Author: Edouard Aldahdah

Two more pictures of the authentic desert-bred stallion Barazan (Odeilan x Asfourah), a Saqlawi Marzaqani bred by the Shammar Bedouin. Photos by Gudrun Waiditschka in 2006 in Syria. Look at the striking similarity of the the bottom photo of Barazan with that of *Haleb, another desert-bred that was imported to the USA in 1906. True desert type has remained remarkably consistent over the past 100 years.

There was another important aspect of my recent series of conversations with Abu Tamer, Hammad Jaddu’ al-Jaz’aa, the venerable Tai Bedouin owner of a hundred year old marbat of Saqlawi Jadran Arabian horses known as the Saqlawiyyat of Dari al-Mahmud (or Saqlawiyyat Dariyyat as they have been calling them these days). It relates to the stallions him, his brothers and their father Jaddu’ al-Jaz’ah before them used to breed to their mares. He mentioned them using the following desert-bred stallions over the decades: The grey Kuhaylan Krush of Juhayyhim al-Mitkhan of the Tai, a horse Juhayyim got from the Shammar Jarba (early 1980s and 1970s) The black Kuhaylan Haifi of Juhhayim al-Mitkhan, a horse of Tai lineage (early 1970s and 1960s) The stallion of Muhammad al-Fajri of the Shammar, a Saqlawi Shaifi of the strain of Ibn Bisra (1970s) The fleebitten grey stallion of Bunyan al-Mujwil (al-Jarba), named “al-Sarukh”, a Saqlawi Shaifi of the strain of Ibn Bisra, born with the Jawwlah of Tai, but originally of Shammar stock (early 1970s and 1960s) The chestnut Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan of Bardan ibn Jlaidan of the Shammar (early 1970s and 1960s) The second horse of ‘Ebbo al-Humayyid, a bay Saqlawi Jadran of…

This evening I was chatting with Hammad Jaddu’ al-Jaz’ah (Abu Tamer). We chat regularly about the horses about the horses of the Syrian Jazirah more generally and the horses of his family in particular. They have been breeding a well established (mathbut) strain of Saqlawi Jadran since the 1920s. At around 85 years old, Abu Tamer has an excellent memory. This evening he told me a few things about his horses which I did not know before. First, the original mare his father acquired was a daughter of Dahman Amer the horse of al-Ajarrash. This seems to have been a notable desert-bred stallion, present in the back of the pedigrees of many Syrian desert horses (beyond the number of generations registered in the studbook). The Dahman Amer of al-Ajarrash is the sire of the Hamdani Simri stallion al-Malkhukh, who is present in most Syrian horses today through his great-grandson Krush Juhayyim (son of the Ubayyan Suhayli of Abd al-Aziz al-Maslat, the son of a daughter of al-Malkhukh), but also in the tail male of the Saqlawi Ibn Zubayni stallion Abjar (son of Ghuzayyil, son of Hamdani al-Jhini, son of al-Malkhukh son of al-Ajarrash). Most notably, the Dahman Amer of Sattam…

Khalid Rakhlani’s Facebook page “Arabian Horses in Syria” has a nice photo of Khaldee (al-Khaldi) that I had not seen before, courtesy of Sha’lan al-Ahmad Khaldee is the most prominent stallion in modern Syrian breeding.

Mostly a note to myself.. I finally found a document that establishes the breeder of Krush Juhayyim, the foundation stallion of modern Syrian Arabian horsebreeding. A breeding certificate mentions that the sire of a grey ‘Ubayyah mare is “Krush Juhayyim from the marbat of al-Abd al-Muhsin (Sattam al-Hawwas)”. Sattam is the son of Hawwas the son of Mayzar the son of Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. Mayzar was the leader of the Syrian Shammar as of 1934. PS — I learned from the Jarba shaykhs that this Krush strain came to them directly from Ibn Rashid of the Shammar of Hail. After the Ottomans quelled the rebellion of the Shammar under Abd al-Karim al-Jarba and hung him over a bridge on the Tigris in Mossul, his mother Amshah took her surviving son Faris and Abd al-Karim’s son Abd al-Muhsin, and stayed with their relative Ibn Rashid to shield them from the Ottomans. Upon their return to Mesopotamia, Ibn Rashid gave the young Abd al-Muhsin one of his Krush mares, which he had gotten from the al-Dawish leaders of Mutayr.

