I wrote the following the following for Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008), and I will be expanding on it to deal with other aspects of a hujjah over the following days: “Certificates of origin (singular hujjah, plural hujjaj) of horses written in the Arab world follow a clear and uniform pattern that seldom varies. The first part of these certificates is always a more or less extensive religious invocation that includes passages from the Qur’an (the Holy Book of Islam) and quotations of the Hadith (the approved and authenticated collections of the deeds and sayings of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam). In general, the shorter the religious preamble the greater the chance that the by a Bedouin and the greater the probablity that the horse was Bedouin-owned at the time of the sale. Conversely, the longer a greater the likelihood that the certificate is the work of a townsman. There are several reasons for this situation, and at least a few words may be said of these. First, Bedouins tend to be less pious, or at least to have a different kind of piety, than townsfolk. At the time these certificates were being written for Europeans and Americans, Bedouins were still…
The Beirut, Lebanon, race track built in 1910 was a rare piece of Levantine-Florentine architecture that was destroyed in 1982. The Baghdad, Iraq, race track was built in 1920. When the Bagdad racetrack was closed due to political upheavals in Iraq, horse racing in Beirut flourished. Many of the Iraqi racehorse owners began racing their horses in Beirut, where they spent the hot summer months. Iraqi horses began to come to Beirut in the end of the 1940’s. These horses were often from a different type than the desert Syrian horses who until then were a majority at the Beirut racetrack and the Iraqis began to win nearly every race. In 1953, Gilbert Asseily, the well-known journalist in charge of the horse racing section of the French speaking news paper “L’Orient” wrote an article with the title “Why Iraqi horses are beating our horses”, where he said: “these horses are from the progeny of the Anglo Arab “Tabib” and I suggest that they run in separate races”. Of course, nobody took his advice seriously and the Iraqi horse invasion amplified after 1958 when the new Iraqi military leader Abdul Karim Kassem closed the Baghdad racetrack. When in 1987 the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture, followed in 1990 by the Lebanese SPARCA…
The 1981 mare Bucolique (photos below) by the Tunisian stallion Besbes (Esmet Ali x Karaouia by Loubieh) out of Berthe (Irmak x Bassala by Masbout d.b.) is one of the last asil representatives of the highly regarded “B” line of the French government stud of Pompadour. The line traces back in tail female to Wadha, a desert-bred Jilfat al-Dhawi, bred by the Fad’aan and imported by the French government to Algeria in 1875. In France, this line was inaugurated by the importation of the Algerian asil mare Bassala (Masbout d.b. x Saponnaire by El Managhi d.b.) to Pompadour. Bassala produced three remarkable asil daughters: Belle de Jour (by the asil Iricho), Berthe (by the asil Irmak) and Bossa Nova (by Iricho), which Robert Mauvy held in very high regard. I wrote about Bossa Nova here. The second daughter, Belle de Jour in turn produced two daughters by Irmak: the bays Belkis and Bismilah, both of which went to preservation homes, with Jean-Claude Rajot and Adrien Deblaise, respectively. Both Jean-Claude and Adrien bred the line pure for a couple more generations during the 1980s and 1990s. The third Bassala daughter produced two daughters by Besbes: Best and Bucolique. The first one I…
Matthias prompted me to tally the asil tail males in the West, following the series of entries on asil tail females. I just did it, and it was even faster than I expected: 1) Zobeyni, Saqlawi Jadran, imported to Egypt around the 1850s and bred by the Fad’aan (‘Anazah). Update 2023: My recent book, “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha; New Discoveries: The 1860 Abbas Pasha Sale List and Other Original Documents”, published in 2022 by Ansata Publications, showed that this Zobeyni sire line is very possibly a sire line to Abbas Pasha’s senior stallion Ghadir, a Saqlawi Jadran of the Simni strain, not to Zobeyni. 2) Saklawi I, a Saqlawi Jadran bred by Ali Pasha Sharif from original Abbas Pasha stock, likely to trace to other foundation stock of Abbas Pasha, possibly even Zobeyni or Ghadir. 3) Jamil El Kebir, Saqlawi Jadran, imported to Egypt around the 1880s and bred by the Fad’aan (‘Anazah) 4) El Deree, Saqlawi Sha’ifi, imported to Egypt around the 1920s and bred by the Jubur Bedouin tribe. 5) *Deyr, ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, imported to the USA in 1906, from the ‘Anazah. 6) *Muson, Kuhaylan al-Musinn, imported to the USA in 1906, from a line going…
If we add up the numbers of asil tail female in the four previous entries (Egyptian lines, in Europe, in the USA, and in South Africa), and remove the redundancies associated with the Rodania and Ghazieh lines that appear in both Egyptian and non-Egyptian breeding, we end up with 42 asil tail females in the “West”. Note: This number does not include North African, Saudi, Bahraini and Syrian lines which are more or less recent import to Western Countries. Note: There is nothing asil left from the old South American and Australian lines, so our survey of Western lines ends here.
