Azra with Said Abdallah up

Hello, all. Long-time stalker, first time poster here. This blog isn’t about me, so I won’t do a lengthy introduction except to say that I am a 20-something Arabian enthusiast armed with a graduate level education in history.  I spend a lot of time going through Google Books and looking up publications pertaining to Arabians and their breeders/photographers – there’s a wealth of information on the early Davenports and other Early American Arabians, and I can’t help but be thankful to Spencer Borden and Homer Davenport for being so enthusiastically prolific as writers in their quest to promote the Arabian horse in the United States.

As it happens, I stumbled upon this photo, hitherto unseen by myself and  a number of other researchers I know (but perhaps not to people who have been involved with Davenports for some time.) Thus far, I have found two sources for this photo – the first, in the Century Path: A Magazine Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, Volume 13, Part 1, published March 6th 1910 (you may read the article here); the second, The New Way, Volumes 1-6, published November 1911 (you may read this article here).

The photo, of course, says that the horse within is *AZRA, Homer Davenport’s 1903 grey Saqlawi Ubayri stallion that was among the 26 horses he brought with him from the desert, with Said Abdallah up. I do not doubt that this is indeed Said Abdallah, but it is perhaps a little more thorny of a question as who this greying stallion is. If we can trust these publications and trust that this is in fact *Azra, then what a treasure. But, previous experience has shown that sometimes older publications mislabel horses (case in point: The New Way source listed above gives *Muson a ‘she’ pronoun, and writes that Said Abdallah was the only person that ‘she’ would tolerate – a mix-up with *Wadduda, surely), and therefore a modicum of caution is always warranted when looking at sources that do not come from the breeders/owners themselves.

In this instance, the photo was likely taken at the very latest by February or very early March 1910, and shows what can be pretty safely assumed to be a younger stallion in the middling process of going white-grey. A horse that was born in 1903 would be between 6-7 years old at the time of this photo presumably being taken, and at the very earliest, the photo could have been taken in 1906.

Of Davenport’s early grey horses:

1. *Obeyran (b. 1880) would have been far too old for this photo, and we can rule him out.
2. *Muson (b. 1899) would have been 7 in 1906, and 11 in 1910. We can rule him out, as well, as by 1906/1907 he was  already with Bill Cody and very clearly white-grey.
3. *El Bulad (b. 1903) could certainly have fit the profile on paper.
4. *Mowarda (b. 1904) also could have fit the profile on paper.
5. *Reshan (b. 1896) is far too old, and is an unlikely candidate in any case. This photo screams ‘stallion.’
6. *Farha (b. 1900) would have been 6 in 1906, and 10 by 1910, and like *Reshan is also an unlikely candidate.
7. *Abbeian (b. 1889) is also too old, and can be safely ruled out.

Thus, this horse is either *Azra, *El Bulad, or *Mowarda. This becomes a matter of comparing and contrasting known photos of these horses, and determining which is the best fit. I know of only one photo of *Mowarda, while *El Bulad appears to have a few more [1] [2] [3]. *Azra has two, one of in standing in hand [1] and one that is more suspected to him rather than confirmed as him [2]. (If anyone has any other photos of these three, I would love to see them.)

Edit: I had forgotten Davenport’s Quest, an egregious oversight considering the horses in question.  There are several photos of him in there that are believed to be Azra, showing a pale horse. And as Jeanne Craver helpfully pointed out in the comments, photos of Mowarda in the desert also show a horse that is pale. Conversely, El Bulad was described by Davenport as an “iron grey” horse (pg 101 of My Quest of the Arab Horse.)

It is difficult to judge based off a mere handful of photos, particularly when the grey pigmentation is involved and any identifying markings are thereby obscured over time, but here we are. I had personally chosen to rule out *El Bulad as a possibility, as scrutinizing of croup told a tale of two different horses, as you can see below.

Edit: And as an additional mode of comparison, a photo of younger *El Bulad:

One can, of course, note the two-toned tail, the underneck, the dappled haunches, and the still-dark legs.

However! Those familiar with main ring Arabian showing are familiar with the hard stand, which helds lend the appearance of a high and level croup even if the horse perhaps does not have one. And while the Mystery Pony here is in a position that is a far cry from the level croup, the principle remains that the appearance of conformation is somewhat mutable depending on how the horse is stacked. I was sent a photo of *Azra from the new edition of Davenport’s Quest, page 141, that shows a different tale (tail?) of Azra; please see below:

The photos of Mowarda and Azra are more difficult to compare, as both conformation photos show horses quartering slightly to the camera rather than being presented dead-on for a proper conformation photo – a cautionary tale for breeders and owners today to take the time to take decent conformation photos of all of your horses for posterity’s sake.

I was inclined to feel that it was a reasonable assumption to take these publications at face value this time around, if only because Azra seems to have enjoyed a more favored life with Homer Davenport in the U.S. and it seems reasonable to assume that Homer may have  invested more time and money into using Azra as part of his nationwide promotional articles and photos, given that he was a greater figure in the breeding program that Davenport was offering to the States as an example of the merits of the Arabian breed.

However, round 2! As always, when studying history, one has to be ready to accept information that challenges what they had believed, and to adjust their beliefs accordingly. Are we sure that this is Azra? No. Is it likely that it is Azra? Well… maybe not. Could it actually be El Bulad, whom I had earlier ruled out? Well, sure. It could also be a different horse entirely. Arthur Moore’s grey Mu’niqi, perhaps.

Isn’t it fun when a newer member to the breed unwittingly stumbles upon an old controversy? {grin}

As an aside, The New Way article was published by the Lomaland Theoscopical Society, located at Loma Point, CA and credited for this particular photo (Lomaland Photo and Engraving Dept.) They have apparently transferred their archives to a university, and I am in the process of locating where these archives currently are. It may well be that there are a quite a few unpublished photos of the Davenport Arabians in that collection, if it still exists.