I recently scanned a number of photos of Syrian Arabian horses that I took in the early 1990s, and I will be sharing them with you over the next days and weeks. It makes sense to begin this series of photos with the 1981 ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous, head sire at the Jabri stud in Aleppo, Syria in the 1980s and much of the 1990s. He is consequently one of the most influential stallion in Syrian pedigrees today. I took these photos in 1992. Mahrous was a masculine and prepotent stallion, who stamped his progeny. All his sons and daughters inherited his balanced, near-faultless conformation and his good disposition. His head was criticized by some for not being a classic Arabian head with a ‘dish’ — Mahrous had a straight profile and a — but you can see from these pictures that it had all the essential characteristics of the head of a true desert-bred Arabian stallion: huge soulful eyes, short pricked ears, huge arched cheekbones, a broad forehead between the eyes, and a clean, delicately arched throat (mithbah). I have already discussed Mahrous’ very well-established pedigree in an earlier entry, to which I refer you (click here).
Below is a translation of the Arabic language hujjah of the mare *Abeyah, imported by Homer Davenport from the Northern Arabian (i.e., Syrian) desert to the USA in 1906. It is adapted from the translation of this hujjah which I did in 2005 for the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians III. The Al Khamsa Arabians III translation remains the one readers ought to refer to, because it is a word for word translation of the original Arabic, but the one below reads better in English: “I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which has a blaze on her face and two stockings on her hindlegs is a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, to be mated in the dark night, purer than milk; we only witness to what we know, and don’t withhold what is unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [seal of Faris al-Jarba follows] I testify by God that the witness referred to, Faris Pasha from the tribe of Shammar, is a just man and that his testimony is acceptable. Ahmad al-Hafez [seal of Ahmad al-Hafez follows]” I will be discussing this hujjah in detail in the comments section below, so when you…
Nimr Shabareq (photo below, by Zaarour al-Barary out of Yamhad by al-A’war) is one of the desert bred stallions that were recently imported to France. He is now standing at stud with Louis Bauduin, who took this picture and gave it to Arnault Decroix, who sent it to me (Merci, Arnault). This is not your usual Arabian horse. This is a horse from hell. This is fire made horse. Both Jean-Claude Rajot and Arnault Decroix told me about their first encounter with this horse in 2008, when he was just a weanling at the stud of his breeder Radwan Shabareq: three grooms were needed to handle him as he was being shown to the stunned visitors. This is probably why Radwan called him Nimr — tiger. He hails from one of the most prestigious desert bloodlines: the Ma’naqi Sbayli marbat of Shawwakh al-Bu-Rasan, Shaykh of the Wuldah tribes of the Euphrates valley. Shawwakh had obtained the line from his neighbor and friend ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, a Fad’aan Bedouin who owns the strain now. ‘Atiyah’s great-grandfather had stolen the original mare from the Sba’ah (click here to read how), the fountain-spring of the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain. The clan of al-Bu-Rasan is…
This is a raelly unique photo, by Carl Raswan, from the Craver photo collection. It shows the mare Szeikha, a chestnut Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz purchased in the Arabian desert in 1931 by Bogdan Zientarski and Carl Raswan on the behalf of Prince Roman Sanguszko for the Gumniska Stud. She was bred i n 1923 by “Sheikh Farhan bin Haji Barak al Rahman” of the Muntefiq. She was lost during World War II and never found again. She may or may not have been of the strain of Kuhaylat al-Ajuz al-Shaykhah, Kuhaylat al-Shaykhah for short, or Szeikha (Shaykhah) may just be her name. She is the quintessential war mare, and I am a strong advocate of breeding back to this type of Arabian mares – the upright neck aside.
The chestnut stallion Kassar (Mahrous x Dawha by K. al-Wati) was bred by Mustafa al-Jabri and purchased by Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, who sent me the picture below. Kassar’s dam Dawha hails from the ma’ruf (well-known — by the Bedouin community, that is) and mazbut (reliable, authenticated, trusted) marbat of Kuhaylan al-Wati of the sons of Hakim al-Hsayni al-Ghishm of the Shammar, now settled in North-Eastern Syria. Hakim, his sons Mohammed, Ali and Fawaz and his grandsons such as Husayn followed a policy of only breeding their Kuhaylat al-Wati mares to their Kuhaylan al-Wati stallions. They own several branches of the same horses. Kassar in particular is heavily linebred to the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain. Kassars sire Mahrous is a son of a dark grey Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion, also from Hakim’s, and so is his paternal grandsire. Kassar’s paternal grandsire and Kassar’s dam are said to be very closely related. Theirs is a relatively old marbat with the Shammar; The grey stallion “Koheilan”, imported to England in the early 1910s (I think, but maybe it was the 1920s, in any case the horse is pictured in the first pages of Al Khamsa Arabians I, 1983), where he left no progeny, was of that strain. The Kuhaylan…
Finally, a photo of the 24 year old desert-bred Bahraini stallion *Mlolshaan Hager Solomon at his owner Bill Biel in Michigan. Jenny Krieg went up there and took this picture, from which Jeanne Craver removed the tack. Jenny has leased a mare of Saudi Arabian lines from Rodger Vance Davis to breed to him, and Rodger also sent in another mare too. If all goes well, there will be two foals from him next year, and I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed. His blood is rare and precious because he is one of the few stallions out of Bahrain in the West. He is also rare because of his strain: Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish is only present in Bahrain today.
