General

Today marks the 5th anniversary of Daughters of the Wind, and the 5th anniversary of my daughter Samarcande who inspired this website. She is now a young lady, a future champion swimmer and horse-back rider. She also loves ice cream.. I realize I have been less active than in previous years; this is partly because … Read more

This is what winter looks like in Northern California. And this is what a 19yo Davenport mare looks like when training a young eventer (note stirrups crossed over withers). Bruce Peek will immediately note the reach of her inside hind. 🙂 Blessings of the new year to you all — Ambar

Jose Manuel from Spain sent me this nice note: “I am a follower of your blog and I would like to tell you thanks so much for your wisdom about the arabian horse and the Bedouins because they go together. following your suggestions I saw the stallion Najm Yarob in abrash krush stud  near Madrid( … Read more

Photo from the Davenport Project on Facebook. This was the benchmark for an Arabian stallion, by the way. Today’s beauty champion winners belong to another race, a distant descendant from the original one. They are post-Arabians, and it is time to recognize this fact.

I have one thing to say to those Arabian horse breeders around the world who cheated by replacing a mare with another, and registering the progeny of the second mare as being from first: with mtDNA scientific progress on your doorsteps and the genetic tracing of female lines, you are doomed.  You, your horses and … Read more

Something needs to be done for the Syrian Arabian horses in the Aleppo area, fast. The price of fodder has been multiplied by ten, and horses from solid studs are starving. Some of us are trying to think of long term solutions, fast. A question here: it is currently difficult to get export papers from … Read more

I am stuck in the Frankfurt airport on my way to Cairo (again) because of a snowstorm, and was reading this future studies article on what the Middle East will be looking like fifty years from now.  The scenarios outlined are quite grim. Most of them involve a combination of large-scale and extended droughts, environmental degradation … Read more

Jamal Pasha, known as al-Saffah (“The Blood Shedder”) was governor of the Ottoman Vilayet of Syria just before World War I. He is shown here surrounded by the Shaykhs of Iraqi Bedouin tribes, celebrating the completion of the al-Hindya dam on the Euphrates river near al-Hilla, south of Baghdad. Photo from Wikipedia.

I had never seen this one of him. From the Davenport Project on Facebook. Titled: “Muson at the New Jersey State Fair, 1907”  

I have just returned from an exhausting trip to Cairo, Egypt, and will be back on Daughters of the Wind soon.  Sorry for the prolonged absence.

This facebook website pictures some of the widespread desctruction that befell several historical sites and old cities in Syria. “Like it” or rather, dislike it..

I am quoting this passage of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s “My Diaries, being a personal narrative of events, 1888-1914” about his visit to the stud of the Ottoman Sultan in 1893, page 126: “In the evening we drove to the Sweet Waters and were shown the Sultan’s mares. There were, I believe, about 150 of them, … Read more

I am going to start a new series on this blog on “ten myths about Egyptian pedigrees”. Stay tuned.    

Recently I reactivated my “Daughters of the Wind” page on Facebook. Everything I post here will show there, and so will the comments you post here. One basic rule I learned from the social media types at my work is that, if you want to reach more people, you’d better go where they already are … Read more

Read it here.

Just like “code is poetry” to the WordPress blogging community, to me the way sires and dams, strains and names, tail males and tail females combine to make a pedigree come to life feels like the rhymes and rythm of verses in a poem. Bad pedigrees are like bad poems, I cannot read them without cringing. A … Read more

Lisa is asking how well Davenport and Part Davenport Arabians do in high level endurance racing. Does anyone have numbers, facts, etc to share?

I went to see Jadiba and her foal on a rainy day couple weeks ago, and all I could back with were a few head shots of which this is one, against an unflattering background.

Take a preview of the 2015 Arabian Horse World Championships, and get your snorkels and wet suits ready if you don’t want to miss them. Notice the “ultra-refined” head, “exotic” arched neck, the “classic” dished profile, and the “extreme” muzzle of this young competitor. The eyes would have looked bigger if the makeup wasn’t wiped … Read more

From the archives of the Institut Francais du Proche-Orient in Damascus

I found an interesting online database of Arabian horse pedigrees, which includes “all Arabians bred by Wilfred Blunt, Lady Anne Blunt, Lady Wentworth, Cecil Covey between 1878 – 1971”. It seems serious, and is perhaps based on access to the Blunts’ various studbooks. I am going to use it.  

