I realize I haven’t written for two weeks and I apologize. These are busy days at work and in general, with little time left to other endeavors. I received my Khamsat magazine in the mail last week, and I have been reading it in the metro on my way to work. In it is an article by Peter Harrigan, adapted from his talk at the Al Khamsa 2009 convention in Redmond, Oregon, where Peter introduced his audience with the travels and works of Czech explorer and academic Alois Musil. The Khamsat writeup from Peter’s talk has this excerpt from Musil’s masterpiece “Manners and Customs of the Ruwalah Bedouins” (which by the way is widely recognized as the single best work of the ethnography of Bedouin tribes): “The Bedouins assert that no horses were created by Allah in Arabia. According to their tradition, they brought their first horses from the land of the settlers whom they raided”. There is increasing archaeological, epigraphic and zoological evidence that points to a domestication of the horse by settled population in an area straddling today’s nations of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, in the plains by the foothills of the Taurus and Zagros chains of mountains.…
Since this blog is not just about horses but also but the people who breed them, I am thinking of starting a new series on some of the twentieth century most influential yet most controversial horsemen of the Middle East. It will likely include the following horsebreeders who were also noted political and social figures in their times — horsebreeding and horseracing being a privilege of this region’s elite: Henri Bey Pharaon (of El Nasser fame, among others); Ahmad Ibish (of *Exochorda fame, among others), H.H. al-Sharif Nasser bin Jamil (of *El Dhabi fame) and Dr. Iskandar Kassis. I will omit a fourth influential figure, H.H. Prince Mansour ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud for now. A fair and comprehensive treatment of these important characters will need some thorough research, on top of what I already know about them, so this is more like a medium term project. Stay tuned.
I just emerged from more than three days of power outage due a record setting snow storm that buried the Washington area under 30 inches of snow. I lost my telephone and internet connection last Friday night and did not get it back until this morning. I apologize to those of who wrote and were expecting a response during these few days, and particularly to the ladies at the Association du Cheval Arabe Bedouin (ACAB) in France. I have promised them a short article for their upcoming catalogue, which is going to press soon. So I am getting back to work on it now.
Even since I found Caroyln’s McIntyre’s blog “Girl Solo in Arabia”, I have been reading it avidly to the point of neglecting everything else. Just take a deep breath, click and start reading. You’ll emerge from it three hours later, with red eyes, but the journey it takes you on is worth every minute of your time.
I just noticed I wrote my 500th blog entry a few days ago, and with it came the realization that the amount of material available on ‘Daughter of the Wind’ may soon become unmanageable to some of the readers less familiar with the various – and not always user-friendly – ways of navigating it. So here are few tips, keeping in mind that there are three columns to this blog, with the articles appearing on the left column: 1) if you are looking for information on the horses of a particular country (Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, France, Germany, etc) or just for a broad topic (Bedouins, Tribes, Strains, Racing, etc. ) then click under “Themes”, in the central column. You will find under each broad theme category all the blog entries that directly related to it. 2) if you are looking for more specific information (a particular strain e.g., Hamdani, Hayfi ; a particular breeding group e.g. Davenport or Crabbet; or particular famous breeder or family of breeders e.g. Saud, Mauvy, Blunt, then click under “Labels”, in the right column. You will need to scroll down to the middle of the column. 3) If you know what you are looking for and it’s very specific,…
This very old mare is a Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah from the Middle Euphrates valley in Syria, near the small town of al-Mayadin. This area general is home to the tribe of al-Aqaydat (Ageydat), a wealthy and powerful semi-nomadic tribe of cultivators and small herders whose Shaykhs obtained a number of really good desert-bred mares in the first part of the twentieth century, sometimes through ghazu (raids) and sometimes through purchase and gifts. They bred these mares well, and protected them by using only asil stallions, and hence came to own reputalbe marabet. Today some of the prettiest and typiest Syrian horses came from these Ageyday marabet. One of the most well known Aqaydat marabet is that of Kuhaylat al-Trayfiyyah, which is an old strain the history of which I don’t know well. All I know is that it might – just might – derive its name from Matarifah clan of the ‘Anazah tribe. The strain is mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, in connection with events that took place in Eastern Arabia, either in Bahrain, Qatar or the al-Ihsaa region of Saudi Arabia. The Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah is the photo was not registered in the WAHO Syrian Studbook and I don’t know the reason. Perhaps…
Joe Ferriss has a nice article on Egyptian Arabian stallions of the Hadban strain in the online newsletter Arabian Essence. Speaking of Hadban stallions of Egyptian bloodlines, I was lucky to have known the grey stallion Kaheel (by Ashour who was by Anter out of Ayda x Yosr by Ibn Fakhri out of Bint Yosreia), who was bred by the Egyptian Agricultural Organization in Cairo, and died in my home country of Lebanon, leaving no progeny, some time in the late 1990s. I made plans to purchase Kaheel after I saw him for the first time. When I went to see him again at some equestrian center north of Beirut, he had just died from a colic. Kaheel was a unique individual in many ways: a Anter grandson in the tail male, both sire and dam from the Hadban strain (he actually qualifies as Sheykh Obeyd and Heirloom) and otherwise the direct grandson of three lesser known but very special Nazeer offspring, all three of which belong to good racing lines: 1: Ayda, by Nazeer x Lateefa, and hence a full sister of Serenity Ibn Nazeer / Lateef 2: Bint Yosreia, by Nazeer x Yosreia, and a full sister of Tersk’s Aswan / Rafaat, among…