I was sorry to hear about the passing of Majd, the bay Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion whose picture i recently posted. While visiting the Al Basel government stud in Syria, Majd’s sire was introduced. He is an imposing grey of good size, and his name is Basil [Mahrous x Halah]. He is of the Kuhaylan Mimrah strain and is bred by Mustapha Al Jabri. He is a horse of great quality and has a wonderful nobility which reminds me of that sense of quiet, confident, but strong diginity akin to a great war horse. The Blue Star stallion Muhairon (Sirecho x *Muhaira) was very much like this. [askterisks are used to denote imported to North America.] I wish I had more photos of Basil but the one here is descriptive of his quality which shows great proportions, leg quality and wonderfully shaped ears, a true Bedu charger to be proud of. -Joe Ferriss
The ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous was, until his death in the late 1990s, the herd sire at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, Syria. Today his sire line is, along with that of the Damascus stallion Ayid, the most prolific in modern Syrian Arabian horse breeding. If you check Mahrous’ entry in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook, you will find relatively little information about him, in comparison with other major stallions of his generation (e.g, Mobarak, Mashuj, Raad, Marzuq, Mokhtar, all born between 1982 and 1987). I was able to learn more about Mahrus’ background by asking a number of persons, including Mustafa, Radwan Shabariq and the late Abd al-Qadir al-Hammami, as well as others who knew the horse well. Hazaim al-Wair has also conducted a masterful inquiry among the Shammar Bedouins clans of al-Sbeih and al-Ghishm about Mahrous’ sire. Mahrous was born in 1981, in the steppe area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in Northeastern Syria. He was bred by a Bedouin of the Faddaghah clan of the Shammar tribe, a man named Wuhayyid al-Hamad al-Duhayyim. Wuhayyid then sold Mahrous to horse merchant, who sold him to another, before Mustafa bought him as a young stallion in 1983/84. The photo of Mahrous,…
This horse should have been mine, years ago. Actually, he was about to be mine, and he somehow slipped between my fingers by going to greener pastures. I first encountered him on a hot summer afternoon in 1996, while on a visit to the Aleppo Equestrian Center, with friends Radwan Shabareq, Kamal Abdul-Khaliq, and my father, Salim al-Dahdah. We had come to see a famous Arabian mare, owned by a man of the leading clan of the Shammar, the Jarba clan, with the intention of buying her. She was a celebrated mare in the desert, and I have featured her several times on this blog. The Aleppo Equestrian Center is located inside a gated compound; a paved road takes you from the main entrance to the stables and the administration offices uphill. Paddocks and jumping competition arenas are in the middle of the compound. As the four of us were walking up the paved road to the stables, the afternoon sunrays pounding on our heads, I was faced with this un-real image of a light grey Arabian stallion, tethered to the paddock fences, with a majestuous yet very gentle attitude, one that welcomes and inspires awe at the same time. I thought to myself: “I didn’t know they had…
Joe Ferriss sent me this announcement about a herd dispersal in Arkansas. There are 8 asil Arabians involved, all of BLUE STAR bloodlines. Five of these are ‘Straight Desert’, meaning that they entirely to horses imported from Saudi Arabia in the 1950s and 1960s. All need homes and quickly. Normally, Joe does not like to get involved in placing horses, and neither do I, but given the rarity of bloodlines we thought it important to let people knows. Click on this links to open a PDF document with the list of the horses, their pedigrees and the contact information of the owners. No picture of the horses are available here, but both the senior stallion and the senior mare are out of Desert Kalila, also dam of the mare DB Kalila pictured below. The line is a distinguished ‘Ubayyan line, from the horses of Prince Saud ibn ‘Adballah ibn Jalawi, governor of Eastern Saudi Arabia, in the 1930s and 1940s. Back there, it is highly valued.
This is photo of the chestnut stallion ‘Abbar, a magnificent desert-bred ‘Ubayyan al-Suyayfi stallion, now deceased, from the old marbat of Badi Ibn Zubyan al-Subay’i. Compare with the Davenport stallion Tripoli (Hanad x Poka), a Saqlawi al-‘Abd.
Kuhaylan Khallawi (often misspelt Halawi) is a strain of Arabian horses little-known in the West. It is mentioned in Lady Anne Blunt’s list of strains derived from the Kuhaylan family, and in Carl Raswan’s list. The only other place it is mentioned is in Roger Upton’s writings, where his desert-bred import Yataghan (sire of the Ma’naqiyah mare *Naomi, which still has an asil tail female in the USA) was recorded as having been sired by a well-regarded Kuhaylan Khallawi stallion belonging to the Shammar. That’s it. In Egypt, the 1943 mare Futna, bred by the Tahawi Arabs, and bought by Ahmad Hamza as a broodmare for his Hamdan Stables, was from that same strain. Her dam is recorded as a Kuhaylah “Halawiyah”, just another way to write Khalawiyah, depending on how you choose to pronounce the Arabic letter [?]. Futna still has a thin tail female alive in the USA and Egypt, so the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain still goes on. According to their family website, wihch has a very rich section on horses, the Tahawi clan leaders brought all their horses from the area of Hims and Hama in Central Western Syria in the period extending between the 1880s and 1930s. …
This photo of the stallion Rock (Ragie x El Charsaa by Gezeier) with proud owner Shaykh Sulayman ibn Abd al-Hamid ibn ‘Ulaywa al-Tahawi was taken from the Tahawi family website. I am so grateful to Bernd Radtke for among other things, his sharing with me the pedigree of Rock’s daughter Bombolle (Rock x Maskerade), which has allowed to reconstitute Rock’s pedigree. Rock’s strain is Kuhaylan al-Kharass, and his tail female traces to the Kuhalyan al-Kharas marbat of the Sba’ah Bedouins. Kuhaylan al-Kharas is a flagship strain of the Sba’ah, and is the strain of the Blunt import Proximo, among other well known Arabians of Lebanon and Syria. Rock’s pedigree is heavily linebred to the two strains of Dahman ‘Amer (from the marbat of Jarallah Ibn Tuwayrish) and ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (from the marbat of Abu Jreyss).
This photo was sent by a horse merchant in Syria to one of the Tahawi clan leaders in Egypt, bto probe his interest in purchasing the horse. Here is what figures on the back of the photo: “Photo of the Saqlawi Jadrani horse, his sire is ‘Ubayyan of the horses of Ibn Samdan and his dam a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the horses of the Sba’ah” A couple noteworthy observations: 1. The marbat of Ibn Thamdan (mispelt Samdan on the back of the photo) is one of the most respected and authenticated marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah tribe. It survived in asil form in Lebanon until the late 1950s. 2. Notice the resemblance of the horse in the photo with the Blunt mare Basilisk, who was from the same strain and the same tribe.
