This is the third feature on the series on uncommon strains, and it features the strain of Kuhaylan ibn Mizhir. Kuhaylan ibn Mizhir is a little known strain in the West. It is specific to Syria and to parts of Iraq that are adjacent to the Syrian border. The strain belongs to the Bedouin tribe of Tai, who are very proud of it. The reason it is so little known is that the strain is actually Kuhaylan al-Krush. About eight or ninety years ago, a Tai Bedouin by the name of Ibn Mizhir acquired a Kuhaylat al-Krush from ‘Anazah (either from the Fad’aan or the Sba’ah, and more probably the former), and many in the Tai tribe started calling the strain after its new owner. Other Tai Bedouins stuck to the old Krush strain name. One of the descendants of this original Kuhaylat Krush of Ibn Mizhir went to the leading clan of the Tai Bedouins, and one of the offspring of this mare then passed to Nuri al-Mash’al al-Jarba of the Shammar, who married a woman from the Tai leading clan. The Jarba leaders of the Shammar, who took pride in their own Kuhaylan al-Krush marbat (Krush al-Baida, a marbat that came to the Shammar from the Mutayr Bedouins…
The Tahawi website maintained by Mohammed al-Tahawy is a wonderful resource of original testimonies about the horses that this Bedouin clan bred throughout the XXth century. A few months ago, English translations of some of the hujaj (Arabic certification documents) of some of the foundation horses acquired by the Tahawi were featured on this website, as part of the collective effort of getting the three Tahawi mares of Egypt’s Hamdan stables accepted in the roster of Al Khamsa, Inc, the North American preservation organization. Here is a translation of another one of these original documents; this one is not a hujjah but rather a letter written to a member of the Tahawi tribe: To our beloved brother Faysal Abu Abdallah [al-Tahawi] may God protect him, Greetings and salutations, and longings to see your beautiful face, and after that, I would like to congratulate you on the advent of this holy month [of Ramadan], may God make you witness its advent again in health and well-being. You had asked us about the lineage of the colt, and in accordance to your demand, we are writing to you about the lineage of his dam and her ancestors, and that of his sire and his ancestors. The dam of the horse is al-Dahmah…
The 1919 grey desert-bred stallion *Mirage (photo below, with owner Roger Selby) is a legend in American Arabian horse breeding. This Saqlawi Jadran stallion was born in the desert, and selected as a mount of the newly installed King of Iraq, Faysal I, before he was sold to a European ambassador and ending up in Lady Wentworth’s hands by 1923. You can read more about this in a good article by Michael Bowling, here. He was her dream grey horse, but the British registration authorities would not let her register him, so he sold him to Roger Selby of Ohio in the USA in 1930. Here *Mirage had a brilliant career at stud, and his is now one of the most successful sire line in the USA (that of Bey Shah, Huckleberry Bey, and Barbary, among others). *Mirage’s strain is recorded as “Seglawi Jedran of Dalia” which is better transliterated as “Saqlawi Jadran of al-Dali’ “. Recently, while looking at some documents pertaining to the Syrian Saqlawi Jadran stallion al-Abjar (photo below, from Raed Yakan, thank you Raed), which was owned the Yakan family of Aleppo, and which I saw at their stud in the early 1990s, I came across his breeder’s description of al-Abjar’s strain as…
This photograph, found in the WR Brown Collection (owned by AHOF), is labeled *Urfah, and has the left fore and two white hind feet as described in the studbook. *Urfah is wound around and through the straight Davenports through her son *Hamrah and her daughter Sheria. Says the DAHC pedigree site (which is a bit behind the times): “Total descendants: 1437.” “As we departed the mare was a picture. She walked with the grace of a well-bred woman; her tail would gracefully sway from side to side, her ears were ever in motion, and her eyes sparkled. The very sight of her rested us from the long day’s ride of the day before and then she broke into a gallop and her swinging tassels were soon lost sight of as she disappeared on the horizon.” —Homer Davenport, My Quest of the Arab Horse
For today, the 1904 Saqlawi al ‘Abd stallion *Hamrah, of whom much has been said previously, and his century-later echo, the 2004 Hamdani Simri stallion Eldar HD, bred by Michael Bowling. In 2003, I wrote of the 22 year old Palisades CF, “I want a magic wand so I can have another twenty years with this horse.” Replied Michael, “I guess that’s what we breed them for.”
