A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
Jens Sannek shared this wonderful historical video, taken by Anton Tucek, of the Bahraini stallion Burkaan D3. Laszlo Kiraly had already shared it with me years ago, and I may have uploaded it here. Jens added: I know that Burkaan is registered bay in the Amiri Stud Book Vol. 1 Nr. D3. The Studbook was … Read more
It is with our deepest sadness that we inform you of the death of our beloved the founder of Bahrain Kennel club Mrs. Dana Sehested Preetzman on the 5th of July 2021. Mrs. Dana Sehested is the widow of the late His Excellency Sheikh Isa bin Abdullah bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The late … Read more
Dafuq, who is now 10 years old, has three close crosses to Sitah D1 for a total of 37.5 percent of his pedigree. He is the most like her of the three stallions, more so than Daneer and Darak. Photos by Marion Wassilewski. He also has two close crosses to Mlolshaan Almarshoosh M37, photo below … Read more
Five years after Bogdan Zientarski and Carl Raswan’s 1931 horse-buying trip to Arabia including Bahrain, it was the turn of Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk to make a similar trip for the Royal Agriculture Society (RAS) of Egypt. In 1936, he visited the stud of the ruler of Bahrain, Shaykh Hamad Aal Khalifah, and had the following … Read more
Bogdan von Zientarski (1884-1958) — photo below by Carl Raswan — was the manager of the Gumniska stud farm for Prince Roman Sanguszko from 1927 to 1944. In 1931, Sanguszko sent him and Carl Raswan on a shopping trip to Arabia to buy original Arabian horses. They came back with four mares and four stallions. … Read more
A beautiful photo of Danah Alkhalifa with her salukis “Princy” and “Flicka”, taken in Bahrain in August of 1972 and published in Arabiana magazine 1975. Thank you Laura for the scan.
The late Danah Al Khalifah wrote in Volume 1 of the Amiri Arabian Studbook of Bahrain that “the breeding program at Danah Farm is centered around the foundation mare SITAH, ‘Hamdaniah Feisul’ and her offspring. Sitah’s history is documented from the time she was acquired as a two year old filly in 1964, at the … Read more
To the right, Diva (Jellaby Mojaahid X Mabrooka by Jellaby Alasil x Sitah d.b.); in the middle, Danika (Rabdaan Muttaawi x Deede by Ibn Sitah x Mabrooka), in the background, Hamdanieh Dania (Rabdaan Farajallah x Danika). Hamdanieh Dania coming to the USA for Lyman Doyle. Marion Wassilewski
Wilton Burger shared these these new-to-me photos of the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisan, imported to South Africa by Valerie Noli-Marais. The first one has Hasan Bin Salih Al Ruwaiyi riding him in Bahrain, the second was taken in South Africa. Photo credits to the Estate of Dr. Valerie Noli-Marais.
Hamdaany Daneer (Jellaby Radad x Danika) is the one of three Bahraini horses from Danah Stud that Lyman Doyle will be taking to the USA this summer. Of the four Bahraini stallions that Lyman and I acquired, Daneer is certainly the showiest and the best mover. He does not trot, he floats. He does not … Read more
The acquisition of the majority of the horses of Danah Stud of Sh. Rashid bin ‘Isa bin Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifah, son of the late Danah Al Khalifah, marks the beginning of a new venture in the nearly 20-year old trajectory of the Al Arab stud. After a focus on some of the best … Read more
I am very proud to announce the acquisition of the black roan stallion Kuheilaan Umm Zorayr Zyad D23. Zyad was bred by the late Danah Al Khalifah in 2001. He belongs to the extremely rare strain of Kuhaylan Wuld Umm Surayyir that is now unique to the Kindgom of Bahrain. Originally the “house strain” of … Read more
One of my favorite photos from Volume 1 of the Arabian Stud Book of Bahrain is that taken by Danah Al Khalifah of this bay Shawafan/Shawaf stallion. Fortunately, his line carries on in modern Bahraini horses. The same stallion appears in another photo (below) that appeared in Danah Al Khalifah’s “Living Treasures of Bahrain”, below. … Read more
Egyptian diplomat Mahmoud Samy Pacha appears as the owner of the 1924 chestnut mare *Exochorda (Aiglon x Leila II) in her export document from Egypt to the USA, on file with the Arabian Horse Association. That document was attested to by Dr. Branch, the Director of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt, and by the … Read more
A 1947 picture of one of the world’s wonders (at least in my books): Shibam, the “Manhattan of the Desert”, by Wilfried Thesiger.
