In my opinion, this is one of the best up and coming Davenport stallions. He is almost perfect, and very reminiscent of 1960s Davenport stallions. He is by Dubloon CF out of Genuine Tes LD by Tesio CF.
A Kuhaylan Al Krush of Davenport breeding. In real life, did he look as good and as deserty as in this picture and others? Who is his best offspring today? What powerful shoulder he had and what short back! where do you find this today? Bred by Charles Craver.
These were Barghi Ibn Dirri’s own words, in my translation of the certificate of his mare Meshura, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Dirri, who was bought by Lady Anne Blunt, and who was Pharaoh’s sister, Azrek’s maternal aunt, and a close relative of Basilisk’s: “I declare that I took part in a raid with a group of fourty five horsemen from the Fid’an, their military commander being Mashi [illegible name likely al-Sahim] al-Khrisi, and the raid was on […] al-‘Issa from Ahl al-Shamal and with them Bani Sakhr […] and I was riding this Saglawia and she outraced all of them by far and I took the camels [away] and brought them back [to the camp] and the remaining horses [two illegible words, likely ‘stayed behind’] / then my son […] took part in a raid on her, with the Fid’an al-Wuld, and the Saba’ah, and he [two illegible words] / on Ibn Sha’lan and he killed [illegible first name, likely Mahbus] son of Kunay’ir ibn Sha’lan, and the horses [taking part in the raid] were more than five hundred on that day, and Jad’aan Ibn Mahayd was present and she outraced all the horses, and my son took camels [away] and…
In the same vein as the new information pertaining to the hujjah of the mare *Jedah, I thought I’d try my luck and look up the Bedouin owner of the Davenport import *Azra in the same table of Fad’aan clan. And it worked. *Azra is a Saqlawi Ubayri from the marbat of Muharib al-Kharraz of the Makathirah section of the Fad’aan (a section similar in level to the ‘Aqaqirah). A search for the Makathirah section yielded the following: “The fourth section of the Khrisah [a large sub-tribe of the Fad’aan] is al-Makathirah, and their elder/leader is al-Mad-hun […] and their way cry is “the horse rider of al-Balha is a Kathiri” [Kathiri is singular, Makathirah is plural of the same]; and their ancestor is Sulayman also known as the Elderly (al-‘Awd) and they are the most numerous of the Khrisah sections; and Sheykh Saleh al-Mad-hun indicated that Sulayman has six offspring, and they are (i) Qutn; (ii) […] and from Qutn come Saqr and Muhammad, and from Saqr come Rabih and […]; and from Rabih come Shafe’ and Nafe’ and Falah al-Muqafe’ and they are known as al-Kharareez [plural of al-Kharraz], and the meaning of al-Kharz is the stabbing with…
Early this afternoon during lunch break I was looking at some lists of Fad’aan Bedouin clans on a ‘Anazah tribal website, and while searching for something else, I stumbled on this remarkable piece of information in relation to the hujjah (original document) of the Davenport mare *Jedah imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. The hujjah of *Jedah, as I translated it to English for Al Khamsa Arabians III in 2005, is as follows (with minor edits in 2014): “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, [blessings and religious statements follow] After [the blessings], I declare that the entirely chestnut [ie, no white marks] mare which I sold to Ahmad al-Hafedh from the people of Aleppo that she is Hamdania to be mated, [she is] protected, [she is] purer than milk / and she came to me from the tribe of al-Jad’ah and the tribe of al-Jad’ah it came to them from the tribe of Shammar from the breed of Ibn Ghurab and I bear witness upon the owners of this breed [ie, Ibn Ghurab] that their testimony is acceptable and I bear witness to their testimony / And we only bear witness to what we know and we do not keep [information] about the unknown. [He who]…
The magnificent HH Tantalus Krush, a 2009 Arabian stallion of the Kuhaylan Krush strain, Davenport lines, out of Quantum LD x Kashmir Krush LD. Thanks to owner Kim Davis for sharing this beautiful video of a superior stallion, true heir to his sire.
