*Ghalia, Hamdaniyah mare from the Saud Royal Stud, b. 1956
I don’t know if these two photos of the desert-bred mare *Ghalia was published before. According to Al Khamsa’s online roster, *Ghalia was a 1956 bay Hamdaniyah bred by the Sa’ud Royal Stud at Khafs Daghrah, Saudi Arabia. She was purchased in 1958 and imported to the USA in 1961 by Donald A. Holm. She was by Murjan, a Hamdani of Sa’ud and out of Falhah, a Hamdaniyah of Sa’ud. She appears to have been registered by the International Arabian Horse Registry of North America Stud Book (Vol. 1), rather than the AHA.
Pictured here in old age, but still looks like a nice mare, noble, and dry, with an intelligent and sweet look in her eyes, reminiscent of the best desert-bred mares I saw in Syria in the 1990s.
She has good depth to her body and well-sprung ribs too, from what I can tell at this angle. Her head makes me think of the Bahraini horses – it’s partly the shape of the lower half of her blaze, and I think the size of the muzzle as well.
I wonder whether the Saudi Hamdani horses have the same mtDNA as Sherifa. I am also wondering now whether Sherifa and Selma have the same mtDNA; time to peruse my collection of genetics articles, I suppose.
Oh my! She had a son by Fa Knight, a *Samirah (Albert Harris Saud import) great grandson. I wish I had seen him. There is no breeder reference for her son. I would bet Richard and Maryellen Bancroft had some hand in that breeding. (See Edouard’s blog post regarding *Samirah, Konight)
He is the nice stallion on the AK t-shirt no?