Category: General

The other day I was look at the remaining asil lines to the legendary stallion Hanad in the United States. I came across his lines through the mare Schiba (Hanad x Shilan by Antez), who was one of the foundation mares for the Krausnick’s Shar Char Farms. The line produced well for the Krausnicks (Mistlany, Shar Hiba, Shar Moliah and Char Mist come to mind), but has become very thin today, especially in the tail female. Then I remembered that at least two mares from this line were exported to Germany and become the foundations for Dr. Walter Olms’ Hamasa Stud: Shar Duda (Negem x Shar Hiba by Fa Turf) and Shar Zarqa (Negem x Shar Turfa by Fa Turf), who is below. The same day, Monique from the Netherlands sent me a message asking me to highlight the stallion Maamoon Tarik (Maamoon Ibn Gazala x Hamasa Tulayha by Tufail) who is from the line. He has two lines to the two mars from Schiba that were exported from the USA to Germany, including one in the tail female, but also a line to Faziza (Fa Turf x Azyya by Kenur), who also came from the Krausnicks to Germany, and graces…

My young daughter on Cinnabar Myst (ASF David x Mystalla), a Kuhaylat Krush tracing to *Werdi and many other old lines, two weeks ago.

The Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force has put together a “Code Red” list of the most endangered Al Khamsa bloodlines, which consists of those Foundation Horses (that is, desert-bred imports) that have less than 100 descendants alive today. Here is the link. By order of scarcity — and hence, emergency — these are those that count less than 20 Al Khamsa descendants alive today: 1. *Al Mashoor 1. *Euphrates 1. *Mlolshaan Hajar Solomon 4. *La Tisa, *Mahsuda, and *Mohalhil 5. *Layya 6. The Babolna/Weil horses 7. *Samirah 8. Kesia I, Kesia II and Mameluke 9. *Bedowiya Al Hamdani and Walid El Seglawi 10. *Azra Jenny Krieg is leading the preservation of the first three (with Cathy Fye on *Mlolshaan) and #5 (also with Michelle Tennyson); The 4 left from #4 are with Candace Callegari; the #6 with Marilyn McHallam in Canada; the #7 between Stephanie Theinert and the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse; the #9 are with Edie Booth; and I am handling #8 and #10, with some of the latter also with Elizabeth Ford Pade, that other quiet hero. Note that one horse can combine several of these extremely rare lines. For instance, the first two are found…

A lady from Illinois recently sent me these snapshots of Wilbur Coates Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Dakhala Sabiq (Prince Hal x Sirrulya by HJulyan), bred by Jeanne Craver. They were taken at a local show in Illinois. I now own Sabiq’s niece, Dakhala Sahra, by Plantagenet out of Soiree by Sir x Sirrulya. I must say that this specific type of Arabian horse strikes a strong cord with me, because it’s reminiscent of the horses of my childhood, the ones I learned to ride on. The horse riding clubs around Beirut were full of former racehorses that hailed from Syria, had moderate or no success on the racetrack — which by then was dominated by the part-bred Arabs from Iraq. so the asils had no chance of winning — and ended their careers as children mounts. Each club appeared to have its own old grey Arabian horse, a dream-like individual of regal type, worthy of Cindarella’s carriage that was the favorite of all the children. In East Beirut during the civil war (1975-1990), it was Sultan, on whom I learned to ride ( I will try to dig up a photo); in West Beirut after the war (1991-2000) it was Burhan,…

Chapter IV: “Visit to the Sabaah”, Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia, 1881.

It’s that exciting time of the year when one starts to make plans for breeding the mares, before budget constrains kick in.. and this year there are many more mares at the virtual Aldahdah stud.. So here’s the wish list: — K. Haifi: Javera Chelsea to Triermain CF, the next best alternative to full brother/sister mating since Javera Thadrian, Triermain’s sire and Chelsea’s brother, died. — Ma’naqi Sbayli: Dakhala Sahra also to Triermain CF, so as not to add any new bloodlines into this line, and change the existing type (Sahra is by Plantagenet, out of a Sir daughter). Her own son Rahim Regency WAF (by Regency CF) would have been nice, but it looks difficult to pull through, given her age (27). Both matings by embryo transfer. — K. Haifi: Wisteria CF: many options possible: Porte CF (Portico x Recherche), Aurene CF (a half brother and close relative, by Triermain CF x Aureole CF) within the strain, in addition to her own sire Triermain, like last year, because I was pleased with the outcome; Mi Majest Prince (Fair Sir x Fairy Princess, 50% Tripoli) would also be nice, if he were set to ship from; outside the strain, the list is endless:…