This hujjah comes from the Tahawi tribe website and is very interesting, because of the place of origin of the horse: unlike most of the Tahawi hujaj I saw, this one comes from the Upper Mesopotamia area (al-Jazirah) while the others came from Western Syria. I hope the horse referenced in this hujjah document left some modern descendants, because his origin is precious. Here’s my translation of the document: “We testify by God and his Prophet, in truth and righteousness, that the grey horse, brother of the bay horse, which [the grey] has a small star on his face, and which is five years of age, and which was purchased by Abdel Aziz Bek and Husayn al-Hilal from Adham al-Humayyid that he is Saqlawi Jadran, and that his dam is a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, and his sire a Saqlawi Jadran, from the horses of Dari Ibn Mahmud, the Shaykh of the tribe of Shammar al-Zawba’; and the horse is ‘shubuw’ [to be mated] and can be mated, and is protected [from the side of both] his sire and his dam, and that there is no impurity in his origin; and for this reason we have prepared this testimony, and God is the…
This stallion, from the area of Hims and Hama in Syria, was offered for the sale to one the Tahawi leaders in Egypt; the back of the photo reads as follows: “His dam is the Nawwaqiyah and his sire a Nawwaq from the horses of ‘Arsan al-Nawwaq of the Arabs of [illegible, stain on the reverse of the photo, probably the tribe which is Sba’ah], golden chestnut, 5 years old
Excerpts from the Tahawi clan/family website, translation mine: When in the 1850s, the Tahawi began to settle in the province of al-Sharkiyah, in the areas of Bilbeis, Abu Hammad, Geziret Saoud, Kfar Saqr, al-Ismailia, and Abu Sultan, they owned horses which they used for transportation and nomadizing; then they settled down and acquired agricultural land, and gave up their pastoral and war-like lifestyle; their Sheykhs then went on to constitute their own horse studs (marabet); around this time, the Syrian region of Hims and Hama was the homeland of the Arab horse, and was known as al-Sham, since it was home to some of the Bedouin tribes like ‘Anazah, Shammar, al-Fad’aan, and al-Sba’ah, which specialized in the breeding of Arab horse and the tracing of its bloodlines; The Tahawi Arabs owned some land and maintained social ties with their relatives living in this area, as well as some close friends, so they started bringing brood-mares and stallions to Egypt. Some of them would travel there [to the area of Hims and Hama in Syria] and buy horses, then return [to Egypt] and wait for their horses to arrive; others would buy horses through an agent. Each horse came with a pedigree document, which included a description…
The Tahawi family website in Arabic is a gold mine of original information on the asil horses of Egypt’s Tahawi tribe. Here’s what I found today on this website concerning the horse Barakat, who is the paternal grandsire of the three foundation mares Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat [my own annotations in between square brackets]: “The stallion Barakat is the son of the old Dahman, the stallion of ‘Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi which was bought from the ‘Anazah Arabs in 1322H (1898 AD), and the origin of this Dahman stallion is from the Dahmat ‘Amer mare of Jar Allah ibn Tuwayrish, and his sire is a Saqlawi Jadran [Note from Edouard: This is the same horse whose hujjah was reproduced and translated in an entry below]. As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“. Further above on the website there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.” The information on Barakat’s dam is extremely interesting. Not only because it allows us to go one generation back in the pedigrees of the three Hamdan stables foundation mares: Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat.…
I am currently working with a prominent Syrian breeder to get a desert-bred stallion or two from reputable bloodlines to the USA. I don’t mean to sound mysterious or coy but I cannot tell you more about it at this stage, since it’s still cooking..
The 1988 grey Hamdani al-‘Ifri stallion *Ta’an (Awaad x al-Efrieh by a Kuhaylan al-Wati) was born in the Jazirah area of North-Eastern Syria. His breeder, Mis’ir al-Hamad is a member of one of the small Arab nomadic tribes that settled in this area in the XXth century. I first saw *Ta’an in 1990 as a yearling, at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud outside of Aleppo. I took pictures which I will scan and share with you. I then saw him again in 1991 and 1992. In 1993, Mustafa gifted *Ta’an to Gerald and Debra Dirks who took him to the USA, then to Jordan in 1996. At that time, the Arab Horse Association studbook did not recognize the Syrian Studbook, so *Ta’an never got registered, even though Al Khamsa, Inc accepted him on the basis of his being a Bedouin-bred horse from Syria. The two pictures below were taken at the Dirks’ farm, and are courtesy of Marie Arthur. *Ta’an’s sire was Awaad, a grey Kuhaylan al-Krush bred by ‘Iyadah Talab al-Khalaf, of the Shammar Bedouins, from the prestigious Krush al-Baida marbat of Mayzar al-Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar. Awaad sired many good mares and stallions in Syria, among them the…
Check out this article from the New York Times archives, dated Oct. 14, 1906, on the importation of 27 horses from Arabia by Homer Davenport. You can actually go to the website of the New York Times, type “Homer Davenport” in the search box, and access a lot of really interesting articles from the archives section. Don’t forget to choose the category “All results since 1851”.
Jenny Krieg, of Maryland has partnered with Rodger Davis of Illinois to send two of Rodger Davis’ mares to the stallion from Bahrain, *Mlolshaan Hager Solomon (Rabdaan Alwasmy M19 x Mlolesh Asila M105 by Sharid), who is up in Michigan with Bill Biel. All of us have five pairs of fingers crossed for what should be Solomon’s second and third asil foals. We are also hoping that others will follow Jenny’s and Rodger’s lead and send more mares to this desert-bred stallion before it is too late. One of the two mares, DB Kalila, (AAS El Hezzez x Desert Kalila by *Furtha Dhellal), a 2002 ‘Ubayyah tracing to the mare *Mahraa of Prince Saudi Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi, Governor of Hasa, was leased by Jenny. Her photo is below. I like the long ears and the croup.
