One reason I enjoy keeping this blog is the unexpected encounters that I had the chance to make through it over its nearly five years of existence. One such encouter was the one with Obeyd al-‘Utaibi (“a.k.a Pure Man”) a ‘Ataiba Bedouin of Saudi citizenship who maintains the spirit of old Arabian Bedouin horse breeding — as opposed to the new Arabian horse breeding spirit largely prevailing in the Gulf today, which is not based on old Bedouin knowledge and practices and is basically just mimicking Western practices, minus the West’s knowledge (there are exceptions, of course). Another was the encounter with the Tahawi clan (Yehia, Mohammed, and of course Yasser) a couple of years later. Great things happened as a result of both encounters, knowledge gaps were filled, missing pieces of puzzle put together, and in the Tahawi case great progress was made on the preservation of the few remaining asil mares they have. The latest encounter of this type took place when Jibril Kareem Melko of the UK contacted me recently. He is the grandson of Mrs. Nazeera Qassis who was the niece of Dr. Iskandar Qassis. Dr. Qassis was the foremost preservationist Syrian horse breeder in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, a well of…
Just like “code is poetry” to the WordPress blogging community, to me the way sires and dams, strains and names, tail males and tail females combine to make a pedigree come to life feels like the rhymes and rythm of verses in a poem. Bad pedigrees are like bad poems, I cannot read them without cringing. A good pedigree on the other hand is something I can gaze at for hours, marveling at the delicate craftsmanship and genius — sometimes unintentional — behing them. Look at this one for instance, or this one, or this one: can you hear them speaking to you? Below, my favorite poem, from Rimbaud
A great article by Rick Synowski by Michael Bowling and RJ Cadranell — of course, sorry — on “Reconstructing Domow”, that matriach of old American breeding. I never tire of re-re-reading it. I leased two Krush mares with Domow in the pedigree. The usual instruction with this photo: flip your head 30 degrees to the right when looking at it.
There was a meeting of Davenport and CMK folks and their horses in California last week. Many horses were shown, and many photos were taken. See some of the photos by Carol Mingst, here. Here is one of my favorite Davenport mare Pirouette CF, by Carol Mingst, and another of her daughter, ADA Sareeah (by Dubloon CF), by Christine Emmert. Both are excellent photographers, au naturel.
Also from the DAHC website, this gorgeous photo of Portia (Tripoli x Dhalana by Salan), a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah bred by Charles Craver, and the founder of a dynasty of her own at Craver Farms. I have met a couple of mares in Syria at the stud of Basil Jadaan in the early 1990s that bear a striking resemblance to her. There was in particular an old Kuhaylat Ibn Mizhir mare at Basil’s and a Saqlawiyat Ibn ‘Amud whose heads look almost exactly like Portia’s.
A photo of the Kuhaylan Hayfi Davenport stallion Anchorage (Ibn Alamein x Alaska by Tripoli) bred by Charles Craver. From the DAHC website
Lisa is asking how well Davenport and Part Davenport Arabians do in high level endurance racing. Does anyone have numbers, facts, etc to share?
Cathie Fye recently shared with me this picture of her 2003 Dahmah Shahwaniyah mare Thank Heaven (*Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer x Ru Serr Llany), one of two daughters of the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan in the USA. She is doing well in endurance, as she should. Look at the gaskin, and the clean hocks. Where do you see this anymore? I had already decided to breed one of my mares to this stallion before he is done, but seeing this photo confirms my decision. He will be 25 next year.
I went to see Jadiba and her foal on a rainy day couple weeks ago, and all I could back with were a few head shots of which this is one, against an unflattering background.