Arnault Decroix send me this picture of his very promising 2005 stallion Dahess Hassaka (al-Ameer Dahess x Oghareet by Marzouk out of Hanadi by Krush Juhayyim), which was bought from Radwan Shabareq and imported to France in 2009. An asil Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq from the very old marbat of the Naqashbandi sufi mystics of the Middle Euphrates valley, Dahess Hassaka is the paternal grandson of my Dahess and is now being used as a stallion by Arnault. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
Dahess (Awaad x Al-Jazi by the Ubayyan of ‘Atnan al-Shazi) was a 1987 grey stallion. He was bred by sayyid Muhammad al-Shaykh Salim a Tufayhi, a non-Bedouin from a family of religious notables in Upper Mesopotamia, as so was his dam. He was a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak by strain, tracing to the marbat of ‘Awwad ‘Azzam al-Sahlan, or ‘Ubayyan Suhayli. He was sired by the grey Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Awaad, who hails from the famed marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba, and as such he is a half brother to the black stallion Mokhtar now in France. His dam, al-Jazi, was reportedly one of the prettiest mares in Syria, and eventually came to be owned by the late Basil al-Asad, brother to the current president of the Syrian Arab Republic. Dahess was sold as a youngster to the former Qatari consul in Damascus, the late Yusuf al-Rumaihi, who owned a wonderful collection of beautiful and well-authenticated desert-bred mares (more on this later), as well as the two Egyptian stallions Okaz (Wahag x Nazeemah) and al-Qahir (Ikhnatoon x Marium). When Rumaihi passed away, the horses were dispersed and some of them found their way to Qatar, where they were overlooked and eventually given away. Dahess then…
The desert-bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion Ihsan (Hamdani Simri x Nadya, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah) was the second stallion at the Jabri stud in the 1990s. He was mainly used as an outcross to Mahrous daughters. What I liked about him was his large expressive eye, his huge half-moon cheekbone, his nice croup, as well as his good tail carriage. I took this photo in 1990. Ihsan traces all the way back to the famous Saqlawi Jadran marbat of Dari al-Mahmoud, the leader of the Zawba’ Shammar of Iraq, and a hero of the Iraqi resistance to the British in the 1920s. There are only three Saqlawi Jadran marbat among the Shammar today, and they will be the subject of an entry to come. The 1922 stallion *King John, who raced in Egypt, and was later imported to the USA, was also a Saqlawi Jadran from Dari al-Mahmoud’s marbat, according to his hujjah (featured in the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians II, 1993). A thin asil line to *King John survived in the USA until the 1980s, through his great-grandson Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, who was by *King John), but it was eventually lost. *King John (photo below)…
This mare was mentioned several times on this blog. She is a Kuhaylat al-Wati of the marbat of Hakim al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins in Nort-Eastern Syria. Her sire, dam, grandsire and granddam, and her ancestors beyond that are from the same marbat, and bred by the same family. She was owned by Mustafa Jabri of Aleppo, is the dam of the stallion Kassar, owned by Omar Anbarji. I took this photo in 1990
This is a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah at the stud of the late Alaa Din Jabri (Mustafa’s uncle), east of Aleppo. I forgot what her name was, but you can easily find her in the first Volume of the Syrian studbook. Her sire was Mahrous, and her dam one of the two bay Kuhaylah Hayifiyah mares daughters of the Saqlawi Marzakani stallion Ghuzayyil (there were two of these back in 1992 when I took that picture, a younger one and an older one). This mare was very pretty and very strongly built at the same time. Certainly one of the best Mahrous daughters. Alaa Din Jabri bred this line for at least four decades, and before that time the line was with Wawi al-Kharfan of the Fad’aan Bedouins. It is said the line is somehow related to the horses of the last of the leader of the Fad’aan Bedouins to live in Syria: Miqhim Ibn Mhayd. In any case, the strain of Kuhaylan al-Hayfi belongs to the leading Mhayd clan of the Shumaylat section of the Fad’aan Bedouins, as I mentioned earlier on this site, here. This is where the Hayfiyah mare *Reshan came from. She was imported by Homer Davenport to…