In Keeping with the two previous entries, here are the non-Egyptian asil tail female lines remaining in South Africa today: Kuhaylan 1) Rodania, through Rosina (Saoud x Ruth by Bendigo), Kuhaylah Rudaniyah (branch of K. al-‘Ajuz), imported to the UK in 1881, bred by the Ruwalah (‘Anazah) 2) Freiha al-Hamra, through Barakah, Kuhaylan Mimrihiyah, imported to Egypt in the 1880s, and bred by the Fad’aan (‘Anazah)
I now realize that I’ve never listed tail female asil Arabian lines in the USA in one place before. I want to make up for this omission. As “Straight Egyptian” horses constitute the overwhelming majority of asil Arabians in this country (more than 95%??), I thought I’d list the Straight Egyptian female lines in a later blog entry. Here’s the list, by strain, and you can click on the name of the original mare to learn more about her: Kuhaylan: 1) *Nufoud, Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, imported the USA in 1931, from the House of Saud. 2) *Reshan, Kuhaylah Hayfiyah (branch of al-‘Ajuz), imported to the USA in 1906, bred by the Fad’aan (‘Anazah) 3) Rodania, Kuhaylah Rudaniyah (branch of al-‘Ajuz), imported to the UK in 1881, bred by the Ruwalah (‘Anazah). 4) *Werdi, Kuhaylat al-Krush, imported to the USA in 1906, from a line originally tracing the Sba’ah (‘Anazah). 5) *Turfa, Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, imported to the USA in 1941, from the House of Saud. Saqlawi: 6) Basilisk, Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, imported to the UK in 1879, bred by the Sba’ah (‘Anazah) 7) Kariban, Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, imported to Argentina in 1898, bred by the Ruwalah (‘Anazah) 8- *Urfah, Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd, imported to the USA in 1906, bred…
Recently, I was looking at the list of horses with a line or more to the 1911 Crabbet stallion Nureddin II (Rijm x Narguileh), and a quick look at his offspring led me to believe that there were none left who only traced to Al Khamsa-accepted foundation horses plus Nureddin II. In other words, I thought there were no living descendants of his which, if Nureddin II were ever to be accepted by Al Khamsa, could be added to the Al Khamsa Roster. I was wrong. They may two or three left. Some of the last otherwise Al-Khamsa-eligible Arabians with a line to Nureddin II traced to the ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah mare Laida and those of her descendants who were bred at Anchor Hill Stud, from the tail female of the desert-bred Davenport mare *Abeyah. These no longer have otherwise Al-Khamsa eligible offspring. But there is another line of horses that trace exclusively to Al Khamsa-accepted Arabians plus Nureddin II, and this one might have a handful descendants still living. This is the 1970 mare GC Faseema (Fa-Rousse x Raseema by Indrage out of Kaffa by *Sunshine), a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah tracing in tail female to the desert-bred mare *Reshan. Her grandsire,…
I am pleased to see Thea Isis featured on Edouard’s site and I could not resist offering a few more images of her. The first is of her in a pasture, the second is of Thea Isis in 1983 at Carol Lyon’s farm in the spring with her filly LD Abba Isis sired by the Babson stallion Ibn Mahrouf (Mahrouf x Serr Abba), and the third is a close up of her head from the second photo. I used this close up of Thea Isis’s head in my presentation in Minnesota on desert Arabian type because I wanted newcomers to appreciate how beautiful an Arabian can be with very little hint of a dished face. Note not only the beautiful large dark eye but the harmonious placement of the eye in relation to the ears and the nostrils. These are the “Chorus Girl” eyes that Homer Davenport wrote about. Thea Isis was a timelessly magnificent mare in the same way as the stallion Javera Thadrian also was. I also used his image in my Minnesota presentation because when one sees these images they first see the original magnificence of the traditional Arabian, the timeless look, without my even identifying the…
Nureddin II was born in 1911 at Crabbet Park in the UK. He was reported to have been sired by Rijm out of Narguileh, and thus a full brother to Nasik. He was bought by Roger Selby and exported to the USA in 1933. He was a big horse, measuring a full 16 hands, but again his recorded sire Rijm was just a trifle shorter at 15.3 hands. Nureddin II is not an Al Khamsa horse, even though both of his recorded parents are. It was said that Carl Raswan, the father of purist Arabian horse breeding in the USA, had access to information according to which Nureddin II’s dam Narguileh was bred to an English Thouroughbred stallion at Crabbet and that the resulting foal was Nureddin II. As a result, Nureddin II was not included as “Blue List” in Jane Ott’s Blue Arabian Horse Catalog, on which Raswan was a major influence, and a special “sublist” was created for him and his otherwise “Blue List” descendants: these horses were subsequently known as “sublist Nureddin”. Miss Ott actually encouraged breeders who were interested in preserving Nureddin’s type — which was a key component of the ‘Wentworth Superhorse’ bred at Crabbet…
I am excited because I finally found pictures of two asil mares I had never seen before: the two Kuhaylat al-Hayf sisters Iras (El Alamein x Portia by Tripoli) and HB Octavia (Ibn Alamein x Portia), both bred at Craver Farms and the founders of dynasties of their own within Davenport breeding in the USA. The photo of Iras below is reminiscent of a type of horses which some old-timers in Lebanon and Syria referred to as a “mares [suited] for kings” (faras muluk). I cannot find the words to describe this type, but it is usually associated with very long ears, a thin long neck, and a muzzle with very delicate nostrils, among other features, as well as an overall regal “poise” and expression, in which you could read some disdain for the insignificant human being they made you feel like as well as infinite feminity and kindness. We owned a desert-bred mare of the Rabdan strain from the Tai tribe that looked just like that.