What follows are pictures of horses from a little known and much underlooked asil line in the USA, that of the Saud Royal Stud’s Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare *Samirah, through her daughter Koweyt by Alcazar, Koweyt’s daughter Konight by Kaniht (all from Albert Harris’ breeding) and Konight’s 1963 daughter Ameera Moda by Fa-Turf (so lots of desert horses upclose). Two pictures of Konight are below. All the pictures are from Carrie Slayton, a long time breeder of this line, to whom the credit goes for saving it from extinction. I had written about this branch of the *Samirah line back in 2009 (click here) but did not learn of its current status until Carrie contacted me recently, and we started a conversation about these horses, which led her to send me these pictures. Carrie leased two daughters of Ameera Moda (Fa-Turf x Konight by Kaniht) from the original breeders — the Bancrofts — and bred them to asil stallions over the years. One such daughter is Sha Bint Ameera (below) by the Hamdani Simri stallion Fa Charlamar, of old Davenport/Babson/Saud lines. From the photos, Sha Bint Ameera looks like a mare of old desert type, the like of which you…
Christine Emmert just shared with me this beautiful photo she recently took of the Davenport Kuhaylah Hayifyah mare Wotan’s Winnie (Wotan x Danseuse CF by Lysander) during the Ed Skinner Memorial Trail ride. Thanks Christine!
Take a preview of the 2015 Arabian Horse World Championships, and get your snorkels and wet suits ready if you don’t want to miss them. Notice the “ultra-refined” head, “exotic” arched neck, the “classic” dished profile, and the “extreme” muzzle of this young competitor. The eyes would have looked bigger if the makeup wasn’t wiped away by the water. Don’t waste time looking for legs, there aren’t any: toothpick legs are deja-vu (so pre-2010!), the new fashion is no legs at all!
The grand Hamdani Simri stallion Regency CF (Ibn Alamein x Bint Antan by El Alamein) died last week at age 31. Of the more than 600 (!) Davenport stallions horses (of course) bred by Charles Craver over more than 50 years from dozens and dozens of stallions, 76 (more than 15%) are his direct offspring. Photo from the Craver Farms collection.
From the archives of the Institut Francais du Proche-Orient in Damascus
I found an interesting online database of Arabian horse pedigrees, which includes “all Arabians bred by Wilfred Blunt, Lady Anne Blunt, Lady Wentworth, Cecil Covey between 1878 – 1971”. It seems serious, and is perhaps based on access to the Blunts’ various studbooks. I am going to use it.
Someone Marie Arthur posted this picture on Facebook of the Kuhaylah Hayifyah Davenport mare EK Asiirah UF (Portico x Astranah by Astrologer) bred by Joyce Gregorian, and it struck me. I really like this mare. I even like her one obvious defect: a shorter and thicker neck, which is/was the case with many many desert bred Arabians of the past. That long swan-like over-arched neck is a ugly western invention. Rather, notice the black skin around the muzzle and the eyes, and that overall air of shyness, gentleness, and modest femininity, as if the mare was ashamed of being so beautiful.
Much of Arabian horse breeding program in the West follows patterns based on the exclusion or inclusion of specific horses or groups of horses: within the Babson Egyptians, for example you have the non-*Maaroufa, which is a sub-group that excludes lines to this mare. The Babson Egyptians are themselves an artificial sub-group of Egyptians Arabians, tracing in all lines from the horses imported by Henry Babson. Here’s what I mean by artificial: had Mr. Babson imported another mare than *Bint Bint Sabbah, the descendants of this other mare would have been labeled as Babson Egyptians, and the otherwise eligible descendants of *Bint Bint Sabbah would not. Within the Davenports Arabians, you have the non-Fasal, all without lines to this mare, even though the ancestors of Fasal (*Hamrah x Amran by *Deyr *Wadduda), are present in the pedigree of all non-Fasal Davenports. These groups and sub-groups have their own logic, and are usually meant to preserve different phenotypes. The Sharp breeding program is one of those rare artificial Western-created breeding groups that I think are worth breeding in isolation and preserving, when the bigger picture of Arabian horse breeding is taken into consideration. The Sharps are basically Al Khamsa Arabian horses…
This is a bottle in the ocean.. about whether anyone knows anything about a 1999 grey Al Khamsa Arabian mare oddly named Kiefer El Sherif (Hadaya Nile Anwar x Sherlaila by Sheriz) tail female to the W.R. Hearst import *Layya, hence an Obayyan by strain. Jenny Krieg — who owns her sister Maraya and Maraya’s daughter Labwah pictured below — and I were wondering if that was not a stallion mistakenly registered as a mare, because of the name, but then again you never know.