This mare is a desert-bred Hamdaniyat al-‘Ifri, bred by a Bedouin named Mus’ir Hamad al-Sakran, who also bred her son *Ta’an. *Ta’an was imported to the USA in 1994. Her sire was the grey Kuhaylan al-Wati of Diab al-Sbeih of the Shammar Bedouins, a stallion who was used over a short period of time, but sired influential horses, such as Mahrous. Hamdani al-‘Ifri is a very respected strain in the Northern Arabian desert and the Jazirah area (Upper Mesopotomia in Syria and Iraq today). Upon being asked how his horses compared with Hamdani al-‘Ifri, ‘Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Dar’an Ibn Ghurab, owner of the old and otherwise very famous Hamdani Simri marbat of same name, is reported to have said that the Hamdani horses of the al-‘Ifri were even more authenticated than his, because al-‘Ifri had obtained them directly from Simri himself. The Hamdani horses of Ibn Ghurab also came from Simri, but via another Bedouin. The clan of al-‘Ifri are Bedouins from ‘Anazah (from the people of Ibn Haddal I think), who kept a marbat alive until the 1970s. I am not sure how the dam of *Ta’an relates to the horses of al-‘Ifri (i.e., what the chain of owners from…
This desert-bred mare is a representative of the rare and precious strain of Rishan. She traces to a most ancient and authenticated marbat of the Rishan strain, that of Ibn Hathmi of the ‘Abdah section of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. Her breeder Ayid al-Fnaish obtained the line from Ibn Hathmi a few decades ago. Mustafa al-Jabri is her current owner and I took this photo at his stud in 1995. She was registered in Volume 1 of the Syrian Studbook under the generic strain of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, reportedly because one of the members of the local registration committee was unaware of the existence of the Rishan strain. This oversight was fixed in the next Studbook iterations. She was born in 1986, and I believe her registration name is Bint al-Badiah. Her sire is al-A’war, the chestnut Hamdani (Simri) Ibn Ghurab stallion which the Shammar Bedouins were heavily using at the time, before he ended up with Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo in the 1990s. Her dam’s sire is the Saqlawi (Jadrani) Ibn ‘Amud of Muhammad al-Faris al-‘Ad al-Rahman of the ‘Assaf, the leading clan of the Tai Bedouins. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Basil Jadaan with WAHO, Volume 7 of…
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).
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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..
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…
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…
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…
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 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.
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…
This very old mare is a Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah from the Middle Euphrates valley in Syria, near the small town of al-Mayadin. This area general is home to the tribe of al-Aqaydat (Ageydat), a wealthy and powerful semi-nomadic tribe of cultivators and small herders whose Shaykhs obtained a number of really good desert-bred mares in the first part of the twentieth century, sometimes through ghazu (raids) and sometimes through purchase and gifts. They bred these mares well, and protected them by using only asil stallions, and hence came to own reputalbe marabet. Today some of the prettiest and typiest Syrian horses came from these Ageyday marabet. One of the most well known Aqaydat marabet is that of Kuhaylat al-Trayfiyyah, which is an old strain the history of which I don’t know well. All I know is that it might – just might – derive its name from Matarifah clan of the ‘Anazah tribe. The strain is mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, in connection with events that took place in Eastern Arabia, either in Bahrain, Qatar or the al-Ihsaa region of Saudi Arabia. The Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah is the photo was not registered in the WAHO Syrian Studbook and I don’t know the reason. Perhaps…