Mustafa al-Jabri is a longtime Syrian breeder of desert Arabian horses from Aleppo, Syria, and a beloved family friend. Mustafa’s stud near Aleppo, which has up to 100 mares and two dozen stallions, is one of the most highly regarded studs in Syria. Over the past decades, Mustafa spent extensive amounts of time with Bedouins and those familiar with them, and collected a large compendium of stories, some in verse, some in prose about Arabian horse strains, Bedouin feats and deeds, and the relationship of Bedouins with their horses. Mustafa’s family is now working on putting these stories in writing in Arabic, for education and awareness raising purposes. Below is one of these story from Mustafa, which I translated from the original Arabic, and which Mustafa and his family graciously agreed to share: One day Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba the Shaykh of the Shammar tribe went hunting with one of the men from his tribe, a Bedouin known as Wati al-Ghishm (as an aside: Wati means lowly and vile, and it was a Bedouin habit to give their children rough or negatively connotated first names to draw the evil eye away from them ; they would keep positively connotated first names to…
Today I was able to find a photo of the stallion *El Abiad (by Karawane x *Rajwa), a Saqlawi “Ejrifi” imported by W.R. Hearst from Lebanon in 1947. For an interesting discussion of El Abiad’s origins, click here. Too bad he does not have asil descendants left in the USA. His full sister, *Bint Rajwa, should have a couple elderly asil horses left, which otherwise trace to Al Khamsa horses in all their lines. I intend to propose *Bint Rajwa and her dam *Rajwa for the inclusion in the Al Khamsa Roster, next year. Photo from the Arabian Stud Book Volume VII, 1953
The second of three videos of foundation horses of Antique Arabian Stud, who draws on desert-bred Arabians from Saudi Arabia. Courtesy of Edie Booth.
Syrian breeder and Arabian horse expert Mustafa al-Jabri is closely associated with this Facebook page, “al-Khuyul al-Arabiyah al-Asilah (Authentic Arabian Horses), which has more than 3,000 fans. The page has very useful information on Arabian horses, including scores of ancient poetry, old sayings, and accounts of the deeds of old Arabian horses and horsemen. Unfortunately, it is in the Arabic language only, but I am currently involved in getting some of the material translated to English for the benefit of a braoder audience, mainly some of the many stories on Arabian horse strains which Mustafa has collected over the years, and which have never been published before. Below is a photo of a mare from Mustafa’s stud, which graces the Facebook page, along with many others. It’s actually pretty easy to identify the pictures featuring Mustafa’s horses: basically every picture in which horses look natural and real, as opposed to the highly staged, romanticized pictures of Arabians with full makeup looking like they just came out of air conditioned stalls for a 10 minute photo shoot in the sands..
Another video from Edie Booth of the horses and the life at Antique Arabian Stud.. I really like these two mares Bint Amiraa and Alwal al-Shahhat. They remind me of mares I was familiar with back in Lebanon..
Thanks to Edie Booth for this video of some of the old horses of Antique Arabian Stud, which trace closely to desert-bred Arabians imported from Saudi Arabian, mostly from its Royal Studs. The segment where the newborn foal plays with Edie’s son (now a young man) is very touching. How I wish my children could have this interaction on a daily basis.. Two more videos were shared by Edie, too..
Blog reader Mathias, from Germany, asked a pertinent question a few weeks ago: How come, he observed, “the horses from Saudi sources […] mostly have one strain name and no substrain, like Turfa and […] the mare Ghazala imported to Germany from Saudi Arabia”? I had never noticed before, but Mathias is correct. Check out the available, recorded information on the Saudi horses sent to Egypt’s royal Inshass Stud as gifts: Nafaa, a Kuhaylah, but what Kuhaylah? Hind, a Saqlawiyah, but what Saqlawiyah? Mabrouka, a Saqlawiyah, again with no “substrain”, or marbat; El Kahila, a Kuhaylah with no marbat, etc. Now check out the recorded information on the Saudi horses imported to the USA: *Mahraa and her daughter *Muhaira: Ubayyan, but which Ubayyan? *Al Hamdaniah: Hamdaniyah, but no substrain; *Taamri, *Jalam al-Ubayyan, *Al Obayya: all Ubayyan, no substrain; *Amiraa, *Rudann, *Halwaaji, *Sindidah, *Bedowia El Hamdani: all Hamdanis but no substrain; *Turfa: Kuhaylan, but no substrain, etc. etc. These horses came from famous and well established studs like that of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud at Al-Khorma, or that of Saud Ibn Jalawi in al-Hasa, they were from the Bedouin tribes, who were justifiably proud of their horses’ origins and who carefully, albeit orally, transmitted…
.. and now a video of Aelfleah Hadhafang (Gwaihir TOS x Anduril TOS by Qadifan), a 2004 Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare tracing in tail female to the desert import *Amiraa, imported in 1960 to the USA by Sam J. Roach. The video was sent by the mare’s breeder Tamara Woodcock, who added: “She is competing now at 2’9″ in showjumping and in Beginner Novice in eventing. Her main, actual only, rider is a 11yo girl. I think this goes a long way to sowing the trainability and athleticism of the desertbred horse.” Update July 18th, 2010: Here’s another video
If you haven’t already done so, check out the overview article by the late Carol Lyons, on “Drissula, One of a Kind”. Born in 1941, Drissula (Sultan x Ydrissa by Antez) is the only asil progenitor for the Ma’naghi Sbayli line of *Haidee, who was bred by the Sba’ah Bedouins and was imported to the UK in 1874. I already mentioned my soft spot for this strain. Some thirty five years ago, when my father asked the late Moussa de Freije, one of the foremost Lebanese authorities on Arabian horses, about why he held a particular M’anaqiyah Sbayliyah mare in such high esteem, the response of the French-educated Mr. de Freije was: “She is a Bourbon-Parma”, in reference to one of Europe’s most noble and blue-blooded dynasties. While all Ma’naqi Sbayli horses eventually go back to one marbat (Bedouin stud), that of Ibn Sbayyil of the ‘Ajlan clan from the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, who acquired the orginal Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah and, in time, gave her his name, not all Ma’naqi Sbaili marabet which subsequently branched out of his marbat were held in equal esteem. Even within the same tribe, levels of prestige and reputation associated with each marbat varied over time, and the fortunes of each marbat…
This masculine 1991 bay stallion is a son of the timeless LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla by Tarff), a favorite of mine. His great-great-grand-dam is the desert-bred mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz (no marbat recorded) bred by the Saud Royal Studs in Arabia and imported in 1931 to the USA by Albert W. Harris. Salil is only four generations removed from the bygone era when horses were still used a war machines in the Arabian desert, and that’s as close as one can get to a time capsule today. While I have seen better photos of him, this one shows his excellent shoulder, short back, and well set next. This is how horses looked like in the Arabian desert. They did not look like these oiled, shampooed, made up china dolll mutant creatures that are hitting the world’s show circuits. Salil is owned by Lesley Detweiler of Mountain Spring Farm in Pennsylvania, and is now standing at stud at Pam Baker in South Carolina.
