How Ma’naqi mares are special
My Syrian friend Radwan — one of the persons from whom I keep learning — told me that desert mares from the Ma’naqi strain were characterizeda, among other features by long ears, large and long mouths that ran deeper into the muzzle than horses from other strains, and horizontally placed eyes, more so than horses from other strains whose eyes were parallel to the axis of the head.
This was in connection with a discussion of the precious desert Ma’naqi Sbayli strain known as “Ma’aaniq al-Tanf” (after their location at the Tanf desert border crossing between Syria and Iraq) or “Ma’aaniq Abu Jarn” and its tracing to the Black Marzaqani (al-Marzaqani al-Adham), the famous Saqlawi stallion of the Maraziq of Shammar later owned by Alaa al-Din al-Jabri in the 1960s. These are the horses of ‘Affaat al-Dbeissi of the Fad’aan, a precious marbat which Jean-Claude Rajot and other French and German purists visited in the 1990s in the Syrian Desert (Jens Sennek has stories about that visit to them in his awesome book), but the Syrian Studbook does not show that the line actually traces to the Black Marzaqani. The old chestnut Ma’naqiyah mare which Ibrahim Khamis of Hama owned in the early 1990s was the daughter of the Black Marzaqani. I think I remember her, or maybe it was her daughter which the Hama people bought from Affata’ after the dam had died without female progeny.
I found in Syrian Stud book that my horse comes in direct male line of kehilan khidli from the shayk Fawaz Shaalan of the Ruwala
that’s a different horse.
O.k.Interesting, north horses go to sud,like hundred years ago before the barriers the horses go from sud to the north and from the north to the sud
exactly. and this north to south movement of horses is much less known than the reverse one from hundreds of years ago, mainly because (but not only) westerners have difficulty accepting that the majority of nejd horses are not from nejd.
The north to south migration I find most interesting. Glad to see more posts on it.