New Dwarka photo
The facebook page for “Dartmoor Pony Chronicles” has this ‘new’ photo of the desert-import Dwarka. I have never seen ears so short on a Arabian horse (they’re too short), and placed so far back (that’s good), but I am also pleasantly surprised at how fine the muzzle and the nostrils are, how deep the jowls are, and how soulful the eyes are. I confess I was always a little biased against this horse, even questioning his authenticity credentials, and this photo makes me better disposed towards him. In the other photo the length of his ears is more normal, so I wonder what happened there.
Perhaps they were cropped, or the ear-tips lost to frostbite? I noticed on that page quite a few photos of impressive amounts of snow (and I say that living in northern Wisconsin, ha!) and some articles describing the harrowing and life-threatening winter conditions the ponies were in. In the photo with the very small ears, it looks like he’s still got his winter woolies, as well.
The top photo might also be one of Dwarka’s Dartmoor offspring; short ears are part of the type of the traditional Dartmoor pony, as . From the Dartmoor Pony Society’s breed standard: “The ears are small and alert and the eyes fairly large giving the pony a kindly interested expression.” Several other native British breeds also have the short ears to minimise heat loss, like the Exmoor, the Fell Pony, and the Shetland.
Does anyone have access to the original article with these photos? Here’s a transcript from the Dartmoor Pony Chronicles FB page:
PRINCE OF WALES AND DWARKA.
(1921.5.4 Daily Mail)
The skeleton of the Prince of Wales’s famous Arab stallion Dwarka, described in his younger days as the most perfect Arab ever seen, will be in view in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington (of which the Prince is a trustee), when it has been prepared. The preperation may take some time, but a plaster cast of the animal’s head which has been made, will shortly be exhibited. Dwarka—a bay standing upwards of 14 hands—was bred in the Arabian desert by the great Anazeh tribe, whence he was taken to India for racing purposes. He was never beaten in a mile or more. Later he was brought to England and became famous in the hunting field. His owner Mrs Atkinson, of Edgehill, Okehampton, Devon, sold him to the Prince, early in the year, decided to have him put to death in the most humane manner possible, and this was done by chloroform. The Prince gave the body to the museum, and two of the animal’s hooves have been presented to Mrs Atkinson.
[Note that the article doesn’t mention Dwarka’s pony get, so the head shot is less likely to be one of these, IMO. Also mentioned is a plaster cast of Dwarka’s head.]
That’s a good point re the article not mentioning his pony offspring. I have looked at those pesky ears again (and taken a tape measure and worked out inconclusive ratios on this and another headshot), and then thought about enlarging the photo – and I think the ears in the headshot are misleading. If you zoom in, you can see that his near ear extends further than it seems, as the tip is the same colour as the background sky, and is only visible because of the pole/tree behind him. The off ear is against the sky, so the tip may simply blend with it in terms of colour. And in all pictures confirmed to be of Dwarka, he does have relatively short ears, if not pony short.
As for other features, the horse in this headshot has a star; Dwarka has a star as well. The mane lies to the right; so does Dwarka’s. The forelock is sparse; so is Dwarka’s. So I suppose the balance of the evidence points to it being Dwarka, though it would be nice to see the original article and the picture in context with its original caption (if any).
If the Dartmoor Pony Chronicles page is to be trusted, this headshot of Dwarka was taken in 1921, as well, making it a photo of a 29 year old horse that would soon be put to sleep.
Good point, it must be age. The more I look at his head the more I like it.
Dwarka’s skeleton is still in the Natural History Museum. At least it was as of 2015, along with those of Skowronek, Ajjam, Risala, Bint Nura and others (see https://issuu.com/vinkpublishing/docs/ahn_june_15/28).
It would be lovely if someone could find more written info about him. Wonder if Maj-Gen Ralph Broome had any papers to search, or if there were records in India?
To the best of my understanding, Maj. Broome was stationed in Bombay as a remount agent for the ‘Government’, which likely puts his base of operations at Ahmednagar. I have been absolutely dying to see the records for this stud.
There is a reference to one of their studbooks, List of Ahmednagar Stud Brood Mares with Their Family Numbers, published in 1924 by the United States. Army. Remount service, but tragically isn’t currently available for viewing (though, I think it has fallen outside of copyright protection and should be open source now.) I am told that The National Sporting Library & Museum has a copy, if anyone near Virginia wants to go look for it 😛
Cool! I’m in Maryland, so that could be a fun day trip!
Unfortunately, I am a half-@ssed researcher. Someone would have to provide adult supervision! XD
Wasn’t there a gentleman who posted on this blog a while ago about digitized records from Pakistan? Wonder if India has something similar?
Haha! Honestly, for some of these things, if you are just able to get things photocopied and shared, it makes just about everybody’s day. I did end up emailing the National Sporting Library to see if they have it, and what their options for long-distance researchers are. One of their librarians emailed me back and said that they are working on digitizing their archives, and until then- this particular text was available through the Inter Library Loan system. Which, I’m not technically a University student anymore, so I wasn’t able to request it myself, but some of my former students are still on the nearby campus and one of them graciously requested it on my behalf. Will hopefully have it in my hands soon 😀
What I see in the photo, full size, is that the photo has burned out on the tops of his ears, which are still there.
