Egypt

Rare Hallany Mistanny Photo

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This old photo of the 1937 black Saqlawi Jadran stallion Hallany Mistanny (Zarife x Roda) is from Billy Sheet’s photo archives. I am not sure it’s been published before. Hallany Mistanny sired his first asil foal in his twenties, and along with his Travelers Rest (General Dickinson’s stud) mate Sirecho (Nasr x Exochorda) was a … Read more

Asil Kuhaylah J’aithiniyah from the Tahawis in Egypt

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I am very proud to share with you some photos of the remaining asil horses of the Tahawi clan in Egypt. These horses are the very last remaining asil descendants of the large breeding program of the Tahawis, based exclusively on desert-bred Arabians imported from the tribes of Sba’ah, Ruwalah, Fad’aan, Hssinah and Shammar between … Read more

More recent Tahawi acquisitions of asil Arabians from the desert

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Read this entry in the stud book of Faysal ‘Abd Allah Sa’ud al-Tahawi, excerpted from the tribe’s website: “Then, in the year 1356 H, we bought the bay ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Ibn Samdan, when she was in foal, and she gave birth, while in our ownership, to a chestnut colt whose sire is the [Kuhaylan] … Read more

Asjah ibn Faleh

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The 1974 Hadban Inzihi stallion Asjah ibn Faleh (*Faleh x *Dawlat by Anter) was the best Egyptian racehorse of all time. I am no fan of what the Egyptian horse has become today, but that was a very good horse. See the naturally arched neck, curvy throat and deep girth. He was no china doll. Ralph Suarez’s blog has … Read more

Another original document from the Tahawi website

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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, … Read more

Tail female asil Egyptian lines

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Now this is the list of asil tail female Egyptian lines around the world (including Egypt). This list has been compiled many times before, including by J. Forbis in Authentic Arabian Bloodstock and by Colin Pearson in the Arabian Horse Families of Egypt. Kuhaylan 1) Rodania, Kuhaylah Rudaniyah, imported to the UK in 1881, through … Read more

Ansata Ibn Sudan photos

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The four shots of Ansata Ibn Sudan (Ansata Ibn Halima x Ansata Bint Mabrouka by Nazeer) were taken in 1972, and are from the photo collection of the late Billy Sheets. They were taken in 1972.

Missed connections: Ibn Ghalabawi, Soniour and their links to the Tahawi

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This entry is a follow up on an earlier entry on the Egyptian stallion Ibn Ghalabawi, sire of the 1971 mare Azeema out of Naglaa 1963  (Azeema’s photo is below, thanks Timur Hasanoglu for sharing it with me), which was exported to Germany. While implicitly included in the Pyramid Society’s definition of a Straight Egyptian Arabian, … Read more

On the links between Egyptian Arabians and the rest of the global asil herd

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For decades, several different authors (Raswan, Forbis, Schiele in Germany and also Lady Blunt and her daughter Lady Wentworth) have been telling us that the best breeding stock of Arabian horses had left the Arabian peninsula during the 19th century to go to the Egyptian Pashas by either force or negotiation, or as gifts. The stud of Abbas Pasha … Read more

New Guest Blogger: Dr. Matthias Oster, from Germany

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I am proud to introduce Dr. Matthias Oster as an occasional contributor to this blog.  Matthias is breeder and student of “Straight Egyptians in Germany” and a veterinarian. His wife is a daughter of the late Gunter W. Seidlitz (the breeder of Messaoud by Madkour and Maymoonah), and they now own the stallion Safeen (Ibn Safinaz x … Read more

On filling the knowledge gap between modern Egyptian horses and their desert bred heritage

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Yesterday night, as I was sitting to draft notes for my presentation at National Breeder’s Conference tomorrow in Atlanta, I had some thoughts on the evolution of asil Arabian breeding, which I thought I’d share with you, for feedback: The greatest risk – and there are many – facing the asil Arabian horse today is the … Read more

On the name of the son of Abbas Pasha I of Egypt — Ilhami

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Abbas Hilmi Pasha I (1813-1854) is probably the one modern Egyptian ruler Arabian horse breeders know best, for the magnificent collection of desert-bred Arabian horses he is said to have kept.  His son’s only claim to fame was to have dispersed this collection in 1861. In every single Arabian horse related publication, I have seen the … Read more

A couple words on the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain

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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 … Read more

Al Khamsa Board unanimously votes in favor of inclusion of the three Tahawi mares in the AK Roster