Ghuzayyil was a famous desert-bred horses from Syria, whose bloodlines are present today in a number of modern pedigrees from Syria, including that of the stallion Hussam al-Shimal now in France. This is his entry in the Aldahdah Index: GHUZAYYIL: a grey desert-bred stallion, born c. 1952; [no picture available] Strain: Saqlawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, also called Saqlawi Marzaqani. Sire: Hamdani al-Jhini a Hamdani Simri of the Shammar tribe, a celebrated horse among the Bedouins, sometimes simply referred to as al-Jhini; sire of sire: Hamdani Simri of Shammar, known as al-Malkhukh, also a famous horse; dam of sire: Hamdaniyat al-Jhini of Shammar; Dam: a Saqlawiyah Marzaqaniyah, from the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe. According to Fawaz al-Rajab, a horse merchant from Hims, who told Hazaim al-Wair, who told me, the dam of Ghuzayyil and the dam of Mawj al-Athir were maternal sisters. Racing and Breeding Career: Ghuzayyil raced in Beirut starting in 1956, in the ownership of the Marquis Musa de Freije and won at least eight races (he is recorded as having won eight races in one of my notebooks, based on notes I took from one of…
If you follow this blog regularly, then you must have already heard about the chestnut desert-bred stallion Mawj al-Athir: he is in the pedigree of the bay stallion from Syria, Hussam al-Shimal, now in France. He is also the sire of the pretty mare below, whose photo you have already seen before. Joe Achcar also scanned and sent this old Lebanese newspaper clipping from Nov. 11, 1954, which has a picture of Mawj al-Athir on the racetrack, with the mention, in French: The “strongest horse of the Middle East”. Note the mention in the clipping of two other desert-bred asils, about which there will be more on this blog, soon: Chatt el-Arab and Ghaddar. Now here is Mawj al-Athir’s entry in the ‘Aldahdah Index’: MAWJ AL-ATHIR: a chestnut desert-bred Asil stallion [photo available]; Strain: Saglawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan [or guild] of the Shammar tribe; the strain is also called Saqlawi Marzaqani. Sire: a Saqlawi Marzaqani; according to Abd al-Qadir Hammami, an old horse merchant from Aleppo, his sire was al-Marzaqani al-Adham (“the black Marazaqani”), a celebrated stallion of the Saqlawi Marzaqani strain, bred by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, used by them as a…
This striking bay stallion who recently came to France from Syria has already been featured here before. Hussam Al-Shimal is a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq from the old-established Stud of Saed Aghan Yakan in al-Bab, Syria. His sire is a desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Mussin called Raad who has also received a lot of visibility on this website. Hussam traces to some of the best desert-bred horses that were sent to the Beirut racetrack for racing: Ghuzayil, Mawj al-Atheer, and al-Malkhoukh. More on all three later. You can view Hussam’s near-full pedigree here. Joe Achcar of Lebanon has arranged for Hussam to come to France to be training for endurance racing with Arnault Decroix in Normandy, where these photos were taken by a professional.
This morning I woke up to find these two pictures of horses from snowed-in France in my inbox.. the first one is from Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians, and features her new acquisition Bint Fay Amy (Mahrouf x Fay Amy by Ibn Fa-Serr), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah born in 1995 at the Babson Farm. The second features the stallion Hussam al-Shimal (Raad x Rouba Al-Shimal by Al Abjar), a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq bred in Syria at the Yakan Stud near Aleppo, Syria, and now on lease from Al Fadi Stud of Damascus, Syria, to Arnault Decroix in Normandy. By the way, Hussam’s ears are a direct legacy of his maternal grandfather, the old stallion Al-Abjar, a Saqlawi Jadran of the marbat of Ibn Zubayni, who was famous for this pricked ears, and whose dam Malakah was featured here. If you have more pictures of horses under the snow from Europe or the USA, feel free to send them to me.
Since the subject entry below was the Dandashi horse breeding clan of Tall-Kalakh, Syria, here is a 1958 YouTube video of Dandashi family members celebrating the union of Syria and Egypt into one single state with horse fantasias and other equestrian games with swords and spears. Note the pretty grey horse from 2.20 to 2.40 PS – the Arabic title of the video mentions the Dandashi clan as a part of the Shammar tribe. That’s a modern fabrication since the Dandashi are known to be Kurdish origin.