Ghuzayyil was a famous desert-bred horses from Syria, whose bloodlines are present today in a number of modern pedigrees from Syria, including that of the stallion Hussam al-Shimal now in France. This is his entry in the Aldahdah Index: GHUZAYYIL: a grey desert-bred stallion, born c. 1952; [no picture available] Strain: Saqlawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, also called Saqlawi Marzaqani. Sire: Hamdani al-Jhini a Hamdani Simri of the Shammar tribe, a celebrated horse among the Bedouins, sometimes simply referred to as al-Jhini; sire of sire: Hamdani Simri of Shammar, known as al-Malkhukh, also a famous horse; dam of sire: Hamdaniyat al-Jhini of Shammar; Dam: a Saqlawiyah Marzaqaniyah, from the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe. According to Fawaz al-Rajab, a horse merchant from Hims, who told Hazaim al-Wair, who told me, the dam of Ghuzayyil and the dam of Mawj al-Athir were maternal sisters. Racing and Breeding Career: Ghuzayyil raced in Beirut starting in 1956, in the ownership of the Marquis Musa de Freije and won at least eight races (he is recorded as having won eight races in one of my notebooks, based on notes I took from one of…
Ghaddar is another desert-bred race-horse mentioned in the newspaper clipping below. He was racing at the same time as Mawj al-Athir. The Aldahdah Index happens to have an entry on him as well, with all of the information coming from old horse merchant Abd al-Qadir Hammami. GHADDAR: a gray desert-bred asil stallion; Strain: Hamdani Simri of the marbat owned by ibn Ghurab, also called Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; bred by ‘Ajil ibn Ghurab. Sire: al-Marzaqani al-Adham, “the black Marazaqani”, a Saglawi Marzaqani bred by the Shammar and later taken by the ’Anazah; Dam: a Hamdaniyah ibn Ghurab of Ibn Ghurab of Shammar. Racing and breeding career: Ghaddar raced successfully in Beirut in the 1950s, where he won 14 races. Races were held on both Saturdays and Sundays at that time, and Ghaddar was one of the very few horses that were entered and won races on two successive days. He was later used as a stallion. He died within the first year of his breeding career, and only left a few produce, and none of them have left lines today.
If you follow this blog regularly, then you must have already heard about the chestnut desert-bred stallion Mawj al-Athir: he is in the pedigree of the bay stallion from Syria, Hussam al-Shimal, now in France. He is also the sire of the pretty mare below, whose photo you have already seen before. Joe Achcar also scanned and sent this old Lebanese newspaper clipping from Nov. 11, 1954, which has a picture of Mawj al-Athir on the racetrack, with the mention, in French: The “strongest horse of the Middle East”. Note the mention in the clipping of two other desert-bred asils, about which there will be more on this blog, soon: Chatt el-Arab and Ghaddar. Now here is Mawj al-Athir’s entry in the ‘Aldahdah Index’: MAWJ AL-ATHIR: a chestnut desert-bred Asil stallion [photo available]; Strain: Saglawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan [or guild] of the Shammar tribe; the strain is also called Saqlawi Marzaqani. Sire: a Saqlawi Marzaqani; according to Abd al-Qadir Hammami, an old horse merchant from Aleppo, his sire was al-Marzaqani al-Adham (“the black Marazaqani”), a celebrated stallion of the Saqlawi Marzaqani strain, bred by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, used by them as a…
Kent Mayfield of Second Wind Arabians invited me to speak at the Pyramid’s Society National Breeders Conference, 2010, in Atlanta Gerogia. The National Breeders Conference is an annual event organized by the Pyramid Society’s Education Committee, which Kent chairs, to educate its members about the Arabian horses of Egyptian bloodlines. This year’s theme is “Back to the Future: Models for Egyptian Arabian Breeding”. Other invited speakers are Joe Ferriss, Judith Forbis, Hans Nagel, Anita Enander, Scott Benjamin and Cindy McCall. I bet it’ll be extremely interesting.
I wish to thank Troy Patterson for sharing with me this rare picture of the asil stallion Zairafan (Alwal Bahet x Maarah by Taamrud), from Mrs. J. E. Ott’s breeding. Zairafan is a Ubayyan whose tail female goes back to the mare *Mahraa, bred by Prince Saud ibn Abdallah ibn Jiluwi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and imported to the USA in 1950. Zairafan is a true son of the desert.
In 1971, H.R.H. Prince Salman b. Abd al-Aziz Aal Saoud, brother of the present king of Saudi Arabia, and then and now governor of the Province of Riyadh (which more or less corresponds to the historical region of Najd), presented the bay Hamdaniyah mare Gazala to a Dr. Klaus Simons of Germany. The latter imported his prized mare to Germany, where the Asil Club accepted her and her offspring, three mares by Farouss (Kaisoon x Faziza by Fa-Turf) and two stallions by Hamasa Arslan (Farag x Shar Zarqa by Negem) Jeanne Craver forwarded me her typewritten hujjah, which is signed by the hand of Prince Salman, and exists in both the original Arabic, and an awkward English translation. Here is the English version as it appears in the original document, word for word (capitals mine): [Printed Letterhead for Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud] To Whom It May Concern We certify hereunder that Gazala is Thoroughred Arabic (Assila), she is of Hamadaniah Kuhaylan family, she is brown colour, white line of the face, white spot on the upper lip, white line between the nostrils, white colour on the lower extremities of the limps. Her father Saker and her mother is…
This striking bay stallion who recently came to France from Syria has already been featured here before. Hussam Al-Shimal is a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq from the old-established Stud of Saed Aghan Yakan in al-Bab, Syria. His sire is a desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Mussin called Raad who has also received a lot of visibility on this website. Hussam traces to some of the best desert-bred horses that were sent to the Beirut racetrack for racing: Ghuzayil, Mawj al-Atheer, and al-Malkhoukh. More on all three later. You can view Hussam’s near-full pedigree here. Joe Achcar of Lebanon has arranged for Hussam to come to France to be training for endurance racing with Arnault Decroix in Normandy, where these photos were taken by a professional.
