Early writings on Arabian horses strain and type, August 4-10, 2001

These posts weere initially published on the AKHorsemen Yahoo discussion group, over several days in August 2001.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Bedouins ever bred according to strain theory. This is a myth. They most certainly never did it intentionally during the 20th century and the Abbas Pasha Manuscript is here at last to tell us it did not happen in the 19th century.

There are definitely many different types [of Arabian horses], distinctive and special. The greatest contribution of North American breeders of Arabians to the breed (a contribution at least equal that of the Bedouins in preserving the purity of the blood from immemorial times) is that they have emphasized and developed these types. However it is my opinion that the mistake of these breeders was to confuse strains and types. They are not to be associated.

Strains are just equivalents of family names for humans. Humans transmit
family names from father to son, in horses family names (strains) are
transmitted from mother to daughter, simply because Bedouins thought it was more convenient, for several reasons (I’ll expand on this later).

You have tall humans and short humans; and you have humans from the Smith family and other from the Doe family. By associating strains to types,
people are saying the equivalent of t: “the Does are tall, the Smiths generally short, they are more so if Does only marry Does and Smiths only marry Smiths, and don’t let Smiths marry Does because you will have children of mixed types, and will lose the original types.” This is incorrect.

Keeping on with the somewhat corny analogy, it is my opinion that you have short Does and tall Does, short Smiths and tall Smiths. To preserve types, say ‘the short type’ for the sake of argument, Short Mr. Smith should marry Short Ms. Doe to increase the likelihood of having short children. It is as simple as that.

Back to horses. Kuhaylans can be masculine or feminine. Saglawis can be
masculine or feminine. It has nothing to do with strains. Nothing. If you
like ‘feminine type’, then cross any ‘feminine’ looking stallion with any
feminine looking mare, whether this mare is Kuhaylan or Saglawi does not
matter. You will have a feminine looking colt.

Call your types whatever you want, but don’t call them Kuhaylan type or
Saglawi type. Call them ‘masculine type’, ‘feminine type’ or type A and type
B. But don’t associate types with strains.

The strain theory is a theory suggested by Raswan from what he THOUGHT was happening. Prince Fawaz al-Shaalan of the Ruwalah did not think much of Raswan’s theory.

I am reluctant to give examples from the horses I know in the Middle East.
Let me only tell you that I have owned several Managhi mares that were more feminine and delicate than gazelles, several Saglawi mares that were more masculine in type than lions, and Kuhaylans that were more angular than the keyboard on which I am typing.

You’ll probably tell me that these angular Kuhaylans have lots of Managhi
blood in them. Well no. One mare I am now thinking of was a Kuhayla ibn Mizher that was by a Saglawi (himself by Obayyan out of a mare sired by a Hamdani) out of a Kuhayla Ibn Mizher by a Hamdani, and she was owned by the 2nd degree cousin of the current Sheykh of Tayy. The mare was a purebred known in all the tribe. She was angular yet no evidence of Managhi in her pedigree.

An example from the US: For fifty-five years (enough horse generations to
fix a certain type), the Cravers have thought their Saglawis were Saglawis
and they bred some of them pure in the strain (Saglawi to Saglawi) to fix
the Saglawi type. Recently research has proven that these horses were
Hamdani (people call that Kuhaylan-related, so another ‘type’ than what is
called ‘Saglawi’ type).

The Cravers were very succesful in fixing a certain type for their Saglawis-turned-Hamdanis, and you can pick the mares from that family one by one in their pastures. [This demonstrates that breeding according to types is a success]. Yet their horses, previously-thought-to-be-heavy-in-blood-Saglawis’ are now heavily-Hamdanis.

So what happened? Did type change overnight? No, the mares did not change, they did not grow more bone. Only the name changed from Saglawi to Hamdani. That means the name was never relevant to the type, that it does not mean anything physically, that it never interfered with type.

Raswan, like all great minds, was courageous enough to suggest a theory. His theory is controversial, but his legacy is not. He remains a master and a
spiritual father for me, but a master is above all a source of inspiration,
an initiator of vocations, not just a dictionary one follows blindly.

Edouard Salim Aldahdah
03 August 2001

———————-
We keep our horses in a place 30 miles east of Aleppo, on the fringes of the
Syrian desert. That is where the horses come from, often from their Bedouin owners, mostly Fedaan and Shammar Bedouins.

These Bedouins (now sedentarized of course, but the older ones were born
nomads and most are semi-nomads) often come to spend their evenings, and I’ll be happy to translate what they have to say about strain theory..

They’ll most probably say that every breeder is free to breed the way he/she
wants, but that they will take their mares to the best stallion around, no
matter the strain of the mare with respect to the strain of the stallion.