There are basically two groups of Davenport mares of the Habdan strain. One group traces through the Trisarlah daughter Waddarlah, then to Bint Oberon, then to two daughters who bred on: DDA Hadba and DDA Shalaana. Bint Oberon’s third daughter, ACDS Bonne Jour, has had no foals. DDA Hadba (no longer producing) has one daughter, R L Boomerette. R L Boomerette has one daughter (location unknown), and Boomerette is now with with new Davenport breeders Gene and Chris Pluto. There is hope there. DDA Shalaana has two daughters, but they are in non-breeding homes. I am not certain of Shalaana’s status, but I believe she is deceased. The other branch is where you find the mare and filly from the picture: through the other Trisarlah daughter, Letarlah, and through her to two daughters, Antezzah and Jamila Wahid (descent through a third daughter, who was exported to Jordon, is presumed lost to the group). The daughters of Jamila Wahid may well be lost to the group as they are with an elderly breeder, and the future for those horses is quite uncertain (in my opinion). Several of Antezzah’s offspring also went abroad and are presumed lost to the group. One daughter, RL Kadbat Abril is,…
The first lesson I took from from the success of “Davenport” breeding in the USA is connectedness, and I talked about it in an earlier entry. Another lesson is that it’s a nice story that was also nicely told. The history of every single Arabian horse breeding group is equally fascinating: Egyptian Arabians and the splendor of the kings and pashas, Crabbet Arabians and the travels of Lady Anne Blunt against the backdrop of a British Empire at its zenith, etc. The history of the Davenports as a breeding group ranks among the most inspiring of these for several reasons: first and foremost, because of its extraordinary simplicity: one man, Homer Davenport, falls in love with desert-bred Arabian horses at the 1893 Chicago World Fair; he decides to own some of his own, so he jumps on a ship on the first occasion (in 1906), spends a few weeks in Northern Arabia and comes back to the USA with 27 of these coveted horses, but dies shortly after. Yet a hundred years later, the horses are still there, thanks to the foresight and fortitude of a small number of courageous individuals. It is a quintessentially American story of self-made men…
I am a relatively recent addition to the group of North American-based breeders of the Arabian horses known as “Davenport Arabians”, since I bought Wisteria CF in from Charles and Jeanne Craver in 2006. “Davenports” are a very special group of horses descending from the horses imported by Homer Davenport from the Northern Arabian desert in 1906 (some of them also trace to the horses which the Ottoman Empire sent to the 1893 Chicago World Fair). I am very fond of this group horses (and even more so of their ‘inventors’, the Cravers), although I don’t identify as a ‘Davenport breeder’, nor do I think of my horses as ‘Davenport horses’. I’d rather think of Wisteria CF, her daughter Wadha and the other mare I have an interest in, Javera Chelsea, as asil Kuhaylat mares tracing to the war horses of the Bedouin tribes of the Northern Arabian desert. As such, they are the same kind of “Syrian” horses as those my father and I used to own, before I came to the USA in 2000. That said, I think there are some lessons to be learnt from the group of “Davenport breeders” in recent years, i.e., since I have…
The first and only desert-bred Syrian stallion we ever owned. More on him later, as I dig up better photos. This one was taken in 1995 at the farm of Mustafa Jabri in Aleppo, where Dahess was standing at stud. My father is teasing him..
From now on, I will use the term “Pseudo-Arabian” to refer to horses that are registered as Arabians in a WAHO-approved studbook, but are in reality part-bred Arabians with varying amounts of non-Arabian blood running in their veins. They are part-breds in disguise. The Qatari horse Amer (by Wafi x Bushra on paper), the Saudi horse Tiwaiq (by Unknown 1 x Unkown 2 out of Unknown 3, photo below) and a majority of horses of French racing bloodlines such as Djourman (Manguier x Djouranta by Saint Laurent, photo below) fall under this category. They and their offspring are among the most expensive and sought after “Arabian” horses today. Their presence in WAHO-registered studbooks represents a scandal unlike any other in the world of equine breeding, in no small part because they belong to rich and powerful people who can get away with this behavior.
I think I just made a good bargain: a portable Pandigital photo scanner for 90 USD. It scans a photo in seconds, and the resolution, while not perfect, is quite decent. When I was studying in Chicago in 2001, Joe Ferriss offered me a state-of-the-art scanner which I used to scan the photos of the desert-bred Arabians that you see on this blog. Then I broke that scanner in 2004, and I have been using the same photos again and again since. Today, I scanned 76 horse photos in just a few minutes, most of them I took in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Syria, some of them from my trip to Tunisia in 2005 and the rest of France. So get ready for dozens of photos of Syrian desert-bred Arabians, and let me know when you have had enough.
The strain of al-Kray is a branch of Kuhaylan al-Krush and it originates from either the Bedouin tribe of al-‘Ajman or that of Bani Hajar.
I am really looking forward to the forthcoming publication in English of the book of King Abdallah I of Jordan, edited by his great-granddaughter Princess Alia Bint al-Hussein. The book “Jawab al-Sa’el ‘an al-khayl al-asayil” is a short treatise mainly concerned with the physical characteristics of the Arabian horse, and was already published three times in Arabic, and all three editions are now out of print.