This one is Thank Heaven, a 2003 grey mare (by Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer by Ru Serr Llany), owned by Cathie Fye in the USA. As far as I know she is the only progeny of the Bahraini asil (heck, super-asil) stallion Mloolshaan Hager Solomon who has been in this country for 22 years now…
Dick Reed of Toskhara Arabians in Texas shared this photo of the Ubayyah mare *Hamra Johara which was imported by Lewis Payne (pboto) to the USA in 1961. Dick’s stallion Line Dancer, who won 24 races in 30 starts in the USA and the UAE, traces four times to this mare which was bred in Najd, Saudi Arabia, by the House of Saud in 1952. Thanks Dick for sharing this photo and the information on this precious mare.
Recently, Jeanne Craver was able to access the hujjah and supporting documents about the mare *Hamra Johara, a desert-bred Arabian mare imported to the USA in 1961 by Lewis Payne. *Hamra Johara has no asil descendents, unfortunately. Jeanne obtained the documents from Gari Dill-Marlow, who got them from Dick Reed, who breeds Polish Arabians in Texas. I don’t know where Dick got them from. The mare’s hujjah in Arabic, and its very accurate English translation are part of the documents. I am reproducing the English translation here, which was originally done by James C. Stewart, “Acting Translation Analyst of the Translation Division of the Local Government Department and the Arabian American Oil Company [ARAMCO], in the offices of that company at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia”: In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate Village of Khufs Dhughurah, Province of Nejd, Saudi Arabia 6 Rabi’ II 1978 (Corresponding to 20 October 1958) I, the undersigned, Turki Al-Hashishi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, residing in the village of Khufs Dhughurah, Province of Nejd, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, declare the following to be true: The mare Johara described as chestnut with a white left hind foot and a white stripe from her jibbah…
[Republishing this piece, which was already published here last July – Edouard] The mare El Samraa is certainly one of the least documented horses in Egytian Arabian horse breeding. To me, that’s a big problem. Heck, it should be a big problem for every researcher and breeder with an interest in these horses. Given El Samraa’s contribution to mainsteam Egpytian breeding (she is the grand-dam of Sameh, and the great-great-grand dam of Al Metrabbi, among countless other descendents), it is even surprising that researchers have not spent more time investigating her. Below is what we know of El Samraa: her color (grey); her date of birth (1924); the year she was acquired by the King of Egypt (1931); the name – only the name – of the man she was purchased from (Shaykh Omar Abdel Hafiz); her registration number in the Inshass (the King’s private stud farm) Original Herd Book: (#13); the name of the man she was later sold to (Mostafa Bey Khalifah); and the year she was sold to this man (1941). In short: three dates; two names of people, none of which appears to have been her breeder; and a color. That’s it. Most of you will have to agree with me that such factual…
This picture is from Hungary, and features Laszlo Kiraly’s lovely mare Scheherazade B, who is heavy in the blood of the Babolna mare 25 Amurath Sahib.
I recently added a new feature that allows readers to visualize the geogprahical location of the readers of this blog. In red, those who have accessed the blog over the past 24 hours; in green, the readers who are still on the page. Check also the new poll, on the same column.
Lebanese-American Amin Rihani (1976-1940) was a man of many talents. He is best remembered as the man who introduced free verse into Arabic poetry. He was also one of the early figures of the Arab literary movement known as “kuttab al-mahjar” or “writers of the diaspora” to which Khalil Gibran and other Arab-American intellectuals also belonged. He was one of the first intellectuals to support Arab nationalism. He was also a close friend of Saudi Arabia’s king Abdul al-Aziz al-Saud, and wrote a number of accounts of his travels in Arabia such as “Muluk al-Arab” (Kings of the Arabs), which won critical acclaim, and “Tarikh Najd al-Hadith” (the Modern History of Najd). The historians of oil discovery in the Middle East will also remember him as one of the first brokers of the enduring relationship between the House of Saud and the American businesses in general and oil business in particular. It was perhaps through this latter role that he became acquainted with Arabian horses. Rihani was influential in the importation of four Arabian mares bred by the House of Saud and imported to the USA by Albert Harris of Chicago in the early 1930s. He was also a key…
This morning I woke up to find these two pictures of horses from snowed-in France in my inbox.. the first one is from Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians, and features her new acquisition Bint Fay Amy (Mahrouf x Fay Amy by Ibn Fa-Serr), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah born in 1995 at the Babson Farm. The second features the stallion Hussam al-Shimal (Raad x Rouba Al-Shimal by Al Abjar), a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq bred in Syria at the Yakan Stud near Aleppo, Syria, and now on lease from Al Fadi Stud of Damascus, Syria, to Arnault Decroix in Normandy. By the way, Hussam’s ears are a direct legacy of his maternal grandfather, the old stallion Al-Abjar, a Saqlawi Jadran of the marbat of Ibn Zubayni, who was famous for this pricked ears, and whose dam Malakah was featured here. If you have more pictures of horses under the snow from Europe or the USA, feel free to send them to me.
