Edouard Aldahdah

The archives of Gertrude Bell, “Uncrowned Queen of Iraq”

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The archives of Gertrude Bell, sometimes referred to as the “Uncrowned Queen of Iraq” ( how I hate that title!), are at Newcastle University in the UK. If you do not know who Gertrude Bell is, or simply wish to know more about her, then click here. The archives include this first photo of a Shammar … Read more

*Hamrah

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I just noticed something while clicking through Al Khamsa’s online Roster. Of course, it may be a no-brainer to many of you: the stallion *Hamrah, a Saqlawi al-Abd imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906, is the maternal grand-sire of at least five of the most influential Early American Foundation Arabian horses in … Read more

Black beauty

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This beauty is a young stallion of Egyptian bloodlines who was shown at the 2009 Al Khamsa Convention in Oregon. I don’t know his pedigree (I think Haziz Halim is his maternal grandsire) and I don’t necessarily want to know it. My daughter Samarcande loved him very much and made friends with him. Sometimes, even … Read more

Another asil line from South Africa: Rosina, a Kuhaylat Rodan

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Some time last year, this blog featured the precious asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah line to the mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat) which has been flourishing in South Africa. The series of postings on Baraka and her descendents attracted a lot of attention from South Africa and Namibia, and is by far the most popular thread on … Read more

Of three more Ma’naghi Sbayli stallions: Sabiq, *Haleb and Funaytil

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Since I am back talking about Ma’naghi Sbayli stallions (see yesterday’s short post on RB Bellagio), I thought I’d bring up a picture of the stallion Dakhala Sabiq (Prince Hal x Sirrulya by Julyan), a 1975 stallion bred by Jeanne Hussong, when she was just about to become Jeanne Craver. A coouple of years ago, I was … Read more

RB Bellagio

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One of my favorite stallions on the US East Coast is RB Bellagio (Arabi Fad Onyx x Sirrunade by Faaryan), an asil Ma’naghii Sbayli tracing to the desert-bred mare Haidee, bred by the Sba’ah tribe and imported to the UK in 1874. His maternal grand-dam is Miss Jane Ott’s famous Sirrulla (Sirecho x Drissula by … Read more

Al Khamsa 2009 Publication Award

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Amidst last week’s flurry of events, I almost forgot to report that Daughter of the Wind was awarded the 2009 Publication Award at the Al Khamsa Convention in Redmond OR, for “garnering international support in favor of the asil Arabian horse”. That international support is coming from you, dear reader, and it is you that … Read more

Photo of the day: Farag II-3, in Germany

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To celebrate the inclusion of the Babolna asil horses in the Al-Khamsa Roster, here is a photo of a stallion from these bloodlines, owned by Stephanie Weirich of Germany. This is the chestnut stallion Farag II-3 (by Farag II x 204 Ghalioun, by Ghalioun x 3-Siglavy Bagdady VI). He is also a tail female descendant of 25-Amurath Sahib, … Read more

The Babolna asil Arabians are now part of the Al Khamsa roster

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Hurrah! The Babolna Roster proposal unanimously (41 – 0) passed the second round of voting during the Al Khamsa assembly in Redmond, Oregon. This means, among other things, that the living descendants of the mare 25-Amurath Sahib and the stallion Siglavy Bagdady VI are now accepted by Al Khamsa, following a thorough research process.  Below … Read more

Carol Monkhouse and the quest for the last asil Crabbet lines

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I finally got to meet Carol Monkhouse at the Al Khamsa Convention in Oregon. Carol was visiting from the UK, with her husband Terry Lee. She has a couple mares, Maloof Habiba (Maloof Habibi x Maloof Sahara by Subani) and Maloof Hadiya (Parnell x Devlin), and their offspring, which she keeps at the Doyle ranch, in … Read more

Sixty years of Doyle Arabian breeding in the USA

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Sixty years ago, in 1949, a young Terry Doyle and his father, Dr. Joseph Lyman Doyle (“Doc”), hauled the asil mare Gulida (by Gulastra x Valida by Ghawi), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah tracing to the marbat of Ibn Sudan, to their farm in Sigourney, Iowa. They bred her once to the asil stallion Nusi (Gulastra x Nusara), a … Read more

Back to reality..

