A verse from pre-islamic [Bedouin] Arabian poet Tufail b. ‘Awf al-Ghanawi (died ca. 610), know as Tufail al-Khail [Tufail of the horses] for the emphasis on horses in his poetry, from Abu Ubaida’s “Book of Horses” [translation mine]: Horses the likes of wolves, so well-protected, for they are the pick of what’s left of [the bloodlines] of al-Ghurab and Mudh-hab Al-Ghurab and Mudh-had are two famous steeds from these ancient times. Their offspring had become rare, at least within Tufail’s tribe, and they were treasured and well-guarded for that reason.
I am looking for a template with placeholders for the names of the parents, the grandparents, the great-grandparents, etc. which can be printed later. I am tired of doing all that stuff by hand.
Another beautiful photo from the Dandashi landlords of Tall Kalakh, those master breeders of Asil Arabian horses; they were the equivalent of the Tahawis in Syria, really. Photo courtesy of Mukarram Abd al-Karim Othman al-Dandashi.
A specimen from the collection of Muhammad Saoud al-Tahawi, who is looking for a catalog of Mamluk bits, if you know which Museum has published one.
You get a window into Lady Anne Blunt’s selection criteria when purchasing new horses when reading this passage of her Journals, March 15, 1887: “He [Zeyd, who was sent on a purchasing trip in the desert] is to be very particular about plenty of bone, height of wither, length, of course everything else perfect and origin mazbut. Everything else perfect, but three points stand out in this concise statement. Where is the bone, and where are the high withers today? Check the withers of DA Ginger Moon, my Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah (back to Basilisk) of overwhelmingly Blunt/Crabbet lines.
Mukarram al-Dandashi, grandson of Abd al-Karim Osman al-Dandashi, one of most prominent leaders of the Dandashi clan of Tell Kalakh — the breeders of the best horses in Syria and Lebanon historically — sent a number of historical photos of his family on horses, which I will publish in his name. A whole book could be written about the Dandashis and Arabian horses. Barazi barely scratched the surface in his book.
February 8, 1882: “I had a visit from Zeyd of Kasim. He was riding a fleabitten Dahmeh Shahwan, a fine mare with good hocks. He said she belonged to a certain Aga, she came from Ali Pasha Sherif from Abbas Pasha’s horses, is six years old. The Aga is afraid to ride her, she jumps and shies and he asked Zeyd to ride and teach her — break her in, in fact. Her head is remarkably good and she seems good tempered. I like her looks.” Who could that 1876 mare be? Certainly not the dam of *Shahwan, who was apparently still with Ali Pasha Sherif when Shahwan was bred (so in 1886). What about this other one, born in 1881? March 14, 1892, at Ahmed Pasha’s: “There is a little white Dahmeh Shahwanieh, 11 years old which they say has never had a foal and I should like to try getting her… Yanko said there had been no luck with the Pasha with that strain”.
So my beloved old Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta by Jadib) went to her retirement home on Christmas Eve 2014, thanks to Monica Respet’s help and friendship. She was the Christmas gift for a family with small children. I wish her well. My only regret is not to have been able to breed a replacement daughter. I will always regret that September 2011 failed AI breeding attempt to a stallion born in 1979. The semen was dead when it reached the mare, and she never cycled after that.
A photo of my 2011 Wadd Al Arab (Triermain CF x Wisteria CF) from about a year ago. I like the way he is turning out, especially the broad forehead, the small pricked ears, the small muzzle, the good shoulder, the distinct withers, the short back, and the balance in general. I hope to breed him this year or next. Earlier photos at 3.5 months here.
What a balanced, well-built, harmonious desert-looking mare. You can see the influence of both *Hamrah and *Haleb on her. She was by *Hamrah out of *Meleky (*Haleb x *Hadba). Does anyone know where this look can be found in today’s Davenports?