Yes, that does seem to be the case. I zoomed in on the photo and then when over the lines with my drawing tablet to get a better visual of this–
DWARKA’S EARS
I know little enough about how photography worked in the first couple of decades of the 20th century, but my guess is either something went wrong with the process of burning the image into the original film, or this copy of the photo is part of that original ‘copy and paste’ techniques for photos before digital existed. (That’s about as far as my understanding goes, I’m sure I heard the actual name for the technique at one point, but it doesn’t seem to have stuck with me)
I suppose I could pull out my copy of the Blue Catalog, but does anyone know why the Otts sublisted Dwarka? As a horse from India, is his provenance that different from, for example, Mameluke’s or Maidan’s or *Kismet’s?
Dwarka and Basilisk were both sub-listed by the Otts in the Blue Catalog because they felt there was “disturbance” that they could see. They never, as far as I know, described the disturbance or variation they said they saw. When Al Khamsa began in 1975, we included both Dwarka and Basilisk, since their exclusion was based on personal opinion. Here is what was written, in the 1963 supplement.
“There is some kind of disturbance in the Sub-list Dwarka stock; _what_ kind, we do not know. The disturbance does not follow a pattern to the point of being a recognizable type; we have not been able to identify it with any breed we know; and we have yet to come on a Sub-list Dwarka that deviates so far that we can be _certain_ that it cannot possibly be a Blue Arabian. Where the Dwarka disturbance will appear is as unpredictable as the form it will take; we have seen some of the most suspect examples crop up in some of the best-bred animals on the list. As we have said before on the subject of Sub-list Dwarka, when you have seen the records we publish and seen the horses we have seen you have all the information on that stock that we have; but you must have seen the horses we have seen, or enough of the others to have encountered the same variations. …”
I think the ‘disturbance’ was elsewhere if you see what I mean..
In my head, I hear, “I sense a disturbance in the force.” It is interesting because I see that a lot of Dwarka’s descendants were crossed with a number of programs that had a particular and rather prepotent ‘type’ – namely Ansata, Babson, and Davenport horses. I wonder if that had anything to do with it.
Dwarka sired just three Arabian foals per DataSource, two of which came to the U.S., the full siblings *Aldebar and *Ana.
Nearly all of *Aldebar’s U.S. foals were bred by Henry Babson (who owned and imported him). The other two were out of *Nuri Pasha daughters, which the Otts would have sensed as a GREAT disturbance in the force. One of the foals Babson bred was out of Baribeh, a Basilisk descendant.
Of *Ana’s eight foals, none qualified for the Otts’ sublist Dwarka. (Three were by *Nuri Pasha, three were by *Nuri Pasha’s son Kaaba, one was by the Basilisk descendant El Sabok, and one was by a stallion going back to El Emir, Ishtar, and Wild Thyme.
Thus there were only 8 horses in America in the next generation of sublist Dwarka, all of them by *Aldebar and out of Babson Egyptian mares.
I am also interested in the Aldebar connection to Canada, specifically to the Prince of Wale’s ranch in Alberta where Aldebar was first exported…to improve the herd of Dartmoors the Prince had sent to Canada…I don’t believe there were any purebreds bred in Canada…
Aldebar was first exported to the Prince of Wales’ Ranch in Alberta Canada to improve the Prince’s herd of Dartmoor ponies..I don’t believe he left any purebred get.
Somewhat related, but this is reportedly a photo of Aldebaran, taken when he arrived in Canada to stand at the EP Ranch in October of 1929.
Thanks, Moira – that could surely be him! The only other photo I’ve seen shows Aldebaran wearing a similar bridle, also with an ill-adjusted (too loose) noseband. In that body shot, the noseband has fallen forward, making it difficult to judge his head.
I was thinking the same re: the ill-fitting noseband. I was hoping to be able to track down the original, which, fingers are still crossed. Now that I think of it, I wonder if one could write to the secretaries of the royal family and see if they would be willing to release photos of Dwarka and his Arabian get. I’m sure they have more than just the precious few we’ve seen.
I have unearthed another photo of Aldebaran, from archives of the Toronto Star Daily, circa August 29, 1929. The quality isn’t as nice as the other, since it’s from a printed newspaper and not the original photo itself, but nevertheless, here it is.
Moira, fantastic, please publish it as an article of its own. Don’t worry about overtaking the site, it’s yours, as you keep unearthing these treasures.
I’ll just casually drop this here, to keep it in line with the topic until I get my hands on the book proper – Virginia ‘Ginnie’ Pope has recently published a book called “Hoofbeats in the Heather” that recounts the stories her grandfather, Arthur Hurn, told her of his time at the Tor Royal stud where HRH the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward, bred Dartmoors and stood Dwarka at stud. Apparently there is an account of Dwarka’s story as well: “The book also tells a tale of Dwarka – An Arab stallion with an amazing life story. Born in Arabia, taken to India where he successfully raced, then to the UK to hunt for many seasons across the country, finally coming to live at Tor Royal to stand at stud and siring ‘The Leat’.” [X]
Hello 🙂
I’m just wondering if this photo of Dwarka
https://www.meisterdrucke.com/kunstdrucke/Frederick-William-Bond/368501/Arabischer-Hengst-Dwarka-mit-Pony-Moore,-ein-Pferdewagenfahrer,-London-Zoo,-1921-(sw-Foto).html
is already known here. I guess it most probably is, but I have seen it for the very first time today.
And is it really Dwarka? I thought only one of his hind feet was white? On the other hand, the head seems to be the same (including the makeshift halter etc) as in the headshot above. Probably taken at the same shooting.