Have those of you who live in the Mid-West and South of the USA vaccinated your horses against the West Nile virus? Soon I will be needing a vaccine for the East Nile virus, which is a good virus to catch 🙂
The Blunt Hamdani Simri stallion Sotamm (Astraled x Selma II) is in every single Egyptian pedigree by now. He is of course the sire of Nazeer‘s maternal grandsire Kazmeen (Sotamm x Kasima). He is also in the n0n-Nazeer’s New Egyptians through El Sareei (Shahloul x Zareefa by Kazmeen), Sid Abouhom (El Deree x Leila out of Bint Sabah by Kazmeen) and Sheikh El Arab (Mansour x Bint Sabah by Kazmeen). He is also in all the Babson Egyptians, either through Bint Serra (Sotamm x Serra), or *Bint Bint Sabbah (Baiyad x Bint Sabah by Kazmeen). This means all Egyptian horses (the Straight Egyptians, but also the horses with Doyle and Rabanna blood, obviously) alive today have a measure of Blunt blood. This makes the few remaining asil Arabian horses without Blunt blood, which the late Carol Lyons identified as a separate group and called the “Sharps” through a clever play on words) all the more worthwhile.
Guillaume Lambert has published excerpts of a precious 1866 letter from Emir Abd al-Qader al-Jazairi to French Army General Eugene Daumas about the asil Arabian Horse and its living conditions of French USCAR website . It is in French but worth translating through Google Translate and reading. Guillaume thinks this letter was probably the last one between the two men, former war enemies in the context of the conquest of Algeria by the French, and as such it was not integrated in their famous joint book “Les Chevaux du Sahara”, also published in 1866. Click here to read the letter in French.
I wrote this entry mostly for myself, for the record: I was finally able to retrace the whereabouts of my mare Jadiba from the time she was born until she ended up in my ownership, thanks to information from Shirin Samiljan, Charlotte Newell, Carrie Slayton, Pam Studebaker and Jill Erisman. — She is registered as having been bred by Wayne and Rosa Cunningham of Colorado, in July 1987; they were the owners of her dam at the time of breeding; — Her breeders must have either leased or somehow given her pregnant dam to Teddy Lancaster of Ohio (who was the owner of her sire Dib at that time), or sold Jadiba to Teddy at birth; she is registered as owned by Teddy Lancaster at the time of her birth on June 28, 1988; — In Nov. 1988, she was sold as a weanling to the late Joyce Gregorian, who was looking for a mate for her stallion Ibn Tirf; they were of similar bloodlines. — Upon the passing away of Joyce in 1991, her estate gave Jadiba and Ibn Tirf to Patty Andrews-Moore of Rhode Island, who never registered her in her ownership; — When she ran into some…
This is one of my all time favorite Arabian horse photos. The stallion featured in it, the 1971 chestnut Saqlawi Jadran Ibn Tirf (Sutan x Shillala by Gulson), is one that I would have liked to breed myself. Ibn Tirf was owned by the late Joyce Gregorian of Upand Farm, who wrote this beautiful article about him. Incidentally, my own Jadiba was originally purchased by Joyce as a yearling for breeding to Ibn Tirf, as per Joyce’s own words in the 1989 article: “While my first loyalty is to my Davenport program, Ibn Tirf has had influence on my buying as well as on my breeding. The Saqlawi al-Abd (*Wadduda) filly, Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta), was bought for his future harem; an Al Khamsa filly combining “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt, Davenport and Hamidie Society bloodlines… In strain and pedigree he is a felicitous example of the complementary blend inherent in “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt and Davenport lines, a combination suggested by Carl Raswan both in The Arab and His Horse, and in The Index.” Ibn Tirf and his two daughters, who left no offspring, were the last representatives of this historically very successful Blunt/Davenport cross. Ibn Tirf was 75% Blunt through the Doyle horses, and 25% Davenport through…
A view of Aleppo taken from it’s citadel by a member of Homer Davenport’s expedition to the Arabian desert in 1906.
I am fascinated with Arabic etymology, and in particular by Arabic words with roots in other languages, as well as by words in other languages with Arabic roots. Here’s a nice blog on the topic. Some entries requires knowledge of the Arabic language but not all.
Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. I will keep readers posted on how this dialogue evolves. Comments will stay because they are the readers’.
This is Bint Delingat (Delingat x Bint Ammoura), one of the non-registered Tahawi mares that are currently being considered for registration by the EAO in a registry separate from the “Straight Egyptians”. She belongs to Yahia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi, who otherwise owns and breeds a lot of registered Arabian mares of Tahawi backgrounds, tracing in tail female to the three mares of Hamdan Stables. I took this photo in Geziret Saoud in Egypt last month. Bint Delingat is a Kuhaylah Tamriyah, and the very last of her strain. Oh, what an mazbut and precious strain Kuhaylan Tamri is! I especially like her long ears, and her overall type, which is reminiscent of some horses from Syria.
Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. I will keep readers posted on how this dialogue evolves. Comments will stay because they are the readers’.
In the ancestral homeland of the Tahawi clan, looking at old documents, with Mohammed Saoud al-Tahawi in Arab garment and headgear, Yasser Ghanem Barakat in the striped shirt, and Yahia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi on his right.
Also a while ago, Arnaud Decroix from France sent me this photo of the young Shuwayman Fahad, a 2011 Shuwayman Sabbah bred by Jean Claude Rajot by the Syrian desert-bred stallion Mahboob Halab (also a Shuwayman by the way) out of Shueymah Sabbah, herself by the Syrian desert-bred stallion Mokhtar (a Kuhaylan Krush from the Shammar) out of Jean-Claude’s foundation mare Murad Haouda Sahib (Cherif x Hamada by Irmak) who is from Robert Mauvy’s breeding program. 75% desert-bred blood from Syria on this horse. This is a special horse, whose carefully bred bloodlines are a testimony’s to Jean-Claude’s commitment to the preservation of the true Arabian horse.
A while ago, Adrien Deblaise sent me this photo a Jahir daughter, following an online discussion on Jahir himself. Rania El Arba (Jahir x Rial El Arba by Shawani out of Fatija by Fawzan out of M’Rabbia by Saadi out of Hammada) has an interesting pedigree: Hammada was a gift from Admiral Cordonnier’s Tunisian stud of Sidi Bou Hadid to Robert Mauvy in France, but is not from Tunisian lines herself. Rather she traces to the old French line of Merjane, a Mukhalladiyah imported from the Naqab/Negev desert to France in the XIXth century. Saadi was Mauvy’s stallion of Algerian lines, and Shawani is one of his Mauvy-bred sons. Fawzan (Tuhotmos x Fairouz) was bred by Egypt’s EAO and a gift from President Sadat to President Pompidou of France.
I like this 2001 picture of the Davenport stallion Telemachus CF (Odysseus x Recherche by Prince Hal). This is the real thing. Everything else, where you detect an inch of artificial features or characteristics, is fake.
A number of rare mares of old American lines have recently been brought to the attention of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force which I part of; the mares’ owners are either looking for people willing to take on preservation projects, or simply asking the task force about the right stallions for their mares; One of these mares is the 1985 “Sharp” (No Blunt blood, almost every single Arabian horse in the world now has Blunt blood) mare Hamida Ivey (Karimkhan x Mistara by Mista-Bin), a Saqlawiyah Jidraniyah with a tail female to H.H. Prince Mohamed Ali’s Hamida (Nasr x Mahroussa), who is the dominant element in her pedigree. She is owned by Chris Mellen in Utah. Another is a 1989 unregistered mare by Kamil Ibn Sahanad out of Sha Ghazya (Fa Charlamar x Ameera Moda by Fa-Turf), an extremely rare tail female Hamdaniyah Simriyah that is tail female to *Samirah, who has not had a foal before. I sure would like to see this old lady registered and back into production. Yet another mare is the 1998 Jadah Kerasun (ASF Raphael x ASF Ubeidiyah by ASF Ezra), another a tail female *Samirah with very old bloodlines. After an attempt…
My heart is bleeding every day with what is going on in Syria, and Aleppo and Homs in particular, where I spent the nicest childhood and teenage days. Ever since things have started taking an uglier turn over the past months, I have lost all sense of joy and laughter, and I now find that life has no taste. A part of me is collapsing before my eyes, as I am watching (and sometimes even looking away) powerlessly. I lost an old uncle in Homs, family members were wounded, and most of my extended family has been displaced from Homs and now Aleppo; my grandfather’s house in the old Christian neighborhood of Hamidie in Homs has been reduced to rubble, and many of the places I grew up in no longer exist. For those of you who do not know Aleppo, it is the jewel on Syria’s crown, one of those rare and precious places like Rome, Paris, Istanbul or Fes in Morocco or Ispahan in Iran, which if destroyed, would bring down with it a sizable chunk of our collective human heritage.. it’s the oldest city in the world, a place where cultures have converged for millennia, where Arabs of…
I saw this pretty 16 year old desert-bred Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah mare during my visit to the Tahawis last weekend. She belongs to Mrs Helga, the wife of Sh. Sulayman al-Tahawi. She is perfect. She is one of the tribal mares the Tahawis are trying to register with the EAO. I always forget if her name is Farida or Mayssa. One is the daughter of the other.