Taken at Sue Moss in Pennsylvania, shortly after she arrived there. This mare is top crossed with 6 generation of Straight Egyptian sires on a Crabbet tail female of Milanne/Ferida. I believe she is in foal to Monologue CF.
From 2007, but it now seems like it was ages ago, from the good old days of tracking old Bedouins in Syria with Hazaim Al Wair and asking them about their horses and all sorts of other things. I re-read it now, fascinated by the wealth of information — like a Abbas Pasha Manuscript entry, and am grieving over what is lost. —————————————————————————————– Conversation with Abdallah Abu Sayfayn, Bedouin horse breeder (03.31.07) Revised after a visit by my friend Kamal Abd al-Khaliq to Abdallah Abu Sayfayn on April 5, 2007 1) The man: ‘Abdallah, son ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, said he was 55 years old. He is the owner [sahib] of a marbat of the Maanagi Sbaili known after his family. 2) His clan: He said his family is from the Shumaylat [a section of the Fad’aan], and that there were four Fad’aan sections that are “brothers” [i.e., very closely related to each other]: al-Mhayd, al-Shumaylat, al-Sari, and al-Rus. He mentioned that the Mhayd were the senior section, and implied that the other three sections, including his, acknowledged the authority of the Mhayd. He also asked me to check with Thamir ibn Mhayd [who seemed to be current Shaykh of the…
I just tried and it works for me. Not sure if you must be signed in or not.
A fascinating and nostalgic interview in Arabic of Princess Badiaa, daughter of King Ali of Hejaz (1924-1925), sister of regent of Iraq Abd al-Ilah, sister of Queen Aalia the wife of King Ghazi of Iraq, with beautiful memories of then-enchanting Bagdad. Please, never forget that Bagdad was at that time (together with old Aleppo now gone, old Jeddah now gone, and old Sanaa still standing but for how long?) one of the most beautiful cities of the Middle East. It was not the sprawling jungle of concrete and backwardness that it is today.
Of course, the ultimate objective of tallying and identifying the horses of Ali Pasha Sherif breeding not owned by the Blunts would be to be able to put a reasonably solid pedigree on horses like Saklawi I, Sabha El Zarka, Roga El Beda, Farida El Debbanie, Muniet El Nefous (the old one), Nader El Kebir, Bint Yemama, and perhaps above all, El Dahma. I don’t despair of being able to do this some day.
As I continue perusing Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence and what was published of her Sheykh Obeyd Studbook looking for information on those horses of Ali Pasha Sharif breeding she did not own, I came across this conclusion, which others might have already reached before. Excerpts from the Sheykh Obeyd Studbook published in Pearson and Mol (1988) list an entry for the mare Bint Helwa Es Shakra (Johara), which was purchased from Ibrahim Bey Sherif, son of Ali Pasha Sherif, on April 19, 1897, and sent to England the same year, after having been covered by “Ibn Bint Nura Es Shakra (white about 7 years) by Ibn Sherara in Cairo and barren“. I was wondering who that stallion could be. He obviously was not one of Lady Anne’s horses. He stood in Cairo, not in its outskirts where the studs of Prince Ahmed (in Matarieh) and of the Khedive Abbas Hilmi (in Qubbeh) lied. Downtown Cairo was the location of one or more of the palaces of Ali Pasha Sherif — who had died earlier in the same year. Could this stallion have been of the few horses that remained with Ali Pasha Sherif’s sons, for riding purposes, when the stud…
I recently acquired DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI), a 1998 Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, from Sheila Harmon of Destiny Arabians, Idaho. She is tail female to the Blunts’ desert-bred mare Basilisk through Rabanna, and has lots of Blunt/Ali Pasha Sharif blood throughout the pedigree. Photos below, taken by Sheila in 2009. I have long been a fan of these highly authenticated Blunt and Ali Pasha Sharif lines, which, a hundred and fifty years after their importation from the Arabian Desert to Europe then the US, continue to produce high quality horses from time to time, close to the original Arabian type. These lines also do very well in endurance (cf. Bint Gulida and Linda Tellington Jones, see photo), and are being increasingly recognized and celebrated in this field. Her pedigree is composed of three lines to Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr, 75% Crabbet/SO), three lines to Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to the Doyle foundation mare Gulida (Gulastra x Valida, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to *Rashad (Nazeer x Yashmak II who was out of the Crabbet mare Bint Rissala, almost 50% Crabbet/SO), and three to *Bint Moniet El Nefous (Nazeer x Moniet El Nefous, low percentage Crabbet/SO), as well as one line to…