When I was in France this summer, I got some hair samples from the desert-bred Shuwayman stallion Mahboub Halab, owned by Jean-Claude Rajot. He is from an old Shammar lineage, and traces to the war mare of Faris al-Jarba. The al-Jarba own the marbat until now. MtDNA from this line will be compared with that of the Tahawi mare Fulla, also a Shuwaymat Sabbah, and with the Shuwayman horses from Bahrain which Jenny Lees owns in the UK. A couple days ago, I received hair samples from the stallion Mokhtar, another desert Shammar stallion of the Krush al-Baida strain, owned by Chantal Chekroun of France. Chantal also sent me some nice photos of old Mokhtar, which I will post here soon. MtDNA from this line will be compared with a number of other lines recognized as Krush, such as that of Dafina in the UK, and El Kahila in Egypt, but also *Werdi in the USA. Finally, Omar Anbarji of Aleppo promised to send hair samples from his stallion Kassar, a Kuhaylan al-Wati also from a famous Shammar marbat, and that will be used for comparison with the Kuhaylan Jellabi line of Makbula (back to Jellabiet Feysul of Abbas Pasha),…
He will remain for ever one of my three favorite Arabian stallions. Nancy Becker is in the photo.
— The grey Kuhaylah Hayfiyah Wisteria CF (Triermain x HB Wadduda by Mariner) was bred back to her sire Triermain CF (Javera Thadrian x Demetria by Lysander) last week at Craver Farms. — The chestnut Javera Chelsea (Thane x HB Diandra by Mariner), also a Hayfiyah, on lease from Doris Park of Iowa, will also be bred to Triermain on the next heat cycle. — So will the chestnut Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir), with Kathy Busch of Missouri, via AI.
I am really intrigued by the Arabian horses of Turkey, for two reasons. First, as a student of Middle Eastern history, I am deeply aware that the area composed of the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and alternativelly known as Bilad al-Sham, Greater Syria, or the Levant (depending on who you talk to), was governed out of two cities during most of the last thousand years: Cairo and Istanbul. Both the Ayubid (1171- 1250) and the Mameluk Sultanates (1250-1516) ruled over this area from the city of Cairo, while the Ottoman Empire’s domination of the same area out of Istanbul lasted from 1516 until 1918. The Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt Mohammad Ali Pasha and his son Ibrahim Pasha also ruled the area from Cairo for a brief period (1832-1840), when they openly challenged the Ottomans’ authority. More recently, Syria and Egypt were also briefly united in one country from 1958 to 1961. If Cairo and Istanbul were the centers of power and prestige, then desert-bred Arabian horses, which are themselves major objects of power and prestige, must have flocked to Cairo and Istanbul in large numbers over this entire period. They were either obtained as gifts, purchases for cavalry remounts or war trophies. While most everybody knows about the fabled Arabian…
The term breed, in my opinion, defines a closed (more or less) poulation within a species. A breed does not neccesarily need a stud book, but this is the way we define our breeds in the western world today. Before the time of using stud books a breed could and was defined by the following parameters: 1) its place of origin (country, region) 2) the existence of a group of breeders 3) purpose for breeding 4) a certain phenotype Not only Arabian horses but all other breeds existing before the beginning of stud book records apply to those 4 categories. Today for (nearly) every breed a standard is fixed by those who keep the stud books. If a stud book is introduced, someone has to decide which horse is registered and which one not. Sometimes a horse is registered in a sublist and her (because that applies mostly to mares) offspring by registered stallions are registered under certain rules, or a horse of a different breed is accepted for reason of breeding progress. The Arabian breed has also been put in studbooks that follow the same principles as all studbooks of different breeds do, except for the fact that Arabians are…
Lovas Nemzet, the Hungarian equine magazine of Laszlo Kiraly, is launching an international horse photo competition (click here for more information) for photos highlighting the bonds between man and horse and links between horse and nature. The deadline for submitted amateur and professional photos has been extended to October 10th, for Daughters of the Wind readers.
Notice the large, round, watery eyes, the dished profile, the prominent jibbah, the delicately shaped, flexible nostrils, the deep jowls, and the perfectly set, arched neck. I firmly believe that sea horses should be allowed to compete in future Arabian horse halter shows.
The Dahman stallion Barakat is the paternal grandsire of three “Straight Egyptian” mares: Folla, Futna and Bint Barakat. The Tahawi family website, maintained by Mohammed son of Mohammed son of Othman son of Abdallah son of Seoud al-Tahawi, has these few lines on Barakat: As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“. Somewhere else on this website, there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.” Now here’s what the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, edited by the late Saudi royal historian Hamad al-Jasir, has to say on these Dahman horses of Ibn Maajil, in the section about a specific descendent of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare known as Al-Khadeem: “The mare, and she is a green [a shade of grey] daughter of the yellow [another shade of grey] Rabdan the horse of al-Dahham, had these foals while in a possession [a list of two foals follows, of which is the second is] a filly whose sire is Duhayman [‘little Dahman’], the stallion of Ibn Rashid, from the horses of Ibn Maajil.” You can find this except on pages 408…
Friday, I will be flying to Atlanta to deliver the opening presentation, jointly with Joe Ferriss, at the Pyramid’s Society’s National Breeders Conference 2010. Check out the announcement and the program here.I just wonder when people will stop referring to me as “younger”, including at work. I have been at my current job as an economist at the World Bank for ten years now, give or take, and, in business meetings, whenever a foreign government official asks for a cup of coffee, all looks still converge towards me.
I am back in the USA after a monthlong break with the family, during which I managed to keep my promise to take a brake from writing. New themes and ideas are bouncing all over my head. Thanks to all the readeers who kept checking on this blog and reading earlier entries, and a big thank you to Ambar who held the fort during my absence.
