Do you visit Ralph Suarez’s blog? I think you ought to.
The readership of Daughter of the Wind keeps growing. Yesterday it reached the 100,000 clicks milestone. Sometimes I struggle to keep up with the flow of queries, comments, and new topics for blogging that readers address to me through the website or by way of email. Yet, sometimes I feel that the blog’s focus on pedigrees, strains, and concepts is too narrow, and perhaps a bit too “intellectual”. In the spirit of broadening the blog’s focus to address general issues of interest to the global Asil Arabian horse community, and reach out to a new generation of Asil Arabian breeders and enthusiasts, I have asked a number of friends to contribute to Daughter of the Wind as regular bloggers. They will bring a new perspective to breeding and understanding Asil Arabians in their native land (Arabia) and in their countries of adoption (the rest of the world). Their ideas will complement the valuable contributions of Joe Ferriss, Joe Achcar, R.J. Cadranell, and other guest-bloggers to come. I am glad that Jean (Ambar) Diaz has agreed to be a (more or less) regular blogger on Daughter of the Wind. Ambar acquired her first Asil Arabian, Petit Point CF, in 1999. Since then, she’s completed a BS…
Looks like some of my last posts (here, and here) have really (like, really) angered a particular category of people: cynical French breeders who make big money out of breeding and selling “pseudo-Arabian” racehorses. They are now fully mobilized and want to launch a campaign to defend their horses by the next WAHO conference. Some even stand ready to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares pointing a accusatory finger at their horses. Poor them. They think they are victims of another campaign to kick their horses out of WAHO – now that they have recovered from the Manganate controversy that erupted at the 1974 WAHO conference in Sweden. Don’t worry, cynical French breeders of “pseudo-Arabians”. There is nothing to be scared of. Your livelihood will not be threatened, and your financial interests are safe. WAHO will certainly keep you in its fold. Its circular, hopelessly tautological definition protects your horses: “A pure-bred Arabian horse is one which appears in any pure-bred Arabian Stud Book or Register listed by WAHO as acceptable”. That’s bullet-proof. My two posts – and the others to follow 🙂 – are not an attempt to throw French pseudo-Arabians out of WAHO, this low-ceiling benchmark of purity.…
This little known importation is the earliest ever made to the United States. Between 1851 and 1856, Keene Richards took two trips to the Arabian desert, visiting virtually every region of North Africa and the Middle East. He came back with several horses, of which the stallions Massoud, Faysul, Mokhladi (no doubt a Mukhallad, the same rare strain as the French desert import Merjane) and Sacklowie. He left an account of his travels, edited by Thornton Chard, who also wrote this article about the importation. Sadly, the US Civil War broke out and completely destroyed what were extremely promising seeds of early USA Asil Arabian breeding.
The number of clicks on the “Daughter of the Wind” blog as of 3.30 pm on Monday, September 22nd, less than 9 months into its launch. Even I am surprised by the magnitude of the phenomenon. What is as interesting is the number of separate users: 4,971 so far, which means that the average number of pages viewed is 14 pages per reader…
… Mukalla, the capital of Hadhramut, in eastern Yemen, is not quite the place where you can stroll around in a swimsuit, but is a most interesting town nonetheless. Historically, it linked Arabia with east Africa, India and Indonesia (where a diaspora of more than 4 million Hadramis thrives), and was the main port for the exportation of myrrh, frankincense, and arabic gum, and the importation of precious wood, spices and slaves. Today, it’s a diving spot, and a good place to eat lobster (although not quite like Maine 😉 Check out this blog about Hadhramut, you’ll like it.
Due to increasing requests from Daughter of the Wind readers, a number of entries will be published in French from time to time. English speaking readers will be able to access them through online translation softwares, however imperfect these tools are. Somewhere down the road, I will need to rely on someone’s help to translate some posts to German, which constitutes a growing part of the readership..