Since the subject entry below was the Dandashi horse breeding clan of Tall-Kalakh, Syria, here is a 1958 YouTube video of Dandashi family members celebrating the union of Syria and Egypt into one single state with horse fantasias and other equestrian games with swords and spears. Note the pretty grey horse from 2.20 to 2.40 PS – the Arabic title of the video mentions the Dandashi clan as a part of the Shammar tribe. That’s a modern fabrication since the Dandashi are known to be Kurdish origin.
My father took these two photos of the grey Lebanese stallion Malek in the mid 1980s, at the farm of Husayn Nasir in Rayak, Lebanon. Malek (Achchal x Bint Ghazwane by Ghazwane) was the last stallion of Lebanese breeding that did not trace to the infamous Iraqi-born part-bred Arabian racehorses thath flooded the Beirut racetrack in the 1950s and 1960s, and ultimately led to the demise of the Lebanese Arabian horse breeding, after they were crossed with Lebanese (and some Syrian) asil Arabian mares. Malek was used mostly on non-asil part-bred arab mares tracing to these Iraqi stallions, and bred only one asil mare: a bay 28 year old Tuwaysah mare from Syria, which we owned and which traced to the horses of the ‘Anazah tribe. That old mare settled, and her daughter was my favorite mare while I was growing up. I recall hearing that Malek ended his life pulling a cart in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli. His strain was Saqlawi Jadran from the horses of the Dandashi landlords of Tall Kalakh, in Western Syria. This wealthy and powerful clan of chieftains of Kurdish origins, who had the title of agha were the premier asil Arabian settled (i.e., non-Bedouin) horse breeders of Syria.…
Beshier El Ashkar and Badria, the two Arabian horses known in modern Egyptian pedigrees as the Bisharat horses, are some of the least documented Arabians to have joined the Al Khamsa Roster of Arabian horses (in 1995, I think). There was another mare, Ward, from the same source, but she did not leave any modern descendents. Most of what we know about Beshier and Badria is from the Inshass Original Herd Book (IOHB, entries #80 and #83, Inshass being the stud of King Faruk of Egypt), and some of that information later found its way in Volume 3 of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization Studbook. This includes information on the horses’ color, sex, date of birth and the date the horses were presented to King Faruk. The Al Khamsa Roster, which aggregates all the information available on the two horses, has this succint but telling note: “Neither offer strain or family history”. Since Beshier and Badria’s blood runs in the veins of some of the most popular (and expensive) Arabian horses in the world (e.g., Jamilll, Ibn Galal-I, Salaa El Dine, etc), many breeders, especially in Germany, tried to learn more about them. Dr. Hans J. Nagel in particular, has a 1982 letter or letters from Midhat Bisharat,…
Pure Man tells me there is one more horse to be added to the list of desert-bred stallions born in Arabia Deserta, and now in Europe or the USA. This is Jellaby Bin Ambara, a bay 1989 stallion, bred in Bahrain by H.H. Shaykh Muhammad Bin Salman Aal Khalifa, the uncle of the present King of Bahrain. Jellaby Bin Ambara (M62) is by Saidan Lazaz (M29), out of Jellabieh Anbara (M28), and was exported to Austria in 1991. He is AAS*823 in the Austrian Studbook. Not sure he is still alive.
Check out the Davenport Arabian Horse Concervancy (DAHC) front page for a series of great articles on this unique group of USA asil Arabian horses, written by long time breeders such as Charles Craver, the late Carol Lyons, Pat Payne, Dr. Fred Mimmack, Debbie Mackie, and others. A lot of insightful reading and interesting reminiscences about what now seems like the heyday of asil Arabian breeding in the USA — the 1960s and 1970s. The striking picture of the 1970 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Dharanad below, was taken from there. Thanks Ambar and Darlene for pointing me to the link.
*Samirah is a Hamdaniyah Simriyah from the stud of the House of Saud in Najd, which was imported to the USA by Albert Harris in 1921. She has a very thin line that was the focus of a number of courageous, almost desperate preservation efforts over the last fourty years. The result is that the tail female line still goes on, albeit barely. A first line tracing back to *Samirah through her daughter Koweyt was discussed earlier, here. The second line to *Samirah is through her other daughter Kerasun, by the desert-bred stallion *Sunshine. *Sunshine was also from the Saud studs, and was imported in utero to USA in 1931 by Albert Harris, along with his dam *Nufoud, *Samirah, and two other mares. Kerasun in turn had two daughters, both bred by Albert Harris: Kaleta (by Alcazar) and Karamia (by Kulun, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion from really old bloodlines tracing to *Nedjme). Through Kaleta runs a very thin line high in desert bred blood straight from Najd and the Syrian desert, with the arrows indicating a mother-to-daughter link: Kaleta –> her daughter Faleta (by Ibn Fadl, another Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz and a son of the desert, his dam being *Turfa) –> Faleta’s…
225,000 is the size of the Bedouin population of Syria and Lebanon in 1924, as estimated by the French Haut Commissariat de la Republique Francaise (the HCRF, which is the French mandatory power in both Syria and Lebanon) in its 1930 report “Les tribus nomades et semi-nomades des Etats du Levant places sous Mandat Francais”. This number consisted of 125,000 nomadic individuals and 100,000 semi-nomadic ones, for a total combined Syrian and Lebanese population of 1.5 million. Now check out the graph below to follow the evolution of the Syrian population alone since 1960:
I just bought this book, “From Camel to Truck: the Bedouin in the Modern World“, by Dawn Chatty, one of the foremost authorities on nomadic societies and migrations. I will tell you what I think when I read it.