We had a brisk discussion in the comments of an earlier posting about whether the leg faults apparent in the photograph were actually characteristic of the subject. While we did touch on age and injury, I wanted to point out another way in which photos can misrepresent a horse. Herewith, two photos of a nine-year-old Davenport stallion, HF Shaton (Wotan x Chiffon CF, Hamdani Simri): Same photographer (Anita Enander), same equipment, taken within a minute of each other. But see how a tiny change in the viewing angle stretches out the middle of the body, narrows the neck and shortens the hip? The effect can be even more exaggerated with the wide-angle lens in consumer cameras. This is not to say that we should not discuss or judge horses from photographs, but a healthy awareness of the limitations of the medium helps. How else can we reconcile *Wadduda’s reputation as a great beauty with the rather indifferent images we have of her?
Another major piece of history I fell upon while reading through the Seoud al-Tahawi family website is this hujjah of “Dahman Abdallah Seoud”, the sire of the stallions Barakat and Soniour, and the great-grandsire of the three Tahawi mares of Hamdan Stables in Egypt: Fulla, Futna, and Bint Barakat. Here is my rough translation, with a more refined translation to follow, as well a transliteration of the Arabic in latin script so that readers of Arabic can double-check the translation: We testify by God and by his Prophet that the metallic grey horse which is five years of age, and which was bought by Sheykh Abdallah Abu Seoud al-Tahawi al-Hindawi is Dahman ‘Amer; his dam is the Dahmah ‘Amer from the horses of Jarallah Ibn Tuwayrish of the Arabs of Gomussah, and his sire is the Saqlawi Jadran from the horses of Ibn Zubaynah of the Sba’ah; and that the aforementioned horse, the Dahman, is well authenticated [mathbut], and well known [mashhur], to be mated [hadudah] with all the asil mares, there is not the shade of a doubt about him [ma fihi laww qat’iyah abadan], and he is protected [muhaffadh] at Muhammad Na’san Agha ibn Ahmad Agha al-Barazi, and for…
I think I just made a remarkable discovery from the website of the Tahawi clan in Egypt (eltahawysaoud.com): a scanned copy of the original hujjah (Arabic authentication document) of three horses acquired by the Tahawi Bedouins of Egypt from the Sba’ah tribe. Below is the scanned copy of the hujjah in Arabic, and my own translation of it — a rough and dirty translation for now: In the Name of God the Most Merciful and Compassionate To his Excelleny the Honorable Sheykh Faysal Bey al-Abdallah al-Saud [al-Tahawi] I testify by God and his Prophet that the two grey horses, the first of which is aged two and a half years, and which is with Husayn Hilal, are [both] Duhm [plural of Dahman] al-‘Amiri, of the horses of Jarallah Ibn al-Tuwayrish from the Arabs of Sba’ah from the tribal section of Saheem, and the sire of one of them is Kuhaylan al-Kharas, and the sire of the other one is Kuhaylan al-Tamri of the horses of the Sba’ah; and I testify by God and by Muhammad the Prophet of God that they are protected [muhaffadhat] and free of impurities; And concerning the bay ‘Ubayyah mare, which has a foal by a her…
Tzviah Idan just sent me this except from a book she found on Google Books: “Customs and Traditions of Palestine Illustrating the manners of the Ancient Hebrews” by Ermerte Pierotti, who’s presented as “former architect engineer, civil and military to his excellency Surraya Pasha of Jerusalem”. The book was published in London in 1864. Surraya Pasha was the Ottoman Wali (Governor) of Jerusalem. The except is a testimony about Bedouin horses in 19th century Palestine.
Back in 2001, I had put forward the hypothesis that a Saqlawi Sh’aifi stallion bred by a Bedouin of the Sb’aah tribe, and sold to Egypt by Ahmad Ibish was the same horse as Aiglon, the sire of the Egyptian mare *Exochorda (Leila II). I also wrote to Miss Ott about it. I had used information contained in the hujjah of the stallion known in Lebanon as Krush Halba (b. 1921) and in Turkey as Kuru, who was a son of this Saqlawi Sh’aifi, to formulate this hypothesis. This hujjah can be found here (scroll down to approx. the middle of the page). I was wrong. My hypothesis was based on the common ownership of these two horses by Ahmad Ibish, but the dates don’t match, so the two horses cannot possibly be one and the same. Kuru was born in the Syrian desert in 1921, so that Saqlawi Sh’aifi must have bred his dam in 1920, in the desert too, as the analysis of the hujjah suggest. Meanwhile, in 1920/21, the stallion Aiglon was in Egypt, where he sired the mare Exchorda who was born in 1922. I am sorry it took me so long to correct this, but I confess I had completely forgotten about…
Mustafa heard this story from ‘Anazah Bedouins, and graciously accepted to let me publish my translation of it; you can also find these stories in Arabic and soon in English, on the website: al-Khuyul al-‘Arabiyah al-Asilah, on Facebook: “Kuhaylat al-Musinnah is originally a Kuhaylah Khdiliyah, in reference to the clan of al-Khdilaat of the Fad’aan tribe of ‘Anazah; some clan members were once safely sitting in their tents, when suddenly one of their mares broke loose and started running around, knocking the ground with her foreleg; then she leaned down and put her ear on the ground, then she rose and ran up to a nearby hill; then she came down and went on to repeat the same actions all over again; the mare’s owner realized something unusual was going on across the hill, and upon checking, he and his fellow tribesmen saw enemies trying to make their way to the came and take its people by surprise; they prepared themselves for a fight and were eventually able to repell the attack thanks to the mare. The mare was henceforth known as “al-Musinnah”, because in the Bedouin dialect of Arabic the verb ‘sanna’ means ‘to listen’, and al-Musinnah means ‘she…
These two were sent to me by Jeanne Craver, and come from the Nyla Eshelman photo collection. *El Abiad, by Karawane, by Ghazwane, by Krush Halba, was imported by W.R. Hearst to the USA in 1947, and left no modern asil descendants here.