A nice photo of a son of two desert-bred imports. Letan is by *Muson, a Kuhalyan al-Musinn of the Ruwalah, out of *Jedah, a Hamdaniyah Simriyah of the marbat of Ibn Ghurab. Both *Muson and *Jedah were imported from Northern Arabia by Homer Davenport in 1906. My Wisteria has 25 crosses to him, and her daughter Wadhah 37 crosses. Now compare him with another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab, Mobarak born some 80 years later, at the stud of Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Dar’an Ibn Ghurab of the Shammar Bedouins, and notice the similar body structures:
It’s all in the title. Mokhtar is the black desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion bred by the Shammar, and has been a recent fixture on this blog.. His owner Chantal Chekroun says that professionally frozen semen will be available for him this coming September, to respond to international demand. The horse is turning 24 next year, so the clock is ticking.. Soon, with Bedouins becoming sedentary and more integrated in the global economy, the notion of a desert-bred horse born under a tent will itself come to and end. Below is a photo of one of Mokhtar’s sons in France, the stallion Quarzai, who recently earned third place at a 90 miles endurance race.
Below is a photo of Hijab (Ward Al Mayel x Nisreen by Mubarak), an asil Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah now in France, with Chantal Chekroun, who sent me this picture. Chantal also owns the black Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Mokhtar. Note the similarity between this photo of Hijab and some of the Priztlaff horses of Rabanna bloodlines (especially the progeny of Kuval RSI) The bay Hijab was born in Syria, by Mostafa al-Jabri’s asil Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan stallion Al-Ward al-Mayed (Mahrous x Nadrah), out of Basil Jadaan’s Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Nisreen (Mobarak x Marwah). Basil gave Hijab and the black Mokhtar to Mrs. Mennings who took them to France. They were later acquired by Chantal Chekroun, who bred them to each other. The breeding of Mokhtar to Hijab produced the dark bay Menjad Maram al-Baida (photo below, by Sophie Lacarre) now a stallion at the Balthasar’s Haras de la Lizonne in Western France. I first wrote about Menjad on this blog several months ago (click here to read). Then I wrote about him and his grand-dam Marwah again here. Chantal retained Manjad’s full sister Quokriya Al Shatane (Mokhtar x Hijab), whose headshot below she also sent me. The long established marbat of the Saqlawi…
This is AAS Dahmah Sawanah (DB Shahhat x DB Jasidah by Desert Jalam), a 1999 chestnut Dahmah Shahwaniyah bred by Edie Booth of Antique Arabian Stud, of Canton, Texas, who sent me the photo. She had a colt this year by the Hamdani stallion AAS Al Sakb. She is the sister of the mare of reader Regina from the Netherlands, which was featured on this blog earlier. The strain comes from Bahrain through the mare *Sawannah.
Reader Chantal Chekroun of France just sent me these recent photos of her desert-bred stallion Mokhtar (Awaad x Doumah), a 1987 black Kuhaylan al-Krush from the Shammar tribe in north-eastern Syria. This venerable horse has been regularly featured on this website, and for good reason. He is the epitomy of asil. Mokhtar is a Kuhaylan al-Krush, tracing to the marbat of the Sheykh Mayzar Abdul al-Muhsin al-Jarba, Shaykh of the Northern Shammar. This precious marbat goes back to the ‘white Krush’ of the leading Dawish clan of the Mutayr Bedouins, who are the most famous custodians of the strain. Mokhtar was bred by Ayadah al-Khalaf, known as al-Qartah, who took control of the marbat from Mayzar’s family, and bred the Krush horses to each other for two or three generations. Syrian breeder Basil Jadaan of Damascus acquired Mokhtar as a yearling in the late 1980s, and later bought his sire Awaad and his double grand-dam Mumtazah both in extreme old age. Mukhtar was a leading sire at Jadaan Arabians for several years, producing a number of influential sons and daughters such as Al-Qaherah, a black Shuwaymat Sabbah mare and the founder of a dynasty at Basil’s; Hayel, a black Saqlawi…
There is a new blog dedicated to the “Syrian Arabian Horses: Past, Present and Bright Future”, which Hazaim al-Wair started last month, with input from noted breeder and desert horse advocate Basil Jadaan and others from the Syrian Arab Horse Association. This is a really promising endeavour, as Hazaim is thoughful and knowledgeable about the Syrian horses and Syrian breeders, with whom he keeps in close touch, from his current home in Britain. Be sure to follow it as it takes off. Unfortunately, photos are copyright-blocked so you can’t download them..