The Kuhaylat al-Krush Nuri Al Krush (Janub Al Krush x Mystalla by SL Jacob) has just foaled a most wonderful colt by Quantum LD (Mandarin x Leafs Ivey by Wotan) for Kim Davis. The dam is a concentrate of rare lines from old American breeding with lines to Mainad (Hanad x Charmain by Abu-Selim), Royal Amber (Ribal x Babe Azab), Oriental (Letan x Adouba) and Kapiti in the tail female (Harara x Tamarinsk). I can’t get enough of looking at the pictures of this colt Kim sent to a few of us, and I think he is the strongest, most handsome, best built and most promising young fellow I have seen this year. He is certainly stallion material for any CMK or any old American breeding program, and even think he can improve the breed overall. In any case, he is testimony to what you can get by preserving some of these really old and rare lines. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Congratulations Kim! By the way, his dam Nuri had foaled another most special horse at Trish Stockhecke in Canada some years ago. His sire was a quasi Al Khamsa stallion with lots of lines to Hallany…
The 27 year old Kuhaylah Hayfiyah Jauhar El Khala (Sporting Life x HB Tiffany by Thane) seems to get more and more and more beautiful with age. Photo by owner Christine Emmert. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
Are those of you who are trying to post comments on DOW able to do so? I still have some problems with the blog.
Hopefully, on Sunday the Ma’naqiyah mare I recently acquired, CSA Baroness Lady will be bred to MSF Hamdani Simri (Faydin x IMF Badia Nafila by PRI Gamil Halim) of Lesley Detweiler, a stallion of very similar pedigree. It is a preservation breeding. Both have highly unusual (within Al Khamsa) Blunt/Crabbet tail females, the mare to Ferida (Ma’naqi Sbaili of the Shammar) and the stallion to Sobha (Hamdani Simri of APS). Both are sired by stallions bred at the Babson Farm. Both are heavily top-crossed with new Egyptian blood (mainly Ansata with lots of Nazeer), and both have tiny amounts of Early American blood (Davenport, Hamidie, Huntington, and Nedjran) at the back of the tail female through Tizzy for the stallion and Milanne for the mare. MSF Hamdani Simri struck me when I saw him at the 2011 AK Convention in PA in 2011. The large truly Arabian eye, the nostrils made of velvet, the long and arched neck, the curved mithbah, the nice shoulder, and the high tail setting impressed me. Back then I thought I wanted to see a stronger, broader croup and hindquarter (Doyle style) and a broader chest, but that’s okay and the mare has plenty of both. Also, what style he had, what…
I am breathing a heavy sigh of relief after hours with the hosting service’s technical support. I almost lost all the data on this blog, and this reminds me how precious the interactions with all of you has been over the past 6.5 years and how much knowledge was accumulated on this blog. Thank you.
Everyday I see dozens of photos of mares on my Facebook accounts and on the pages and groups I follow. This mare, Moonflower TA (Oracle RSI x White Iras Moon by Sir White Moon x CH Lyras Moniet by Tomoniet RSI x Lyras by Lysander x Iras, and hence a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah) struck me, pedigree and looks. I love the shoulder, the prominent and bony withers, the well let down gaskins and clear hocks, the strong and round croup, and the deep girth. She looks like she is a real athlete. I also like the look on the face, a combination of the Moniet look in Egyptians and the Iras one in Davenports. The pedigree is a nice mix of both. Just look at what breeding these different groups of asil Arabians together can produce. Pity it is not tried more often. She is owned by Carly Cranmore in Michigan (and she is for sale, by the way).