Robin Weeks is spoiling me with photos of horses she owned, which happen to be horses I like a lot, and I am on a roll. Here’s a couple of pictures of the Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah mare Soiree (Sir x Sirrulya by Julyan) in old age. She was bred by Jeanne Craver, and later owned by Robin Weeks. A favorite mare of mine, as you can tell from the several blog entries about this family. By now I think it’s time I shared with you the news that I am working with Kathy Busch of Kansas City, MO, on leasing a 25 year old chestnut daughter of Soiree which she owns. Her name is Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir), she was also bred by Jeanne Craver, and she is all I am thinking about these days. She’s been treated at the vet clinic recently for a minor uterus infection, and she’ll be ready to be bred over the next couple weeks via artificial insemination. I am still looking for the right stallion for her, with ‘right’ in this case including ‘ready to collect from and ship’ in addition to the other meaning it has for me. By the way,…
Photo taken when the horse was more than 30 years old, and covered with scars from battles. Gleaned off the internet. Not sure in which book, magazine or article it was originally taken from. This is how the horses of Arab kings looked like, not like these show….. well, you know what I am going to say here.
If you happen to have a complete set of the Khamsat magazines and would like to part for it (but why would you!?), please let me know. I will buy it from you.
*Haleb: As the flagship of the importation, *Haleb was bestowed the honor of being named after Aleppo (in Arabic, Halab), the city where Davenport’s quest began, and around which his desert trip was organized. *Reshan: Oddly enough, the grey Kuhaylah Hayfiyah whose tail female is the most predominant in Davenport breeding today bears a male horse’s name. She was apparently named after a stallion of the Rishan (hence, Reshan) Shar’abi strain, to which she was bred when Davenport first saw her in Aleppo. Reshan’s hujjah mentions her being bred to that horse. One may picture a conversation going on in Arabic around the mare, in Davenport’s presence, where her breeding to that stallion was being discussed. One can imagine Davenport trying to pick up some words from the conversation, and the word “Rishan” sticking in his mind. *Hamrah: this young colt has a female’s name, as hamrah means bay in the feminine, in Arabic; he was probably referred to as ‘the son of the bay mare’ during the trip, ‘ibn al-faras al-hamrah’, and the word hamrah stuck in Davenport’s head. *Muson, *Hadba, *El Bulad, *Simri, *Enzahi and *Abeyah: They were was named after their strain, Kuhaylan al-Musinn, Hadban (Enzahi), Jilfan Sattam…
Did you ever wonder how early Arabian horse breeders such as the Blunts and Homer Davenport chose names for their original desert imports? I sometimes do, and in the process of doing so, I find many original details about these horses and the circumstances of their acquisition coming back to life. The names of the Blunt’s desert imports fall in three readily recognizable categories: Some of the earliest imports were named after plants and animals, reflecting the Blunt’s interest in botany and zoology, and probably bringing back memories of their day-to-day lives during their desert journeys: Wild Thyme, Tamarisk, Basilisk, Francolin (a bird), Jerboa, Canora (another bird), Purple Stock (a flower), and Damask Rose. Other names clearly fell into the mythological Biblical register: Queen of Sheba, Pharaoh, Hagar, Lady Hester (Dajania’s original name), Babylonia, and Burning Bush, whose early name was Zenobia. The third group consisting mainly of later desert imports were named after their strains and substrains: Rodania, Zefifia (a branch of the Kubayshan strain), Dahma, Jedrania, Jilfa, Hadban, Abeyan and Dajania (whose earlier name was Lady Hester). The names of the other desert imports do not seem to follow a distinctive pattern: Meshura (famous, in Arabic) seems to…
Jenny Krieg just send me the link to this amazing photo collection. Here is the intro text, from the website of the US library of Congress: “This monumental collection portrays the Ottoman Empire during the reign of one of its last sultans, Abdul-Hamid II. The 1,819 photographs in 51 large-format albums date from about 1880 to 1893. They highlight the modernization of numerous aspects of the Ottoman Empire, featuring images of educational facilities and students; well-equipped army and navy personnel and facilities; technologically advanced lifesaving and fire fighting brigades; factories; mines; harbors; hospitals; and government buildings. Most of the places depicted are within the boundaries of modern-day Turkey, but buildings and sites in Iraq, Lebanon, Greece and other countries are also included.” When you check the link out, try the keyword “horses” in the search box and see what that yields.. Below is one of the photos from this search:
This is not so good photo of what is certainly a very nice colt. This young fellow was bred by Pam Baker of South Carolina. He is the result of breeding the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Salil Ibn Iliad, who traces in tail female to the mare *Nufoud of the Saudi royal stables, to the mare Atah Saqlawiyah, actually a Hamdaniyah by strain, tracing back to *Galfia of the Hamidie Society importation of the USA in 1893. Salil Ibn Iliad, one of the few asil stallions in the USA not to carry Blunt bloodlines, is owned by Lesley Detweiler and is standing at stud at Pam Baker’s. Atah Saqlawiyah was bred by Jackson Hensley of New Mexico and carries a rare line to the precious Saqlawi al-Abd stallion Zarlan (Mistlany x Zarieha by Kahar), a product of Jane Ott’s Blue List program. This colt, which is in my eyes illustrates Combined Source – for lack of a better term – breeding at its best, is looking for a new home.
The Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse recently set up a preservation program for the rare and valuable lines of Al Khamsa Arabian horses in danger of extinction. The program encourages breeders who happen to own horses from such lines and who are not in a position to either sustain these horses or otherwise breed them within the group of Arabian horses recognized as Al Khamsa, to donate or lease the horses to the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse. The Institute then endeavors to breed these horses and eventually place them or their offspring in a preservation program. So far two mares from the rare and precious Hamdani Simri strain tracing to the desert-bred mare *Samirah of royal House of Saud breeding have been placed in this program. These are ASF Ubeidiya (ASF Ezra x ASF Eudia by ASF David) and her daughter Jadah Kerasun (by ASF Raphael). Both mares carry rare lines to early Al Khamsa Foundation Horses such as *El Bulad, *Nufoud, *Nedjran, *Farha as well as some of the very last lines to other Foundation Horses such as Mameluke, Kesia I and Kesia II. Anita Enander, who is the Institute’s President has more about this program, which…
Reader Diane, from Australia, on the quest for standardized perfection and the resulting uniformity of type in Arabian breeding today, had this precious comment, in one of the recent threads on this site: Western people, it appears, have a problem accepting an individual [Arabian horse] that isn’t quite absolute PERFECTION. This is what the Standard is advocating. The individual asil is not necessarily perfection in itself but is perfect for what it should be able to do per its original parameters / breeder/user requirements. Who are we, as westerners, to change this? Westerners need to learn that it’s not about perfection but what is functional.
Earlier this month, this little website reached it’s 50,000th unique visitor and hit the milestone 1,000,000 clicks a few days later, over the 30 months of its short life. In terms of comparative rankings, Daughters of the Wind now ranks in the top 250,000 websites in the USA, and in the top one million websites worldwide, up from somewhere in the top 22 millions when it first started. Its readership grew by 360% over the last three months, and now averages 500 daily unique visitors . Not bad for a start-up, solely focused on such a specific and tiny segment of interest: animals, not any animals, horses, not any horses, arabians, not any arabians, asil arabians, not any asil arabians, rare and little known lines. You can check these stats by visiting websites like alexa.com, which rank other websites in terms of traffic. Just write daughterofthewind.org in the Search box.
One more issue of Joe’s inisghftul articles about Egyptian foundation horses in the Arabian Essence magazine, this time about the matriarch El Dahma of Ali Pasha Sharif, her ever growing worldwide influence through some of her most famous descendents. Joe, in the spirit of discussing your article here, I am intrigued about your statement on ”the rule book standard of an ideal Arabian horse”. I am sure you are not talking about how you personally view these horses, but rather about how the lay Western eye tends to see them — and in that case, indeed I would entirely agree with you. It is thrice disheartening to realize that (a) that such a rule book standard even exists in the Western eye; (b) that a single group of horses — the descendents of El Dahma — is generally perceived as embodying it ; (c) to see the extent to which the Western eye has succeeded in defining what an Arabian horse ‘ought to’ look like. In the 1980s, the late Edward Said, of Columbia University, and one of the most influential Arab intellectuals of his generation, developed the concept of “Orientalism’: a theoretical construct with practical applications, referring to the West’s produding its own knowledge about the…
You really need to visit this website: http://www.akhalteke.info/. I am serious. Start with the introduction, and go through the history and purity chapters, then the rest. The ‘politics’ chapter is also interesting. It has nothing to do with Arabians, but is instead about this famous other eastern horse, the Akhal Teke. Except that, unlike most websites on the Akhal Teke, it methodically and relentlessly deconstructs all the myths and folklore surrounding the origins of the Akhal Teke (e.g. that it is the oldest ‘pure’ breed in the world, that it is the horse of the Scythian tribes of 3000 B.C., that is was kept unmixed with foreign blood in remote desert areas, etc, etc). It tells you the REAL story of the breed, about how the breed was managed (or rather, mismanaged) by the Soviets, who cross-bred it with English Thoroughbreds, and kept valuables lines outside the formal Akhal Teke Studbook. It puts informed criticism and hard facts before romanticized mythology and brand marketing. It is simply impressive. It’s the most impressive bofy of information I have ever come across online, all horse breeds considered.
This is just a quick note to acknowledge all the private email messages that I have been getting from many readers over the past couple weeks, without having had the chance to respond them. I am getting anywhere between 10 to 12 emails from readers every day, most of which are solid and substantive, and hence require a good deal of thinking. I apologize for not having replied to many of these recently, as it is crunch time at work, and my horse ‘focus time’ will be limited until June 30th.
