Damascus SF, 2006 Davenport stallion
Damascus SF (Memoir UF x Neroli CF by Regency CF) is a very smooth stallion of Davenport lines, bred and owned by Aida Schreiber in New Hamsphire. Through a close cross to Bint Ralf, he has a rare line to the Davenport desert-bred import *Farha, and most probably, the last line to *Haleb in Davenports, too. I loved that crested, muscular neck.
He is very beautiful, and has a definite sense of presence with that tail carriage and that arched neck. He is unmistakably a stallion!
Yup. I’ve been thinking that , escpecially in Arabs- so goes the scalenus junction so goes the coupling.. A short tightly joined neck set( which in his case is set plenty high enough) predicts a tight strong coupling. That kind of neck set will make it easy for horses that have it, to put their hooves in their ears over a jump. It will save their riders neck, literally.. Good horse!
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Bruce Peek
Bruce, so the scalenus has an easier job of contracting and lifting the base of the neck, which means the horse can swing its shoulder forward more freely, allowing the knees to snap up in front? Orrr (thinking out loud here), is it because it allows the horse to really use its front end for pushing power off the ground, which gives the horse more time to get its forearm up?
Not exactly.. The shorter a bridge is the stronger and more quickly and effectively it can be used by the horse as an internal fulcrum. In jumping, particularly in eventing( in which people get killed every year) where the horse rider pair have to sucessfully negotiate the more highly technical jumps used today, getting through a one stride bounce a tight scalenus junction is an advantage..This is why you don’t see saddlebreds with their overly long neck shining in combined training.( also their flat back really isn’t set up to tuck under the horse and lift the animal into bascule.
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Bruce Peek
I was always taught that a shorter back was stronger than a longer back, and that a shorter back as well as a neck was more ideal for jumping. A neck that is short AND set low is probably where you’re going to run into problems with them. Funny that Bruce specifically mentions Saddlebreds: when this conversation was first described to me, I immediately thought of certain breeds of horses with longer necks that I’ve ridden and found difficult to coordinate – namely Saddlebreds and Friesians. But when you’re bred for a trot, the ability to canter well/over a fence is a lesser concern when selecting for breeding traits.
I would also have to agree re: coupling — when the base of the neck is above the shoulder, and you have a steeper rise of the humerus from the elbow to the point of shoulder, the horse is inherently predisposed to be lighter on the forehand and have that snappy knee action.
Yes, I think I follow (am just reassembling a horse as a collection of angles in my head). I suppose, though, this begs the question as to why we don’t see more Arabians competing in show jumping and eventing. Is it because the athletic ones head for endurance, because that is their obvious strength, or because there is a bias against Arabians in certain disciplines, or because the horses just don’t get out and about? Or because they have other conformation issues that detract from the positives of the good scalenus junction?
I am not trying to be provocative here; I want to learn. I do believe Arabians can be catty jumpers, when they overcome their desire to throw themselves at the fence and jump flat, but they simply don’t seem to be much in evidence at shows. In my neck of the woods, at open shows, I see Thoroughbreds, warmbloods, appaloosas, Friesians, Boerperds, Nooitgedachts, Saddlebreds, ponies of unknown ancestry, and a variety of crosses between these breeds and others – but very rarely an Arabian, until you go to an endurance ride, and then the place is overflowing with them. Why is the breed pigeon-holed, when it produces beautiful, athletic-looking horses like Damascus SF above? Thoroughbreds race, and then go on to other careers. What has happened to the versatility of the Arabians first imported to the west, who rode, drove, fox-hunted, showed, basically did it all? Is it an issue with the breed/its presentation, or is it the result of disciplines becoming so specialised that to be competitive you now need a horse purpose-bred for that specific discipline?
One way of answering your question of what has happened to Arabians is to take a look at one of the pictures of Mesaoud as a mature horse..See how strong his hindquarters are. I have a quarab that has many lines to Mesaoud and he looks like Mesaoud in the hind quarters too. But he’s half quarter horse. The hind end on our modern horses has been bred off of them plain and simple. They are way to flat in the croup to easily tuck their pelvis under themselves and bascule over a jump.. Hillary Clayton has a good article about hindquarter angles which you can get simply by googling. Incidentally the Arab she took to Grand Prix was from Michigan State and she chose him because he had atypically sloping hindquarters and was consequently a very good mover.