There is not a single mention in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence of a Dahman of Ahmed Pasha Kamal sired by Jamil out of Farida of Ahmed Bey Sennari. There are only two such Dahmans of Ahmed Pasha mentioned again and again in these Journals, both sons of Farida of Ahmed Bey Sennari (a Dahmah Shahwan of Abbas Pasha lines): the first is mentioned as the sire of Rabdan, Tarfa, etc, and the old white Seglawi of Ali Pasha Sherif (then to Ahmed Pasha then to Khedive Abbas Hilmi) is mentioned as his sire; the second appears a couple of time and his sire is said to be the Koheilan El Mossen of Sennari. The lengthy footnote in the Foundation Tables of the precious book by Pearson and Mol (“The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt”) about the Dahman sire of Rabdan and the other horses being in all probability the son of the old Seglawi of Ali Pasha Sharif then takes all its meaning. I am reproducing parts of this footnote here: Dahman (Jamil El Ahmar x Farida El Debbani); ca. 1893. Grey: “This is the breeding attributed throughout EAO Vol. I to the Dahman given as the sire of Rabdan and others.…
He was born in 1875, so he was only 5 when the Blunt met Ali Pasha Sherif for the first time, 24 when he owned what was probably his first Arabian (Saklawi II) in 1899 (according to his herd book), and 32 when he decided to dedicate himself solely to the breeding of Arabian horses (according to Lady Anne’s Journals). His brother Abbas Hilmi II was born in 1874 a year later. Prince Yusuf Kamal was born in 1882, and was only 25 when he dispersed the stud of Prince Ahmed Kamal his father. This puts things in perspective.
CSA Baroness Lady, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, joined the Al-Dahdah herd yesterday from her breeder Carol Stone. Oh, how I love this strain, and could write pages and pages of non-stop praise for it. This is the tail female of Milanne, Ferseyn, Farana, Amber Satin, and other American greats, back to *Ferida of Lady Anne Blunt. She will be bred this year to a stallion to be determined.
I am definitely not a fan of Tom Friedman of the NYT — far from it — but I thought that the last paragraph of his most recent NYT opinion piece applied well to the urgency of preserving rare Arabian horse lines (and whatever else needs to be preserved, for that matter): As I’ve noted before, when we were growing up “later” meant that you could paint the same landscape, see the same animals, climb the same trees, fish the same rivers, visit the same Antarctica, enjoy the same weather or rescue the same endangered species that you did when you were a kid — but just later, whenever you got around to it. Not anymore. Later is now when you won’t be able to do any of them ever again. So whatever you’re planning to save, please save it now. Because later is when they’ll be gone. Later will be too late.
I am catching up on weeks of backlog in correspondence. Here is Mayassah Al Arab (Clarion CF x Cinnabar Myst by ASF David). Photo credit to Kim Davis who is boarding her for me.
Yasser Ghanim is issuing News Letter 1 about their horses twice a year.
This one was bred by and belongs to Jenny Krieg and is a reward for the efforts of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force. Her sire is Tamaam DE, a Doyle/Straight Crabbet stallion belonging to Rosemary Doyle and the dam is the wonderful, old-style, classy, grand and stylish Sarita Bint Raj, who in addition to her good looks, is our last asil link to *Euphrates, *Al-Mashoor, one of the last ones to *Mirage, as well as being tail female Basilisk through Slipper. By the way, Jenny Krieg has a nick for carefully and expertly choosing stallions to match her mares, and these matings always result in exceptional individuals. Photo credit to Terry Doyle.