We could visit with the sons of Fanghash al-Nowag. They are the Bedouins
(from Sbaa) after whom the strain of Kuhaylan Nowag (Nowak) was named. They are the owners of the strain. They’ll tell you all about how strains are
born and what they represent. After hearing them, you’ll make up your mind on your own.

Of course, most Bedouins have preference for particular strains, but these
are matter of taste, not type. Stallions are chosen from a few strains which
have been in the tribe for a long time, and ave ‘proven themselves’ in the
old times, in raids and tribal wars.

For the Shammar, it is Hamdani Ibn Ghurab, Obayyan Seheili, Saglawi Marzakani, Saglawi Ibn Amud, Kuhaylan Krush, Dahman Amir and Managhi Hedruj Ibn Ufaytan. Any Bedouin will bring any mare of ANY strain to the best horse available from these strains.

For the Fedaan, it’s Kuhaylan Hayfi, Kuhaylan Nowak, Kuhaylan Musinn, Managhi Abu Sayfayn, Kuhaylan Khdili (and a few minor others)

Bedouins usually have one mare, their riding mare, and not everyone can
afford to keep a stallion. Often, the tribe (or sub-tribe) has a herd
stallion, sometimes two or three. Everyone uses these stallions.

Edouard
04 August 2001

———————
Strains are family names to identify horses in the desert, like our family
names identify us in society.

For example, an imaginary case: a tribe raids another, say Sbaa raids
Rwallah, and seizes two mares and a prisoner. The prisoner is asked to give
the identity of the two mares. He says: “The first is Kuhaylah Ajuz of the
stud of Ibn Rodan (abbreviated Kuhaylah Rodaniyah) and the second is
Saglawiyah of the stud of Ibn Sudan (abbreviated Saglawiyah Sudaniyah).”

In doing so, he disclosed the full identity of the mares, by giving the
strain of the mare, which is a generic name, and a substrain, usually formed
by the name of the owner. He did not say anything about type. Type is
absolutely irrelevant in such situations as in many others.

In a place with no ID passports for horses, no registration numbers, no
bloodtyping, this is the most convenient way to identify a horse.

Another reason why it is convenient is that Ibn Rodan is not likely to have
40 mares from this family, but rather 3 or 4, that can be differentiated by
color or markings. So you the prisoner does not really need to specify which
one of the 3 or 4 the Kuhaylah is, also because it is most likely a
descendant of the original mare of Ibn Rodan.

A third reason is that most bedouins call their mares either Nura or Jauza,
or Noma or Farha or Saada or Tarfa or Yamamah and a handful other names. (Their stallions are almost always called Masud, Marzuq, Mahruss, Farhan, Mesrur, and a few other names). If the prisoner identifies the mares as Nura and Farha it really means nothing because maybe 200 other mares in the desert may have the same name, and often the Bedouins will call a daughter, or a niece, or a granddaughter, or a sister, of their Nura, Nura as well.

My father is not a Bedouin but a Christian townsman of Lebanon, yet he has
the habit of calling all his mares from the same female line by the same
name, so before we get WAHO to accept the Lebanese studbook in 1992,
it was a real challenge to remember whether some colt born in the 80’s was a son of Zenobia (II) or Zenobia (III) or Fayruza (I) or Fayruza
(II)…

Back to the Bedouin prisoner. If the mares cannot be identified, then they are worth nothing, because those who took them cannot know whether they are pure or not. These mares, now worthless, remain in the tribe but their sons are not allowed to serve mares of known backgrounds. [This is the origin of the concept of “Shubby”, that is, “worthy of being mated”. Some strains are not “Shubby” within a tribe because this tribe did not have enough information on these horses at the time it took them in war. This is also why some strains are to be mated in one tribe and not to be mated in another. It does not mean they are impure, not at all. Just unlucky. But that is another issue. More on that later.

The tribe who took the mares is now able to determine whether they are pure or not, that is to determine their rank in the horse population of the
desert. The prisoner will have to identify himself too, in much the same way
as he identified his horses. He will give the name of his tribe (equivalent
of the prisoner’s ‘strain’, in this case Ruwalah) and his clan (equivalent
of the substrain, say Ibn Shaalan).

Conclusion: The prisoner is from Ruwalah, from Ibn Shaalan, the 1st mare is Kuhaylah, from Ibn Rodan, the second is Saglawiyah, from Ibn Sudan, also from Ruwalah. The three are identified, their value is now known and
the matter is solved. That was the purpose, origin and function of strains.
As you can see this is not of much relevance in America today, so strains
are here just for their sentimental value, for the folklore, because it is
sad to throw all this culture away.