Lady is the very last Al Khamsa mare from the female line of Ferida of Lady Anne Blunt. Hers is one of the glorious lines of American Arabian horse breeding. She is 24 this year, and will likely not get pregnant anymore, but I have four frozen embryos from her. This is as good a photo of her as I ever managed to get.

This young mare (b. 2016, so I guess not that young anymore) can look pretty when she wants to..

A photo of the young Jadah BelloftheBall “Belle”, with her dam Belladonna CHF, at her owner’s Mary Sue Harris in 2002. Photo by Randall Harris.

I am scanning old photos, and these two from the Syrian Kuhaylan al-Khdili stallion Sa’ad Al-Thani (Al-Aawar x Leelas) emerged from the lot. I am happy he has a tail male going, with Dahjani Al Arab in France and Abul Hol in Syria, a Kuhaylan al-Mimrah (#1857 in the Syrian Studbook). Photos taken in 1995 at Mustafa al-Jabri’s (his Volvo in the back). That was a good horse, one of his sire’s best get.

A photo of the desert-bred mare and Davenport import *Wadduda I had not seen before. Not a single surviving photo has done justice to this mare. PS — Jamr is a direct female descendant of *Wadduda.

… and so does the beautiful young girl that inspired it. I love searching the DOW archives for mid-January blog entries to see how much my older daughter has grown over the years.

This is a stylish stallion with a superb pedigree and very clean pedigree. The fact that I recall most of his ancestors in the fifth and sixth generations must mean that I am getting old.. I remember Adeelah, Obeirah, Mokhtar, Maseh, Al Kahirah, Mobarak at Basil’s, Marzouq, Aseelah, and their son Shaddad at Kamal Abdel Khalek in Aleppo, Fawaz and his dam at Saleh Sorouji in Damascus, Ayid at Ayman Ajlani, and Mashuj at Fouad Al-Azem in Hama. The 1990s and early 2000s were the golden years of the Arabian horse in Syria.

The Arabian Horse Archives, a project which this blog supports, has an online digitized copy of Cecil Covey’s 1982 booklet “Crabbet Arabians”. It features a photo of Ibn Yashmak I had not seen before. Now I see why the Blunts imported him from Egypt to use him on their Crabbet mares.

Jeanne Craver recently shared with me these threephotos of the 1967 mare Nauwas (Al Khobar x *Muhaira), an Ubayyah from the strain of Ibn Jalawi of Easter Arabia. The photos are from/by George Hooper, who had owned Nauwas in her later years. An article I had written some fourteen years ago on this blog featured a black and white version of one of these photos. I now own a direct grand-daughter of Nauwas, so in a way, the wish I had expressed in the article has come true.

Frolicking in the Wisconsin snow at her new owner’s Moira Walker.

Warriors of the past and warriors of the present. Gender roles reversed. Two radically different worlds side by side. Today both worlds interact through the desert Arabian horse. The median breeder of desert Arabians in the US is a woman, while young Bedouin men are claiming back their old horse heritage.

Richard Pritzlaff riding. Photo gleaned off the internet, without a source. Rabanna, like her contemporary the Doyle mare Gulida, is a boon for any breeder to have in the pedigree of their horses. So much of the real Abbas Pasha blood in these two mares. Much gratitude for dedicated breeders like Sheila Harmon and others for having carried that line forward in recent times. My personal favorites are the grey “Rabannas”, e.g., Kumence RSI, Aloha RSI. They look different from the chestnuts, not just color wise. I see more of the original Rabanna in them.

