Arabia

Zanoubia

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A previous post gave me the occasion to mention Zanoubia, which is something I have been looking forward to for some time now. Zanoubia was my first mare.  Rather she was the first mare from my father’s horses in Lebanon that I considered mine.  She did not make it in my recent top ten of the best Asil mares ever bred; … Read more

Picture of the Day: His Majesty Dahman

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This is one of my favorite old pictures. The horse pictured is Dahman, a dark chestnut stallion bred by the Shammar Bedouin tribe in 1905, and sold to a French horse-buying commission led by Inspecteur Quinchez in 1909.  Dahman was a herd sire for the Shammar prior to his importation to France. He was by a … Read more

Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan: a photo and a hujjah

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I found a picture of a Kubaylat Ibn Jlaidan to show you, as well as a writtten certificate of origin (hujjah, plural hujaj). The picture, taken in the mid 198os, does not do justice to the mare, and I hesitated a bit before posting it: it shows a chestnut desert-bred mare in rather poor condition, against a … Read more

Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan

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Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is the third strain featured in the “Strain of the Week” series.  You will almost certainly not find a representative of this strain outside of Arabia today. A few of you may have heard of it in the context of their trips to Syria. The strain is emblematic of the Shammar tribe, as … Read more

The myth of Kuhaylan Jellabi tail female in Egyptian Arabian breeding

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I find it baffling that some Arabian horse breeders here in the US still believe that the strain of Kuhaylan Jellabi is carried on in Egyptian Arabian horse breeding. Ten years have elapsed since Michael Bowling’s ground-breaking article on the Arabian mare Bint Yemama and her descendants at the stud of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik in Egypt, yet most breeders of Asil Arabians … Read more

My top ten

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It tends to change every other day. For what it’s worth, here is today’s top ten: 1. Reem al-Oud, (Ubayyan Suhayli x Ubayyah Suhayliyah) desert bred from the Shammar tribe, born ca. 1980 2. Reema, (Ma’anaghi Sbayli x Hamdaniyah Simriyah) desert bred from the Aqaydat , born ca. 1975 3.  Jauza, (Dahman Shawan x Kuhaylat al-Krush) desert … Read more

Kuhaylan al-Mimrah and the “People of the Horses”

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As with many Arabian horse strains, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah takes its name from its owner.  The Kuhaylat al-Maryum mare that came from the tribe of al-Dhafeer to tribe of the Sba’ah became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah, or Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah, after the Sba’ah Bedouin who owned her. The strain bred on at al-Mimrah’s, and was passed to his sons and grandsons. Of these, … Read more

Kuhaylan al-Mimrah: a journey back in time

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According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah was one of the favorite strains of Abbas Pasha, the man who ruled Egypt from 1848 to 1854.  The Manuscript contains an interesting account of the history of the strain. Unfortunately, it assumes a good deal of prior knowledge of Arabian medieval history, without which the story’s … Read more

Kuhaylan al-Mimrah: from Egypt to South Africa

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The “Strain of the Week” series continues this week with the second strain featured: Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. Modern breeders and pedigree students, especially those familiar with Asil Arabian bloodlines from Egypt will remember Kuhaylan al-Mimrah as the strain of several of the older Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) horses: the stallions Mansour and Mabrouk Manial, present in … Read more

Photo of the day

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I took this photo of the Asil stallion Khalid (Mahrous x Khalidah) in Aleppo, Syria in the mid-1990s, at the farm of Mustapha al-Jabri.  Khalid is a half-brother to the stallion Basil, the subject of an previous post by Joe Ferriss.  Both Khalid’s sire and dam are desert breds.  Notice the excellent legs and the strong sinews on … Read more

More about Basil, the Asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah

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Basil, the masculine grey stallion pictured in Joe’s entry below was one of the first acquisitions Syrian Government Stud as it began operating in the mid 1990s.  Basil, born in 1985 at the stud of Mustapha al-Jabri in Aleppo, was not  Bedouin-bred, but both his sire and dam were. He was by Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli from the Shammar, … Read more

More stallions at Al Basel

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Another horse that I saw at Al Basel was, to me, a real charmer. His name is Shawal. He is a Shuwayman Sabbah stallion. He is handsome, very charismatic and an excellent mover. Unfortunately I did not get the chance to go inside the arena to take pictures so he was photographed from the railing … Read more

Kuhaylan Hayfi

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I just wanted to quickly add to the wonderful blogs on the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain. I learned much by reading them. I just wanted to add that I found it comforting when I visited Syria in 1996 that the Kuyahlan Hayfi strain that came from there via *Reshan is still very much alive. When we … Read more

Blogging as an anger management technique

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I am never tired of showing this picture of the lovely mare Wadeehah, a 1970 desert-bred Asil Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah from the marbat of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn.  The strain is also known as Ma’naghiyat Abu Sayfayn.  I took this picture of Wadeehah in 1992 in Aleppo, Syria, where she spent the latter part of her life in the … Read more

Kuhaylan Hayfi: Early breeders

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Early mentions of Kuhaylan Hafi by Western travelers to the desert link it to two Fad’aan clans (large families): al-Mahayd and al-Hubayqan. Lady Anne Blunt mentions that the strain acquired a certain reputation when Turki Ibn Jad’aan al-Mahayd, the head of the Fad’aan tribe, was killed in a raid against the Ruwalah tribe, who captured his … Read more

Kuhaylan Hayfi: What’s in a name?

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The previous discussion concluded (for now) that the strain of Kuhaylan Hayfi has developed sometime between 1850 and 1875.  What was it known as before that? and where did it derive its name from? Like many, but not all, Kuhaylan strains, Kuhaylan Hayfi, which by the way is also called Kuhaylan al-Hayf, branched out of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz appears to have been … Read more

The father of two swords

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When in March of 2007, I called Abdallah ibn ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn on his mobile, I knew I had a date with history.  Abdallah, 55, lives in the desert in north-eastern Syria, and is the owner [sahib] of a marbat of the strain of Maanaghi Sbayli known as Maanaghi Abu Sayfayn, after his family.  He is the son of ‘Atiyah … Read more

Related by blood

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The discussion about the blood marks on the bodies of grey Arabian horses elicited the most reactions this week.  Readers shared photos of Asil Arabian horses from different breeding groups (Bahraini, Davenport, Egyptian, “modern” Syrian, and Saudi) with bloodmarks on their shoulders and bellies.  These pictures serve as reminders that regardless of the artificial breeding categories in … Read more

Of cell phones and black tents..

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It was a hot and humid summer afternoon in Marseille, France, where I was living at the time, and a rather less hot, albeit equally humid afternoon in Bristol, UK, where my friend (and fellow horse enthusiast) Hazaim still lives.  We were in the midst of one of these heated phone conversations about the origin of a particular strain of Arabian horses, … Read more

WAHO blues

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A nice article by Gudrun Waiditschka about the 2007 WAHO Conference in Syria, with lots of pictures of desert Arabian horses.  I was invited to make a keynote presentation about strains at the conference, but had to drop out at the last minute.  This is the first time I regret not attending a WAHO conference.  My friend Hazaim al-Wair, who prepared the presentation … Read more

*Al-Hamdaniah

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Let me share with you this picture of  one of my all-time favorite desert-bred Arabian mares. *Al-Hamdaniah, the bloody-shouldered mare, was a present from the governor of the oil-rich al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia to Admiral Richard Lansing Connolly, who brought her to the USA in 1947.  Superstitious Bedouins believed that the large reddish spots on some horses’ shoulders were the blood … Read more

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