Someone Marie Arthur posted this picture on Facebook of the Kuhaylah Hayifyah Davenport mare EK Asiirah UF (Portico x Astranah by Astrologer) bred by Joyce Gregorian, and it struck me. I really like this mare. I even like her one obvious defect: a shorter and thicker neck, which is/was the case with  many many desert bred … Read more

Have those of you who live in the Mid-West and South of the USA vaccinated your horses against the West Nile virus? Soon I will be needing a vaccine for the East Nile virus, which is a good virus to catch 🙂

This is true and an important point Edouard in looking to the future options of diversity. The Egyptian horse has long benefited from the influence of the Astraled sons: Sotamm (Astraled x Selima), Rustem (Astraled x Ridaa), and Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare) as well as the Berk son Hamran (Berk x Hamasa). All of these … Read more

Guillaume Lambert has published excerpts of a precious 1866 letter from Emir Abd al-Qader al-Jazairi to French Army General Eugene Daumas  about the asil Arabian Horse and its living conditions of French USCAR website . It is in French but worth translating through Google Translate and reading. Guillaume thinks this letter was probably the last one between the two … Read more

I wrote this entry mostly for myself, for the record: I was finally able to retrace the whereabouts of my mare Jadiba from the time she was born until she ended up in my ownership, thanks to information from Shirin Samiljan, Charlotte Newell, Carrie Slayton, Pam Studebaker and Jill Erisman. — She is registered as … Read more

I am fascinated with Arabic etymology, and in particular by Arabic words with roots in other languages, as well as by words in other languages with Arabic roots. Here’s a nice blog on the topic. Some entries requires knowledge of the Arabic language but not all.

A number of rare mares of old American lines have recently been brought to the attention of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task  Force which I part of; the mares’ owners are either looking for people willing to take on preservation projects, or simply asking the task force about the right stallions for their mares; One … Read more

My heart is bleeding every day with what is going on in Syria, and Aleppo and Homs in particular, where I spent the nicest childhood and teenage days. Ever since things have started taking an uglier turn over the past months, I have lost all sense of joy and laughter, and I now find that life … Read more

While Edouard is preparing to return home, I thought it would be fun to post a few images. Being a visual person, I so often see common features among unrelated bloodlines that I thought it would be fun to post these two sets of comparisons. The first is the Davenport bred chestnut stallion Plantagenet, born … Read more

I saw this pretty 16 year old desert-bred Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah mare during my visit to the Tahawis last weekend. She belongs to Mrs Helga, the wife of Sh. Sulayman al-Tahawi. She is perfect. She is one of the tribal mares the Tahawis are trying to register with the EAO. I always forget if her name is … Read more

Monica Respet and Linda Uhrich — both great friends and amazing persons — took a day trip to see my Jadiba and her new colt Jamr, and they sent me this picture. Monica painstakingly uploaded and emailed me 36 pictures of mother and son.

Friday July 13, Jadiba delivered a chestnut colt by Vice Regent CF, while I was in the Nile delta area visiting the Tahawis. She is doing well, and so is the foal. I am told he has a large blaze and two diagonal white socks and a hot temper. I am happy all went well, … Read more

Page 133, where he discusses big race-horse stables at the Beirut racetrack: “Walking on the footsteps of H.R.H. Prince Mansour [son of King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, and the owner of a large stable at the Beirut racetrack] is his brother H.R.H. Prince Badr ibn Saud, who launched his own stables in Beirut, which brought together a nucleus of … Read more

Anthesis CF (Plantagenet x Meringue by Sir Marchen), now 30, is one of the nicest asil mares of Davenport lines alive today, in my opinion. She has produced a string of very special horses including Firebolt by Clarion CF, Lexington CF by Regatta CF, Fragrance CF and Chancery CF by Regency CF, and others.

I feel so very lucky that Mohammad Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawy and Yasser Ghanim al-Tahawy gifted me a xeroxed copy of the book of Ali al-Barazi on Arabian horses, which I had lost several years ago. That book revives bits and pieces of Northern Arabian Bedouin oral history which had died with the passing away of the old story … Read more

Full sister of Bint al-Barra above, Cinnabar Myst (ASF David x Mystalla) was bred to Clarion CF (Regency x Chinoiserie) last week. Also on lease from Trish Stockhecke.

And this is Bint al-Barra (ASF David x Mystalla), the Kuhaylat al-Krush which I leased from Trish Stockhecke of Canada.Photo by the same talented photogpapher.