My research project about Syrian horse-racer Ahmad Ibish is progressing well, but I am not ready to share the results on this blog yet. Ibish, of Damascus, Syria, was on the top of my list of influential urban Middle Eastern horsemen of the twentieth century, along with Henri Pharaon of Beirut, Lebanon, Iskandar Qassis of Aleppo, Syria, and a few others. However, I can say a couple things about the horses he was associated with, at different times. I could find four of these, all stallions. The first, and perhaps most famous here in the US, was Aiglon. Aiglon was a Saqlawi Jadran imported by Ibish to Egypt for racing, around 1920, according to the export document for his daughter, *Exochorda, attested to by Dr. Branch, the Director of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt. *Exochorda, named after the ship that brought her to the USA, is of course best known as the dam of Sirecho. The second was El Sbaa. El Sbaa, a chestnut, was bought from Ahmad Ibish by a French government mission led by Madron and Denis at the Cairo Heliopolis racetrack in 1925, and sent to the French Stud of Pompadour where he was used as…
Yesterday, I posted the photo of the beautful Bint Turfara (Sirecho x Turfara by Fadl). Below is the photo of another foundation mare of the BLUE STAR program, her 1961 half sister Bint Muhaira (Sirecho x *Muhaira by Old Hamdani), a ‘Ubayyah. She was bred by the Searle Stud. Her dam *Muhaira (Old Hamdani x *Mahraa) was bred in Saudi Arabia, by an expat lady, Esther Ames, from two horses from the stud of Prince Sa’ud ibn ‘Abd Allah Ibn Jalawi, Governor of the oil rich province of al-Hasa in Saudi Arabia. *Muhaira and her dam *Mahraa were imported to the USA by Mrs. Ames. *Muhaira’s sire, the Old Hamdani (born around 1938), was presented by Ibn Jalawi to Mr. Thomas C. Barger, then CEO of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO, the state-owned national oil company of Saudi Arabia, renamed Saudi Aramco in 1988). Old Hamdani was apparently also imported to the USA, but he was never registered in this country. He was featured on this blog early on, here. As an aside: The stud of Prince Saud Ibn Jalawi (alternative spelling: Jiluwi) was really part of the group of studs of the House of Saud, not only because of the frequent exchanges of…
The beautiful chestnut mare Bint Turfara (Sirecho x Turfara by *Fadl), a Kuhaylah, is pictured below. By the way, and just to set the record straight, the strain of “‘Ubayyan al-Hurmah” , which Carl Raswan ascribes to *Turfa (and her sire) simply does not exist. There are about four dozens different strains of ‘Ubayyan, which I will list on this blog some day, and none of these is “Ubayyan al-Hurmah” (H-U-R-M-A-H). There is, however, a ‘Ubayyan strain known as “Ubayyat al-Hamrah” (H-A-M-R-A-H), the ‘red’ or ‘bay’ Ubayyat. This was the strain of *Turfa’s sire, according to her Arab Horse Society Stud Book Vol. 6 (1944) entry. Note the different orders of the letters M and R in the two words (H-U-R-M-A-H) and (H-A-M-R-A-H), and the different vowels A and U. These two words are not the same. There is also a town in Saudi Arabia by the name of al-Khurmah (K-H-U-R-M-A-H), where one of the studs of the House of Saud was located. *Turfa came from that stud, and her Arab Horse Society Stud Book Vol. 6 (1944) entry mentions her as a Kuhaylah, from this Saud stud located in al-Khurmah, an oasis between the Hijaz and Najd regions. No “substrain” is assigned to her, and we’ll just have to live with…
Jackson Hensley, of Bedouin Arabians Farm, in New Mexico, just sent me pictures of the latest addition to his stud; Sabella Al Krush, an asil Kuhaylat al-Krush filly, tracing in tail female to the mare *Werdi imported from Syria to USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. *Werdi hails from the Krush marbat of the Fad’aan Bedouins. As an aside, the famous stallion Krush Halba, the foundation sire for the Turkish Arabian horse breeding program, hailed from the same Fad’aan marbat as *Werdi. Krush Halba was one of the most prepotent sires of racehorses of his time. He was active in the northern Lebanese town of Halba in the 1920s and 30s, and was purchased in 1933 by a Turkish Government Commission and exported to Turkey where he was known as Baba Kurus. Check out his hujjah here (scroll down to Appendix B). One of Krush Halba’s sons, the grey stallion Kroush (actually a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq by strain) was bought from the Beirut racetrack in 1936 by Dr. Mabrouk of the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS), and was used by the RAS for breeding . Kroush appears in the Egyptian “RAS History” studbook (EAO Vol 1) on page 48. He had three registered offspring in Egypt: the stallion Tamie (1937) out of Nagiya; the mare Bushra…
My father is here in the USA, visiting with me. We often get the chance to reminisce about the hundred or so horses he bred or owned when he was actively breeding, but also about those he was never to obtain, for one reason or another. Laila (photo below, which my father took) is one of these. Laila was a ‘Ubbayyah Sharrakiyah, bred a small ‘Anazah Bedouin clan from an area in southern Syria. Somehow, her and her dam had found their way to Damascus in the early 1980s, where their new owner was breeding them to English Thoroughbred stallions to produce part-bred Arabs for the racetrack of Beirut, Lebanon. I will always remember seeing Laila’s black son, al-Adham, and her brother, Nashwan, both partbreds with 50% English Thoroughbred blood, on Sunday afternoons at the Beirut racetrack (it was the early 1990s), their tail held high in the air as they raced toward the finish line, looking distinctivly prettier than all the other partbreds in lot. In the picture below, she is pictured with a foal by the part-bred Arabian stallion al-Mustaqbal. In the early 1990s, as Syria joined the World Arabian Horse Organization, Laila’s owners switched to the breeding of asil Arabians, which was rapidly becoming…
This magnificent Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion (Tripoli x Asara by Kasar), bred by Charles Craver in 1962 must have been the kind of horse a tribe would plan a ghazu to take away from another tribe. I wish I was around when that stallion was alive.
I found some of my notes on the subject of the now extinct strain of Kuhaylan al-Jalala. Victor Muller, a French army intelligence officer who had overall responsibility over the Syrian desert area at the time of the French Mandate on this country authored an authoritative book on the Bedouins of Syria. In one chapter, he wrote that the initial marbat of Kuhaylat al-Jalala among the Shammar was with Ibn Dayes of the Khrissah clan, but that it had recently become extinct with Ibn Dayes. He also wrote that he knew of a Kuhayla al-Jalala mare with the Jayss tribe, the traditional enemies of the Shammar, whose pastures are by the Turkish border with Syria. He also added in what looks like an update to the previous information that the last Kuhaylat al-Jalala mare, owned jointly by Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba (leader of the Northern Shammar in Muller’s time) and by the Qa’it clan (a clan of Shammar warriors) had died recently. He also adds that the number of ancient strains taken by the Shammar in that famous battle with the Sharif of Mecca were five, and cites all the strains I cited except Kuhaylat al-Dhabi. That said, I heard al-Dhabi…
Samura, a chestnut 1895 mare, is a first generation offspring of two desert-bred Arabians imported to Russia by Count Stroganov and Prince Sherbatoff, and was bred by the former at what is now the Tersk Stud. Stroganov’s breeding program was completely wiped out in the events that led to the bolchevik revolution of 1917, and nothing remains of it today. A couple words on the strain of Kuhaylan al-Jalala: it is specific to the Shammar tribe, among which it is now extinct. It is one of the seven (some say eleven) strains which the Shammar took in war from the Sharif (Ruler) of Mecca, when this tribe crushed the Sharif forces in a grueling and epic battle still celebrated by the Shammar in their poems, some two hundred years ago. The other strains taken by the Shammar from the Sharif of Mecca in this battle (actually, a series of battles) are, off the top of my head: Kuhaylan al-Sharif, Obayyan al-Sharif (also known as ‘Ubayyan Suhayli), Kuhaylan al-Dhabi, Kuhaylan al-Jalala, Nkhayshi, Kuhaylan al-Shnaynan, and a seventh I don’t recall now as I am writing from work without my notes. The first two strains are still extant among the Shammar in Syria today,…
Look what I just found in the archives of the Egyptian weekly newspaper Al Ahram: a recent (2006) article citing a much older (1938) Al Ahram article reporting on the january 20, 1938 wedding of Egypt’s king Faruk to Safinaz Zulfiqar, who became Queen Farida. All the article is interesting, but what is most remarkable is this sentence: “Al-Ahram presented a register of the gifts that states had presented to “His Majesty the King of Egypt”. Ibn Saud, the king of the Hijaz, presented four horses “that are pure-bred from 400 native horses. They are “Kahilan, a colt, Al-Saqlawiya, Abiyan, a race horse, and Al-Jilabiya. The name of each is traced back to the names of the Arab houses that have preserved them since the ages of the first Arabs.” What happened to these horses? Do you think we can find their trace in the Inshass Original Herd Book?