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Just got back from Oregon yesterday, and I am already swamped with work (yuck!). Of course, once there, and around horses and horse people, tweeting about the Al Khamsa Convention didn’t even cross my mind, and I’ll just have to come to terms with that.  I will be writing about the Convention, the CMK Symposium, the barn tours, the … Read more

Oregon or Bust

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Tomorrow I will be hitting the Oregon trail with the family to attend the 2009 Al Khamsa Convention, my first since 2005, as well as the CMK Symposium. This time I will be taking my video camera with me, so you should expect a couple video uploads when I return (September 1). While I doubt … Read more

The Story of Jenny Lees’ Hamdaany Kuwaiti, the “20 dinar horse”

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You ought to read the absolutely lovely story of how a British breeder Jenny Lees of Peark Island Stud, got aquainted with Arabian horses while living in Bahrain. Jenny writes that her Hamdaany Kuwaiti was said to bred by the Anazah and had come to Bahrain through Kuwait, hence his name. Back in the 1960s, … Read more

Photo of the Day: Dinar, Ma’anaqi Zudghum, a son of al-Aawar

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Ma’anaqi Zudghum is one of the most respected marabet of Sbayli, owned by a Bedouin of the Sba’ah tribe called Zudghum. Dinar’s sire, the Hamdani Simri al-Aawar, was pictured in an earlier entry. This photo was taken by my father at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, where Dinar, then a growthy two and a half … Read more

Undiscovered ‘Asir

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The mountain region of ‘Asir, in south western Saudi Arabia is one of the areas of the Middle East that fascinates me the most. Historically it was part of Yemen until 1934, I think. I have recently bought Thierry Mauger’s beautiful book, “Undiscovered Asir”, and recently Pure Man sent me this video of the moutain ‘Asir … Read more

Photos of the day: *Subaiha, *Taffel

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The mare *Subaiha and her daughter *Taffel were bred in Saudi Arabia, by Prince Saud ibn Abdallah ibn Jiluwi, a close relative of Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abd al-Aziz, and governor of the eastern, oil-rich Hasa (al-Ahsa’) province starting from 1938. His father Abdallah was governor of Hasan from 1913 to 1938. They were imported … Read more

Barely Surviving Lines: Dihkenna, the Kuhaylat al-Hayf time capsule

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The desert-bred Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare *Reshan, imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906 has two surviving asil tail females, and we are lucky to have them both.  The first is through her grand-daughter Antarah (Antez x Hasiker, by Hamrah x *Reshan), and that line bred on thanks to the efforts of Charles and … Read more

Video of the day: Craver Farms in 1999

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This video by C. Mingst shows several of the stallions at Craver Farms: Regency (Hamdani), Triermain (K. Haifi), Zacharia (Haifi), Regatta (Hamdani), Brassband (Haifi), Badawi (Hamdani), and a group of mares, some of which are identified. Javera Thadrian is not there. If anyone has a video of this horse that they’d like to share, can … Read more

New series: Barely Surviving Lines

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I have decided to start a new series called “barely surviving lines”. In doing so, I was inspired by both the latest issue of the Khamsat magazine, which focuses on rare asil lines in the USA, and by Anne McGaughey’s excellent website “Rare Al-Khamsa Strains“. These “barely surviving lines” are still in existence, or likely to … Read more

Stallions at the 1994 Oregon CMK Symposium

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As the 2009 Al Khamsa Convention in Oregon approaches (and this time, I plan to be there), here’s a video by Carol Mingst of the 1994 Oregon CMK Symposium, showing asil stallions of Davenport breeeding Mandarin CF (Regency x Lotus), Sportin Life and SA Apogee, among others. A good chunk of the video features Mandarin showing … Read more

Book: “The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent

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If any one is interested in the (very) early history of nomadic Arab tribes, then they ought to read Israel Eph’al’s book: “The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent: 9th-5th centuries BC. Google Books has a integral copy online. The books discusses the deeds of the little0known “Queen of the Arabs” … Read more

Photo of the day: Mahboob Halab

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Before I move to discussing the two stallions just imported from Syria to France, and following the posting of Shahm’s photos a couple days ago, I want to share with you a couple pictures of the second stallion, Mahboob Halab, a 4 year old Shuwayman Sabbah from the marbat of the Jarbah leading family of … Read more

Two asil stallions from Syria now in France

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Last week, I wrote about the quest of Robert Mauy’s friends, Jean-Claude Rajot and Louis Bauduin of France, to regenerate the bloodlines of their Arabian horses with the importation of stallions from the Arabian desert, or North Africa. Jean-Claude and Louis’ quest first took them to Tunisian and Algeria in the late 1980s. They saw many … Read more

*Aziza may also have an asil tail female left!

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*Aziza (Gamil Manial x Negma) was *Roda’s half sister. *Roda was mentioned in a recent post. In 1996, RJ Cadranell wrote an article on the two sisters in Arabian Visions, which you read here.  Like *Roda, *Aziza  was imported to the USA by W.R. Brown in 1932. All this I knew from before. Having read F. … Read more

Famous quote: Lady Wentworth on Arabian horses’ ears

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Also from “The Authentic Arab Horse”, but from Lady Wentworth, this time.. “Ears: these are all-important. A stallion’s ears should be small, exquisitely shaped, sharply cut, and thin at the edges. They should be also of marvelously delicate modeling, beautifully chiseled, the tip delicately turned inwards, the points being very sharply defined. Hearing is very … Read more

