Edouard Aldahdah

I am very proud of this 16 year old mare, which I acquired about a year ago. She is having some trouble conceiving but we will be working on that over the coming year.

I have been trying to get a photo of him. He was Miqhim Ibn Mhayd’s slave and one of his most trusted men. Following the relocation (exile?) of Miqhim from Syria to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the late 1950s, he acted as Miqhim’s agent to acquire several hundreds of desert bred horses, mostly mares, … Read more

One of my favorite Davenport mares, based on photos I have seen, and on liking her two brothers: Pomp Charbonneau and Firebolt CF. Photo Christine Emmert.    

The handsome 2005 stallion Chatham DE (Huntington Doyle x Gulida Tara DE by Maloof Najid), photo from DeWayne Brown.  

The sweet Juans Aana (El Reata Juan x Suuds Juli Aana), a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah from the line of Haidee, 26 years old this year, left to what seems to be a good retirement home yesterday. I kept her 16 year old daughter which I still hope to breed this year. If it’s a colt, I … Read more

Here you really see the Crabbet influence from his dam blending with the blood of his paternal grandsire Regency CF.

Pedigree here. She is six generations removed from the original desert import *Nufoud from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I am in absolute awe of DeWayne Brown’s young Ma’naqiyah filly, DaughterofthePharaohs, a.k.a. “Pippa” (Chatham DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince), photo below by DeWayne. She is a throwback to the old Crabbet type of a hundred years ago. She has crosses to three of the four Gulastra descendents in Al Khamsa, … Read more

Belle (top) looks the most deserty of all my horses by far, and has the longest ears, Jamr (middle) has the crested neck of his Crabbet ancestors, and Wadha has the most “classic” head and largest eyes of the three. And there is only so much a smartphone camera can do.

This serves mostly as a note to myself: I found an intriguing reference to Farhan al-‘Olayyan in a Syrian hujjah of a horse born in the mid 1980s. I had long thought that Farhan al-‘Olayyan, a former black slave who had acted as an agent of the Saudi royal family for the purchase of hundreds … Read more

My Syrian friend Radwan — one of the persons from whom I keep learning — told me that desert mares from the Ma’naqi strain were characterizeda, among other features by long ears, large and long mouths that ran deeper into the muzzle than horses from other strains, and horizontally placed eyes, more so than horses from … Read more

Ahmad Saffar from Bahrain told me the other day that wealthier Bahrainis from the ahali — the population, so not royals — kept marabet of Shawafan and Wadhnan until the 1970s, when they turned to Thoroughbreds and part bred Arabs for racing. They had obtained these strains from Southern Iraq — presumably the area around Basra and … Read more

I never believed straight profiles were a defect. Most of the desert Arabian horses I grew up with in Lebanon and Syria had straight profiles. Very early on, I found that quote in Lady Wentworth’s “Authentic Arabian Horse”, perhaps taken from Lady Anne Blunt’s unpublished manuscript; it echoed what I was seeing and learning about … Read more

This young filly is the happy outcome of a sustained preservation effort of the Kuhaylan ‘Ajz line of *Nufoud, and of the small number of Arabian horses without Crabbet bloodlines. Her name means “divine blessing”. May she be blessed and continue this precious line of royal horses. Her dam Jadah BelloftheBall (“Belle”) was rescued several … Read more

Barakah Al Arab — fuzzy picture — was born on June 23, 2016, at 4.00 am, a tall filly by Wadd Al Arab (Triermain CF x Wisteria CF by  Triermain CF) out of Jadah BelloftheBall (aka “Belle”, by Invictus Al Krush x Belladonna CHF by Audobon CF). She will probably be grey. She is a … Read more

This is the mare I will be breeding this spring. Shadows Aana (SS Shadowfax x Juans Aana by El Reata Juan), a 2000 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah with five crosses to Julyan (and hence, Julep, and Gulastra), three crosses to Antez, and two crosses to Hanad (through his daughter Schiba) has been with me since last July. … Read more

Clarion CF (Regency x Chinoiserie by Dharanad), 1991 liver chestnut stallion, is the sire of my Mayassah, and is standing at Kirby Drennan’s, in Virginia, IL.