The word ‘kadish’ (feminine kadishah, plural kudsh) is one you will hear often if you become involved in Arabian horses in their native land, the Middle East. I for one, encountered it very early on in my life. I would be on a visit to a horse farm with my father, and we’d be looking at the mare herd that was roaming freely in large enclosed courtyards or open pastures, and learning about their elaborate origins and pedigrees (‘this one is a Saqlawiyah from this tribe, this one a Hamdaniyah from that clan’, and so on), when a wretched-looking horse typically kept in a separate enclosure would draw my attention, perhaps exactly because he was being left apart: ‘And what about this one?’ I would naively ask our host. “Oh, this one is just a kadish, we use him to pull the cart”, would be the usual answer, often uttered in a dismissive tone, as if discussing the ‘kadish’ further was a distraction from the more interesting conversation about the other horses. The less people talked about these ‘kadish’, the more the curiosity of the ten year old I was back then was aroused. On the way back from these visits, I…
One topic that keeps popping up on this blog is the culturally-rooted Arab notion of authenticity and purity in Arabian horses: the notion of an ‘asil’ Arabian. I have been trying to look at this notion from a number of different lenses, and have written about it on several occasions (click here for one such instance). I find myself continuing to grapple with this notion and my thinking about it keeps evolving. One way to understand this notion of an asil Arabian is to look at some of conceptually related notions, in particular the notions of ‘hajin’ and ‘kadish’. This entry focuses on ‘hajin’, and leaves the altogether different notion of ‘kadish’ for a later time. Understanding what ‘hajin’ means may help to better understand the notion of asil. So what’s a ‘hajin’ horse, according to Bedouins and other Middle Eastern Arabs involved in Arabian horse breeding? Simply put, a hajin (pronounce it hah-JEEN) is a horse of foreign, non-Arab blood, such as the English Thoroughbred, Kurdish, Turkmen or Barb horses. There is also an Arabic verb for this notion of hajin: Hajjana. ‘Hajjana al-khayl’, when speaking of a person, is the deliberate act of mixing or interbreeding one’s asil…
From left to right: Lirac HD (Shiraz CF x Bint Meringue), ADA Selene (Ascendant x Petit Point CF), Celestia (Cantador x Laikah, non-asil). Here’s a Youtube link to about a minute and a half of these three fillies rocketing around on a beautiful May morning.
The Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Basilisk is perhaps one of the best known mares imported by Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt from the desert. The line produced important horses early on such as the stallions Berk (Seyal x Bukra, out of Bozra, out of Basilisk) and Ibn Mahruss (Mahruss x Bushra, out of Bozra, out of Basilik). Thanks for the efforts and foresight of Carl Raswan and Richard Priztlaff, the Saqlawi Jadran tail female line to Basilisk survives in US asil breeding through the mare Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by Nasr) and her progeny. This line thrived during the second half of the twentieth century, and acquired a certain degree of notoriety, but has been dwindling steadily during the past ten years, as many breeders stopping breeding their mares. What most people are not aware of, is that there is another asil line to Basilisk in American breeding. It’s fleeting but it’s still there, miraculously. That’s the line of Basilisk through the mare Slipper (Yima x Sabot by *Euphrates), and her daughter Peraga (by *Mirage), both foundation mares in early American breeding (both asil and non asil). If you like to learn more about this line, you may want to read Michael Bowling’s article…
Blog reader Francois Julien, from France, sent me a link to a photo album about equine photographer Bob Langrish’s visit to Iran in 2007. The album has nice photos of Iranian bred horses of various breeds, including Arabians (called Asil in Iran), Kurdish, Turkmen and other local breeds of horses. Check it out by clicking here.
From reader Monique in the Netherlands comes this picture of the impressive dark bay Hamdani Simri stallion Monar (Kheibar x Aaghigh by Haddad). Click here for his pedigree, which is unusually long and detailed from an Arabian from the Middle East. Below is also a picture, also from allbreedpedigree.com, of his very typey great-grandsire Arras, an Ubayyan Sharrak, with Mary Gharagozlu up.
I got my copy of the Khamsat magazine in the mail two days ago. Articles by Jeanne Craver, Joe Ferriss and RJ Cadranell on rare asil lines of yesterday and today, plus a primer on genetics and color inheritance by Michael Bowling, and much more. I waited till everyone was asleep and locked myself down in the basement to read it..
[This article, first published on April 16th, 2010, was just updated and expanded, and is being reposted now] The inquiry on the “Davenport Arabian” hujaj begins with *Urfah, who is present in the pedigree of our “case study” mare Jauhar El-Khala 75 times. My own Wisteria has a 151 crosses to *Urfah, and her newborn daughter Wadhah traces to *Urfah a stunning 219 times (!) Click here for what the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians III has to say about *Urfah. Most of the information is essentially extracted from the hujjah itself, a translation of which is below (translation mine, adapted from the version I did for Al Khamsa Arabians III in 2005, which was a word-to-word translation): “I, Dhidan, testify by God that she came from [the clan of ] ‘Abdah from the tribe of Shammar; they [i.e, the clan of ‘Abdah] testified to my father Jar Allah al-‘Awaji, the father of Dhidan al-‘Awaji; they testified to my father that she is the Saqlawiah from the horses of al-‘Abd; I testify by God on the testimony of my father that she is Saqlawiah from the horses of al-‘Abd; I swear by God, I o Dhidan al-‘Awaji that she is Saqlawiah al-‘Abd; she is to…
In tribute to one of the best stallions in America, the stallion Joe Ferriss says ‘comes out of a 19th century engraving’ … and the sire of my little Wadha (and grandsire of her dam Wisteria). Javera Thadrian, a 1982 asil Kuhaylan Haifi stallion. Photo taken by either Charles Craver or Anita Westfall (photographer supreme).
I just saw this nice photo of Michael Bowlings’ black mare Almohada, a Hamdaniyah Simriyah of ‘Davenport’ bloodlines. I don’t know where the black gene in ‘Davenport’ horses comes from, but I will make I ask Michael next time I talk . Ambar Diaz tells me this mare has a really nice 2009 colt.