Wonderful Sa’dah in the extreme north of Yemen has been very affected by the Yemeni civil war that started in 2015. Lucky are those who saw it before it was destroyed. This is how near-eastern cities looked like several thousands years ago.
This recent picture of Subanet Jabbar SDA, the Saqlawi stallion of Bev Davison and the sire of my Kinza Al Arab, really shows his style and his action. A horse like I like them.
I am so very proud of this beautiful and fine stallion, one of the very last Tunisian asil in existence. I am also very grateful to Skander Karoui to have given me the opportunity to acquire him. Not a single ounce of French Arabian blood, whether old (Denouste, Duc II, Kriss II, etc.) or new … Read more
The wonderful Dahhmany Bagdady, one of the last representatives of the old, prepotent Babolna/Weil type of royal Arabian horse. He is 23 years old this year. The famed and storied tail male to Siglavy Bagdady exists through him and his few offspring, a handful of stallions scattered across Europe. I am so proud that he … Read more
I have never been to a more magical place. Photograph by Pascal and Maria Maréchaux of a fortified house in Wadi Markha (top), the village of Shaharah (middle) and the village of Jebel Bura (bottom).
ورد في مخطوط أصول الخيل المعروف أيضًا بمخطوط عباس باشا ذكر سليمان آل محمد من شيوخ بني خالد فجاء في فصل العبيات في سياق قصص عبية الصيفي ما نصه أفاد بداح الصيفي وشافي ولد فهيد الصيفي ومسعود ابن غدير مشايخ سبيع أنها عبية شراكية للشراك من بني خالد واندرج من الشراك فرس صفره لولد أخته … Read more
Above, one pole tent of a regular Bedouin. In the middle, three pole tent of a minor shaykh. Below, seven pole tent of an important tribal leader (e.g., Fawaz al-Shaalan of the Ruwalah, or Rakan ibn Mirshid of the Sba’ah). Photos by Louis Delseny (1906-1997), a French army officer and amateur photographer who served in … Read more
وضعت هذه الحجة عام ١٢٨٤ هجري الموافق ١٨٦٧-١٨٦٨ ميلادي لحصان عربي عمره سنة لونه ازرق ماوردي رسنه معنقي ابوه كحيلان نواق مصدر الحجة أرشيف رئاسة وزراء السلطنة العثمانية بالاستانة عبر صفحة الدار السلطانية ومتصفح الوثائق العثمانية ويظهر فيها واحد من ختمين وصلانا من جدعان ابن مهيد عقيد عشيرة الفدعان من عنزه في ذاك الوقت كما … Read more
Someone recently posted on social media one the nicest historical videos of desert Arabian horses I have ever seen on the internet. The video feature, among other scenes, a French horse-buying mission to Syria in the 1930s-40s: My attempts to locate the location of the filming yielded the following: The section of the video with … Read more
From Williamson’s unpublished dissertation on the Shammar Jarba: Bedouin society ascribed its highest social values to bravery, fighting prowess, and personal cunning. Because it placed so much importance on these qualities. Bedouin society worked out a system of inter-tribal raiding known as ghazw wherein a man could demonstrate his fitness. Tribes carefully planned ghazw against … Read more
Anecdote CF (Triermain x Aniq El Bedu), a.k.a. Pulcher Ibn Reshan, photo by the late Jackson Hensley, ten years ago.
Some 16 years ago, in 2008, I wrote about this beautiful old Kuhaylat al-Ajuz Arabian mare from Tunisia, Hadia, on this blog, .here. One year after that, in 2009, I wrote about the bay Tunisian stallion Jehol Sahraoui, here. He was from the program of Gisela Bergman in South-West Tunisia. The second photo of Jehol … Read more
Today, modern buildings extend all the way to the mountain range of Mt. Noqm.
I gleaned off this awesome photo of a Bedouin palanquin in the area of Tadmor/Palmyra in 1937, for what looks like a marriage or a ceremony of some sort. As is usually the case for these photos from “nostalgia influencer” social media accounts, there is no source for the photo.