Check out this website and tell me what you think: the Bedouin Heritage Project. In many ways, Daughters of the Wind and it is are ‘like-minded’ websites. I was just telling Jeanne Craver, who pointed me to it, that I expected a lot of such websites to crop out in the coming years, as a ‘Bedouin revival’ trend takes root in several Middle Eastern countries, as as global knowledge and interest around this topic converge online. I eventually expect this trend of longing for everything Bedouin to reach the asil Arabian horse in the USA, especially after the launch of the Gift of the Desert exhibition and the opening of the Arabian Horse Gallery in Lexington, KY this year. So here is a prediction for you: in five years’ time, Middle Eastern people, whether of Bedouin heritage or not, will be knocking at the doors of American backyard breeders of asil Arabians of desert background — BLUE STAR, Davenports, etc — and asking to buy some of their Hamdani, Haifi, Krush or ‘Ubayyan horses. If you are curious about this ‘Bedouin revival’ now taking place in the Middle East, read this 1999 (more than ten years old already!) article by…
Reader Regina from Germany sent me this picture of her 2001 mare AAS Ghazala (Ibn Taamrud x DB Jasidah by Desert Jalam). Regina’s mare is special for many reasons: first, she is one of the very few asil Arabian horses — less than 10, I think — of the Dahman Shahwan line to *Sawannah, a mare imported from Bahrain to the USA in 1954. Second, all her ancestors came from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain straight to the USA, as part of the last major batch of desert imports to the country. Third, she is only four generations away from her closest desert ancestor. Sometimes, I just can’t believe mares like AAS Ghazala still exist today. I am so glad they do, thanks to people like Regina who try to preserve these bloodlines. Ghazala’s beautiful and proud little colt is sired by AAS Theeb (AAS Al-Sakb x Bint Amiraa by Taamrud), a Hamdani Simri tracing to the marbat of the Saudi royal family. The colt was born on April 13th 2010, and is the latest addition to this small but precious family.
[Edouard’s note: the story below was sent to me to Pure Man in Arabic, and is posted here under his name. Translation mine. It was first published a year ago, almost day for day and is being republished now] These horses, al-Musinnat [plural form of Kuhaylat al-Musinn or al-Musinnah] are very ancient. They are from the horses of ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Faysal ibn Turki Aal Saud, the brother of King ‘Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud. Prince Abd Allah, the brother of the king, had kept his horses in a private, separate farm. Upon his death, the horses went to his son, Prince Abd al-Rahman, and then to his grandson, Prince Faysal. And Prince Faysal is now aged. Then the horses went to Prince Turki Ibn Fahd Ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Faysal ibn Turki, who is now preserving what remains from the asil horses, per God’s will. Some of the Musinnat horses of Prince Abdallah, the brother of King Abd al-Aziz, participated in the Hedjaz campaign [i.e., the takover of the Hedjaz region from the Sharif of Mecca by the army of Ibn Saud in 1924]. Two men from Ibn Saud’s army fought particularly well in some episodes of this campaign:…
Check out Joe’s latest article in Arabian Essence. I love the comparison of some mares of the Egyptian Om Dalal family with the *Abeyah line, just as much as I love re-re-reading the late Carol Lyons “homogeneous background of Al Khamsa Arabians” article.
I normally don’t use this blog to relay unsubstantiated rumors, but this one is so funny I could not resist sharing it with you: a well-known horsebreeder from Egypt is claiming that the poorly documented (a euphemism) Egyptian stallion Sharkasi is actually from the ‘Ajman Bedouin tribe of Central Arabia. The ‘Ajman, no less… Of course, this breeder has Sharkasi bloodlines. Now I understand that there is an ongoing push from various parts of the community of Arabian breeders in Egypt to ‘sponsor’ further research on the few Egyptian bloodlines outside of the mainstream Egyptian breeding (e.g., the three Tahawi mares, El Gadaa, Ibn Ghalabawi, Sharkasi, etc), and that is always welcome, but I never thought someone would make so brazen a claim as to link an unknown stallion from Upper Egypt to one of the most respected horse-breeding tribes of Arabia. I mean, even WAHO stopped short of making up such a prestigious ascendency when it accepted Sharkasi. You can read the WAHO report on Sharkasi here; it essentially says that “Sharkasi was bred by a man in Upper Egypt. His sire was one of the Alzabra Stud distributed to villages to cover the mares of farmers. His dam was…
RJ Cadranell and Jeanne Craver are the custodians of the hujaj (original Arabic certification documents) of the horses imported by Homer Davenport from the Arabian desert to the USA in 1906. They kindly gave me the permission to use these hujaj on this blog for educational purposes, and I would like to thank them for doing so. The hujaj are a treasure trove of information which can be readily exploited. As these original desert-bred imports are the ancestors of today’s “Davenport Arabians”, I will first seclect one of today’s Davenport horses at random- say Jauhar El-Khala, whose lovely pictures are below – and look at the hujaj of her desert-bred ancestors, and second link these hujaj to those asil horses living in Syria today, wherever possible. If you take Jauhar El-Khala’s pedigree as displayed on the Davenport Arabian Horse Conservancy website, you’ll see that she traces exclusively to the following 11 desert-bred imports, all obtained by Homer Davenport in his 1906 trip to the northern Arabian desert: *HAMRAH, *URFAH, *WADDUDA, *DEYR, *MUSON, *JEDAH, *RESHAN, *HAFFIA, *ABBEIAN, *ABEYAH, and *WERDI. In other words these 11 horses, crossed with each other, constitute all the original imported ancestors of the mare Jauhar El-Khala. It is actually possible to reduce the number of…
Two more pictures from Sohaila and Ahwaz from Basil Jadaan.