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Yesterday, the Al Khamsa Board of Directors unanimously approved the proposal submitted by Joe Ferriss to include the three mares Folla, Fotna, and Bint Barakat in the Al Khamsa Roster. The three mares were bred by the Tahawi tribes and sold to Ahmad Hamza of Hamdan Stables. On Saturday, the general assembly of Al Khamsa will be … Read more

Photo of the Day: Rock, Kuhaylan al-Kharas stallion bred by the Tahawi

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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 … Read more

Photo of the Day: desert bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion, Syria

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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 … Read more

Hujjah of Saqlawi Jadran stallion from Tay, bought by the Tahawis, c. 1936

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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 … Read more

How the Tahawi used to choose asil Arabians from Syria

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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, … Read more

On the connections of the Tahawi tribe with specific ‘Anazah Bedouin clans

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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 … Read more

Gleannloch Farms Video

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Doug Marshall of Gleannloch Farms was behind one of the largest and most famous importations of asil Arabians from Egypt to the USA: *Morafic, *Ibn Hafiza, *Zaghloul, *Sakr, *Bint Maisa El Saghira, *Bint Mona and many others were part of this imortation. Here’s a short movie from YouTube, which shows the Marshalls at the Egyptian … Read more

The horses of the elusive Ahmad Ibish

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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 … Read more

New Kuhaylat al-Krush filly at Bedouin Arabians in New Mexico.. and more

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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 … Read more

Effort underway to identify and preserve Pritzlaff bloodlines

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Al Khamsa President Pam Studebaker, her daughter Jill Erisman, and a few other dedicated breeders have began an effort to identify, locate, and preserve the remaining horses of Richard Pritzlaff’s breeding in the USA, which includes the bloodlines from Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by Nasr), pictured below. I wish them good luck. RJ Cadranell wrote … Read more

Kafr Ibrash Farm, and Inshass, Egypt

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The reference to Alzabra Stud in connection with the Egyptian stallion Sharkasi got me interested in learning more about these small local Egyptian farms which, from time to time, appear in historical documents on Arabian horse breeding in Egypt  as the suppliers of breeding stock to the Royal Agricultural Society’s studfarms and/or Inshass, the private stud of … Read more

Sharkasi: a hypothesis and a photo

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Teymur from Germany sent me this photo of Sharkasi with his owner TGB  Trouncer, before the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt (RAS) acquired him in 1955. I had never seen a picture of Sharkasi before and confess being pleasantly surprised at his good looks. The way his neck is set and his straight shoulder also … Read more

Sharkasi…

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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, … Read more

On Carl Raswan as a reliable source of scholarly information on Arabian horses

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Take the time to (re)read this article by RJ Cadranell, one of the best ever written on the sale of Egypt’s Ali Pasha Sharif collection of asil Arabian horses, drawing on two souces: Lady Anne Blunt (her Journals, her Sheykh Obeyd Studbook, and some of her private, unpublished notes) and Carl Raswan (his Index). By … Read more

Who was El Dahma of Ali Pasha Sharif?

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El Dahma is the foundation mare of the most prized tail female line of Arabian horses worldwide. Yet she remains shrouded in mystery. She was a mare from the Stud of Ali Pasha Sharif of Egypt, born around 1880, no color given, and was known only by her strain name as “The Dahma”. The little we know about this elusive … Read more

Misconceptions in Straight Egyptian pedigrees are harder to dispel

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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 … Read more

Ibn Ghalabawi

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A few days ago a friend asked me if I knew whether anything about the Egyptian stallion Ibn Ghalabawi and I said I didn’t. Then I consulted his pedigree on allbreedpedigree.com. Granted, this is by no means a reliable source (anybody can enter, remove or edit whatever the want), but in this case I suspect … Read more

On the history of the Jordanian Bisharat family

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Click here for an informative article on the Jordanian Bisharat family, by one of its scions, George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College in San Francisco. The article appeared in a political journal, and is not concerned with Arabian horses but it nonetheless offers interesting background information about the Bisharat family, which may … Read more

Tzviah’s Babolna Egyptian horses

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[Dec 4, update: Tzviah is announcing a herd reduction] If you have not done already, check out the new photos Tzviah Idan has uploaded on her Facebook page. These are horses of Egyptian bloodlines bred by the Hungarian state stud of Babolna. I think you will hear a lot about these horses in the months and years to come. … Read more

Two new proposals to add horses to the Al Khamsa Roster

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These have been quite busy days for me, and I have not been able to write as often as I wanted to. That said, I wanted to quick highlight the fact that two new proposals to add new horses to the Al Khamsa Roster have been sent to the Al Khamsa Board of Directors. The first … Read more