Monica Respet and Linda Uhrich — both great friends and amazing persons — took a day trip to see my Jadiba and her new colt Jamr, and they sent me this picture. Monica painstakingly uploaded and emailed me 36 pictures of mother and son.
As I was telling you in an earlier entry, last Friday I spent a most delightful day as a guest of Yehia Abd al-Attar al-Tahawi in Geziret Saoud in the Sharqiyah province of Egypt, along with Mohamed Osman al-Tahawi and Yasser Ghanim al-Tahawi and a number of others. I took tons of pictures with my i-phone, but I am having trouble downloading them on the laptop, so that will have to wait a bit. However, I did take some pictures with Mohamed’s camera when my phone’s battery was dead, including the following ones of a wonderful speckled Kuhaylah Khallawiyah mare. She is not registered, and she is one of the few remnants of their old tribal horses, 11 mares and one stallion in total. Her name is Bint Rammah, and she was born in 2003. Her dam is by the tribal Tahawi stallion Marhaba and her grand-dam by the “Straight Egyptian” Tahawi stallion Marshall (Amlam x Bint Fulla), who is her only link to registered Egyptian horses. According to the oral histories I heard during my visit, the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain of the Tahawi clan traces to an original mare brought from the Syria desert by one of the Tahawi shaykhs. From there she spread among various members of the Tahawi clan, including to Sh. Abd…
Friday July 13, Jadiba delivered a chestnut colt by Vice Regent CF, while I was in the Nile delta area visiting the Tahawis. She is doing well, and so is the foal. I am told he has a large blaze and two diagonal white socks and a hot temper. I am happy all went well, yet I can’t help whining: given her age (24 years this summer) and her importance to my preservation program of Old American lines (she is basically of Doyle and Davenport lines and tail female to *Wadduda), I was really hoping for a filly. I don’t have photos yet, but I will get some soon. While I was complaining, I also found a name for the colt, in keeping with the J letter: he will be named Jamr. Jamr means ember(s) in Arabic, and, other than being a really old Arabic word, I think it’s fitting for a chestnut colt full of fire. I especially like the Wikipedia definition of it: “An ember is a glowing, hot coal made of greatly heated wood, coal, or other carbon-based material that remain after, or sometimes precede a fire. Embers can glow very hot, sometimes as hot as the…
Page 133, where he discusses big race-horse stables at the Beirut racetrack: “Walking on the footsteps of H.R.H. Prince Mansour [son of King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, and the owner of a large stable at the Beirut racetrack] is his brother H.R.H. Prince Badr ibn Saud, who launched his own stables in Beirut, which brought together a nucleus of the best horses; [his stud] will grow and prosper because of his efforts, which we thank. Good results [i.e., in the races] have begun to show. The stars among his horses have begun to rise, and among these Namnum and Balaybil and Sawlajan, and others. God willing, they will be followed by others among the best of his horses.” Barazi was a very cautious and diplomatic writer who made sure he never angered anyone, and you have to read between the lines. The words “nucleus”, “stars among his horses”, “among the best of his horses” leave no doubt to the fact that he had other, less good, less authentic horses beyond the “nucleus”, the “stars” and the “best of his horses”, who, how to put it, were not so reputable. Another thing: you will hear more about this Balaybil, once I have done my due diligence on him. This may take years.…
Anthesis CF (Plantagenet x Meringue by Sir Marchen), now 30, is one of the nicest asil mares of Davenport lines alive today, in my opinion. She has produced a string of very special horses including Firebolt by Clarion CF, Lexington CF by Regatta CF, Fragrance CF and Chancery CF by Regency CF, and others.