I have always felt considerable sadness whenever an Arabian horse strain dies out. With it, part of the rich and colorful history of this breed vanishes forever. I can’t really say why, but to me it feels just like losing the last copy of a rare manuscript. Most of the best-known and most important Arabian strains are still represented today in asil form, and we are lucky to have them. A number of really significant ones were lost in Arabia Deserta over the last fifty years. These include Kuhaylan Tamri (known to US breeders as the strain of the Davenport import *Houran), Kuhaylan al-Kharas (the strain of the Blunt import Proximo), Kuhaylan Harqan (the strain of the grandsire of the Ali Pasha Sherif stallion Mesaoud) and Kuhaylan Om Soura. Until last week, I thought Kuhaylan Abu Junub was one of these. Kuhaylan Abu Junub is a strain I have always been interested in. There are some indications it is somehow ‘related to’, in a way I am not yet in a position to explain fully, to Ma’naqi, Jilfan, and Frayjan, all of which are ultimately Kuhaylan branches as well. It is on the list of Abbas Pasha’s ten favorite strains,…
I still haven’t resolved a lingering dilemma that has been haunting me since I started ‘Daughter of the Wind’. In the course of this blog’s life, I have come across a lot of precious information I did not have access to before. That’s in no small part thanks to the readers of ‘Daughter of the Wind’, most of the time through personal emails. A lot of this information is generally positive, in the sense that it confirms the asil status of a particular line. This for instance is the case of the Tunisian desert-bred import Barr, or the Egyptian desert-bred import El Nasser, who were been outcasts for decades until they were recently rehabilitated. Sometimes the information is negative, in the sense that it throws the asil status of a particular line into serious doubt. In such cases what I usually do is try to go back to first-hand sources to verifiy it, or cross-check it with another indepedent sources. Sometimes things are clarified and everything falls back into place (ie, the line is asil). Sometimes, more research is needed to disentangle rumor from reality and the horse remains in limbo, at least as far I am concerned. Sometimes, the suspicion is confirmed…
My personal laptop chose to die in San’aa, Yemen where I have been for one week. I can’t blame it, it’s a beautiful city. It fell on a paved street outside the buidling of the Ministry of Health, and the screen broke. Oh well. He was 6 years old, which in laptop life is maybe like 60 for humans. At least the photos and other horse material are safe, I think. Keep the conversation going while I find him a successor. RIP Toshiba Satellite.
Monique Brandenburg from the Netherlands sent me this picture of a chestnut Arabian stallion from Iran, along with some information. Before delving into discussing these extremely interesting horses, let me say a couple things upfront: first, Iran is not an Arab country; it is an ethnically diverse country populated by ethnic Persians (who speak Farsi, among other tongues), Turkmen and Azeris (who speak Turkic dialects) and Kurds (who speak Kurdish), among others. That said, Iran does have a small Arab minority of about 1 million people (who speak Arabic), mainly but not only concentrated in its south-western province of Khuzistan. Many of these Arabic speakers belong to long-settled tribal groupings like Bani Kaab and branches of Bani Lam. The latter are originally from Central Arabia way back and are well known breeders of asil Arabian horses. So in many ways Iran is like Egypt: neither are in Arabia Deserta, the homeland of the Bedouin and their desert Arabian horse, but both nonetheless have a very small population of settled peasant Arabs tribes in the parts of the country closest to Arabia Deserta (e.g., Egypt’s peasant Tahawi tribe in the Sharqiyah province). These tribe kept breeding Arabian horses, and neighboring Persian tribes like the Bakhtiaris also bred Arabians. The…
Blog reader Elena Latici who lives in Italy recently bought this young fellow from Louis Bauduin’s farm in France. Murad Mandour (by Shuayman El Badawi x Murad Ouffah Habib by Jahir) is a bay Shuwayman Sabbah yearling who combines modern desert-bred blood from Syria (through his paternal grand-sire Mokhtar, bred by the Shammar Bedouins) with older desert-bred blood through imports Tunisian/ Algerian bloodlines. He also carries a hint of old French blood, and has a distant line to the desert-bred import Nibeh, featured here, and whom French master-breeder Robert Mauvy really liked. Mauvy was a big advocate of the idea of re-invigorating old European Arabian bloodlines with fresh desert-bred blood at leart every three generations, as as to sustain the physical and mental characeteristics of the Arabian horse of Arabia Deserta. Mauvy’s friends and students adhered to this theory early on, and bred some of their mares to desert-bres stallions such as Mokhtar, and now Mahboob Halab.