Photo of the Day: Predrag Joksimovic on Mahiba

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Recently, Ambar Diaz started posting photos of some of this blog’s authors and regular contributors mounted on asil Arabian horses, as a way to put names on faces. Here is a photo that reader Predrag Joksimovic sent me of himself, mounted on Mahiba (Shams El Arabi x Mansoura), a very deserty little mare. Mahiba’s sire … Read more

Photo of the Day: Nauwas, 1967, asil ‘Ubayyah of Saudi lines

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This is Nauwas, a chestnut mare born in 1967. Her sire is the Hamdani stallion Al-Khobar (Ibn Fadl x *Al Hamdaniah), and her dam is the desert-bred mare *Muhaira, a ‘Ubayyah from the horses of Prince Saud ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Jalawi Aal Saud. Her pedigree is interesting because the sire line is Egyptian, and all … Read more

Barely Surviving Lines: Courthouse Hamdani Simri line through Safarjal

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Don’t ask me how this ancient line made it into the 21st century. It’s a near miracle. Lady Anne Blunt imported the Hamdani Simri mare Sobha (Wazir x Selma) from Egypt in 1891, from a certain Mahmoud Bey who got her dam from the Abbas Pascha collection. Sobha’s line was one of the most represented lines … Read more

Another asil line from South Africa: Rosina, a Kuhaylat Rodan

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Some time last year, this blog featured the precious asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah line to the mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat) which has been flourishing in South Africa. The series of postings on Baraka and her descendents attracted a lot of attention from South Africa and Namibia, and is by far the most popular thread on … Read more

*Aziza may also have an asil tail female left!

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*Aziza (Gamil Manial x Negma) was *Roda’s half sister. *Roda was mentioned in a recent post. In 1996, RJ Cadranell wrote an article on the two sisters in Arabian Visions, which you read here.  Like *Roda, *Aziza  was imported to the USA by W.R. Brown in 1932. All this I knew from before. Having read F. … Read more

Abbas Pasha Manuscript — First page in Arabic

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This document recently appeared on one of the discussion threads below. For those of you who know the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its English edition, this is just the first page in one of the original Arabic editions.. This is a quick and dirty translation (writing from work, gotta go home soon), without the Quran … Read more

Tzviah’s horses

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The horses of Tzviah Idan are now on Facebook. One link includes horses of Egyptian bloodlines that Tzviah imported from Babolna, and the other is a link to their progeny.  Tzviah, I like them all, and feel that you’ve been doing an outstanding job, but I can’t help feel that there is something extra special … Read more

El Deree series by Joe Ferriss in Arabian Essence

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Another nice article by Joe Ferriss in the Arabian Essence online magazine, on the desert-bred stallion El Deree and his get.. Joe’s articles, always insightful and often filled with old pictures I have never seen before, are the only thing I read in this magazine. To me, everything else is glossy pictures of poor four-legged creatures forced to … Read more

On Rabdan El Azrak

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Two nice articles (part 1 and part 2) from Joe Ferriss in the website/newsletter Arabian Essence on the influence of the grey stallion Rabdan Al Azrak on Egyptian Arabian lines.

A morning at El Zahraa

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While visiting Egypt for week a couple weeks ago, I spent a morning at the Egpytian Agricultural Organization’s (EAO) stables of El Zahraa in Ein Shams. I was joined by my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, who lives in Beirut, and came to Cairo to spend a few days with me. EAO Director Ali Said welcomed us, … Read more

Le Cri d’Alarme

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Je voudrais rappeler le cri d’alarme lancé par Monsieur Robert Mauvy ! :  “Renouvelant mon cri d’alarme, mon cri de désespoir ! Il faut absolument et à tout prix sauver ce qui reste du véritable Pur Sang Arabe. Il est impossible de laisser disparaître l’une des plus belles oeuvres du Créateur. Que l’initiative privée, que les … Read more

Photos of the day: Mohalhil (1922) and Bango (1923)

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These four rare photos of Mohalhil are courtesy of the late Billy Sheets. No idea where he got them from. Mohalhil was a grey Ma’naghi Sbayli bred by the Shammar tribe in 1922 and imported to Egypt in 1925, by Fawzan al-Sabik, who raced him there before presenting him Charles Crane in 1929. Crane imported him … Read more

Strain of the Week: Kuhaylan al-Wati — famous relatives

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According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century, a Bedouin warrior by the name of Rashid ibn Jarshan, from the tribe of al-Buqum, owned a branch of the strain of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz that was known as Kuhaylat Ibn Jarshan, after his name. His marbat was famous, and one of his mares was … Read more

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