That’s a recent shot Darlene Summers took of my CSA Baroness Lady (Sab El Dine x Takelma Rosanna by Prince Charmming), a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah of overwhelmingly Egyptian lines, with 6 generations of Egyptian sires on top of the old Crabbet female line. She is in foal to Monologue CF, a stallion of Davenport lines, due in August 2015. She is one of six asil younger (17 years old and less) mares of that Ma’naqi Sbaili line in existence in North America. Her sister and a maternal cousin of hers are with Jacquie Glasscoe Choate in Texas, and three other mares, all daughters and grand-daughters of this mare, can be last traced to Janice Park’s South Springs (SS) program, which line-breeds to El Reata Juan (Julyan X Mist Aana by Hallany Mistanny), and produces mostly blacks. She will need to go to a good preservation home, to make space for the new foals coming in the summer. If you know someone who is interested, let me know.
The seventh anniversary of this website, which coincides with the birthday anniversary of my elder daughter Samarcande, was on January 18th. Like other years before, I like to publish a photo of Samarcande on this day, and looking back at the January entries of the past seven years, you can see how much she’s grown. This year, her two year old younger sister makes her debut on the site. She too is a fan of “hossezz”.
If you are interested in weaving and textiles, as well as in Bedouins, then this is apparently the definite book on the subject. I just bought a copy.
Happy holidays to all the friends and readers of Daughters of the Wind around the world. May the new year bring you good health, happiness and peace of mind.
I mentioned earlier that Shahwan of Dahman Shahwan fame was an historical character. I am now happy to report that I found a solid, dated historical reference to this Shahwan in a book by Mamluk-era chronicler Abu al-Mahasin Taj al-Din Abd al-Baqi ibn Abd al-Majid al-Yamani (born in Mecca in 1281 AD — died in Damascus in 1343 AD). The book is called “Bajhat al-Zaman fi Tarikh al-Yaman“, in short, “History of Yemen”. It is a chronicle of historical events in Yemen before and during the time of the author, who appears to have lived at the same time as Shahwan. The mention of Shahwan of ‘Abidah (of Qahtan) occurs in page 95 of the book, under the events of the year 678 Hijri (1279 AD), under the title of “Account of Muzaffar’s takeover of Dhofar, Hadramaut and the city of Shibam“. This Muzaffar is King al-Muzaffar Abu al-Mansur Shams al-Din Yusuf, second king of the Rasulid dynasty of Yemen. Muzaffar ruled Yemen and its dependencies from 1249 to 1295 AD. The account is as follows (my translation from Arabic): “Account of Muzaffar’s takeover of Dhofar, Hadramaut and the city of Shibam: the cause for this was that the warships of Salem son of Idris al-Habudhi…
Anyone knows how much it costs to export horses from America to Europe by plane?
I finally have the answer to a lingering question about the leadership of the Shammar Bedouins in North Arabia. Some twenty years ago, when asking about the ownership of a number of lines of desert bred Arabians, I was confused by references to at least four contemporary “Sheykhs of the Shammar” within the leading Jarba family. The Kuhaylan Krush were the horses of Mayzar Abd al-Mushin al-Jarba, Sheykh of the Shammar; the Shuwayman Sabbah were the horses of Mashaal Pasha son of Faris al-Jarba, also Sheykh of the Shammar; and the Hadban Enzahi were the horses of Dham al-Hadi, also Sheykh of the Shammar; the Saqlawi Jadran adn the Dahman Amer were the horses of Ajil al-Yawir al-Jarba, also Sheykh of the Shammar. All four had lived around the same time. What was going on? Later I came to understand that this had to do with political splits within the leading family, which were caused or at least encouraged by the Ottoman Turks, then the British and the French, but I never had the full picture. Here it is now, in the clarity of intelligence report such as this one published by the French army in 1943: “Autrefois, lors de leur unite, les Chammar ont beaucoup…
Jackson Hensley sent my this recent photo of his 2002 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion (Davenport lines) Pulcher Ibn Reshan (Triermain CF x Aniq el Bedu by Iliad). There is something of the look of a wild desert animal in his eyes, that same look you see in old photos of desert birds, gazelles and young camels.
gleaned today from L’Orientaliste library in Cairo, all foundational French ethnographic studies from the 1930s: — Victor Muller’s “En Syrie avec les Bedouins: les tribus du desert” (1931) — Albert de Boucheman’s “Une petite cite caravaniere: Sukhne” (a little gem) — Albert de Boucheman’s “Materiel de la vie Bedouine recueilli chez les Arabes Seba’a” — and the sweetest surprise of all (because they could not find it in their vaults last time dropped by): Robert Montagne’s “Contes poetiques Bedouins recueillis chez les Shammar de Gezire”. This one is a lucky find. I feel so blessed.
