A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
The Polish author Stefan Bojanowski writes in his 1906 book, Sylwetki koni orientalnych i ich hodowców, that in 1864 Sultan Abdülaziz purchased 92 horses from the Białacerkiew estates of the Branicki family, and incorporated them into his stud (p. 73): Bez przesady powiedzieć można, że obok „sanguszkowskich“ koni — konie „białocerkiewskie“ wychowywane na bujnych stepach … Read more
Balia (top) was an asil daughter of Kuhaylan Zaid, bred in 1936 at Babolna in Hungary. Bona (bottom), bred in 1937 was another daughter of his, from the same damline of Bent El Arab. Both later went to Poland.
Below are photos of Pomponia (Zagloba x Kadisza) and Salme (Kalif x Fatma). Both trace in the tail female to Juliusz Dzieduszycki’s imported Kuhaylah Moradiyah mare Sahara; Salme is actually the full sister to Pomponia’s dam. Pictures from Stefan Bojanowski’s Sylwetki koni orientalnych i ich hodowców. Pomponia produced three daughters, Bona, Dora, and Zulejma. Bona’s … Read more
Below is a photo of Amurath Sahib as a four-year-old, in racing condition. The picture comes from Jezdziec i Hodowca, Vol. 15 (36), 1936. In addition to being a racehorse himself, Amurath Sahib sired the Polish Derby winner Equifor, and the Polish Oaks winners Estokada and Adis Abeba. He was also fortunate enough to escape … Read more
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 … Read more
I just bought Edward Skorkowski’s “Arab Breeding of Poland” from the website of a bookstore in Iowa. I read many excerpts of it before, but was never able to put my hands on a copy. My first reaction was: “okay, so that’s where all these old photos of Polish Arabians on the Net comefrom..”. My … Read more
I am no “expert” on Polish Arabians (and I have a lot of trouble with the concept of “expert” in general anyway), so don’t expect these posts will tell you anything many of you don’t know already. I am writing them for the record only. As a reminder to reader that there was a blessed time when some … Read more
“Excellent horse, but his grey color makes him unusable”. So the French government, prompted by the cavalry’s dislike of the color grey, sold the stallion Burgas to Poland in 1923, without using him. Burgas, a Saqlawi Jadran by a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, born in 1907, was one of 20 Arabian stallions imported to France in … Read more
A fascinating and thoroughly documented article (in French) by anthropologist Bernadette Lizet on the French manuscript of count Wenceslas Rzewuski, which was touched upon in an earlier post and ensuing thread.
A good article by Peter Harrigan is Saudi Arabia’s Aramco World. Peter was a keynote speaker at the last Al Khamsa Convention in Tulsa, OK.
Seanderich, a desert bred stallion born in 1902, is one of the founders of Arabian horse breeding in Spain. Both his sire and his dam are stated to have been from the Saqlawi strain. The Spanish Stud-book actually has all his four grandparents as Saqlawi. For more details about his importation to Spain through an … Read more
This 1997 article by Michael Bowling and R.J. Cadranell mentions the Babolna-bred mare 125 Ghalion (b. 1975), which has only one distant cross to the English Thoroughbred mare 30-Maria, her tail female ancestor (scroll down to the middle of the article for the question about 30-Maria). RJ and Michael calculated that after 125 years and 12 generations of … Read more
In 1931 Bogdan Zientarski, accompanied by Carl Raswan went to the desert to buy Arabian horses for Prince Roman Sanguszko of the Gumniska stud in Poland. Here’s an account of Zientarski’s encounter with the stallion Koheilan Haifi, near the desert oasis of al-Jauf: “Finally I hear a neigh, they guide the stallions… they lead the bay … Read more
Western Arabian horse breeders are relatively familiar with the Arabian horse strain of Kuhaylan al-Krush (also known as Kuhaylan Krushan) through a variety of sources. A specific branch of this strain, Krush al-Baida (“the white Krush”) will be the subject of the sixth part of the “Strain of the Week” series (which, by the way, … Read more