I had been telling you about the strain of Ubayyan al-Khudr of the Bani Sakhr in earlier posts. I stumbled upon a reference to this strain, as I was doing a new translation of the hujjah (certificate of authenticity) of the Arabian stallion Marhum. This was a desert-bred horse born in 1890 and imported from … Read more
I ordered this book on the epic of the migration of the Bani Hilal, in one of its Tunisian versions. The author interviewed one of the last oral reciters of this grand epic, an old Tunisian herder, and translated it into French. I The epic of the Bani Hilal is the Arabs’ equivalent to Homer’s … Read more
Nino Van Reisen of Gothenburg University has this audio recording of a section of the Epic of the Dayaghim as narrated by members of the al-Madhi leading clan of the tribe of Aal Issa in Northern Jordan. The recording features a story about Arar ibn Shahwan’s stallion Mashhur. As Arabic listeners will gather, the pedigree … Read more
A very nice photo of Moira Walker’s Landrace Bellara (Pulcher Ibn Reshan x Jadah BelloftheBall), the youngest Kuhaylat al-Ajuz from the line of the Saudi royal mare *Nufoud.
Yemen has been on my mind a lot lately. صورة لسوق المراشي مركز مديرية خراب المراشي – الجوف (1973 – 1975م) تصوير المهندس المعماري البرتغالي فرناندو فراندا الصورة محفوظة بمتحف كالوست كولبنكيان – لشبونة – البرتغال
I was happy to find a mention of this important manuscript in Major Roger Upton’s “Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia” (London, 1881). It is a short manuscript by a member of the Jabiri family of Aleppo who lived in 19th century and listed many strains of Arabian horses known to him. Here is Upton’s … Read more
I confess being terribly late in acquainting myself with some of foundational Arabian horse literature in English. Roger Upton’s “Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia” is one of those books I had not read, save for passages here and there. I am happy I found a searchable version of it online, and I am having … Read more
[This article is work in progress jointly between Kate McLachlan and I] Kate and I are have serious doubts about the Darley Arabian being from the Fad’aan tribe, as modern lore has it. There were no Fad’aan Anazah Bedouins in the area of the Syrian desert between Aleppo and Palmyra around 1700 CE, where the … Read more
صورة قديمة لحصن عزان حصن الشيخ عبدالكريم بن احمد المهشمي.. مركز رحوب مديرية برط العنان محافظة الجوف اليمنمنقول عن صفحة فهد اسماعيل الانباري
Saudi historian of the ‘Anazah tribe ‘Abdallah ibn Duhaymish Ibn ‘Abbar al-Fad’aani, whose work I generally value, found a mention of the date of the mass migration of several ‘Anazah tribes from Central Arabia to the Syrian desert (North Arabia, which covers part of Syria and Iraq and Jordan today), in a contemporary Lebanese chronicle, … Read more
I have managed to trace back the strain of Ubayyan Abu Jurayss (Umm Jurayss for the females) to the ‘Utayfat (alt. spellings ‘Atayfat and ‘Otayfat), one of the main clans of the Wuld ‘Ali tribe of ‘Anazah. But I don’t know yet how they got to the Wuld ‘Ali and where from. In the below … Read more
Last week Kinza stepped on the leg of her newborn filly. The filly has been lame since, but the leg is no longer swollen and her situation is improving slowly, per Lyman Doyle who sent me these videos. The filly is otherwise very nice and Kinza looks really great for a four year old first-time … Read more
The Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM), in its English translation, has nineteen mentions of a Bedouin community named “the people of the north”. These mentions are often associated with names of tribes that seem to form part of this “people of the north”, such as the tribes of al-Sirhan (pages 501, 508, 511), al-Sardiyah (page 311, … Read more
Lyman sent this picture of young Shamsah (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince). She is I think nine months old, and is growing into a very solid young mare.
