Daughters of the Wind blows its third candle
Today, Daughters of the Wind turned three.
I recall starting this blog on January 11, 2008, towards the last days of my wife’s pregnancy, to keep in touch with a small circle of likeminded friends and breeders of asil Arabians. I had become aware that the duties of a soon-to-be-father were going to make it harder for me to see these friends and enjoy the horses and the horse talk as often as I would have liked, and I felt I had to find a way to remain in touch online. This small circle of breeders and horse enthusiasts had been exchanging regular group emails about preservations issues, and I thought a blog would provide an appropriate platform.
I never thought it would become what it is now: a truly global community of enthusiasts dedicated to the preservation of the original qualities and heritage of the asil Arabian horse. Neither did I ever think it would achieve its current status as the number 1 most visited website on Arabian horses at large.
Indeed, a quick look at traffic ranking websites this morning puts Daughters of the Wind among the 75,000 most visited websites in the USA on any subject, up from 12 millions when it started. This ranks it well above than both the straightegyptians.com discussion forum (ranked in the 270,000 this morning) and the egyptianbreeders.com forum (121,000), in terms of traffic in the USA, and on par with them in terms of global traffic.
Today, Daughters of the Wind averages about a thousand unique readers on any given day, and over two million clicks since its inception. It’s not bad for a non-commercial website whose primary concern are not the ubiquitous asil Egyptian horses, but rather the much more low-profile asil horses of Arabia, Syria, North Africa, and the few hundred Arabians in North America and Europe that trace to non-Straight Egyptian desert bloodlines.
You, the readers and friends of Daughters of the Wind, are the primary cause of this achievement. Your interest and involvement in this website creates the thriving online community that learns, shares and act so that we can all continue to enjoy these horses the way they were originally created. So keep reading and commenting and contributing and correcting, and I will keep posting.
Meanwhile, the little girl who was still in her mother’s womb on January 11, 2008, is now a pre-schooler who loves her new lunchbox.
First! as they say on other blogs!
Congratulations, cheers, fireworks, and a special hug to that young lady.
Long may you blog!
Congratulations Edward for your third year of Blogging. I treaure the few minutes each day reading your posts and cobloggers posts. Thank you for all the effort you put into this and thank your wife because we all know behind every good man is a very good women.
P.S. Beautiful child!
Congratulations, I have been reading this blog for over a year now, love visiting daughters of the wind, takes you back in time to the desert, the perfect getaway of the every day life. I have learn a lot, Thank you Edouard.
Beautiful child!!!
Eduoard: I think the big reason this blog is doing well is that it does provide clear straight forward information, at least for us westerners. I had not thought about being able to read the ideas held by actual cradle country breeders, like you and Joe( may eternal light shine upon him) and Pure man. Also some of the more ethical and brighter lights in Arabian circles, like the Cravers, Joe Ferris, R.J. Cadranel, and Mike Bowling as well as others like Jackson, make this a very a worthwhile read. Congratulations for providing a site where ideas of real value are discussed in an informative manner.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
Edouard,
Thanks comes from the horses, the Bedouin Arabians.
Perhaps this blog will show in its own way, the world is getting smaller as to words heard. The results are the answers received, a continuation of what once was and still is, a heritage from the past into the present.
As to the present your life as a husband, father, and friend to your family is what
is found here are on this site.
Thanks, Jackson
Congratulations Edouard, for creating a place for like-minded enthusiasts to meet, exchange perspectives and reflect upon the Asil horse. Like others have already said, visiting your blog is a highlight of my day. It is also very nice to know that I share common ground with you, for more than the Arabian horse…and that is, as a father.
Ralph
Edouard, I think your beautiful daughter could be fairly described as Kuhaylah! 🙂
Not owning Asil horses, I am not the target audience for this blog but as a lifelong devotee of the Arab horse, I have found it an absolutely wonderful resource and am grateful for the immense amount of time you must devote to it.
On the subject of internet Arab web sites, there is a thread on Arabian lines at the moment about Old English/Crabbet lines, on page 8 someone has commented with enthusiasm about the number of crosses a horse has to Skowronek… I thought how it would make your blood run cold, but also how his enormous influence and the lovely horses of marked Arab type he has produced must say something positive about his overwhelmingly Arab genetic makeup, (though obviously I accept that there is good reason to doubt that he is Asil).
Mostly it made me think what a good thing it would be if more people had a better understanding of the history of the breed, beyond a handful of misleading myths …..which is why I think this blog is so valuable. What an worthwhile thing it is to preserve the true Bedouin horse, both in terms of blood and type (and by type I mean the intelligence, courage, loyalty and endurance of these amazing horses). I think it is important to pay serious attention to pedigrees but also to ensure that in every generation horses are tested, really tested, under saddle, as Bedouin horses so surely were.
Daughters of the Wind –The best resource on the web on asil horses. Full stop.
And your daughter is a little doll.
Keep up the good work on ALL fronts.
Tzviah
so nice ,
Hi Edouard,
I am not near a computer much lately but I just wanted to say congratulations and express my gratitude for your magnificent blog site and also my best wishes to your family.
Joe Ferriss
How thrilling to see that so many readers have discovered your wonderful blog! Congratulations, Edouard. And as always, thank you…
I get so much out of this blog from all the information of it’s contributors, much of this information new rather than re-quoting others. Many of the books on Arabian horses are far too expensive and full of opinion rather than well sourced facts.
The reason this blog is so popular is because there are no snide comments or nastiness, just exchanges of information and opinion. Even when two don’t agree, the comments are civil, even if not always calm! Nobody wants to read others rude words and that sort of behaviour on other forums makes people not want to go back there. The good tone here was started by Edouard and others have followed his good lead.
Another reason this site is so popular is whenever I do a search on a particular horse or breeder, almost every time this site comes up in the search results. Goes to show just how much information is on this one site.
Thank you Edouard for starting a very important site.
You’ve done good, Edouard – on all accounts
Thank you. I am grateful to all of you.