I feel so very lucky that Mohammad Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawy and Yasser Ghanim al-Tahawy gifted me a xeroxed copy of the book of Ali al-Barazi on Arabian horses, which I had lost several years ago. That book revives bits and pieces of Northern Arabian Bedouin oral history which had died with the passing away of the old story tellers of Homs and Hama in the 1980s and 1990s. This was the time when the last of the people who had known the old Bedouin way of life passed away. I was lucky to have met these people toward the end of their lives. This era is now over forever because the old people of today, those who are 80 in 2012 were born in the early 1930s, came of age in the 1950s and so were too young to have witnessed the last Bedouin raids and other aspects of Bedouin lifestyle. Anyway here’s one snippet from the Barazi book in case I lose it again, with my rough translation: “among the famous Ma’naqi Sbaili horses was the stallion of Darwish Ibn Damnan of the Sba’ah, which large numbers of Bedouins used to flock to from far away places to breed their mares. This stallion was…
Full sister of Bint al-Barra above, Cinnabar Myst (ASF David x Mystalla) was bred to Clarion CF (Regency x Chinoiserie) last week. Also on lease from Trish Stockhecke.
And this is Bint al-Barra (ASF David x Mystalla), the Kuhaylat al-Krush which I leased from Trish Stockhecke of Canada.Photo by the same talented photogpapher.
Here is the Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare Jadah BelloftheBall (Invictus Al Krush x Belladonna CHF), tail female to *Nufoud who is currently at Craver Farms to be bred to Triermain CF and who belongs to Jeannie Lieb.
I am especially pleased with how my little Wadd is turning out; the father-to-daughter inbreeding on Triermain was a gamble, and it paid off. I was worried about him turning out “too pretty”, as in “feminine”, but he’s looking just fine, so far. Those of you who have been following this blog for some time know that I really dislike feminine stallions whatever their strain, and ‘refined’ (naa’im) is by no means an adjective any Bedouin would ever use on a stallion to praise him. A true Arabian horse is not a poodle nor a china doll. A true Arabian stallion — and only Bedouins set the standard for what ‘true’ means here, at least that’s the truth I choose to abide by — MUST exude and even ooze masculinity, but can be gentle and kind at the same time, although he does not have to. A true Arabian stallion is a ‘lord of the desert’ — ‘un Seigneur’ as Robert Mauvy would put it; he rules over all the living beings within his sight, including us humans; he “occupies a territory”, in the zoological meaning of the phrase, like lions or wolves; the air in that territory is electrified by his presence; he inspires awe and respect; you don’t pet him, you…
and here’s Wadd (Triermain x Wisteria by Triermain) who is 9 months old and who looks a lot like the rest of the family, especially his older brother Tantris, now dead, by Javera Thadrian.
Yesterday Anita Westfall (photographer emeritus) was at Craver Farms and she took thousands of pictures. Anita is not a professional photographer, she does it just for fun, yet her name will come down in the breed’s hirtory as the creator of some of the Arabian breed’s most iconic shots, including these of Prince Hal (Tripoli x Dharebah), Brimstone (Dharantez x Tyrebah), Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres), Tybalt (Tripoli x Asara) and Javera Thadrian (Thane x HB Diandra) — click on the links. Photos of Anita are known to have converted dozens of people, young and old to the Arabian horse cause. Anyway, Anita took some photos of my horses there, including the young Wadhah and Wadd, and the stallion Monologue, the latter jointly owned with Darlene Summers. Here’s Monologue’s:
I am in Cairo for work, for the next few days, coming from Tunis. Very interesting time, horse wise and politics wise. I can’t say the same about the traffic though. I will never get used to it.