The gorgeous Bint Nafaa was born in Egypt in 1962, and bred by Ahmed Hamza’s Hamdan Stables, yet she does not have the “Straight Egyptian” label. The Pyramid Society, who coined the “definition” of a Straight Egyptian and Egyptian breds, does not accept El Gadaa, Nafaa’s sire, as a Straight Egpytian. El Gadaa was a racehorse, who stood at Hamdan stables for a while and was bred by Miqhim ibn Mahayd, the Shaykh of the Bedouin Fad’aan tribe. Egyptian records have him as being by El Sabaa, also a racehorse, out of a Ma’naghiyah of Ibn Mhayd. Fine. But many questions remain unanswered. Did Miqhim race Arabian horses in Egypt? or did he sell the horse to a racehorse owner? did he own El Gadaa’s sire El Sabaa? where was El Gadaa bred, in Egypt, or in the desert? I know Miqhim ibn Mahayd left Syria sometimes in the 1950s (will get back to you with the exact date) after a series of problems with the Syrian regime, and moved to Saudi Arabia, where he received royal treatment from the King – himself a fellow Anazeh tribesman, who incidentally bred Bint Nafaa’s dam Nafaa, a desertbred Kuhaylah (so marbat) by a ‘Ubayyan al-Suyayfi – a strain that branched off ‘Ubayyan al-Hunaydees. I know Miqhim kept a…
The 2008 Al Khamsa Convention is taking place in Tulsa, Oklahoma from October the 23rd until the 26th. Check out the schedule here. I plan on being there.
I just realized that a good deal of the content on the “Daughter of the Wind” blog has been “hijacked” by another blogger who has posted it on his blog, “Banu Sanhadja Arabs” (here). I have chosen to take it as an additional proof to the success of “Daughter of the Wind”, six months into its launch, and will wish the “hijacker” good luck with his endeavor. Just wanted to let the readers of “Daughter of Wind” know that I am not associated in any way with the author of this other blog, who writes under the pseudonym of Abu Uwais al-Maghribi, even if my name appears on it. [Sept 2 Update: The posts “borrowed” from “Daughter of the Wind” have been removed from the blog “Banu Sanhadja Arabs”. Thank you, Abu Uwais]
Yesterday was a painful first work day after five weeks away from Washington. It’s pouring rain outside, and a quick glance at my office window makes my PC screen – where unread emails are piling up – a pleasure to stare at. Oh well… But I am back to blogging, and boy does that feel good.
Tomorrow I will be taking my family to Europe for vacation, and I will be back in the USA on August 26th. I will also be going to Yemen from August 6 to 15th, for work. I plan to see horses there too. I took the decision not to blog while on vacation. I don’t know if I’ll stick to it. This stuff is addictive! Enjoy your summer.
Looking at Denouste’s dam we can easily understand why he looked this way at 2.This is a powerful mare, look at these shoulders and at her hidquarters, you find a lot of horses with the same head in Syria where it is called ‘arneh‘. It is not a beautiful head but does not mean at all that it is not a head of an Asil horse. The head of horses changes when they mature, my stallion ‘al Bark’ now 6 years old, did not have the same head at two. It is more refined now. As for the slooping croup nearly all my (10) Asil race horses have the same croup. A slooping croup does not mean ar all that a horse is not Asil. It depends on what horse you are looking for, if it is for racing this kind of croup is more suitable, giving more power to the hindquarters.This kind of powerful horses existed in the famous horse breeding tribes and still exist today. I will scan the photo of ”Ghazwane” by ”Krush Halba” out of “Kuhaylat al-Kharass” one of the most famous Asil racehorses in Lebanon and Syria, next to him Denouste looks like a Scottsdale winner.. As for Denouste if, according…
I visited Yemen for the time in 2002 – for work. I was a panelist in a conference that brought together government officials, academics, representative of the private sector, and traditional leaders. Among the latter, I recall seeing a man surrounded by a large retinue of armed bodyguards and followers. People stepped aside when he passed by, and everyone seemed to treat him with much awe and respect. I was told his name was Naji ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Shayif, and that he was the Supreme Shaykh (tribal leader) of Bakil. Bakil is one of the two largest Yemeni tribes, with several million members (the other tribe being Hashed, to which the President of the Republic of Yemen, H.E. Ali Abdallah al-Saleh, belongs). Later in the evening, I asked whether there still were Arabian horses in Yemen, and was told that the same Naji al-Shayif owned about 20 to 30 of them, and that he’d recently given one of them to a Western ambassador as a gift. I was also told that the shaykh of the tribe of Juhannam, on the Red Sea coast of Yemen, owned some 40 to 50 Arabian horses too. That was all the information I could gather on the horses of a country that is believed…
This evening witnessed the visit of the 2000th reader of this blog, while the number of total hits was reaching 30,000 over five months. I am encouraged by these results, as they show there is some interest in what is ultimately a tiny niche within Arabian horsebreeding. As this blog continues its journey, I will be adding new features: video, podcasts, polls, and more. In the meantime, there is a new translation feature at the bottom of the second column, which allows readers of German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic to access the materials in their own language. It’s not perfect, but it’s there.
By now, five months into the life of this blog, there has been enough material for a first-time user to get confused. So if you are looking for information on a particular topic, just click the link to the topic of interest to you on the first right-hand column under “Themes”, or click on a specific keyword under “Tag”.