One of the most interesting passages of Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence is her visit to the Bedouin Tarabin tribe of the Sinai peninsula and the Negev desert, during her and Wilfrid Blunt’s crossing from Cairo to Jerusalem in February 1881, and her account of their camel and horse-related traditions; here is on the camels, to set the stage for what will be more than one blog entry, and I will have to say more on the horses and legends associated to them: “A delul [female camel] or hajin [male camel] becomes asil like the English thoroughbred. Five generations of a thoroughbred sire are considered sufficient among Ayeydeh, Shuaga, Terabin, Naazeh [in reality Maazeh] and perhaps Howeytat, though as the last touch on the confines of [Arabian Peninsula Bedouin tribes of] Harb and Sherarat they ma others notions”. [February 11th, 1881] A lot of the tribes mentioned above appear in this map of the area in 1908: The Tarabin today number around half a million, spread across Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan. In Egypt, they are mostly present in the Sinai, of which they are the largest Bedouin group, but also the Suez Canal cities and the…
During the Blunt’s visit to Jeddah around Christmas of 1880, “Wilfrid has met a man who came from Sana and told him that at some distance from Sana in the interior there are the Beni Husayn, Mohammed Bedouins who catch wild horses. They live in the district called Jofr [correction: it’s actually Jof] el Yemen and are very ‘adroit’ in riding….” [Lady Anne Blunt Journals and Correspondence, December 24, 1880] I am in Sana (San’aa) the capital of Yemen for two weeks, and although I am locked up in my work’s office and adjoining guest house for security reasons, it is the occasion for me too tell you about these Bedouins of Yemen: As Lady Anne wrote, these are the Dhu Husayn, an offshoot of the Dhu Mohammed, who hail from the large Yemeni tribal confederation of Bakil. Their tribal area is in Jawf/Jof el Yaman (the reference to Yemen is to differentiate it from the other Jawf/Jof of North, which is in Northern Saudi Arabia, just to the South of Jordan), to the north east of Sana. My colleague (a Senior Water Specialist at the World Bank office in Sana), Naif Abu Luhoum, is the from the chieftain family of the Dhu…
From Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals, December 15th, 1880, during her trip to Jeddah: “In the afternoon we called first on Omar Nasif. The chestnut mare still stands outside the little yard near the house…” Here are modern images of the Naseef house, one of the very few buildings still standing from the old down-town of Jeddah, which has all been razed to the ground, to give way to modern building in the 1960s (yet another beautiful Arab city destroyed…) For an inside tour of the Naseef house, and a view of the yard where that mare in Lady Anne’s Journals, see this blog entry here. The house as in other old Jeddah houses in apparently made of coral (yes, the stuff in the reefs) and of wood imported from what is today Indonesia, a legacy of the glorious (and little known) history of Jeddah as a cross-roads of trade between Egypt, East Africa and South East Asia (like Mukalla in Yemen, like Mocha, like Aden after that).
Check it out here. By the way, the Homer Davenport collection is there too. Sample below, taken in the Cairo souk.