It is that time of the year, and asil foals are starting to crop up everywhere. I just received these two photos of newborns at Basil Jadaan’s stud in Damascus, Syria (thanks Basil and Joe). They are representative of the latest generation of Syrian asils: pretty, expressive, and true to type. Their grandparents and great-grandparents were desert-bred and were acquired by Basil at a time when less than a handful of breeders cared enough to save these horses from extinction through registration, marketing and intelligent breeding. The story of the registration of the Syrian desert-breds is a fascinating odyssey that deserves to be told, and I trust it will be. I was a little more than twelive years old when I first saw these desert-breds at Basil’s in 1990. Twenty years have passed since, and their offspring keep getting better and better. Note the large, expressive eyes, and the black skins around the eye, and the delicate muzzle. The first one is Sohaila, by Shadeed out of Manolia, and the second is Ahwaz by Shadeed out of Ameerat al-Fadi. I don’t know the strains.
I recently saw in the online brochure of a well known stud that breeds “Straight Egyptians” that the Saqlawi Jadran descendents of Roga El Beda (i.e., the tail female line represented by Moniet El Nefous and El Bataa in modern pedigrees, among others) was made to trace back to the desert-bred mare Ghazieh through Bint Horra (allegedly the dam of Roga El Beda, according to this brochure). This is plain wrong, and was based on erroneous information from the Raswan Index, which has been relayed in Al Khamsa Arabians I and II, and later corrected in Al Khamsa Arabians III. Decade old Mitchondrial DNA research (Bowling, 1999, unpublished) indicates that the haplotype market for the Roga El Beda tail female is different from that of the Ghazieh tail female. I don’t know what you think, but I have found some of these errors much harder to dispel in the case of Straight Egyptians than for the rest of the asil Arabians, despite rock solid evidence to the contrary (e.g., the myth of the Kuhaylan Jallabi tail female as surviving in Straight Egyptians).
I just received this beautiful headshot of the bay stallion Al-Bark (Beebars x Etidal by Burhan x Obeirah) from Joe Achcar in Syria. This stallion is a Shuwayman Sabbah by strain, but from a different marbat that that of the Jarbah leaders of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. The marbat of Shuwayman Sabbah to which Al-Bark traces is known as “Shuwaymat al-Rahbi” from the name of their breeder Mohammad al-Rahbi, who also happens to be from Shammar. The Shuwayman horses of Mohammad al-Rahbi trace their origin to the leader of the large Bu-Mutaywit Bedouin tribe of Northern Iraq, which has bred them for several generations. They are a well respected marbat, according to Shammar elders, such as ‘Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Da’ran Ibn Ghurab, who used to breed from one of their stallions. They were also known as good racehorses.. Al Barq in particular traces to a really good old stallion who was active in the area of settlement of many Shammar tribes in the early nineteen eighties: the dark bay Ma’anaghi Hadraji of Dahir al-‘Ufaytan, perhaps of the best desert-bred stallions of the late twentieth centuries, in my opinion.
Here’s an interesting and well-referenced analysis on the social transformations of Bedouin society in Jordan spanning 150 years from the middle of the XIXth society until today, from Rami Zurayk’a blog Land and People. Rami teaches at the Faculty of Agriculture of the American University of Beirut (my alma mater).
I realize I haven’t written for two weeks and I apologize. These are busy days at work and in general, with little time left to other endeavors. I received my Khamsat magazine in the mail last week, and I have been reading it in the metro on my way to work. In it is an article by Peter Harrigan, adapted from his talk at the Al Khamsa 2009 convention in Redmond, Oregon, where Peter introduced his audience with the travels and works of Czech explorer and academic Alois Musil. The Khamsat writeup from Peter’s talk has this excerpt from Musil’s masterpiece “Manners and Customs of the Ruwalah Bedouins” (which by the way is widely recognized as the single best work of the ethnography of Bedouin tribes): “The Bedouins assert that no horses were created by Allah in Arabia. According to their tradition, they brought their first horses from the land of the settlers whom they raided”. There is increasing archaeological, epigraphic and zoological evidence that points to a domestication of the horse by settled population in an area straddling today’s nations of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, in the plains by the foothills of the Taurus and Zagros chains of mountains.…
Bien que je suive très attentivement et très régulièrement les articles de ce blog merveilleux , je me rends compte avoir laissé passer de nombreuses occasions d’apporter commentaires et précisions. Je m’empresse donc de réparer cette négligence en ce début d’année 2010. Tout d’abord , je m’étonne de la perplexité qu’a suscité la petite maxime : ” Le cheval de pur-sang Arabe (asil) est le cheval de l’homme, le cheval de course est le cheval du diable “. Robert Mauvy citait très souvent cette phrase; il la tenait , comme je l’ai dit, des Rouallah . Jamais je ne me permettrais de parler au nom de ceux-ci- seul Pure Man me paraît habilité à le faire ici- mais dans l’esprit de Robert l’enseignement en était très clair: L’emploi des chevaux asils et, pire encore, leur selection par les courses plates à l’européenne est un non sens tel qu’il confine à la monstruosité… C’est dévoyer la race voire avilir le cheval . Je suis en mesure d’apporter commentaires et exemples , d’ailleurs connus de tous, par la suite. Si ces épreuves sous poids ultra-léger, sur de très courtes distances et sur le velours du “turf”sont celles du pur-sang anglais , il n’en est…