The 1976 stallion Kamil Ibn Sahanad (Kamil ibn Salan x Sahanad by Abu Hanad), pictured below at the ripe old age of 25, was the last direct tail female descendant of entirely Davenport bloodlines of the desert-bred Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd mare *Wadduda, imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. He was a son of the beautiful black mare Sahanad, often mentioned on this blog. She has other sons and daughters, including the stallion Black Lightning (Khemahr Moniet x Sahanad) who I think is still alive. His blood represents an out-cross to current Davenport lines, and the one descendant of his I saw, the 1998 mare JEN Beauty A Saha (Sergeant Major CF x Sida Saha by Kamil Ibn Sahanad), now boarded at Craver Farms, is significantly different from other Davenport horses I have seen.

Following the discussion about the Jahir son Murad Ghazi, below, I found the following photos online, of his half brother Djelid (Jahir x Djenissa, by Doum x Djayda, by Shawani x Miloudia, by Moulouki x M’Rabbia, by Saadi x Hammada by Madani), a stallion in central France, who is bred very closely within the Mauvy lines, with three lines to the Mauvy foundation mare Zarifa, two to Izarra, and one in the tail female to Hammada, the latter two coming from the Cordonnier stud in Tunisia. His strain is Mukhallad (Mokladie, as spelled in French), tracing to Merjane, imported to France from the Naqab/Sinai desert.

Trish Stockhecke’s two Krushat mares are now with me, on lease. I went to see them yesterday. Both are strongly built mares of the “Old American” type, with a pedigree straight out of the 1950s that also jumps back to the early 1900s in three or four generations. That’s how I like my pedigrees. Look at this one line of genealogy, for instance: Bint Al-Barra (that’s one of the two mares, photo below, b. 1991), was sired by ASF David (b. 1966); his dam was Dihkenna (b. 1946), whose sire was Gharis (b. 1927), a son of Abu Zeyd (b. 1904). I don’t know how many living Arabian horses trace back to the mythical Abu Zeyd (Mesaoud x Rose Diamond) in just four generations. The early American sires Mainad (b. 1948, by Hanad x Charmain by Abu-Selim), a great grandsire, and Royal Amber (b. 1938 by Ribal x Babe Azab by Letan), a great-great-grandsire, are not too far away, either. The pedigree is essentially half Babson/Brown and half very early American foundation bloodstock (Davenport, Crabbet, Harris, Borden, Huntington, Hamidie, etc.), with almost every Al Khamsa Ancestral Element represented, including the Borden one, the rarest of all (that’s the line to Kesia,…

Hussain Ghashemi from Iran sent these pictures from Iran. Not an Arabian horse obviously, but a gorgeous specimen of an Iranian Turkmen horse.

Tomorrow I am going to Tunisia for work, for a week. Back next Saturday.

I have always admired the bright bay horse pictured on Jackson Hensley’s Bedouin Arabians website (one photo below, with Jackson’s daughter), without knowing who the horse was. Jackson, as an artist, emphasizes the essence of the Arabian horse more than it’s official identity, and this is perhaps why he does not mention the names of his horses on his website.  I always thought this stallion was a nice combination of masculinity and sweetness, like a stag, or a male gazelle.. I just found out from a comment Jackson left below, that the horse is actually mine, one I own jointly with Darlene Summers, Monologue CF. I confess I felt a little out of touch.. but then again, I only saw Monologue twice, once at Pamela Klein’s and once at Craver Farms, where he is currently stationed.

Voici une photo inédite prise sur le vif en 1949: la grande Salomé née à Tiaret en Algérie, fille de Bango DB et Maâna par Safita DB au soufflage! La scène se passe au haras de Sidi Bou Hadid en Tunisie, près de Bizerte. L’homme au béret n’est autre que l’amiral Anatole Cordonnier, c’est la seule photo de lui qui existe.

The day before yesterday was my daughter’s fourth birthday, and also Daughters of the Winds fourth anniversary.

