Leasing Daughter of the Pharaohs, 2015 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah

I am thrilled about my leasing the chestnut 2015 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah mare Daughter of the Pharaohs from DeWayne Brown. Pippa (her barn name) is by the handsome Doyle stallion Chatham DE (Huntington Doyle x Gulida Tara) and out of De Wayne’s mare SS Lady Guenevere, a close relative of my own Southern Springs black Ma’naqiyah mare SS Shadows Aana.

I have been a fan of little Pippa since she was born, even after she injured her leg in a pasture accident. She has both good substance and style, depth of girth and depth of jaws, roundness of barrel, that long Crabbet hip, dark skin around the eyes and muzzle, and proud tail carriage. She is a testimony to the hybrid vigor that closed Doyle breeding adds to other lines.

Pippa also represents hope for the Ma’naqi strain, a favorite of mine, but one I have been unlucky with so far. She is indeed the fifth and by far the youngest mare from that strain I have been associated with, and there is a change in tactics here. The four that preceded her were all in their high teens and twenties (Dakhala Sahra and SS Juans Aana were 25 were I got them), and attempts at embryo transfer and artificial insemination failed miserably.

So Pippa will be boarded at Rosemary Doyle in Oregon, and will be bred to the very masculine Tamaam DE (Carver DE x Maloof Habiba), who has been producing well for Rosemary. I am hoping for a filly to keep the line going — this once well represented strain is now on the brink of extinction — but I would not mind a colt to carry on this regal Mesaoud sire line.

Reading the reedited Annotated Quest out last year, I am reminded of the note Homer Davenport’s translators jotted down next to the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain, in a list of more than a hundred strains in a copy of Major Upton’s book, during a discussion about strains Davenport was having with Bedouin leader Hakem Ibn Mhayd: “Best strain to breed from”. How true.

I haven’t yet dared counting the number of Mesaoud crosses that breeding will produce, no doubt in the three digits.