I am excited to introduce Adrien Deblaise as a guest blogger on Daughter of the Wind. Adrien comes from a distinguished French family of Arabian horse breeders and equestrian librarians. His family’s stud of Blanc Marine, near Saintes, in western France, has been breeding Arabians of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian lines since 1985 with an emphasis on endurance lines. In addition, their bookstore, Philippica, is a real treasure trove of old literature on horses and horse people. He will be writing in French about horses that were significant in French and North African breeding in the 1970s and 1980s. Those of you who can’t read French can cut-and-past the article, and throw it into Google Translate, which keeps gettting better and better. I will personally translate some articles as time permits. Adrien, like Pure Man, Ambar, Jill, Teymur, Majid, Clothilde, Patrick, Bassam H, and many other readers and contributors to Daughter of the Wind from around the world, including myself, is part of a ‘younger’ generation of desert-bred Arabian horse enthusiats who are keeping the flame alive. Daughter of the Wind was originally intended as a platform for them to communicate and share information with each other, while also reaching out of the ‘young at heart’.
Bred by J.C. Rajot of Tournus, France from Robert Mauvy lines, Murad Chahin (Shawani x Hamada by Irmak) is a Shuwayman Sabbah blending Algerian and Tunisian lines with old, asil French blood. He traces to Cherifa, a Shuwaymah bred the Sba’ah Bedouins in 1869 and imported to Algeria later. He is very reminiscent of some of the Doyle horses I saw at Terry’s and Rosemary’s this summer.
I “stole” this picture from the Internet, but it’s for a good cause. This is Jehol Sahraoui (Ouaffar x Kalthoumia by Sabour), for a long time the head sire at Mrs. Gisela Bergmann’s stud in Ghardimaou in western Tunisia. Mrs. Bergmann has bred precious ‘old’ Tunisian lines for some thirty years, and Jehol Sahraoui, born in 1978, is representative of these lines. He hails from a very rare sire line in Tunisian/Algerian breeding, that of El Managhi, imported from Hama (Central Syria) by the French to their Algerian Stud of Tiaret in 1924. His dam line, that of Dolma-Batche, is even rarer, and I don’t think it survives away from Mrs. Bergmann’s small breeding program (to be checked). Note that the Jilfan (no marbat recorded) line of Dolma-Batche, chesntut, born in 1869, imported to Sidi-Thabet in Tunisia in 1876, is a different line from the Jilfan Dhawi line to which was imported from the Syrian desert to Tiaret in Algeria in 1875. A number of good horses trace to Dolma-Batche, including the beautiful Sumeyr, who was featured on this blog before. Jehol is now represented by his son Tchad (b. in 1986 out of Binsar, by Koraich out of Hadia).…
One more picture of Omar Anbarji’s now deceased desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Ra’ad, this time by a professional photographer. I think this is the fourth picture of him I post. I would like to familiarize readers with the foundation stock of the Syrian Arabians, because I feel they will become more and more significant in the future. You have already seen pictures of some of the most influential Syrian Arabian stallions, many of which are personal favorites: Ra’ad, a Kuhaylan al-Musinn; al-Aa’war, a Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mubarak, another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mokhtar, a Kuhaylan al-Krush; Marzuq, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, etc. Look them up in the search function of this blog on the right hand column, and you will see the relevant entry with their photos. Ra’ad was bred by Jamal al-Turki al-‘Ilyu of the Saw’an clan, which is the leading clan of the settled, part peasant, part sheep-herding tribe of al-Sabkhah, on the banks of the middle Euphrates. Jamal’s family also bred Ra’ad dam Nawal al-Kheil, and her grand-dam as well. The Sabkhah, who occupy the area of same name (click here to see it on Google Map) are themselves part of the larger peasant confederation of the Bu Sha’ban.…
If you live in Europe or the USA and want to breed your Arabian mare to an asil stallion straight from Arabia Deserta, one who was actually born there, you now have a number of options at hand. 1) If you live in the United States, then your only option for the time being is Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, a 1986 grey stallion bred by Shaykh Muhammad bin Salman Aal Khalifah of Bahrain, and owned by Bill Biel of Michigan. Strain: Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish, his sire a Rabdan stallion. Hager Solomon is 23 this year, and he has sired only one or two asil foals so far, so you should catch him while he is still alive. 2) If you live in the United Kingdom, then the place to go is Jenny Lees’ Pearl Island Arabian Horse Stud. Jenny has Krayaan Dilmun, a 1992 chestnut stallion, also bred by Shaykh Muhammad bin Salman Aal Khalifah of Bahrain. Strain: Kuhaylan al-Kraay, sire a Ma’naghi stallion. Krayaan Dilmun, like Mloshaan, is from a very rare strain of Arabian horses, of which only the Kingdom of Bahrain has representatives. I also undestand that Jenny has an old grey Rabdan stallion on loan from Bahrain, but it is perhaps not the right time to talk…
I took this photo of the venerable Malakah in 1990, at the stables of Syrian breeder Salih Khaddam al-Sruji, south of Damascus. She was more than 30 years of age, which explain why her croup and legs look the way they do. Malakah was bred by the Mudarris family, an old Alepine – ie, from Aleppo, Syria – family of great social standing and influence. The Mudarris family owned one of the most famous city marabet of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni, which the ‘Anazah Bedouins from the area around Aleppo recognized as ‘mazbut’ (well-ascertained, well-authenticated). I have Malakah’s hujjaj somewhere and will need to dig it up for you to read. There is a very thin tail female line to Malakah left in Syria today. That said, Malakah’s blood is mainly present in Syria through her son al-Abjar, who was standing at the Yakan studfarm in al-Bab, north of Aleppo. Many people in Syria thought that Malaka’s was the only line of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni left in Syria, and this is certainly how the Syrian Studbook presents it. Fortunately, there is at least one other equally mazbut line of Saqlawi ibn Zubayni left there. That’s the line of Mabrouka, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah…