Today, preservation breeders of asil Arabians in the USA breed on a small scale. They are fewer breeders than before and they are far between. Many of these breeders don’t always have the stallions their mares need, whether in their barns of just around the corner. Some breeders have the stallions but not the mares. Some have stallions who are sons and brothers of their mares, and don’t want to inbreed. There needs to be a good supply of (non-Egyptian) Al Khamsa stallions registered to ship semen from. When I wanted to breed Jadiba to a Davenport stallion this past summer, the only ones I could find who were ready to ship were Triermain CF in Illinois, Vice Regent CF in Georgia, and Pal-Ara Sensation and Mandarin in Oregon. Mandarin died last year, and Triermain is getting old. I opted for Vice Regent but now I have more mares and I wish there are other stallions to choose from. There is no shortage of outstanding Davenport and BLUE STAR and other asil stallions, who ought to be registered to ship. I wish Davenport stallions like Regatta CF, Daedalus LD, Porte CF, Silverton CF, Indie Star, Eldar HD, Shiraz CF, Clarion…

The thread below contains very interesting and valuable observation by Joe Ferriss on Western need for a systematic classification of Bedouin strains, and by Lisa on the value of written versus oral information in Bedouin culture. Let me add the following general principles: The Bedouins’ culture was an oral one; information was transmitted orally between people of the same generation and from generation to generation. They did not need anything in written when dealing with each other. The truthfulness and probity (‘adl in Arabic, a value depending on honor) of the man ensured the trustworthiness of the information, and it was confirmed by other men who acted as witnesses. When dealing with outsiders, whether non-Bedouin Arabs like the town people or Aleppo, the Cairo-based missaries of Abbas Pasha, as well as Westerners, there arose the need to have this information put in writing, for two reasons :first, the system of values that bound Bedouins to each other did not apply to outsiders. Conversely, the outsiders did not trust information that was not put in writing. So, as far as Arabian horses were concerned, the hujjah was the transcription in writing of information that was originally shared and transmitted orally. I am not sure it was designed for Westerners first. Rather I think…

I am in Lebanon for the holidays with the family, and have been catching up on some Arabian horse reading. All the important books are here, and I only quote from memory when in the USA. Just finished re-re-reading “The Crabbet Arabian Stud” by R. Archer et al, and have started Lady Wentworth’s “The Authentic Arabian Horse”. Can’t help lamenting how she messed with her mother’s “Book of Fragments” each time. Someone ought to reconstitute that book from scratch and republish it. I also flipped through Raswan’s “Black Tents of Arabia”. Somehow I never feel safe with Raswan. There is some good information, in the middle of a sea of misleading and often wrong statements. I really feel I could fill an entire new blog at the rythm of a post per day documeting these, and I know I eventually will some day. Meanwhile, I have learned to respect him as a passionate advocate of the preservation of the asil Arabian in the USA. He must have been a really nice person, too. I think there are two ‘golden rules’ about Lady Blunt and Raswan, concerning information about horses, strains, tribes, etc. I have said this before, and will continue to say it: I…

This morning Jeanne Craver shared with some of us this picture of my young Wadd (Triermain CF x Wisteria CF by Triermain CF), who at 5 months old, shows real potential as a stallion, and I wish the best for him. That inbreeding to Triermain really paid off, and I would repeat it if I could. Behind him stands his sister Wadhah (Javera Thadrian x Wisteria CF), who is now 18 months old. By the way, I have chosen the suffix Al Arab for my (very much virtual for now) stud. So he will be registered as Wadd Al Arab (“Wadd of the Arabs”), and his sister as Wadhah Al Arab.  When I was younger, I was really impressed by racehorse names like Shaykh al-Arab, Shatt al-Arab, Wahid al-Arab, and used to think horses with such names were to be reckoned with. From a purely linguistic perspective, Wadhah really should have been registered as “Wadhat al-Arab”, since a final “t” in Arabic is silent unless followed by a noun in the possessive case (e.g., Kuhaylah Rodaniyah and Kuhaylat Rodan, which translate respectively as “Rodanian Kuhaylah” and “the Kuhaylah of Rodan”; another example is Saqlawiyah on it’s own as opposed to the…

A few months ago, I posted a photo of the stallion Hallanny Mistanny (Zarife x Roda) from the Billy Sheets photo collection. Here is another one, taken at the same. It’s less good, and he shows his extreme old age here (I think 28).

While re-reading the excerpt from the RAS’s Dr. Ahmad Mabrouk below, I realized that this man did not seem to know that the Arabian horses are transmitted by the dam. He recognizes that the horse he bought for the RAS was out of “El Nowagia”, and “by Krush”, yet not only does he name the horse “Kroush“, but he also says he was “a Krush”.  The horse was obviously a Kuhaylan Nawwaq like his dam. And these were supposed to be the best horse experts of their time. I mean, it’s like a US constitutional expert saying that the President is elected by Congress, and getting away with it. I just don’t get it.

Is this Hasiker (*Hamrah x *Reshan), the K. Hayfiyah daughter of two Davenport imports?