Georges Philippe Tabet, was the Finance minister of Lebanon under the French Mandate (1920-1943).He owned ‘’Al Mushrefeh’’ a big estate near Homs in Syria where he use to breed Arab horses for more than 20 years. Moreover he was member of the ‘’Arab Horse Society ‘’ his name appearing in Vol I of the AHS stud book 1919. His status of big wealthy land owner and Arab Horse breeder certainly made the Bedouins of the Homs and Hama region ,mainly ‘’Sbaa’’, to sell him mares and stallions, moreover he must have had good relations with the “Kassasse’’ of both Homs and Hama ,famed horse breeding regions in Syria. In 1937 he edited a small book in French and Arabic called’’ Les noms de Familles des chevaux Arabes’’ (Arab horses family names).This book taken from Bedouin sources, makes the difference between the ‘’Pure Asil” “The Asil’’ and the ‘’Kadish’’ more over Georges Tabet listed the ‘’The Chebou’’ horses’’ and the ‘’Non-Chebou’’ horses. I quote the introduction of his book: …….’’The pure Asils or Chebou’’ have all they ancestors known as only ‘’Chebou ‘’horses, the Bedouin only mate their mares only from ‘’Chebou’’ horses . ‘’The Asils’’ are pure breds but all their…
Samarcande will be five months old next week. She better become a horse freak.
Tonight I landed in Doha, Qatar, for a work-related conference. I will be confined in the city’s overwhelmingly luxurious Sheraton hotel for the next three days, while you ride, train feed and enjoy your horses. Thank God they have wireless internet in the conference room. I will be blogging about Asil Arabians in my little corner. If I am caught, I will say it’s for the good cause (and I will continue to hope that my boss does not read this blog). Arabian horses are a really big deal here. The majority was imported from the West. “Decorative” horses mostly. Not quite my cup of tea. Others hail directly from Egypt and Syria. A tiny minority are indigenous Asil Arabians from old Qatari bloodlines. I recall this wonderful picture of a bay Wadhnan stallion in one of the early volumes of the Qatari studbook. If only Qatar had a hundred more like him left. How many are left? Where are they? Who knows their histories? I wish I could sneak out and see some of these gems..
I just opened a Flickr account, and I put on it photos of Asil Arabian horses that I got from the web. I will be putting more photos I took myself as we go. Click here for a slideshow. Place on your cursor on the horse’s photo if you want to know his name. There is also a permanent link to these photos on the first right sidebar under “My photos”.
After an unfortunate technical problem with uploading pictures that lasted over one week, this blog is back at work. Apologies for this glitch. Last week, I provided the translation of the hujjah (authenticity certificate) of a desert-bred mare that mentions the stallion Duhayman al-Ajarrash. The mare traces to the horse through her maternal great-granddam. Duhayman al-Ajarrash may well be the sire of the stallion El Nasser, as discussed in this entry. I now provide a scanned copy of this hujjah, in Arabic. Click on it to enlarge it.
It was by chance that I learned from my late mother that the “Khalil Sarkis” of the “Hamidie” Society was her maternal grandfather, when one day she told me: “If you like horses you must know that my grand father lost a fortune in horses”. “Gambling” I asked? and she told me that he had lost a lot of money taking horses to the USA. Very excited I went to the “Oriental Library”, belonging to the Jesuits order in Beirut, hoping to find the “Lissan ul Hal” collection, a daily newspaper founded 1875 by Khalil Sarkis in Beirut and widely read. By chance they had all the old volumes from 1882 to 1955, since “Lissan ul Hal” was for many years the leading newspaper in Lebanon and Syria. Khalil Sarkis was the first president of the press syndicate in Lebanon, he was fluent in both English and German, he married Luisa the daughter of professor Butros el Bistani, who was famous in the Arab world for writing and publishing the first Arabic Encyclopedia. Khalil was for many years the paramount figure of the Evangelical community in Beirut. His son Ramez was minister in various governments, and his grandson Khalil is a renowned philosopher and writer, now retired…
I thank you for welcoming me to Edouard’s blog, I’m 65 married with 3 step-sons, I raced arabians in Beirut without knowing that they were part breds, I owned Arabians in Brazil, without knowing that they were part-breds. I also raced Thouroughbreds in Sao Paulo, Brazil and was partner in a horse who won the Brazilian Derby. My maternal great grandfather was Khalil Sarkis, the manager of “the Hamidie company” I wrote once an article on him and on the Hamidie bringing new lights on the way the horses were chosen. I also wrote on Davenport and on Ameen Zeitoun his “translator” with also new informations. Both infos were sent to the Craver’s at that time. I promise to post the two materials but I need time to rewrite them as they are in Arabic, and now is foaling time at the breeding farm… I manage two farms, the breeding one and the racing one located at the Damascus race track while the breeding farm is 15 miles far, we do have the best herd of bedouin racing mares, I promise to send pictures. Edouard, please be kind in posting the Hussam picture it is in “the media library”. I’m…
One purpose of this blog is to bridge the gap between arabian horse breeders in the East (the cradle of the breed) and the West (its area of expansion). After introducing Joe Ferriss, RJ Cadranell and Charles Craver (who has yet to send me his contribution), all Asil Arabian horse figures from the West, now is the time to turn to the East. My first guest blogger from the East is Joe Achcar. Joe is a veteran Arabian horse breeder and enthusiast from Lebanon, and an early supporter of Asil Arabian breeding. He has published widely on Asil Arabians in Gulf country press outlets. He currently trains Arabian race horses in Damascus, Syria.