One never stops learning. A read of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript section of the Saqlawi al-‘Abd strain teaches you that the strain is actually a branch of Saqlawi Jadran: It turns out that a man from the Shammar tribe was once taken prisoner by an Ibn Sha’lan (the leading clan of the Ruwalah tribe). The Shammari gave up his Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah to the Sha’lan man in exchange for his freedom. Later the Sha’lan man was somehow involved in the murder of a fellow tribesman (from the clan of al-Mani’ of the Qa’aqi’ah of the Ruwalah) and had to surrender the Saqlawiyah to this man’s family as blood money. The family’s caretaker was a slave (‘Abd in Arabic) who once rode the mare in battle against the Bani Sakhr tribe, and was unhorsed from her. From there the strain spread to the tribes, including back to the Ruwalah. In that specific case, the Bedouin traditional judges decided that the right to claim any mare of that strain under trover — that’s a Bedouin practice allowing the strain’s first owner within a certain tribe to claim any horse from that strain that enters the tribe — remained with the family of the deceased Ruwalah…
Shafi Ibn Sha’ban, the leader of the sub-tribe of Bani Hajar of Qahtan in the mid-XIXth century, is the one who led his tribe from the valleys of Najd to the shores of Eastern Arabia (al-Ihsa) in 1248 H, which is equivalent to 1832. The Bani Hajar, separated from the bulk of their Qahtan brethen, eventually broke away, and became a separate, self-standing tribe (singular al-Hajri). Source: Mohammad Saud al-Hajri, who is a reliable historian. Shafi Ibn Sha’ban is all over the Abbas Pasha Manuscript section on Dahman Najib (also in the extracts published at the end of Lady Anne’s Journals with her annotations), and appears in connection with the Dahmah Najiba of Ibn Aweyde. Lady Anne, in her notes, wondered about his identity. It makes sense: as the head of the tribe, he did not need to be introduced. She also mentions the Bani Hajar as living in East Arabia, most of them being pearl divers.
Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence, edited by Rosemary Archer and James Fleming, and published by Alexander Heriot & Co. Ltd Booksellers and Publishers in 1986, is, together with the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (Forbis and Sherif), the most important publication on the Arabian horse in recent memory. I have read it time and again, and I keep marveling at its editors’ skill and effort in transcribing hundreds of handwritten letters and journal entries, and putting them in their proper historical context. That said, neither editor is an Arabist, to my knowledge, and, in light of Lady Anne’s lifelong relationship with the Arab world and the large number of Arabic proper and common names in her Journals, this seems to have prevented them from properly transcribing many of these Arabic names; in some cases, lady Anne may have been the source of the mis-trancsription. So I have ventured to makes notes of these corrections in a separate page of this blog, and substantiate these annotations and corrections with evidence, in the hope that further editions could take them into account, or at least be aware of them. This ongoing effort will be found at daughterofthewind.org/labjournals
Yesterday, I spent some time reading the story of al-Kuhaylah al-Harqah in the Abbas Pascha Manuscript (not the English version of Forbis and Sherif, but rather the large excerpts in Hamad al-Jassir’s Usul al-Khayl al-Arabiyyah al-Hadithah). The story of al-Harqah is remarkable for its simplicity (it’s not hard to follow), its conciseness (relative to other strains’ long-winded accounts in the Manuscript), its consistency (most witnesses interviewed relate the same story) and its comprehensiveness (from the originating Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz down to the mares that went to Abbas Pasha). For all these reasons it could serve as a case study of how strains changed hands and moved from tribe to tribe in Bedouin Arabia. The story is also remarkable as an account of how strains names are formed, an account of several Bedouin customs and traditions, and it can also be used to reconstruct a rough chronology. I would like to document all this at some point. Here’s a summary of how the strain got its name: A Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare was part of the ransom the Shammar (then all staying in the Jabal Shammar) asked the captured Sharif of Mecca to pay in return for his freedom; a descendant of this mare (still a Kuhaylat…
Now that I have read the Abbas Pasha Manuscript — the equivalent of the Bible for Arabian horses — from cover to cover a fair number of times, I have learned that all Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz horses originate from two wellsprings: the Sharif of Mecca in the Hijaz, and the major tribe of Qahtan, and more specifically the Qahtan sub-tribe of ‘Abidah in Wadi Tathlith (SW Saudi Arabia). I don’t know yet what the connections between these two sources are. The story of al-Harqah (originally a Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz) is illustrative of the horses that came out of the Sharif of Mecca.
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…