Guesswork answer
The answer is Tunisian! Not Syrian, not old or new Egyptian, not Davenport, not Saudi, not Bahraini!
Here are two more pictures of him at the Tunisian government stud of Sidi Thabet where his owner is keeping him. Enjoy.
A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
Hey Edouard, Haven’t Asils been kept in Tunisia, and Morocco, and Algeria, since the days of the Bani Safir coming there in the 1150’s? The reason I ask is that a study released last September 22nd. found that 24% of the Barb stallions tested had the Ao Y chromosome of Bask and Nazeer. I know its quite common for Spanish Andalusian breeders to fatuously claim,’ Theres’ no arabian blood in our,” pure,” Andalusians.” Which is complete manure!.. We do know that the ,” Barbs,” were used as the top cross foundation sires of the Andalusian horses. And Andalusians are a part bred horse anyway. If you have a good eye for conformation you can see it.. The Andy phenotype to me looks like a blend between a small draft farm horse, and an Arabian.
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Bruce Peek
Do they really claim that, Bruce? History and genetics are not on their side with that one.
I don’t think that the Arab blood in the Barb is that old; I personally think it comes from the French encouraging North Africans to use their desert-bred Arabian imports on the Barbs stock. The Barb today is heavily Arab-Barb.. but that’s just my own non-scientist opinion
Moira: I’ve heard some PRE Andalusian owners say,’ there is no arab in these Andalusians. ” A comment I find utterly insane. Even the conventional curriculum of Spains history centers around Arabs being in Spain from 711 to 1492. Todays growing genetics influenced historiography which is starting to take genetics into account to make the narrative more accurate is indeed finding out that it is, for example most likely that ,’ the three arabian founding sires of the Thourobred,’ were not arabians; at least in the sense that we know arabians today. The hardly any genetic component of T-breds not showing arab genes would tend to reinforce your ideas of the French remount bring in Asils Edouard.
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Bruce Peek
PRE-owners claiming there’s no Arabian genetics in their horses are just participating in purity myth-making. Which is fine, I suppose; ahistoric, and flying in the face of genetics, but fine. [lol]
re: TB sirelines: not necessarily. The problem I find with “…todays growing genetics influenced historiography…” studies is often the reverse of the problem the above-mentioned PREs have — that is, genetics without historiography. You’d be astonished (or maybe not!) how many equine genetics studies have a really poor grasp on the history of the animals they’re researching. The way we Westerners tend to talk about breeds and purebreds in 2023 has its roots in a very Victorian sense of the word, and this conceptualization is not necessarily reflective of a different cultural framework for what constitutes an Arabian. Frequently, they do not seem to take into account the historical movements of people (and therefore their horses) and the way genetics can ebb and flow within a population. I often find myself frustrated by the pre-conceived notions that they approach their data with, and how it shapes the conclusions they reach.
A significant challenge facing these ongoing genomic studies is interpretation of the data. As an example – the lack of genetic similarity shown between modern day Arabians and Thoroughbreds has a couple of options to consider.
The first, and an easy conclusion to draw, is the Arabian provided little to no contribution to the founding of the Thoroughbred. BUT, is the historical record really that far off the mark?
A second option (and IMHO one that requires a more in-depth look) – is the Arabian was a significant contributor, but several points account for why the groups from modern day sampling aren’t clustering near each other. [for purposes of this discussion, take the Y chromosome studies out since that’s a different sphere of work and has its own set of options to consider]
The Thoroughbred has a very old closed studbook, with hundreds of years of intense selection behind it. Add to that……
– The Thoroughbred did not continue to sample from desert sources. So, genetic drift, coupled with intense selection, will move the breeds apart. I think an argument can be made that a representative sample of Thoroughbred founding ancestors and early-era horses might not cluster near modern day Thoroughbreds either.
– The Thoroughbred experienced continued positive selection towards performance traits that need not have come from the Arabian lines.