A headshot of the same Ma’naghiyah Hadrajiyah mare, whose name now escapes me. Her sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush from Shammar, from the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarbah. That marbat is known to trace to the “white Krush” of the Mutayr tribe. Kuhaylan al-Krush will be featured next in “the Strain of the Week” series.
The term Asil in the Arabic language means “pure”, “authentic” and “original” all at once. In principle, all Arabian horses should be Asil. Either Arabians horses are “pure”, “original”, and “authentic” (Asil), or they are not Arabians, but partbreds. Arabians just cannot be a little bit Asil. Still, things are not that simple! Most Arabian horses studbooks around the world include horses with varying, often tiny, percentages of non-Arabian blood. These horses are not Asil, and hence not Arabians, as far as I am concerned. Indeed, in some cases such as Spain, Russia and Poland, such horses compose the entire studbook (except for imports from another country that breeds “pure”, “original”, and “authentic” Asil horses.) These non-Asil, non-Arabian horses are nevertheless registered as Arabians in the Arabian horse studbooks, and these studbooks are accepted by WAHO (the equivalent of the United Nations for Arabian horses, and I leave it up to you to push that analogy as far as you want). Indeed, most of the world recognizes and designates these horses as Arabians. People like me and many of the readers of this blog are a small minority, a “subversive cell in Arabian breeding” to quote the words of Reba Troxell to Charles Craver (thanks Ambar for the quote). Hence the need arises to differentiate these so-called…
Wilfrid Blunt thought seriously about the breeding program at the Crabbet Stud. Some of his thoughts are preserved in his stud memoranda and also his remarks prepared for delivering to the crowds at the Crabbet auction sales. The Wentworth Bequest includes comments dating from 1904 discussing the wisdom of developing a separate breeding program at Crabbet using horses not tracing to Mesaoud. Mr. Blunt posited that those horses could be used as the Crabbet Stud’s own outcross, should one be required in another 50 years. Mesaoud was the most successful stallion the Blunts ever used. They had sold him to Russia just the year before, in June of 1903. Mesaoud’s 12 seasons at Crabbet resulted in more than 100 foals, with the last arriving in 1904. After Mesaoud’s departure, it’s no surprise that Mr. Blunt was wondering whether it was possible to have too much Mesaoud blood. Of the 94 horses listed in the 1904 Crabbet catalogue, only 22 did not have Mesaoud in their pedigrees, and only two of those were male: Nejran and Rijm. Nejran’s 1904 non-Mesaoud colt out of Bint Helwa died. It was a grey colt, so it was unlikely that the Blunts would have used…
I am so pleased to see that Edouard’s mare Wysteria is in foal to the stallion Javera Thadrian, 1982 grey (Thane x HB Diandra). He is another of those classical “19th century engraving” horses with very fine skin and very expressive eyes. Photos do not hardly capture the impression he leaves in person but I offer here a photo that I happened to snap of him being ridden in a costume exhibition at Alice Martin’s StarWest during an Al Khamsa convention. As you can see he truly is a classic.