The stallion Dahman (b. 1900) was one of the most admired horses ever imported by the French government from the Middle East. Robert Mauvy, who knew him well, wrote beautiful pages about Dahman and his influence on both the Arabian and Anglo-Arabian breed in his book Le Cheval Arabe. Mauvy held Dahman as the archetype … Read more
Kate found an interesting document the other day, which this entry reproduces and comments on. The document was published in the “Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale Zoologique D’Acclimatation“, a French scientific society founded in 1854 during the French Second Empire, under Napoleon III. Th document concerns the grey Arabian stallion “Bawab”, also known as “Aneze”, … Read more
Kate recently asked about how old the strain name of Ubayyan Suhayli was. In other words, when did the specific strain of Ubayyan Sharrak owned by al-Suhayli of the Shammar stopped being referred to as Ubayyan Sharrak and became known as Ubayyan Suhayli after its owners’ name. The earliest written reference to Ubayyan Suhayli I … Read more
روى الضابط الفرنسي فيكتور مولر رئيس الاستخبارات الفرنسية في البادية السورية في عهد الانتداب الفرنسي عن لسان مشل باشا الجربا أن العبية الشراكية التي درجت إلى شمر بكون شمر والشريف تفرعت إلى فرعين فرع عند عبدة شمر هدية من الشيخ فارس أبو مشل باشا إلى ابن ربيش من عبدة وكان هذا الخط موجودًا عند ابن … Read more
This morning Lyman Doyle broke the good news that Kinza Al Arab had foaled a filly by Bashir Al Dirri at the Doyle farm in Oregon. She will obviously be chestnut like both parents. She is Saqlawi Ibn Dirri to Basilisk on both sides of the pedigree, to Bushra (Azrek x Bozra) on the sire … Read more
From Lady Anne Blunt’s “A Pilgrimage to Najd” (1881): “To the present day in the North, the Anazeh distinguish the descendants of the mares brought with them from Nejd as “Nejdi” while they call the descendants of the mares captured from the tribes of the North, “Shimali” or Northerners.” and: “The Anazeh have disappeared from … Read more
I looked up the mentions of the Bedouin tribe of Bani Sakhr in the Journals of Lady Anne Blunt. There are five of them, ranked below in chronological order. [Saw at the Tahawis] One bay Abeyan el Khudr from a tribe near the Bani Sakkhr beyond the Hauran… [A Shaykh of the Samaritans told us] … Read more
Lady Anne made the following remarks in a letter to Spencer Borden dated January 26th, 1910: At last I can send my Crabbet Stud List for 1910. You will see that I have altered the order of it, which was a good deal of trouble. I have put Kehilans first because in fact every strain … Read more
عبيات العفاري رسن من الخيل العربية الأصيلة تختص به سوريا من جميع البلدان العربية ولقبت عبية العفاري بسوريا بطراحة الظبي وذلك كناية عن سرعتها بأنها تسبق الظباء وسميت عبية العفاري نسبةً الى العفاري الشمري الذي هاجر من نجد إلى الجزيرة السورية والعفاري من النمصان من الزميل من سنجاره من شمر ونخوته راعي العليا وزايد العفاري … Read more
As I have written before — sixteen years ago already — no Arabian horse strain is intrinsically above or better than the other. Lady Anne Blunt had it right when she wrote that her stud manager, Mutlaq al-Battal, a Mutayr Bedouin, never ceased to remind her that all were Kuhaylan, and all were asil. Any … Read more
Maria Wallis’ beautiful Operetta HBF (Student Prince x Idyl CF by Atticus), a Kuhaylah of Davenport bloodlines also foaled a filly by Pulcher Ibn Reshan at Debbie Mackie’s in Illinois. He’s had three nice foals this year so far, two fillies and Mayassa’s colt.
A preservation program that I watch closely is that of Carrie Slayton’s. Carrie has several nice Kuhaylan Haifi Davenports mares and a few non-Blunt horses, from a group that the late Carol Lyons identified, preserved a dubbed Sharps. Carrie had a handsome chestnut colt from breeding the bay Mohican CF (owned by Ambar Diaz) to … Read more
Last week also saw the birth of the first foal of my Mayassa Al Arab: a colt by Pulcher Ibn Reshan (ex Anecdote CF). Mayassa is on a breeding lease to Deb Mackie, and the colt hers. He is Kuhaylan Krush by strain.
It’s foaling and breeding season and a new crop of foals in on the ground. Belle, who went to Moira Walker in October 2022, had a lovely filly this year by Anecdote CF (aka Pulcher Ibn Reshan). Moira named her Landrace Bellara, in keeping with the B names for this family. The filly, who will … Read more
Bedouin testimonies in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM) do not mention the calendar year an event took place. That’s because Bedouins, having an oral culture, did not record years the way people with a written culture did. Instead, the referred to major events that took place in the those years: “The year water was sold”, … Read more
The Najdi chronicler Ibn Bishr had this to say under the year 1229 Hijri (1814-15) the year of the death of the Wahhabi leader Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz: As to the number of agents he [Saud] would send to collect taxes in camels and sheep from the Bedouins of the Peninsula of the Arabs [living] … Read more