Types are an altogether different story. Within a strain, you can have many
types. A decisive proof is in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, with Faysal
al-Shaalan of Ruwalah (supreme Bedouin authority on horses at the time of
Abbas Pasha) classifying the Saglawi Marighi mares of Muhammad al-Marighi in three different types, according to the way they looked. Look it up!

In America, although many people generally follow Raswan and mix strains and types, they have UNCONSCIOUSLY identified types regardless of strains.

So all of us, (just look at the last few emails) speak of Pritzlaff horses.
Most of us are able to recognize a Pritzlaff horse when they see one,
regardless of whether the horse is Dahman or Saglawi. (and if you can’t
identify a Pritzlaff horse, then the skull-measuring tools of Charles Craver
will help you do so!). Well, lets face it, Pritzlaff horses are all one type, REGARDLESS of strains. It is a very uniform herd, after 40 years of breeding.

The wonderful thing is that, just like any famous Bedouin program ended in
the ‘creation’ (the naming) of a strain after the owner or a famous horse
from that strain, here too, each successful breeding program, if carried
long enough (30 to 40 years) results in the creation of a distinct type. So each and every one of us, can, and does have a type, sub-type, or sub-sub-type in his/her own herd. Whether we want to admit it is another question.

Edouard
06 August 2001
—————————-

Let people who believe in strain theory stick to it. I am just saying that
this is not a Bedouin thing. Bedouins (all Bedouins) are very simple and practical people, or were so before becoming modernized. They don’t elaborate theories and breeding philosophies.

THREE MORE ARGUMENTS AGAINST STRAIN THEORY HAVING NEVER EXISTED AMONG BEDOUINS

First, breeding decisions are dictated by SURVIVAL of the nomads and other
practical decisions. Think of it a little bit: It is total folly for any
Bedouin to breed his Hamdaniah mare to a Hamdani stallion just for the sake of strain breeding when there is a Saglawi stallion out there whose
daughters and sons are fast, enduring and powerful horses.

The survival of the raider depends on this. If he does not chose the
swiftest, sturdiest, toughest stallion to breed his mare to, (and this horse
might or might not be of the same strain as his mare) then chances are that
the resulting foal would not be as fast and sturdy as it should be (ie, no
improvement) and that it would carry him home in the next raid.

Second, there is limited number of horses of the same strain within the same tribe, confederation or area. Breeding continuously to horses of the same strain in a limited horse population would result in degenerated
individuals, and ABOVE ALL, it would NOT produce the best horse, simply for lack of choice. So strain breeding is not likely to improve the breed as it
is claimed but to reduce its potency by reducing the supply of good
horses available (same reason why the best horses in America were those
combined source in my opinion).

In a tribal environment which only maintains the strict minimum number of stallions (because they are just more mouths to feed and it’s the desert not in a lush prairie) to ensure the reproduction of the species (and does away with surplus colts by selling to racetracks, etc.), it is also
unthinkable to reduce the choice even more.

Third, just read the Abbas Pacha Manuscript. I read again and again looking
for evidence of strain breeding (ie, proof that the strains are breeds as
claimed) and found none, only inbreeding and even rarely so (father to daughter, brother to sister). It can make for tedious reading, but it is worth reading. The period the Manuscript was written is considered the zenith of Bedouin horsebreeding…

Also, when Lady Anne Blunt was herself a “newbie”, she thought that strains were breeds (and you can find it in ‘Bedouin tribes of the Euphrates, written in 1878). Later, as she grew older and more experienced, she was to write, in 1917 or 1916, towards the end of her life:

“Mutlak (ie Mutlak Battal of Muteyr, her bedouin manager) is never tired of
telling me: All are Kehilan, all are the same.”

Quote from Lady Wentworth’s Authentic Arabian Horse: “When asked about a certain strain, Lady Anne replied: “Kuhylan Haifi is a good strain, but not better than any other. It got a certain reputation when Turki Ibn Meheyd was killed by the Ruwalah while riding a Kuhayla Haifi mare. The Ruwalah captured the mares.” So according to Lady Anne, strains are about reputation, ie subjective tastes.

Also, … Concerning the Managhis, I believe they are like all other
strains. Not better not worse. There were good classic looking horses among
Managhis just like there were good horses among all other strains. And bad
horses too. Simply. In my opinion, Raswan based his Managhi theory on horses that were not even Managhis, (but just plain horses from Kehilan or unknown strains): Kismet (Kuhaylan from Muntafiq) , Maidan (unknown strain), Yataghan (K. Jereyban). The source is Perter Upton’s “The Arab Horse”. Another good book.