Since I do not have a website and I could not find a place in the comment window to post some pictures with my list, I am instead offering it as a blog post. So here goes. Well Edouard you have done it again! How can I pick just ten? Maybe next week the list will change but instead of going crazy I decided without over-thinking to post my top ten. I could not rank them in any particular order so there is no preferential treatment in my list as each is significant to me for different reasons. One thing that is common to most all of them is that I like very much their genetic influence as I have seen many descendants from all of these, except one whose line is extinct in Al Khamsa. My top ten mare list with reasons for them: 1. *Ansata Bint Bukra (Nazeer x Bukra), though crippled, she was absolutely magnificent and radiated beauty from within her soul as well as exterior. Once you saw her you never forgot her. She is now hugely influential world-wide. 2. Dharebah (Dhareb x Antarah) – I did not see her but saw many of her produce…
Anchor Hill Serfa I thought I would share a few comments about the notion of the “War Mare”, a term used to describe mares of particular nobility and courage throughout the ages. The late Mark Mayo, who I used to refer to as the “American Bedouin Cowboy” used to tell stories of the “war mare syndrome” which he experienced personally in the deserts of Oklahoma on his 17,000 acre ranch riding his asil mares while herding cattle. He talked about that special trait of total courage and nobility and how these special mares defended him against snakes and other predators as well as many other adventures. 38 years ago when my wife bought me Homer Davenport’s book, “My Quest of the Arabian Horse”, I never forgot the wonderful stories Homer Davenport gave about riding the great war mare *Wadduda, truly a noble mare. I used to imagine that my first half-Arab mare in 1970 would grow up to be a war mare. But in fact my own personal experience with the “war mare syndrome” was a decade later when we purchased, in 1980, an older mare that we had wanted for years, Anchor Hill Serfa (Ibn Sirecho x Serida by…
Today I am pleased to introduce my second guest blogger, Joe Ferriss. Joe is known to most breeders and enthusiasts of Asil Arabian horses, East and West; he needs no introduction. Joe’s reputation extends to unlikely places. In the fall of 2006, I was in the desert near the Syrian-Iraqi border with some friends. We were gathered around a camp fire on a late afternoon, sipping coffee and talking horses. Some Bedouins from the neighboring village had joined us, and one of them asked me where I came from. When I mentioned that I had lived in the USA for some time, the Bedouin, who was from the Tai tribe, told me of an American man he had come to meet a few years back: “Ju Faris”. He said of Joe: “Hada Faris”, which roughly translates into: “Now that’s a horseman”. I thought it was funny that Joe’s last name translated in to the Arabic word for “horseman”. Joe and I go back a long time. When we started corresponding in 1994, I was still living in Lebanon, and email had not been invented yet. We did not meet in person until the year 2000, when Joe visited me at the University of Chicago, and I returned the visit to his home in Quincy, Michigan. I am thrilled to resume our correspondence on this blog.
When I was a child (not too long ago), I used to enjoy playing a game with my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, where I would sit in his lap and try to guess the names of the horses in the pictures he was showing me. My all-time favorite was Zenobia, a ‘Ubayyah mare we owned at the time, and I wanted to see Zenobia in every picture. Lets see whether any of you recognizes where the Asil mare in this picture came from (don’t worry, I won’t go as far as asking you to guess who she actually was). Three hints: 1. This is not Zenobia (she was grey) 2. This is not Moniet El-Nefous, either. 3. This is not a Moniet descendant, nor a Moniet relative, nor an Egyptian horse for that matter, nor … ok, you should be playing, not me.
Several readers informed me they had trouble posting comments to this blog. It is as easy as 1,2, 3: 1. Click on the title of the entry you want to comment on (e.g., “Books: The Rwala Bedouin Today”). This will take you to this entry’s specific page. 2. Scroll down to “Leave a Reply” 3. Write your comment, enter your user name, your email address, your website (optional), and click “submit”. That’s it. Note that you needen’t be logged in, registered or anything else. I realize I may have unintentionally misled some of you in an email in which I announced the launch of this blog, by wrongly linking a reader’s ability to post comments to his/her being registered, and to receiving an email with a password upon registering. This was an error, for which I apologize. I am still learning here, so please bear with me…
A few people come to mind each time I am about to embark on a horse-related endeavor such as this blog. These are the people without whom true Arabian horse breeding – and our understanding of it – would not be what it is today. Some of these people I had the honor to meet and get to know well, others I simply heard of or read about. Robert Mauvy of France is one of them. His enduring contribution to the breed will be featured prominently on this blog. Charles Craver in the United States is another. His and his wife Jeanne’s Craver Farms continue to produce one crop of authentic, desert-like Asil Arabians after another, and his breeding philosophy is an inspiration for many breeders here in the USA. The dedicated Bedouins individuals who handed us these magnificent creatures from time immemorial are yet others whose legacy I reflect upon as I write these lines. The next few entries on this blog will seek to highlight the contribution of some of these Bedouin individuals, and put it on par with that of the great ‘masters’ of Europe and America.