From my visit to Illinois, last weekend. With Marty Bugg. The first photo is my best shot of a horse in motion in a long time.

This 2003 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion (Regency x Kiddleywink by Regency) is, according to Jeanne Craver, the most look-alike of his Regency’s sons, and his second youngest.

Debbie Mackie’s Reema CF (Trilogy x Fragrance by Regency) was the prettiest mare I saw in my trip to Illinois over last weekend. She is so refined and yet so well built and balanced.

I was blown away by Pulcher (a.k.a Anecdote CF, by Triermain CF out of Aniq El Bedu by Iliad), while visiting Jackson Hensley and Alice Martin last weekend.What beauty, what type, what personality, what nobility, what “Arabness”, what “desert appeal” (I am coining the phrase) this horse has! Whew! Certainly Triermain’s best son.

We need a concerted, sustained c ollective effort to save what remains of the Asil Tunisian Arabians before the French invasion for racetrack pseudo-Arabian makes is too late. This is the gorgeous 1963 Kuhaylat al-Ajuz mare Naziha (Chetoui x Chouka by Ibn and Idara by Ibn Fayda and Selma by Azem and Isaoub by Negrach).

Jeannie Lieb took this beautiful photo of Thalia CF (Javera Thadrian x Bint Dharebah by Monsoon). She looks so much like her sire Thadrian, and his sister Cheslea, and his other sister Janet.

I had not seen this photo of Letan (*Muson x *Jedah) before, but now I understand who some of the pretty faced grey Davenport stallions, like Tantris CF, and Quatrain CF, took after. It comes from Dharebah, through Dhrareb, a son of Letan.

Equally asil but very different.

Stan, now 10 years old (big boy!) and Haykal, 5 months, are equally handsome and are good friends.

Check out the link here.

Yasser Ghanem’s beautiful and powerful Ju’aythiniyah mare, of Tahawi bloodlines and going back to the ‘Anazah Bedouins, is now Al Khamsa, since October 2015.

To the left, “Lady” (CSA Baroness Lady), 1999 grey Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah and her colt by Monologue CF, to the right, “Ginger” (DA Ginger Moon), 1998 chestnut Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, barren from Bahraini Mlolshaan stallion. Below, the Ma’naqi colt, who is absolute stallion material. Compare with the last photo, feauting his sire Monologue CF    

Belle — Jadah BelloftheBall — is showing her pregnancy and looking good. I bet that’s thanks to the wonder diet you recommended for her, Jeannie Lieb. None of my other horses looked as good this afternoon.

With owner Gail Wells.

Vice Regent CF (Regency x Violetta by Salutation) is the sire of my Jamr, out of Jadiba. He will be 24 years old now. Photos by Jeanne Craver last week. He looks regal. I love that big eye (wish Jamr had inherited that).  

Carver DE, a Saqlawi Jadran stallion of old Doyle/Crabbet lines, gone too soon. Photo by Lucy Doyle.  

Gudrun Waiditschka has this nice article on her website about the stallion Tajar 1811 of Count Jozsef Hunyadi, a foundation stallion of European breeding imported from Egypt by Baron Von Fechtig to the Austro-Hungarian empire. Tajar was from the stud of the Mamluk Murad Bey. He does not have lines in Al Khamsa today.

Also from my scans is this photo of old Leelas, the Kuhaylah Khdiliyah (an ‘Ajuz branch, highly esteemed in the Syrian desert) of ‘Abbud ‘Ali al-‘Amud of the ‘Aqaydat Bedouins, which he got from ‘Udayb al-Waqqa’ of the ‘Anazah. He was so attached to her, he would not sell her at any price, even though … Read more

I took this photo in the early 1990s, on one of the trips my father and I used to take to the Biqa’ valley of Lebanon to see our horses. A flock of sheep grazing in the morning sunrise.

I have been saying it over and over, but the Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare FinDeSiecle CF, with Jeannie Lieb, has one of the most beautiful heads I have seen on an Arabian horse. It’s perfection, in my opinion. The eyelashes, the muzzle, the deep jaws, the proportion. A case study.