Lyman Doyle on Daughters of the Wind
Many of you who read this page know Lyman Doyle. He is so many things at the same time: the owner of the Doyle Arabian Stud, which is the longest Al Khamsa program in existence with the same family, going back to 1949; the CEO of Doyle Pacific Industries, in Shanghai, China, and a former armored cavalry officer.
I have asked Lyman to publish some of his research on Skowronek and early Polish Arabian and not so-Arabian horses on Daughters of the Wind. Lyman has rediscovered a series of primary documents in the central and eastern European languages, by main protagonists of the time. He will present the information and sources as is, and leave readers to draw their own conclusions. Lyman will blog here and add materials on the page: daughterofthewind.org/skowronek
Thanks Edouard. Looking forward to it.
Edouard: Good news. There was an article about John Rogers the owner of Serafix in one of the arab magazines this month in which it was mentioned that he was a big booster of the early Polish imports. The piece went on about how the early american importers COULD NOT READ POLISH AND SO COULD NOT TELL WHAT THE PEDIGREES SAID! Kind of an important thing to know about in a breed from an area where there are Shagyas, Gidrans, Weilki Polskis(sp) and Trakheners- all of which were created with desert bred crosses as well as significant amounts of Native Tarpan, Konik, Spanish Gennet, Turkmen, and Thourobred blood. One of my farriers used to state that the remarkably high percentage of crooked front legs now seen in american general list horses came from the Polish imports, and is often found in the linebred Bask horses. By crooked front legs I mean the high heel-low heel stuff. High heel-low heel is important because it predisposes the horse to unsoundness, makes it very difficult to keep shoes on the front feet, and causes body and leg soreness issues. Its important too to note that other breeding groups have their issues too, long weak backs, and skinny insubstantial hindquarters and tiny leg bone in the New Egyptian halter horses for example. Which is why they need to be fixed with infusions of cradle country asil genes. Beeding sound substantial useful horses is facilitated by proper pedigree knowledge so that the informed breeder can really know they’re getting into. And proper pedigree knowledge doesn’t exist unless the truth is known about the horses listed in the books.
best
Bruce Peek
Bruce, I think you are overstating things. I don’t believe that it requires much knowledge of the Polish language to read a pedigree and pick out Witraz, Ofir, Amurath Sahib, Makata, Fetysz, etc., any more than it requires a detailed knowledge of the English language to read a pedigree from Crabbet and pick out Rasim, Riyala, Naufal, or Raseem. And all that the American importers of the 1960s and 70s had to do was choose horses registered in the PASB to come home with a Polish Arabian instead of a Shagya, Gidran, or Trakehner. If folks want to debate the early to mid-19th century ancestors in Polish Arabian pedigrees, that is a different matter.
Bruce,
Re: high-heel low-heel issues, I have to wonder how much of that is genetic to these horses, and how much of that is just really bad long-term trimming. Most domestic horses are trimmed from a very early age, and from a biomechanical perspective, how well or how poorly hooves are trimmed can affect how their bones align and what sort of motor patterns they go through. A lot of the Polish Arabians that I’ve looked at over the years have IMO had some pretty bad trimming jobs done on them, and long-term poor alignment is always going to cause structural problems. I’ve also felt that, part of the curse of living in the 20th and 21st centuries is that a large body of real, practical horsemanship and understanding of their care has been lost because the vast majority of people do not breed ‘using horses’ designed for a life dependent on horses as travel and work animals – and I think farrier care extends into that… Any genetic components would be from horses having been selectively bred in relatively controlled conditions that could circumvent natural, functional asymmetries, and that’s true of any domestic population of horses.
In any case, it’s odd that the Polish horses themselves would be identified as a source of structural problems, being that the Polish breeders actually performance test their horses. I’d be more inclined to point fingers at American breeders and the choices they’ve made 😛
R. J. and Moira Without a doubt a non native speaker might have been able to pick out the W sons of Ofir, but certain Big Famous Breeders did import Polish horses sight unseen depending on the good will of their british agents and ended up with mares who were so ewe necked that they looked like their necks came out of their knees. For every El Mudir( a fabulous mover) Bask, El Paso, Sambor there were numbers of real clunkers, mares who rejected their foals, were poor movers, or who lacked type so much that they resembled Tarpans more than they did Arabians.
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Bruce Peek
Well, now, I certainly haven’t seen any photos or videos of THOSE mares 😛
Bruce, that seems like a really broad brush. I’ve never seen any image of a Polish mare looking like a Tarpan.
Jeanne: One of the guys i did Barn chores for in college imported 3 Polish mares. One was descended from the Babolna fillies the Hungarians gave to the Poles to make up for the horses the u.s. Government stole from the Poles after World War 2( pilot, Witez 2, Lotnik, Iwonka 3 etc) She was an absolute gem- size a bit over 15.1,type, disposition, movement and she was a good mom to her filly. One of the other two was just ugly- boxy headed, indifferent movement, and she rejected her filly and would not let it nurse.At the time the mares were imported the Polish thing was at its zenith
and its quite likely any of those mares could have been sold for a fairly high price
Bruce Peek
I am new here, and like history of the Arabian horse. Regarding Polish pedigrees, what about *Habanera? At first it was thought she was a half-bred and was not registered as a purebred. Then she was, and then she wasn’t.Then something about her foals were. And finally the then owner of *Habanera threatened to file a lawsuit if she wasn’t registered. So then she was. As for the Babolna mares, Hungary did not give them to Poland after the war. There was something about the Americans sent them to a serum factory and Poland exchanged work horses for the Hungarian Arabians. Poland requested the papers from Hungary which were sent. But later Hungary demanded their mares back and Poland kept the foals. These were the Arabians whose names started with “B”.
Elizabeth: sorry for the late addition.. The story I got from Lazlo Monostory was that the Polish government protested to the U.S. Government after the war and asked for their horses back. Long pause..The Poles pointed out they were allied with the U.S. and pretty much most of their country had been destroyed by the war. More time went on. Finally the Poles took the matter to the tribunal on disposition of stolen war loot, which ended up deciding that the horses{ among them I guess was 250 Kuhaylan 8-5 hope i got that right)were actually spoils of war. At that time the communists had taken over Hungary too and were wanting to give the u.s. a black eye by reminding everyone that the u.s. couldn’t be trusted. So they made a big deal out of donating some of the best Babolna fillies to the Poles. Lazlo said that after the fillies established sucessful mare families in Poland the Poles than gave the Hungarians some of the better horses from those breedings, so that some of the horse families came full circle.
Still the whole episode is a shameful one for the u.s.and I wish we would own up to our history and make amends to the Poles.. I don’t know the best course of action to take- where are we going to find the likes of Witez 2, Lotnik, Pilot, Iwonka 3,250 Kuhaylan 8 5 etc.to give back to the nations they came from.
best ‘Bruce Peek
Roman Pankiewicz was the one that spoke of the Babolna mares, and how they were traded for work horses. There is also an article about how they happened to arrive to Poland after the war. The article is written by Malgorzata Sliz but that’s all I have info for. Don’t know where it was published. There is another write-up about after the war when communism took over. No one was allowed to own Arabian horses except the state. After WWII, the Americans were concerned about arming the enemy. Horses were valuable war material and would be considered so for some years after that. But Germany was not the enemy, Russia was. With Russia taking over part of Europe, the US would not want to be helping the Soviets. It is a pity these fine horses were taken from Poland and Hungary. But communism also took from private breeders too.