From time to time — I am not sure why — I have intense flashbacks of Yemen, where I spent perhaps the most memorable stays of my life. I visited it often between 2005 and 2015, traveling around the country from the ancient cities of San’aa, Dhamar, Ibb, Ta’izz and al-Mukallah to the remote villages and fortresses atop the mountains. The people and the culture left a deep mark on me, and so did the architecture and the landscape. It is the one part of the Middle East where the most ancient manifestations of an original Arabian civilization express themselves the most vividly, without noticeable Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Persian, Ottoman or now ubiquitous Western influences. I found these pictures on a Facebook page dedicated to Yemen (Mahdi al-Dubaybi’s page). Most of the pictures are from villages and towns in the mountain provinces of San’aa, Raymah and al-Mahwit, incuding of the towns of Haraz, al-Mahjabah, and Dar al-Hajar, which was the residence of the last Imam of Yemen before the 1962 revolution.

This should be the first foal of my Mayassa Al Arab (Clarion CF x Cinnabar Myst by ASF David). She will then be ten years old (below, at two years old). So grateful to Deb Mackie for having made it happen!

The second issue of the Bedouin Horse Journal of South Africa has an upcoming article on Belle and her rare Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz strain.

This what a “very beautiful head” meant in 1895. Let’s keep it that way.

Samantha Mattocks published this feature on our new book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha” in the British “Arabian Magazine”

Hamidi al-Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba was the supreme leader Shaykh of the Jarba Shammar. Westerners know him mostly for hosting a delegation of breeders to the Shammar in 1996.

Nelyo looked very “old style” Arabian the other day. I love how fine his mouth amd muzzle look. There was too much visual noise in the background, so I converted the picture to black and white.

Kinza arrived at the Doyle farm in Oregon some ten days ago. She will most likely go to Bashir Al-Dirri in the spring, when she will have put more weight on. Bev Davison keeps her dam Ginger, as well as two siblings, a filly and a colt, and has sold another full sister.

Billy Sheets, who with his father and grandfather before him owned Arabian Stud Farms [ASF] told me some twenty years ago that the bay stallion active at ASF under the name ASF Gersom [Dhahran x Esperanzo Asal Fanifara] was not ASF Gersom, who had died young, but his younger full brother, ASF Jedeciah, the 1977 model, also bay. Not sure why I remembered this today.

Superb photo of Fragrance CF [Regency CF x Anthesis CF] taken by Carol Mingst in 2012.

Jamr, despite being small, is magnificent. In fact, he does not look small at all when moving. Yesterday, I also took these photos of him walking in hand. He is short [13.3 and a half], I am tall [6 feet], so that makes for titled photos where his legs look shorter and his body bigger. I wish I had taken some video too, as he was moving in a way very reminiscent of the 1920s Crabbet stallions in this British Pathe short film, one hundred years later.  

Yesterday I went to see my horses up in Pennsylvania, and took a lot of pictures with my smartphone. Smartphone photos are what they are. This is a head snapshot of little Bassma Al Arab [Jamr Al Arab x Jadah BelloftheBall], now one and a half years old. In this picture, her head looks like that of her sire Jamr: she has his deep jowl, small muzzle, elastic nostril, triangular head, and especially his large, soulful, low-set eye. She also has her dam’s very long ears, which is a plus. The profile is flat, without a hint of a dish, and I like it like this. Lots of asalah and old type in that filly.      

This is Shaman’s dam SS Lady Guenevere, which I have leased from DeWayne Brown a few years ago, until she produces a filly for me. Click on the low res photos to enlarge them.

This past weekend, Belle left with her new owner, Moira Walker, after some nine years in my ownership. She leaves two nice fillies behind. She is in foal to Jamr for a March 2023 foal. She was the sweetest of mares, especially with my children as they were growing up. Here’s to a long line of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from her. Moira’s photos at her farm.  

