Author: Joe Ferriss

With the holiday season upon us I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the gift of the Arabian horse in our lives. It is a great teacher whose lessons go well beyond borders and cultures and if we are good stewards of this noble creature, we are better because of it. With gratitude to Edouard Al Dahdah, we share our ideas and our enthusiasm for the Arabian horse in the context of its origins and because of this blog, we have become one global community connected by the Arabian horse.

                                                                                                    I was re-reading Edouard’s December 11th, 2012 post on the photo of Haleb in 1906 with the Anazah Bedouin and how he is a “benchmark”. Haleb was a huge early influence on me as a novice because I noticed this minimalist aesthetic that he had in the photos that I had seen — the same quality in which we admire the Gazelle for its natural beauty combined with supreme function. Nothing to excess and everything in its place as Homer Davenport once said. No doubt this is what the Bedouin celebrated in their poetry. In a certain light, even the camel is a beautiful animal for its supreme function without any excess for its purpose. Now is wish to comment about benchmarks. I still tend to see the Egyptian horse in kinships with its tribal bred cousins rather than apart from them. I realize that modern tastes and a restless…

I enjoyed the story that Edouard related about the Shammar Hadba female line and indeed it has fame in American racing bloodlines through Kontiki. It also interesting to note that in the Al Khamsa bloodlines one branch of the Hadba Davenport dam line has distinguished itself in racing according to AJC and DataSource. First of all, posted above are two chestnut mares and a yearling colt. The first mare is the Davenport mare Waddarlah (El Alamein x Trisarlah) and the second mare is her full sister Letarlah. Both of these mares were bred by Carolyn (Kiki) Case of the famed Glorieta Ranch. Glorieta is mainly renowned for the straight Egyptians it bred which have a big international following particularly in the Gulf and Egypt. However Kiki also had these two Davenport mares, one of which was at Glorieta when I visited in the mid 1970s, that was Letarlah. Waddarlah had just gone to Illinois before I arrived and became well known in Davenport breeding, particularly for her daughters Bint Oberon and full sister Aischia. Letarlah remained at Glorieta until the early 1980s when she then produced for Davenport lines. Prior to their Davenport breeding careers these two sisters at Glorieta…

This is true and an important point Edouard in looking to the future options of diversity. The Egyptian horse has long benefited from the influence of the Astraled sons: Sotamm (Astraled x Selima), Rustem (Astraled x Ridaa), and Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare) as well as the Berk son Hamran (Berk x Hamasa). All of these stallions are of the Mesaoud sire line. Which sadly is now in jeopardy within straight Egyptian lines. However the concentration of Mesaoud through out the whole part of Egyptian pedigrees is more so especially when one looks at the pedigrees of these stallions above and the Blunt mares Bint Riyala (2x to Mesaoud) and Bint Rissala (Mesaoud granddaughter). The image you post of Sotamm is one of his better ones. He is double Queen of Sheba close up which I think accounts for the black color in some of his descent. Also there is a kind of “Queen of Sheba” look that is coming down strong from him and from Rustem in some of their descent. You can see it in the stallion Gharib where the look and also the brilliant action from Queen of Sheba comes through. As appreciated as the contribution of these…

While Edouard is preparing to return home, I thought it would be fun to post a few images. Being a visual person, I so often see common features among unrelated bloodlines that I thought it would be fun to post these two sets of comparisons. The first is the Davenport bred chestnut stallion Plantagenet, born 1976 in the U.S., a popular sire in the 1980s and below him is the straight Egyptian stallion Nasr, born 1918 in Egypt, sire of Sirecho and grandsire of Rabanna. I love this light airy trot exhibited by both which when seen almost leaves no sound as the horse’s feet touch ground. The Pritzlaff stallion Oracle RSI also moved like this.                                         The second set of images is the EAO grey stallion Akhtal, born 1967 and an important sire in Egyptian bloodlines, and below him is a Muniqi Hadruj stallion who was the senior stallion of the Tai Bedouin tribe when I visited the tribe in 1996. I found some interesting comparisons here in overall proportions and I believe they probably had similar body language as…

I am pleased to see Thea Isis featured on Edouard’s site and I could not resist offering a few more images of her. The first is of her in a pasture, the second is of Thea Isis in 1983 at Carol Lyon’s farm in the spring with her filly LD Abba Isis sired by the Babson stallion Ibn Mahrouf (Mahrouf x Serr Abba), and the third is a close up of her head from the second photo. I used this close up of Thea Isis’s head in my presentation in Minnesota on desert Arabian type because I wanted newcomers to appreciate how beautiful an Arabian can be with very little hint of a dished face. Note not only the beautiful large dark eye but the harmonious placement of the eye in relation to the ears and the nostrils. These are the “Chorus Girl” eyes that Homer Davenport wrote about. Thea Isis was a timelessly magnificent mare in the same way as the stallion Javera Thadrian also was. I also used his image in my Minnesota presentation because when one sees these images they first see the original magnificence of the traditional Arabian, the timeless look, without my even identifying the…