In the past few months, and following the inclusion in the Al Khamsa Roster of the three Egyptian mares of Tahawi breeding at Hamdan Stables, Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat, a small and informal working group was formed. Its core members include three people from Egypt: Yasser Ghanim Barakat al-Tahawi, Mohammed Mohammed Saoud al-Tahawi, and Yehia Abd al-Sattar Eliwa al-Tahawi; one from Europe: Bernd Radtke; and three living in the USA: Jeanne Craver, Joe Ferriss and myself. There are others, too. One consequence of the formation of this working was the recent designation by the Board of Directors of Al Khamsa, Inc of about of 15 of the surviving tribal Tahawi horses as “Al Khamsa Horses of Interest”. You read about this on this blog, and you will hear more about it in the future. It is certainly a first step toward the recognition by Al Khamsa of other tribal horses (e.g., Syria’s, Saudi Arabia’s, Bahrain’s) in the Arabian horse’s original homeland. It will probably have other consequences on the Egyptian Arabian horses, too. Another related consequence of this group working together and exchanging information was the uncovering of previously hidden information, discover new information and make a number of educated guesses…

Wisteria was as beautiful as ever, with large, expressive eyes. She was reminiscent of the painting of the “mare of Baz” which graces the cover of Asil Araber II. I am sorry I don’t have a better photo to render the indefinable charm that emanates from this mare, who is not photogenic.  

I am now more and more convinced that the Arabian horse of the show type has veered away from the original Arabian horse so much that it now forms a distinct breed. There is hardly anything in common anymore between the kind of horse featured on this blog and the ‘living art’ featured in halter shows (whether it is asil or not asil, pedigree-wise). We are now at a stage whether different names should be used to designate two different breeds of horses. I suggest the term “Post-Arabian” for the show type.

This evening, I submitted a proposal to the Al Khamsa Board on the inclusion of the five 1949 Hindi imports to the USA in the AK Roster. They are: *DAHAM AHR, gs, b. 1947, AHR #8205 *DALAL AHR, gm, b. 1947, AHR #9822 *BINT ATTEBBE, gm, b. 1946, AHR #10851 *JAMIL ZAMEN, gs, b. 1950, AHR #13542 *JAMILA ZAMEN, gm, b. 1950, AHR #13541 I will share the proposal with you as soon as it is completed. There is currently only one mare alive that is entirely from these bloodlines.  If that proposal passes the first vote by the Board and the Assembly, and the second vote by both bodies, then that mare, Hindi Nafha (born in 1991), a Sa’dat al-Tuqan, would be the only horse eligible to join the AK Roster. She has no progeny to date. If you want to learn more about the Hindi horses in the USA, then click here for this recent (September 2011) feature.

The handsome 1988 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Dubloon CF (Lysander x Decibel), the last Lysander son alive, is in California with Betty Ball. Carol Mingst photo, 2005.

There is a heated discussion going on (in French, though) in another thread about Arabian type(s) in general. A photo of the desert-bred Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Nimr Shabareq (bred in Syria, now in France) started the debate. To grossly summarize, one side thinks the horse is basically off type (in other words, just an ugly looking Arabian), and the other thinks it’s representative of one of  many types of Arabians to be found in the Syrian/Arabian desert, yet a type Western eyes are no longer used to. The first photo shows the horse as a growthy two-year-old in racing condition. I am now posting a more recent photo of the same horse, taken last year, when he was three years old.

I took this photo but can’t remember who the mare was; perhaps a Kuhaylat al-Wati.

Shela (El Batal x Siva by Silver Rain) was one of my father’s favorite mares. She was bred by Mr and Mrs. Bancroft in the UK in 1981, exported to Jordan in 1983, where Princess Alia Al-Hussein helped my father acquire her from the stud of Said Khair in 1991, along with another mare, Ziba. Shela traced to the Crabbet Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Bint Helwa, through Ghazala, Gulnare and Gayza, and her pedigree consisted mainly of Crabbet, Egyptian and Polish elements, with a pint of Marbach blood. She measured a full 15.3 hands, was very powerfully built, and had a way of staring at you that would make you think twice before you looked back at her. She came from Jordan with her son, Fanar (another looker) by Hilal el Eid (Misk x Haboub) and produced a filly, which died at an early age, before dying herself while in foal, as a result of being mishandled by a lousy vet.

I want to breed horses that have white showing in their eyes, like human eyes. This is how the eyes of the old desert mares of my childhood and teen age looked like, and this is what gives these horses their quasi human souls. I realized this when I zoomed at the photo of Gulida below, and then I realized that Jadiba, Sahra and Wisteria all had white showing their eyes.