Famous quote: Lady Anne Blunt on straight profiles

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This is from a handwritten note which I copied from Lady Wentworth’s “The Authentic Arabian Horse”. I don’t have the book with me (it’s in Lebanon in my father’s library), but I vaguely recall that it is an excerpt from Lady Anne Blunt’s manuscript, which she was working on before her death in 1917, and which … Read more

Robert Mauvy’s teachings and his disciples

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My friends Jean-Claude Rajot and Louis Bauduin have been breeding Arabian horses for a long time. They are the students and friends of the late Robert Mauvy. Robert Mauvy is, simply put, the Westerner who came the closest to understanding the Arabian horse and to breeding it as its original custodians, the Bedouins of Arabia, … Read more

Dhahran and the *Turfa blood

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Just felt like posting this photo of the stallion Dhahran (Sirecho x Turfara) when he was at the Sheets’ Arabian Stud Farms (ASF). The photo is from the collection of pictures the late Billy Sheets gave me. Dhahran’s tail female goes back to the mare *Turfa, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from the horses of the House of Saud, … Read more

How Arabian horse ears should look like

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In a recent comment, Joe Ferriss talked about beautiful Arabian horse ears, as exemplified by the asil stallions’ Brimstone’s short, prickled ears. So Jeanne Craver sent me this photo of Brimstone. A picture worth a thousand words. Aside from the ears, Jeanne tells me  that Brimstone, the sire of the black Sportin Life in the … Read more

On the beauty of straight profiles

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It looks like some of you are enjoying the occasional digression from pedigree and geneology stuff. Yesterday, Anita Westfall sent me two nice pictures of some of her horses: This picture is of her very pretty Miss Attitude (by Lorenzo CF x Dawn’s Attitude SF, also by Lorenzo CF), a Kuhaylat al-Hayf of the line … Read more

*Bint Rajwa and Karawane “the Great”

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Another Hearst import to the USA in 1947 is *Bint Rajwa, who came with her dam *Rajwa, and her full brother *El Abiad.  There were essentially two groups of Hearst horses: one group was bred in Lebanon, from well-established Lebanese asil lines, and included the horses: *Bourhane, *Kouhailane, *Layya, *Lebnaniah, *Mansoura, *Nouwayra, *Najwa, and *Mounwer; another … Read more

“Hurrah! The five from Arabia have arrived…”

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Hence read the start of a journal entry Lady Anne Blunt wrote in 1911 (Lady Anne Blunt, Journals and Correspondence, edited by Rosemary Archer and James Fleming, 1986). The entry, brisking with excitement and enthusiasm, recorded the arrival at Sheykh Obeyd, Lady Anne’s Egyptian studfarm, of five of the choicest, best-authenticated desert-bred Arabian horses ever to get out of the … Read more

Kuhaylan al-Krush asil horses from Syria in Spain

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Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians in France, just sent me this link to the website of a young Syrian lady, Dr. Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, who moved to Spain and brought with her an asil mare from Syria, Karboujah (Sa’d x Roudeinah by Mas’huj), and her grey asil son Najm Ya’rob, by the stallion Fawwaz (Ayid x … Read more

More on special mares with long eyelashes: Bint Mawj al-Athir

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In the entry below, I wrote about how I liked arabian mares that have long eyelashes, which magnifies the human-like expression many of these mares have anyway. Below is a picture of of such mare. Bint Mawj al-Athir was an asil (heck, she is the mother of all asil) Kuhaylat al-Nawwaq (that’s the right spelling, other spellings include Nowag, … Read more

Wisteria’s long eyelashes

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Jeanne Craver just sent me this headshot of my Wisteria CF (by Triermain x HB Wadduda by Mariner), which Charles Craver took a couple days ago at Craver Farms. They made my day. There is something unique about the eyes of every Arabian horse. Sometimes it’s the shape. Or the size. The darkness. The bulge. The sparkle. The … Read more

The stallion Sergent-Major in the “Al-Dahdah Index”

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I recently shared with you my plan to propose the mare *Lebnaniah for inclusion in the Roster of Al-Khamsa horses as of 2010. The process is very thorough, usually involving several individuals putting their research skills together. It typically takes several years to complete. As part of this process, I will be sending the Al Khamsa … Read more

Susie of Arabia’s blog..

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If any of you want to know what it feels like for a Western woman to live in today’s Saudi Arabia, then you ought to check out Susie of Arabia’s Jeddah Daily Photo Journal. Nothing to do with Arabian horses, but interesting still 😉

More on *Mounwer’s tail female from Lebanon

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This is another picture of the beautiful Hearst stallion *Mounwer (b.1942), the subject of a recent entry. The picture is from the website of Ariena Arabians, and is courtesy of Nyla Eshelman. *Mounwer’s handwritten pedigree by his Lebanese breeder George Khamis indicates that he was sired by the stallion Kayane, out of the chestnut mare Bint … Read more

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