– The Arabian horse has also experienced 400 years of selection with an unknown number of population bottlenecks due to wars and migrations. The modern Arabian is also likely to be different from the population sampled in the early development of the Thoroughbred.
Data interpretation needs to connect genomic history and written history. I’m optimistic as the scope of genomic studies continue to expand, there will be more inter-disciplinary collaboration; it is definitely needed.
Beth, the Godolphin Arabian’s skeleton is supposed to be buried in the gateway to the stables in Wandlebury Ring, the only part of the Earl of Godolphin’s home still remaining. There’s a stone slab laid on top of it with an inscription indicating it’s him, though by this point in time the inscription may be very worn. So there’s, in theory, one foundation stallion whose remains are accessible for testing.
I’ve heard that and it would be a coup to get the $ and permission to access and test. Though I was surprised when Dr. Bower did sampling from quite a few historical TBs a while back that the Godolphin wasn’t one of them. Though Eclipse was one, along with some mid-late 1800’s TBs.
I would love for a patron to appear with the financial resources and passion for this type of genomic work…and an adventurous spirit…to help fund and pursue this work. 🙂
There is so much more to do!!!!!
Nicely summarized, Beth.
The sidebar from the 1st article we did was such a great summary….hard not to utilize the content when the topic comes up. 🙂
Beth and Moira- Couldn’t have said it better myself.. I think if you add to that the fact that Arabians, Turcomans, and Caspian,’horses,’ all are generally agreed to have descended from the Afro Turkic subspecies and you can come to the conclusion that todays Thoroughbreds do indeed share some genetic traits with Arabians- such as the exercize induced celluar damage recovery complex confirmed by the Cornell study.
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Bruce Peek
Well, and what further complicates the distinction between Arabian and Turcomans is that we KNOW the Turkic peoples would periodically sample from Arabian stallions to improve their horses. There’s plenty of historical record of this, including several large-scale importations of Arab stallions to the region as recorded by the people who did it.
We also know that it’s possible for entire bloodlines to just go extinct. That should be a “duh” but for the sake of the commentary we’ll just add that, in example, Abbas Pasha was known to have practically emptied the desert, and the Ottoman sultans were fond of helping themselves to the horses they liked or otherwise wanted.
So at what point does a Turcoman just have a very old Arabian sireline?
And at what point do the historical Turcomans share sirelines with the historical Thoroughbreds? And what point is there sireline overlap, where the Turkic tribes crossed Thoroughbred onto their historical Akhal Tekes — a phenomenon that is known and which has been the subject of much scandal in the breed?
Much to consider, much more than the genetic studies have been able to handle on their own at this time.
These are excellent questions from Moira, and an excellent summary from Beth
Oh, my. I didn’t know that the Turkic breeders used TB bloodlines in Akhal Tekes. I imagine this was way before the Soviets did?
Well stated, Moira!
So much more to study and consider.
Okay, genetics tangent aside, he’s lovely. Can I come ride him? He looks like he’d be such a fun horse to ride. Springy in the joints and powerful.
What a handsome and elegant stallion! Looks like he has a very expressive face. Heart emoji.
I loved the genetics discussion. Thanks for beautifully articulating things I sort of understood and introducing concepts I hadn’t thought about.
So is it generally agreed upon that the Soviets purposely bred mid quality Thoroughbreds to the Turkomans? That would have been in the mid 30’s when the Russian academy of sciences was badly warped by Lysenkoism- the idea that species could be made to genetically inherit acquired characteristics. It should be said that pushing Lysenkoism was in reality a way Russian scientists had of trying to stay on Stalins good side. It worked for Lysenko himself as he died in bed at home instead of in front of a firing squad, or from being starved and worked to death in a slave labor camp. But i digress.
Have there been any genetic studies of surviving Turkomans in say Iran, looking for Arabian gene complexes?
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Bruce Peek
Magnificent horse and brilliant discussion!
Agree with both points, Joe! Loved this thread of discussion. What fun we could all have, sitting around a majliss talking horses and strains and genetics!