My father took these two photos of the grey Lebanese stallion Malek in the mid 1980s, at the farm of Husayn Nasir in Rayak, Lebanon. Malek (Achchal x Bint Ghazwane by Ghazwane) was the last stallion of Lebanese breeding that did not trace to the infamous Iraqi-born part-bred Arabian racehorses thath flooded the Beirut racetrack in the 1950s and 1960s, and ultimately led to the demise of the Lebanese Arabian horse breeding, after they were crossed with Lebanese (and some Syrian) asil Arabian mares. Malek was used mostly on non-asil part-bred arab mares tracing to these Iraqi stallions, and bred only one asil mare: a bay 28 year old Tuwaysah mare from Syria, which we owned and which traced to the horses of the ‘Anazah tribe. That old mare settled, and her daughter was my favorite mare while I was growing up. I recall hearing that Malek ended his life pulling a cart in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli. His strain was Saqlawi Jadran from the horses of the Dandashi landlords of Tall Kalakh, in Western Syria. This wealthy and powerful clan of chieftains of Kurdish origins, who had the title of agha were the premier asil Arabian settled (i.e., non-Bedouin) horse breeders of Syria.…
I have always felt considerable sadness whenever an Arabian horse strain dies out. With it, part of the rich and colorful history of this breed vanishes forever. I can’t really say why, but to me it feels just like losing the last copy of a rare manuscript. Most of the best-known and most important Arabian strains are still represented today in asil form, and we are lucky to have them. A number of really significant ones were lost in Arabia Deserta over the last fifty years. These include Kuhaylan Tamri (known to US breeders as the strain of the Davenport import *Houran), Kuhaylan al-Kharas (the strain of the Blunt import Proximo), Kuhaylan Harqan (the strain of the grandsire of the Ali Pasha Sherif stallion Mesaoud) and Kuhaylan Om Soura. Until last week, I thought Kuhaylan Abu Junub was one of these. Kuhaylan Abu Junub is a strain I have always been interested in. There are some indications it is somehow ‘related to’, in a way I am not yet in a position to explain fully, to Ma’naqi, Jilfan, and Frayjan, all of which are ultimately Kuhaylan branches as well. It is on the list of Abbas Pasha’s ten favorite strains,…
Blog reader Elena Latici who lives in Italy recently bought this young fellow from Louis Bauduin’s farm in France. Murad Mandour (by Shuayman El Badawi x Murad Ouffah Habib by Jahir) is a bay Shuwayman Sabbah yearling who combines modern desert-bred blood from Syria (through his paternal grand-sire Mokhtar, bred by the Shammar Bedouins) with older desert-bred blood through imports Tunisian/ Algerian bloodlines. He also carries a hint of old French blood, and has a distant line to the desert-bred import Nibeh, featured here, and whom French master-breeder Robert Mauvy really liked. Mauvy was a big advocate of the idea of re-invigorating old European Arabian bloodlines with fresh desert-bred blood at leart every three generations, as as to sustain the physical and mental characeteristics of the Arabian horse of Arabia Deserta. Mauvy’s friends and students adhered to this theory early on, and bred some of their mares to desert-bres stallions such as Mokhtar, and now Mahboob Halab.
One more picture of Omar Anbarji’s now deceased desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Ra’ad, this time by a professional photographer. I think this is the fourth picture of him I post. I would like to familiarize readers with the foundation stock of the Syrian Arabians, because I feel they will become more and more significant in the future. You have already seen pictures of some of the most influential Syrian Arabian stallions, many of which are personal favorites: Ra’ad, a Kuhaylan al-Musinn; al-Aa’war, a Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mubarak, another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mokhtar, a Kuhaylan al-Krush; Marzuq, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, etc. Look them up in the search function of this blog on the right hand column, and you will see the relevant entry with their photos. Ra’ad was bred by Jamal al-Turki al-‘Ilyu of the Saw’an clan, which is the leading clan of the settled, part peasant, part sheep-herding tribe of al-Sabkhah, on the banks of the middle Euphrates. Jamal’s family also bred Ra’ad dam Nawal al-Kheil, and her grand-dam as well. The Sabkhah, who occupy the area of same name (click here to see it on Google Map) are themselves part of the larger peasant confederation of the Bu Sha’ban.…
I took this photo of the venerable Malakah in 1990, at the stables of Syrian breeder Salih Khaddam al-Sruji, south of Damascus. She was more than 30 years of age, which explain why her croup and legs look the way they do. Malakah was bred by the Mudarris family, an old Alepine – ie, from Aleppo, Syria – family of great social standing and influence. The Mudarris family owned one of the most famous city marabet of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni, which the ‘Anazah Bedouins from the area around Aleppo recognized as ‘mazbut’ (well-ascertained, well-authenticated). I have Malakah’s hujjaj somewhere and will need to dig it up for you to read. There is a very thin tail female line to Malakah left in Syria today. That said, Malakah’s blood is mainly present in Syria through her son al-Abjar, who was standing at the Yakan studfarm in al-Bab, north of Aleppo. Many people in Syria thought that Malaka’s was the only line of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni left in Syria, and this is certainly how the Syrian Studbook presents it. Fortunately, there is at least one other equally mazbut line of Saqlawi ibn Zubayni left there. That’s the line of Mabrouka, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah…
Above is a distant photo of another son of the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad. This is Hussam al-Shimal, a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq stallion from the marbat of Sa’ed Ameen Yakan, in al-Bad, north of Aleppo. Hussam is going to be sent to France where he will stand at stud with Arnault Decroix. I am no fan of the show-ring. I firmly believe that an asil Arabian horse was not born to be paraded around like a puppet, and that among all asil Arabians, the Syrian asil horses deserve this ridiculous treatment the least (these were war and endurance machines, remember), but I thought it was worth noting that Hussam, this son of a desert-bred, was twice Syria’s National Reserve Champion.
