Barazan, asil desert-bred Saqlawi Marzaqani stallion in Syria
Khalid Rakhlani runs a beautiful page on Facebook, called Arabian Horses in Syria. It features numerous photos of Arabian horses of 100% Syrian stock, registered in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook.
This morning’s photo of the stallion Barazan caught my eye. He represents a type of desert horse that is rapidly disappearing: small, yet well built, with this wild animal quality to him.
His sire Odeilan, a seal brown Ubayyan Suhayli, was very small, but this was from malnutrition. Barazan is jet black without white markings, in the pure tradition of old Saqlawi Marzaqani stallions. In the 1950s, the Maraziq Bedouins who have owned the strain since the 1850s stood a famous stallion called the “Black Marzaqani”, who sired the famous race winner Mawj al-Athir (who was also his brother, the black Marzaqani having bred his own dam as a young colt). Later in the 1970s, the daughter and wife and mother of Tai leaders, Anud al-Nayif also stood a black Saqlawi Marzaqani stallion — the “horse of al-‘Anud”.
Below, an early photo of his maternal grand-dam Tairah when she was still in the Syrian desert, with her Bedouin owner Sabah Munawikh al-Uthman of the al-Luhaib clan of the Shammar. The photo was taken during one of the Syrian’s government’s commissions registration missions in the late 1980s. Later, Tairah was owned by Basil Jadaan and became one of his favorite mares. I saw her for the first time in 1990 at Basil’s farm, and many times after that. Her pointy ears, her large expressive eye and her small muzzle were especially noticeable.
As an aside, Tairah was sired by the same iron grey Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion that sired Mahrous, the Hamdaniyah ‘Ifriyah dam of Taan, and the Ubayyan Suhayli of Atnan al-Shazi (the sire of Odailan, Reem al-Oud and others and the paternal grandsire of Barazan). Barazan therefore traces to that Wati stallion twice.
Barazan really is a nice sort of horse in his photos; I particularly love how much bone he has below the knee. He may be small, but he isn’t delicate. Your description – “small, yet well built, with this wild animal quality to him” – reminds me of Basilisk!
In her photo, Tairah seems to have an impressive breadth of forehead and a deep cheek – I imagine, without the halter, she would have a clear wedge-shaped head.
Really a nice horse. The looks so much like the Davenport imports, especially *Haleb as you said in your next post. He also vaguely calls to mind some of the older style of Egyptian – I keep thinking about some of the Babsons I’ve seen that evoke a similar quality of horse. Finer in the bone, however, and already trending toward the sort of smoothed “prettiness” that many Western Arabians have.
One comment: you wrote “… Barazan is jet black without white markings, in the pure tradition of old Saqlawi Marzaqani stallions.” But you can see that the off-side hind has a pink hoof and a small white marking around the coronary band.