This stallion of Ali Pasha Sherif’s (APS) has always been a bit of a puzzle for me. One more than one occasion in her Journals and Correspondence, Lady Anne Blunt, whose favorite stallion of all APS’s stallions he was, clearly states that he was a Saqlawi Jadran by Wazir. If that’s the case, then his name does not make sense, Nadir being a male’s name in general, and “Ibn Nadir” meaning the son of Nadir. After carefully reading all the entries about him in Lady Anne’s Journals, and noticing the pattern of the names of APS’s horses (stallions and mares) with “Ibn” or “Bint” after their dam’s names and never after their sire’s (Ibn Nura, Ibn Sherara, Ibn Horra, Ibn Zarifa, Ibn Bint Jellabiet Feysul, etc, for the stallions, and for the mares Bint Helwa, Bint Horra, Bint Nura, Bint Azz, Bint Bint Jellabyet Feysul, etc), I became convinced that “Nadir” must have been Ibn Nadir’s dam’s name, as odd as it may sound. Every visit record of the Blunts at APS was accompanied with a list of the horses, and a naming pattern emerges, similar to the way Bedouins and Syrians name their horses: there is an important root…
This last photo from 1990 or 1989 of the late Mustafa al-Jabri (on the left), Radwan Shabareq (on the right) and my father, Gen. Salim Al-Dahdah marks the end of the 40 days of celebrating Mustafa’s legacy as a major breeder of Arabian horses. May he rest in peace surrounded by his beloved horses, Mahrous, Ihsan, Basel, Halah, Nawal, Hallah, Ameenah and all the others which he loved and cherished so dearly.
I was always intrigued by the scarcity of references in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence to her encounters with the Dahman Shahwan horses of the lines of Nadra El Kebira and Obeya, compared to her numerous references to horses from the lines of Yemama (Saqlawi Jadran ibn Sudan), Roga El Beda (Saqlawi Jadran, no marbat mentioned) and Freiha (Kuhaylan Mimrah) at the stables of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq and Prince Ahmad Kamal. This is by far Egypt’s most famous and globally prevalent strain today, yet it is the one we know least about from contemporary sources. The most explicit of these scarce references occurs during a visit to the stables of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq at Manial on December 22nd 1908, where she records seeing “a beautiful grey Dahmeh Shah. the prince got lately from the Khedive who had her dam from A. Pasha Sherif (she had a foal 3 weeks old with her)“. This is either Nadra El Kebira or Gazza. Another reference is from one year earlier, on December 17, 1907, also during a visit to the Prince: “There was a handsome white horse from the Khedive, a Dahman — sire Seglawi, which headed the list of horses.” Could this be Farhan/Saklawi II, who…
The entry in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals about her last visit to Ahmed Pasha Kemal’s stud (shortly after the Pasha’s death) on March 10th, 1907 is extremely informative. It was the last of several visits of Lady Anne’s to that stud, she remembered a lot of the horses from her previous visits, she spent a long time looking at the horses (1.5 hours), and she was accompanied by “Ali Effendi the old Kurdish manager”, Mahmoud who then went under her service and of course Mutlaq. Her description of the mares and stallions in that Journal entry comes four days after the acutal visit (which was on March 6th), and is precise and detailed as usual. Look at the comments of that blog entry for comment’s and speculation on my side about the horses in this entry of Lady Anne’s Journal, some obvious and some not so obvious. Here is the full text of that entry (italics are Lady Anne’s but bolds are mine): March 10 Now about the Ahmed Pasha Stud. Was received there by Ali Effendi the old Kurdish Manager, and Mahmud, and spent about an hour and a half looking round. The first mares in the row, a chestnut Nowakieh,…
I am b ack and will resume the series of photos on Mustafa al-Jabri’s horses, by backdating a few entries until we reach today’s.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
I am off to Kuwait for two days on Saturday, and I was just back from a week in Yemen before going back there in three weeks.. I am longing for a pause.