I own the very last Al Khamsa mare alive with a tail female to the 1886 Blunt desert-bred mare Ferida. Her name is CSA Baroness Lady, a.k.a. “Lady”. Lady is now 23 years old, and is available to the right home. Get in touch if you are interested. She is available because I now have four frozen embryos from her for future use, two from the Bahraini stallion Shuwaimaan Al Rais, and two other from the Syrian desert-bred stallion Dahjani Al Arab. Hopefully one of these four embryos is a female that will be able to take the line forward. She is available to the right home at no cost because of her age. She still cycles regularly, though, and her uterus is clean and in good shape. The vets at U Penn recovered seven eggs from a first aspiration last August, of which four matured and were inseminated. Two of these cleaved and developed into embryos which were quickly frozen. The second aspiration also led to ten eggs, of which three matured and of these, two developed into embryos that were also frozen. That’s a great success rate. The Blunt taproot mare Ferida was the matriarch of one of…

Laura Fitz is selling this handsome colt, by Monologue CF out of Mi Blue Angel. He has a rare cross to the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon. She told me that he has had quite a bit of ground work. He loads, clips, lunges, round pens…. He was 14.1 the last time she measured him. The last two photos display his sire Monologue’s very board forehead and large eyes.

Jadah BelloftheBall, Kuhaylah ‘Ajuz in foal to Jamr Al Arab Mayassa Al Arab, Kuhaylah Krush, in foal to Anecdote CF Wadha Al Arab, Kuhaylah Hayfiyah,  in foal to Shuwaymaan Al Rais [Bahrain] SS Lady Guenevere, Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, in foal to Cascade DE

Yesterday, I finally received my own copies of our book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha – New Discoveries: The 1860 Abbas Pasha Sale List and Other Original Documents” in the mail. It really does look very nice.    

Just looking again at this nice 2016 photo of my Kuhaylat al-Ajuz mare “Belle”. It’s the Arabian horse equivalent of that 1950 Edward Hopper painting “Cape Cod Morning” with the woman looking out the window at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.  

Perhaps it’s time to share my latest attempt to keep the gene pool in my horses as broad as possible. It’s also a story of dedication, steadfastness and perseverance by Jessie Heinrick, who made it all happen. The bottom line up front is that some time ago, I acquired sight unseen an 11 year old stallion, MD Turfairan, tail female *Turfa close up, so a Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz by strain. I had been following him for a decade, year after year. At the time, I loved his overall balanced, his long withers, his shoulder, the facial bones and the deep jowl, based on these pictures. Some two years ago, at my suggestion Jessie Heinrick drove down from Oregon to Arkansas to visit with his breeder Susan Whitman. Jessie came back with Turf in her trailer. He did not have papers, and for a while it looked like he wouldn’t be able to get any. Susan was not sure of his sire, so the first attempt at matching his DNA with that of the most likely candidate (MD Hadids Hammer) failed. A second attempt with MD Ibn Hattairan succeeded. The registered owners of his dam, and his breeders, who were elderly, were…

Young Sharif really is a looker. DeWayne Brown who owns his dam Pippa, visited the Doyle farm last weekend and took the pictures. You gotta love the Doyle motor on this Ma’naqi colt. And the black skin around the eyes. Terry Doyle is standing in the background.    

From Severine Vesco comes this beautiful photo of the handsome Syrian stallion Mahboob Halep, with his owner Jean-Claude Rajot in France. He is a Shuwayman Sabbah originally from the Shammar, and a personal favorite of mine. This stallion becomes finer and dryer year after year.

This morning I received this email from the Penn Equine Assisted Reproduction Laboratory (PEARL) at U. Penn’s veterinary school, where I was trying this new ICSI technology on one of my older mares, CSA Baroness Lady. We have 2 cleaved embryos in culture for Baroness Lady x Dahjani Al Arab.  Today is “Day 7” and 1 has developed to the blastocyst stage! Congratulations!!  As a reminder, this embryo was frozen for future transfer into a recipient mare. We will continue to monitor developmental progress of the remaining 1 cleaved embryo in culture for another several days and I will provide a final update next week.  How cool is that, the lay person that I am thought.

My beautiful Ginger, now owned by Bev Davison, got a pretty, pretty filly for Bev by her stallion Ahsahm. This is Ginger’s third filly in four years. Surely this great broodmatron, now 24, has done more for the Rabanna female line than any other mare of similar lines in the last decades. Photos by the proud owner.

DeWayne Brown took these. This young horse has style and substance.