Pictured above is Zarlan the handsome 1964 chestnut Al Khamsa stallion who I saw at age 15 and was noble and full of Arabian character. His pedigree blends 5 different ancestral elements. In person, he was beautiful, agile, noble and the image of many of the traditional turn of the century horses in my old books. I want to thank Edouard for such a stimulating series of posts on the fate of Al Khamsa bloodlines. I wish to add my reasonable reply here in response to the this topic “combined source” and “straightness”. This subject has its complexities which are great food for thought and need to be explored further. Since my reply is a bit long I decided to put it up as an additional thread on this subject. I am just old enough to remember the common types of terminology that were circulating in 1970 and also before that, when such terminology was found in various books and magazines on the Arabian horse. Before there was a Pyramid Society, there was, for a long time, a general interest in labeling terminology in the Arabian horse market place in America so we need to put the roots of this…

To expand on Edouard’s last comment here about our chats in Oregon: I believe that the Asil bloodlines are very flexible and forgiving in that they can be bred for generations in one narrow direction (i.e. show ring, or non-Bedouin riding disciplines), outside the influence of the originating culture, and then they can also be returned to the type of the kinds of horses found among the originating culture as long as the breeder maintains a good understanding of what that culture values in the horse, its purposes for the horse, and keeps an open mind to the broadest possible choices. One example is modern combined source breeding in Al Khamsa, which I feel represents a great deal of liberation from bloodline constraints. I am optimistic that there are still lots of possibilities for breeders. We need to preserve all the ingredients of the ideal recipe for the Arabian horse, and by example long time breeders have done a fine job of it. But perhaps now is a good time for some of us to free ourselves from the temptation for compartmentalized thinking about asil bloodlines with the aim of producing more Waddudas, or Sindidahs or Old Speckled Jellabis.

Pictured above is Shadia I, 1939 bay mare by El Zafir x Shams INS. Her dam is a granddaughter of El Kahila, the first Saud mare to be given to Inshass from King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud. Saudi Arabia has been a source for some horses in the Inshass stud in Egypt. Members of the Saud Royal family had been generous in giving a number of their “asil” horses to the father and son Kings of Egypt, King Fouad and later his son King Farouk. For the most part names of each family member appear in the Inshass Stud book which is not a complete document but does give us some insight into these horses. I have compiled a list here of horses identified as coming from the Sa’ud family to Inshass stud: 1. El Kahila, dark bay mare born 1921 strain: Kuhaylah Krush. Her strain is not listed in the Inshass studbook but her daughter is listed as Kuhaylah Krush. 2. El Obeya Om Geris. Collin Pearson book designates her as a gift from King Aziz Ibn Saoud perhaps in early 1931, arrived with foal by “Koheilan El Azouz. Her strain is Obeya Om Grees [Abayyah Om Jurays], her…

I am so pleased to see that Edouard’s mare Wysteria is in foal to the stallion Javera Thadrian, 1982 grey (Thane x HB Diandra). He is another of those classical “19th century engraving” horses with very fine skin and very expressive eyes. Photos do not hardly capture the impression he leaves in person but I offer here a photo that I happened to snap of him being ridden in a costume exhibition at Alice Martin’s StarWest during an Al Khamsa convention. As you can see he truly is a classic.

Since I do not have a website and I could not find a place in the comment window to post some pictures with my list, I am instead offering it as a blog post. So here goes. Well Edouard you have done it again! How can I pick just ten? Maybe next week the list will change but instead of going crazy I decided without over-thinking to post my top ten. I could not rank them in any particular order so there is no preferential treatment in my list as each is significant to me for different reasons. One thing that is common to most all of them is that I like very much their genetic influence as I have seen many descendants from all of these, except one whose line is extinct in Al Khamsa. My top ten mare list with reasons for them: 1. *Ansata Bint Bukra (Nazeer x Bukra), though crippled, she was absolutely magnificent and radiated beauty from within her soul as well as exterior. Once you saw her you never forgot her. She is now hugely influential world-wide. 2. Dharebah (Dhareb x Antarah) – I did not see her but saw many of her produce…

Anchor Hill Serfa I thought I would share a few comments about the notion of the “War Mare”, a term used to describe mares of particular nobility and courage throughout the ages. The late Mark Mayo, who I used to refer to as the “American Bedouin Cowboy” used to tell stories of the “war mare syndrome” which he experienced personally in the deserts of Oklahoma on his 17,000 acre ranch riding his asil mares while herding cattle. He talked about that special trait of total courage and nobility and how these special mares defended him against snakes and other predators as well as many other adventures. 38 years ago when my wife bought me Homer Davenport’s book, “My Quest of the Arabian Horse”, I never forgot the wonderful stories Homer Davenport gave about riding the great war mare *Wadduda, truly a noble mare. I used to imagine that my first half-Arab mare in 1970 would grow up to be a war mare. But in fact my own personal experience with the “war mare syndrome” was a decade later when we purchased, in 1980, an older mare that we had wanted for years, Anchor Hill Serfa (Ibn Sirecho x Serida by…