A reader had asked about a photo of Azyya (Kenur x *Aziza by Gamil Manial), the dam of Faziza by Fa-Turf in Germany (the line in the US is extinct). Here is a photo, from the Khamsat archives, courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
Qubbah Gardens was the upscale Cairo neighborhood surrounding the Khedivial Palace of Qubbah/Qubbeh. This list (in French) of the neighborhood’s residents in 1936 and their profession (if “Crown Prince”, “member of the royal family” or “Rentier” are professions) reads like a Who’s Who of Egypt’s rich and famous of that time. Note the diversity of backgrounds that was characteristic of the upper echelons of Egyptian society at that time: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Levantines, Westerners, etc. The list includes “Ibrahim Khairi Pashja, Lewa” (Lieutenant General) of Badaouia fame (the dam of Kheir who was likely named after his dam’s owner) and “Mohammed Nafea Pasha, Rentier” of Nafaa El Saghira fame, who seem to have been neighbors, as well as co-contributors to RAS foundation breeding stock.
In memory of the late Mostafa Al-Jabri, this blog will feature a photo of one of his horses every day for fourty days.
Triermain CF (Javera Thadrian x Demetria by Lysander), born in 1988 is arguably the premier Davenport stallion alive today. He is the regal son of his regal sire, the unforgetable Javera Thadrian. Photo by Anita Westfall (who else?). Another in a long line of Kuhaylan Hayfi horses right out of the stud of the “Queen of Elfland”..
An immense veil of sadness looms over my old father today, who lost one of his best friends. Long time family friend and premier Syrian Arabian horse breeder Mustafa al-Jabri passed away three days ago in Gazi Antep, Turkey. My thoughts are with his family now in exile.
So the other day I attended the event where the Arabian Horse Website of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was launched, thanks to the efforts of Amr Shalabi. It is a nice portal that ambitions to gather the existing archives and documentation pertaining to Arabian horse breeding in Egypt. The event included a number of presentations, including an interesting one about equestrian matters in the Mamluk era by a local university professor, and an comprehensive one about Tahawi Arabian horse breeding by Yasser Ghanem. The Tahawis are supplying some archival materials including copies of hujaj to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina project. To me the most interesting aspect of that evening was the venue in which it took place. That’s the house (well, the palace) of Ibrahim Katkhuda El Sennari, which is now the Cairo antenna of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and is located in an Old Cairo street known as Harat Monge (Monge’s street). This Monge is none other than French mathematician Gaspard Monge, the father of differential geometry, who along with a host of other scientists from all disciplines, accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egypt campaign. The house, known as Beyt El Sennari, was built by Ibrahim Katkhuda El Sennari, a wealthy occultist-turned-politician…
Bushra, the Ju’aythniyah mare of Tahawi lines of Yasser Ghanem Barakat produced this nice colt by an Egyptian stallion last week. The foal looks more like his dam than his sire, and that’s a good thing. Note the big black eyes and the long ears on this superior war mare of pure Tahawi lines.
The Al Khamsa website has a very nice and comprehensive feature on the stallion *Azra, a Saqlawi Ubayri imported by Davenport from the desert in 1906, and his remaining descendants. Check it out here. By the way, it was not until a few days ago that I realized that the stallion’s name actually meant “grey”, in reference to his color. Davenport’s Syrian and Lebanese companions would pronounce the Arabic qaf letter (equivalent to k or q) as ‘ (the guttural stop which if preceded by the vowel like A would be virtually silent, hence turning Azraq/Azrak into Azra. The Blunts had the same idea with their own Azrek, except that his Bedouin buyer, Zeyd Saad al-Mutayri would pronounce the name like Bedouins do and the way classical Arabic has it, with a q/k at the end.
Last week Kirby Drennan sent me pictures of her Clarion CF (Regency CF x Chinoiserie by Dharanad) which Anita Westfall had taken some time before. Here is one, which shows the stallion’s large eyes, his protruding facial bones, and his especially deep jaws. These are typical features of a Davenport stallion, and they are particularly prominent in Clarion. These are also the features of a desert bred stallion in its homeland. The second photo shows the distribution of the horse’s musculature.