Click here for an informative article on the Jordanian Bisharat family, by one of its scions, George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College in San Francisco. The article appeared in a political journal, and is not concerned with Arabian horses but it nonetheless offers interesting background information about the Bisharat family, which may be of interest to those of you who breed Arabian horses of Egyptian lines. The Bisharat family is a Christian family of merchants and entrepreneurs, orignally from the area around the palestinian city of Nablus. Like several other palestinian christian familties, the Bisharat moved to the eastern bank of the Jordan river at some point in the late 19th century, and settled the area of al-Salt and then moved to the south of Amman. They rose to economic and social prominence in the first part of the 20th century. At some point in the 1940s, a member of the Bisharat family, Shibli Bisharat (who may or may not be the Shibli mentioned several times in the article), sent three horses as a present to King Faruk of Egypt. Two of these, the mare Badria and the stallion Besheir (also known as Besheir El Ashkar) left modern descendents, and famous…
Don’t know who took this beautiful, sweet, human-like picture of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Fragrance CF, bred at Craver Farms in Illinios, and owned by Michael Bowling of California, but the photographer was certainly inspired. I just couldn’t help stealing the picture from the Davenport Conservancy website. Fragrance traces to *Galfia, imported to Chicago by the Ottoman Hamidie Society in 1893, but otherwise descends from horses brought from the Syrian desert by Homer Davenport in 1906. To learn about the horses of the Hamidie Society, click here.
[Dec 4, update: Tzviah is announcing a herd reduction] If you have not done already, check out the new photos Tzviah Idan has uploaded on her Facebook page. These are horses of Egyptian bloodlines bred by the Hungarian state stud of Babolna. I think you will hear a lot about these horses in the months and years to come. Ralph Suarez’ blog has an entry on Tzviah’s horses, too. Sara Gefen photo.
In 1931, Chicago businessman Albert Harris imported four desert-bred mares from Arabian ruler Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud with help from the Lebanese poet Amin Rihani. The mares were obtained through Mohammad Eid al-Rawwaf, Consul of the Sultanate of Najd and Hijaz in Damascus (this Sultanate would take the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the following year, in 1932). Thee of the four mares left asil descendants here in the USA, and two of these have tail female descendants: *Nufoud and *Samirah. *Nufoud’s descendants, which include some of my favorite horses here in the USA (that is, LD Rubic and Belladonna CHF) were already featured in an entry sometime last year. Let us talk about *Samirah’s here. Two of her daughters left asil progeny: Koweyt by Alcazar, and Kerasun by *Sunshine, the latter being *Nufoud’s son, imported to the USA in utero. The mare Koweyt produced a daughter, Konight, by the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Kaniht (Katar x Niht). Kaniht in turn produced the mare Amira Moda, by a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz from another line: Fa-Turf (*Fadl x *Turfa). According to the Al Khamsa Roster, there are only three asil mares left from this branch of the *Samirah’s family, all…
Joe Achcar recently circulated the following list of stallions imported by the mission of Mr. de Portes to the Syrian desert in 1819. The list comes from the book written by the veterinarian of that mission, Louis Damoiseau, which appeared in 1832: Abou Far, Abou Arkoub, Abjar, Abou Seif, Berek, Cheleby, Choueyman, Bedouin, Daher, Aslan, Addal, Sakkal, Haleby, Tadmor, Saraf, Ourfali, Hachmet Bey, Meckawi, Orkan, Gazal, Massoud, Mahrouk, Hadji,Richan, Medani, Durzi, Effendi, Diva, Kebeche, Hadeidi, Houteif, Munki, Mahama, Frigian, Drey, Kelle. All these stallions were apparently imported from the Anazah tribes. The list is interesting because at least six of these stallions (Abou Arkoub, Choueyman, Kebeche, Richan, Munki, Frigian) carry recognizable strains names, which means that these strains were well-established at a relatively early date. Of course, the most famous stallion of this importation was Massoud, who contributed significantly to the founding of the Anglo-Arab race.
Busy at work these days, so little time to write in-depth pieces, yet I itch to write something, which means lots of Photos of the Day! This is Elegance (by Triermain x Enchante CF by Zacharia) owned by Darlene Summers of Maryland. She is Kuhaylah Hayfiyah tracing to the horses imported from Arabia Deserta by Homer Davenport in 1906. Photo Christine Emmert.
This morning Troy Patterson of Texas sent a few pictures of a yearling colt of his. The colt is by the Ubayyan stallion Zairafan (Alwal Bahet x Maarah by Taam-Rud) and out of the Canadian-bred Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Saideh (Bahri x Qaisumeh by Qaisum). Below is one such picture. In the USA and Canada, these horses are called BLUE STAR (with the caps). While I don’t adhere to this denomination (BLUE STAR = no recorded Ma’anaghi strain in the pedigree), and don’t buy into the underlying assumptions (e.g., recorded Ma’anaghi blood = not pure) behind such a denomination, I love these horses, and value them for what they are: real horses straight from the heart of Arabia Deserta, straight from the stables of the House of Saud. The antecedents of these horses were in their original desert homeland as late as the 1960s. I feel that horses such as this yearling would bring new strength and stamina to many of the older lines of asil Arabians (e.g., the Egyptian lines).