Their is a repository of good genetically dominant hindquarter confirmation but its located in the Shagyas not the ,’ purebreds,’ in the bloodlines of Budapest the Shagal
son, some of his related horses from Shandor, and K.S. Rubin off the top of my head. Probably the reason why most of the Shagya lines still have functional hindquarters is that Halter showing was never a thing with them, and their breed standard is aimed at function rather than glitz.
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Bruce Peek
Kate, I think it is because they are considered too small for the sport, with a stride that is too short. I know people can argue about this!
Bruce, that’s well in line with what I’ve read and talked about with quite a few Warmblood breeders on why they tend to stay away from Arabians — the rear triangle tends to be lackluster, and they prefer to breed Arabians to Thoroughbreds, get the F1 Anglo-Arabian cross, and then enter the Anglo into their studbooks as a way to bring in the blood. It’s such a shame. Funnily enough, my mare and long-time riding partner was 1/4 Quarter Horse, and most folks like her just fine.
Jeanne, yes, height is a big barrier, though I have Feelings about the trend of breeding larger horses. My mare was always able to keep pace with the jumps for all that they were distanced for much larger horses with theoretically larger strides. ((Shrug.)) Nobody told us we were supposed to have a stride that was too short!
Thank you, Bruce. That makes sense, though I would say that the good hindquarter still exists in both purebred Arabs in the western sense, and the asil horses – most Crabbets/Old English horses tend to be pretty substantial and well put together, for example, while on the asil side, the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Mutab who now stands in South Africa is very powerfully built, and there are good hind ends on the Pearl Island Stud horses in the UK too. I entirely agree, though, that the ‘typey’ flat croup is no good for breeding doing horses.
Jeanne, I have heard people complaining about the lack of height in Arabians before, and so many people seem to want Very Tall Horses these days, so, yes, that would also explain their absence from the show ring. On the other hand, my experience is very similar to Moira’s: my teeny tiny mare is a very long-striding horse. She is not even 13.2 hh, but has a longer stride than 16.2 hh Thoroughbreds and Warmbloods – I know, because I have had to readjust ground pole spacing for her many, many times!
Katie: There are also a lot of arabs who have such good suspension in their trot that they over stride( their back foot lands well beyond the print of their front foot) One of the reasons why such beautiful extensions can be put on arabs relatively easily. Also the trot poles are a very good way to work on lengthening and collecting the horses stride as long as you can do so with their back lifted and their general body posture relaxed rather than tense and inverted. If its hard for them to use their back work on showing them the way to the ground on the lunge line, using a proper lunge caveson of course rather than lunging them with the line threaded through the snaffle bit- which should be avoided at all costs.
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Bruce Peek
What can be forgotten is that the old standard of “relatively level” croup is what they were comparing it to. Same with “relatively smaller” head. Look to the desert, bedouin, photos to see what those athletic horses were like. Imagine one of the tiny headed, swan necked, table topped modern horses out there!
Bruce, yes, I love the big, swinging Arabian trot – those horses can really fly! Getting the back lifted and relaxed does seem to be a challenge with Arabians, given that they like to carry their heads and tails high, and tighten through the back, but you are entirely correct about using ground work/lungeing to show them how to stretch. It helps so much!
Jeanne, I think that many horse breeds have changed conformation so much in the past hundred years – Moira and I run a blog of old horse photos, and you can really see the difference between the working horses of the early 1900s and the recreational horses of today. That said, I do believe that certain Arabian breeding groups have stuck closer to the original conformation, and that the Davenports are amongst them.
Kate, you just have to ignore the show ring, and let the horses be your guide.
Tiny correction to the post. Aida Schrieber is in Massachusetts not New Hampshire. My mare Fin DeSiecle CF is due to foal in a couple of months and Damascus SF is the sire. I’m in Massachusetts also.
Thank you for the correction!
Anyone have contact information on his owner? I am looking for a special Davenport Stallion to breed my Davenport mare in a year or two for a hopefully filly replacement to continue on for my Davenport stallion Siggi Saha.
That’s a good choice a stallion! His owner is Aida Schreiber, on facebook.
Sarah, I sent you a FB message with contact information for Aida. She has Damascus SF and his paternal half-brother Firewater SF (meaning both have the very very rare Bint Ralf line through Memoir UF.)