Note again the huge expressive eye, the big jowl, the tipped ears, and the small muzzle. All that in a desert-bred stallion. I will dig his hujja out and translate it for you.
To follow up on the earlier entry on the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad, here is a picture of one of his sons and one of his daughters at the Anbarji farm some seventeen years ago. The colt, either a Kuhaylan al-Khdili or a Hamdani al-Ifri by strain ( I don’t remember, even though I am in the pic), was recovering from an illness, and the photo is not to his advantage, but you will no doubt notice the refinement that his sire Raad transmits, as well as the fine muzzle, the deep jowl and the big eye. Note also the dark, full bay color which Raad passed on to his progeny. The filly is a Hamdaniyah Ifriyah (a well esteemed branch of Hamdani Simri from the ‘Amarat Bedouins, more on it later), and in my opinion, is the epitomy of refinement and feminity. I don’t recall her name either, but Omar Anbarji, her breeder, can perhaps refresh my memory. Omar, you were standing behind my father who took the picture..
Blog reader and friend Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, Syria, sent me the following picture of his foundation stallion Raad, a desert-bred (yes) asil Kuhaylan al-Musinn, born in 1982, and now deceased. Raad was bred by Jamal Turki al-Saw’an, out the mare Nawal al-Kheil, and traces back to the famous marbat of Ibn ‘Amayir of the Fad’aan Bedouin tribe. Back in the early 1980s, Omar’s father, civil engineer Munir Anbarji, was working on projects in the Syrian desert. He purchased this young Kuhaylan al-Musinn colt to use on his desert-bred mares. The handful of Aleppo horse breeders who cared about asil arabians at the time knew that this colt, Raad, was of mazbut (authenticated) origin.
Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the Syrian desert, and as such was the main marketplace for the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, which was famed for its many marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan al-Usayli’, Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan which by the way is Queen of Sheba’s marbat, ‘Ubayyan Ibn Thamdan,’Ubayyan Ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan Labdah, etc). The Saffaf family were in close business contact with the Sba’ah Bedouins, from whom they obtained a number of desert-bred mares. One of these mares was Tahirah’s maternal grand-dam, a chestnut ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, bred by Ku’ayran al-Amsa’, a Bedouin of the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah tribe. She was by a famous Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion, then the herd sire for the Rasalin section. Tahirah’s sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush, also from the Saffaf family, who owned a Krush marbat as well. Her dam’s sire was a Hamdani Simri, also from Hama. Tahirah has many of the features…
In the 1990s, Syrian breeder Mustapha al-Jabri, of Aleppo, owned a sturdy, deserty little mare that was bred by the Shammar of Mesopotamia. He name was Mouna, and her strain was very precious: ‘Ubayyan Hunaydis (Lady Anne Blunt: “Mutlaq [her Mutayr stud manager] says mazbut strain”). She had at least two sons and one daughter by Jabri’s then head stallion Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli – another precoius marbat of the ‘Ubayyan strain. Both sons stood in Jabri’s stallion barn, but I don’t know whether he used them or not. I don’t recall their names, either, and I used to call them Ibn Mouna I and Ibn Mouna II. Below is Ibn Mouna I, with a youthful Edouard in the background. This horse had some defects, including longer cannon bones and a slightly thicker neck than I’d like, but he oozed real, bold, masculine, desert type. If he could roar he would.
This is another photo of the magnificient Dahman (a Dahman x a Rabda). He is to France what *Haleb, who was bred about the same time, is to the USA. Dahman, a Rabdan by strain, is by the far the best desert horse horse ever imported to France, in my opinion. He was a herd stallion with the Shammar Bedouins of Mesopotamia, when French Inspecteur Quinchez, noticed him and bought him in 1909. This picture was taken in 1914, and is courtesy of Adrien Deblaise. I wrote about Dahman earlier, here.