Abdur Rahman Mohamed is the new owner of Lexington CF (Regatta CF x Anthesis CF by Plantagenet) and he sent me these photos of his stallion, which the Davenport breeders community thought was lost in a West Virginia sale. Not professional shots (heck, none of the recent photos on this website are professional shots but I couldn’t care less), but they do show some of the horse, who is one of the greats. He is happy and loved and lives near Chicago, IL.
There an ongoing email conversation between a number of us about coming up with a list of existing priority stallions of Davenport lines with no progeny so far, which should not be gelded if at all possible, or only gelded after being collected and frozen, following the recent gelding (for valid reasons) of a good stallion. This goes along the lines of other ongoing conversations in preservation circles in the USA about prioritizing preservation projects, because we obviously can’t save them all. If you have suggestion for horses on this priority list, feel free to come up with them. One rule: it can’t be your own stallion. It would be too easy.
Not sure how clear this drawing of the mare Sahara is. She is the desert bred Kuhaylat al-Mimrah mare imported to Poland from Arabia in1845 by Count Julius Dzieduszycki, but don’t you think she looks an awful lot like the mare GH Janet (Thane x HB Diandra) at 0:21 in the youtube video here:
I am back in hotel room in Tunis after a long way at work, and I am looking at a copy of Al Khamsa Arabians III I brought with me to give to a friend in Egypt. I just came across a paragraph from an aticle by Michael Bowiling, reprinted from the Sept/Oct 1997 issue of Arabian Visions that I had not noticed before: As to the notion sometimes encountered that preservation breeding is not compatible with selection for improvement or with breeding “quality horses”, I think there are two separate ideas here: we want to improve our individual animals, in the sense that breeding to combine more of the best features of our kind of horse in each individual. What we do not subsribe to is the conventional vision that one can “improve the breed”, which seems to mean, in practice, “make it look more like some other breed”. Most of us are breeding within specific pedigree limits precisely because in our experience they turn out specific kinds of good Arabians”. I wish I knew how to put things as concisely and eloquently as Michael does.
Today, my 27 year old Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah mare Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir) was bred to Monologue CF (Riposte X Soliloquy CF by Regency CF), through artificial insemination at Tom and Jess Maiyer’s in Galion, OH. If she conceives, there will be an embryo transfer to one of the Maiyer’s mares. This is a foal I have been planning to breed for at least seven years now. Tom and Jess are piloting an experience in repro breeding services (AI, ET, embryo freezing) jointly with Galloping T vet services for preservation purposes. Another of my mares is there too, the K. Haifiyah Javera Chelsea (Thane x HB Diandra) as well as the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare ASF Ubeidiyah from the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse.
Today the magnificent Clarion CF (Regency CF x Chinoiserie CF by Dharanad) owned by Kirby Drennan bred the Kuhaylat al-Krush mare Cinnabar Myst (ASF David x Mystalla by SL Jacob).
Is anyone keeping a log of part-Davenport Arabians? They used to be featured in Craver Farms’ newsletter Our Quest, but I haven’t seen a tally in many years. Isn’t this something an Al Khamsa volunteer would want to do? By the way, I am longing for a push to revive the identity of “Old American” asil Arabians as a group of horses, which are so different from the New Egyptian (post 1958) horses that constitute the overwhelming majority of show horses qualifying as Al Khamsa. These Old American Arabians, which as a group would include Davenports, Babson Egyptians, Doyles, plus *Turfa, Sirecho, Hallany Mistanny, plus horses from the Hamidie, Huntington, Harris, Brown and other older bloodlines, look a lot more like each other than each group looks like the New Egyptian horses as a group. They represent a set of horse types– which I lump under “Old American”, while recognizing wide variations within it– that is worth preserving in its own right, without further admixture of New Egyptian blood (the invading Nazeer and Moniet El Nefous influence, broadly speaking).
Check out this journal article by Louise Sweet in a 1965 issue of the “American Anthropologist” on “Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin: A Mechanism of Ecological Adaptation”. The entire article is available for viewing free of charge.