These have been quite busy days for me, and I have not been able to write as often as I wanted to. That said, I wanted to quick highlight the fact that two new proposals to add new horses to the Al Khamsa Roster have been sent to the Al Khamsa Board of Directors. The first was sent by Joe Ferriss, and concerns the three Tahawi (an Egyptian peasant tribe of Arab stock) mares that are the foudation of Egypt’s Hamdan Stables: Fulla (a Shuwaymah Sabbah), Futna (a Kuhaylah Khallawiyah), and Bint Barakat (a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah). The second proposal (click here if you interested in reading it) was submitted by yours truly and concerns the mare *Lebnaniah, a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah imported by W.R. Hearst to the USA in 1947. The AK Board is currently discussing both proposals.
Here’s Charles Craver on the very masculine Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Tybalt (Tripoli x Asara by Kasar) doing a piaffe.. Photo by Judith Franklin, through Jeanne Craver
This morning Laszlo Kiraly of Hungary sent me this picture of his young Sahara (Sabek ibn Saher x Shahhra by Wahhabit), a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz that combines some of the best asil bloodlines from the world over: Her sire Sabek ibn Saher (picture bel0w), from the German Government Stud of Marbach, has not one but two close lines to Soldateska (1911), and so plenty of that precious old Weil blood of Ghadir, Amurath 1881, and Tajar. Her grand-sire Wahhabit (Siglavy Bagdady VI x Delicate Air by Laertes) is half Davenport bloodlines from his dam and half old Babolna bloodlines from his sire Siglavy Bagdady VI (Siglavy Bagdady V x 250-Kuhailan Haifi I), which is a unique combination. He brings in the equally precious blood of Kuhaylan Haifi and Kuhaylan Zaid. Her grand dam 225 Sheherazade B (Ibn Galal III x 220 Ibn Galal I) brings in the tail female to the Babolna asil mare 25-Amurath Sabib, as well as the Egyptian lines to Hanan that Dr. Hans Nagel breeds. Laszlo, can you find a good stallion from Syria or Saudi Arabia to breed to her?
Above is a distant photo of another son of the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad. This is Hussam al-Shimal, a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq stallion from the marbat of Sa’ed Ameen Yakan, in al-Bad, north of Aleppo. Hussam is going to be sent to France where he will stand at stud with Arnault Decroix. I am no fan of the show-ring. I firmly believe that an asil Arabian horse was not born to be paraded around like a puppet, and that among all asil Arabians, the Syrian asil horses deserve this ridiculous treatment the least (these were war and endurance machines, remember), but I thought it was worth noting that Hussam, this son of a desert-bred, was twice Syria’s National Reserve Champion.
Charles Craver took this picture of my Wisteria yesterday, and sent it to me.
This is Popinjay (Banter CF x Persimmon by Brimstone), a 1992 Hamdani Simri tracing to Schilla, and at Maria Wallis’ in Texas. On these horses being Hamdani Simri as opposed to Saqlawi al-Abd, read here. I am trying to organize a breeding that involves him, and will tell you all about this exciting venture once it has materialized (fingers crossed).
Gisela Bergman has been living in Tunisia and breeding Arabian horses from old Tunisian lines for more than three decades. She is one of the very last breeders of the Dolma Batche tail female in Tunisian breeding. Gisela has recently had trouble feeding and taking care of her horses. She is elderly, suffers from arthritis, and lives on her own on farm in a remote area near the Tunisian-Algerian border. A number of her friends and supporters, some of them veterinarians led by Sofiene Ezzar, have set up a support group on Facebook, Tous Unis Pour Aider Gisela, and are doing the best they can, with limited means. The Facebook site has photos and a video which shows the condition of the horses (one photo below).. Things look pretty ugly. If you can do(nate) anything for Gisela, her horses and her asil sloughis, or just want to express your moreal support to this “Lady of the Horses” please hop on this site, or give Gisela a call at: +216 212 92 350. You would need to keep trying, because the cell phone network is poor in that part of the country.. Anything you can do will help. Over the past year and a half of doing the blog,…
Note again the huge expressive eye, the big jowl, the tipped ears, and the small muzzle. All that in a desert-bred stallion. I will dig his hujja out and translate it for you.
To follow up on the earlier entry on the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad, here is a picture of one of his sons and one of his daughters at the Anbarji farm some seventeen years ago. The colt, either a Kuhaylan al-Khdili or a Hamdani al-Ifri by strain ( I don’t remember, even though I am in the pic), was recovering from an illness, and the photo is not to his advantage, but you will no doubt notice the refinement that his sire Raad transmits, as well as the fine muzzle, the deep jowl and the big eye. Note also the dark, full bay color which Raad passed on to his progeny. The filly is a Hamdaniyah Ifriyah (a well esteemed branch of Hamdani Simri from the ‘Amarat Bedouins, more on it later), and in my opinion, is the epitomy of refinement and feminity. I don’t recall her name either, but Omar Anbarji, her breeder, can perhaps refresh my memory. Omar, you were standing behind my father who took the picture..
This is the fourth part of a great series by Joe Ferriss in Arabian Essence, featuring popular sire lines from the Egyptian breeding.