Yesterday night, my two Krush mares Bint al-Barra and Cinnabar Myst arrived at their new retirement home, at Kathy Werking’s in Kentucky (who was the last home for another mare of rare lines, Princess Asjah, who died recently). I owe a huge dept of gratitude to Jeannie Lieb, who found them this new home; Kim Davis, who hosted them at her farm when one of them was about to foal; Jeanne Craver, who hosted them for more than year before that; Kirby Drennan, who brought her magnificent Clarion CF to breed one of them; Nancy Becker, who watched over them, and Trish Stockhecke, who bred them and cared for them for the first 22 years of their life. The two full sisters leave behind a nice 2013 replacement filly, Mayassah Al Arab (Clarion CF x Cinnabar Myst) who will carry the line forward, and bring close crosses to the early twentieth century greats like Abu Zeyd, Segario, Hanad, and Letan well in to the twenty first century. I wish the other sister had conceived as well, but nothing came out of her breeding to Aurene CF. Still, mission accomplished, for now.
With the holiday season upon us I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the gift of the Arabian horse in our lives. It is a great teacher whose lessons go well beyond borders and cultures and if we are good stewards of this noble creature, we are better because of it. With gratitude to Edouard Al Dahdah, we share our ideas and our enthusiasm for the Arabian horse in the context of its origins and because of this blog, we have become one global community connected by the Arabian horse.
Jamr (Vice Regent x Jadiba) is growing up nicely, and really looks like his pedigree, a mix of the old Blunt/Doyle look — you can’t beat the classiness of that — and the Davenport/Schilla look. He has his dam’s very deep jaws, and his sire’s pointy ears. His dam’s ears were understated. His eye is bigger than his dam’s, which is the legacy of the extra Davenport blood. The triangular head is the result of a finer muzzle than his dam’s and of the depth of his jaw, like in that Sherifa head study by Lady Anne Blunt. Note also the bone structure at the base of the ear and juncture of the ear and the jaw. No prominent dish, or only a very slight one, just the way I like it and the way I think it should be. Thanks to Monica Respet for this photo.
I am excited to announce that the Kuhaylat al-Ajuz Jadah BelloftheBall a.ka. “Belle” (Invictus Al Krush x Belladonna CHF by Audobon x LD Rubic by Plantagenet) has joined the Al-Dahdah herd. She is a gift from my friend Jeannie Lieb, who delivered her from Boston to Pennsylvania yesterday! I have been wanting a mare from the line of LD Rubic for 12 years now, ever since a came to the USA, and now I have one, so it’s a dream come true. This morning I found this email in my archives. It is from the late Carol Lyons and is dated Dec. 22, 2001: “{…] You asked about Rubic and Belladona. […] Who would I breed these mares to if I had the opportunity? I would try to breed Rubic to Triermain. There is a story here about why Charles gave this horse the name of Triermain’. It comes from a poem which tells the vertues of a man named Triermain and that he is worthy of the daughter of Plantagenet. Rubic is a Plantagenet daughter so the choice is obvious. I believe that Charles is a ‘master breeder’ and Triermain has been used on a number of Plantagenet daughters and granddaughters…
I am offering the two Kuhaylat al-Krush full sisters Bint al-Barra, 22, and Cinnabar Myst, 21, by ASF David out of Mystalla for a good retirement home, or to someone who may wish to continue the preservation work I started with them. I am doing so because I need to make room for new arrivals (details soon), and I already have a replacement filly Mayassah (by Clarion CF). If anyone is interested, drop me a line. Notable features about both mares include: — an extraordinary disposition, both mares are sweet as lambs; they had never been ridden, yet they took on both my kids on their backs. — very old lines up close: Abu Zeyd, 1904 (Mesaoud x Rose Diamond) is 4 generations away; Hanad is 5 generations away; Daaldan is a paternal grandsire. — old endurance lines up close with Albert Harris bred horses 3 generations removed (Komet by Sunshine x Tebuk). — easy keepers
An Egyptian horse breeder tells me that the ruins of Abbas Pasha’s stables can be seen on the road from Cairo to Suez. That’s another place worth seeing.. before it is razed.