and she was accompanied by “Ali Effendi the old Kurdish manager”, Mahmoud who then went under her service and of course Mutlaq. Her description of the mares and stallions in that Journal entry comes four days after the acutal visit (which was on March 6th), and is precise and detailed as usual. Look at the comments of that blog entry for comment’s and speculation on my side about the horses in this entry of Lady Anne’s Journal, some obvious and some not so obvious. Here is the full text of that entry (italics are Lady Anne’s but bolds are mine): March 10 Now about the Ahmed Pasha Stud. Was received there by Ali Effendi the old Kurdish Manager, and Mahmud, and spent about an hour and a half looking round. The first mares in the row, a chestnut Nowakieh,…