Bonjour Cher Edouard, très touché par ta marque de sympathie et sentiments à mon égard. Cela faisait bien longtemps et l’on aurait pu croire que le contact était rompu, faute je suppose à ma franchise ?! Mais si tu le permets, puisse un ami te crier gare !!! Ton auditoire t’emporte dans des sphères viciées et ineptes car, constitué pour une grande partie de beaux parleurs versatiles et sans expérience notoire. Entre ceux qui traitent Nimr de « Chèvre Syrienne » et qui ensuite le comparent au superbe Dahman de 1909, d’autres qui affirment que Mokhtar aurait du barbe, celui qui choisit d’acheter un cheval en fonction de sa selle, il en est de même un parmi ces illuminés qui m’a réclamé un produit, va comprendre ? J’en passe et des meilleures et à présent voici la chasse à l’«Asil » accompagnée de toutes ses critiques malveillantes envers ceux qui pourraient leur faire de l’ombre, parlant même au nom d’autres personnes, ceci afin de se hisser sur le pavois et écouler je suppose leurs produits, peut-être même par vice… C’est lamentable ! Quel piège que cet outil trop souvent mal employé où suspicions, commérages, babinages et niaiseries font loi. Toutes…
This was, until recently, the most beautiful city in the world, in my eyes. Paris, Rome, Chicago, Vienna, Budapest? No.
Kate McLachlan and I were recently exchanging about the treasure trove of Arabian horse related documents stored at the Qatar Digital Library. She has located, among other findings, a translation of the hujjah of the Bahrain import to Poland Kuhailan Afas, in the hand of Carl Raswan, as well as a translation of his full pedigree. Kuhailan Afas was a major stallion in twentieth century Arabian horse breeding. Click to read they are easily legible. There is also a typewritten Arabic hujjah, which Kate also found, and an extended typewritten pedigree in Arabic, both obviously based on a handwritten Arabic hujjah. These Arabic typewritten versions of the hujjah and pedigree are a bit odd, because they give the horse the strain of its sire (Kuhailan Wathnan) in addition to other glaring inconsistencies. Probably typos. “I declare I, o ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Abd al-Razzaq al-Sani’, the servant of Shaykh Hamad ibn ‘Isa Aal Khalifa, that I sold the horse known as Kuhaylan al-Wathnan to His Excellency the Mister Bogdan Zietarski and I produced this [piece of] paper for him, about the lineage of the horse to clarify its origin; he is of a young age; born on the 25th of Sha’ban the…
Kees Mol offered me this photo of the mare Faras (‘mare’ in Arabic), and in turn I donated it to the Arabian Horse Archives, on the website of which a copy can now be found. Faras was a 1927 desert bred Kuhaylat al-Krush, gifted by Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia to her HRH Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone and the Earl of Athlone during their visit to Arabia and Bahrain in 1938. She was from the most precious and sougth after strain of Central Arabia. Peter Upton’s book “the Arab Horse” has a copy of her hujjah, written in Ibn Saud’s hand. She also appears to have been a producer of horses famed for their speed and endurance. Despite all these credentials, I am not sure she would be accepted in a halter show for Arabians today (or even thirty years ago). Most people familiar with Arabian horses in the West, and increasingly, in the East too, would not believe her to be an Arabian: where is the dish, the two-level profile? Where is the bird-like eye, popping out of its socket? the croup flatter than a counter top? the swan-like arched neck? the meaty face? the…
I just fell upon the photo of this superb younger mare of the Jilfan Dhawi strain from the breeding of Fabienne Vesco. Fedaia Beni Sakr is a blend of mostly Egyptian, Tunisian and Algerian bloodlines, with a hint of old French blood. Such a deep girth and nice hindquarter on this mare, on top of pointy ears and the black skin around the eyes.
In an earlier thread on Dwarka, Astrid Moegling shared the following photo print of a horse that was captioned as being of Dwarka, located on the Meisterdrucke Fine Art Prints website: Astrid asked the additional question of: “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.“ I think it is him! The rope halter is definitely similar, and the star matches other headshots of Dwarka where his marking is visible. There are precious few photos of Dwarka in full, and some of them are very poor in quality, but we can compare with a few of them to determine that, yes, Dwarka does, in fact, have two white hind socks, both visible from the near side, but with the partial sock on the off-side hind only extending slightly around the front to to be visible from the off side.
** Note: this post contains a picture of a dead horse’s partially dissected skull. ** Ginnie Pope sent me this scan of an article related to Dwarka, published May 16th, 1923 — two years after Dwarka had passed away — within The Illustrated London News. The article, “A Problem For Horsemen: The “Blind” Nostril” was by W. P. Pycraft, Author of “The Infancy of Animals,” “The Courtship of Aimals,” etc. etc. This was in fact William Plane Pycraft, an Englishman and a zoologist that wrote extensively on natural history while involved with the British Natural History Museum. The article includes a photo of Dwarka from his very last days, as well as a postmortem shot of his skull which is used to compare against reconstructions of earlier protohorses. It also discusses the evolution of the horse and its functional anatomy. Gruesome as it might be, it’s cool to find out that another of our desert horses played a role in the advancement of scientific education. Photo under cut, but if it’s too small for you to read the font, you can access it via dropbox by clicking this link.
This morning, Lyman Doyle sent me several videos of Pippa, which he had taken in the summer of 2018. Pippa (her registered name Daughter of the Pharaohs) is a three year old Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, by Lyman’s stallion Chatham DE out of SS Lady Guenevere, by SS Dark Prince), who belongs to DeWayne Brown. I leased her from DeWayne last year, boarded her at Lyman’s in Alfafla, OR, and attempted several breedings to Lyman’s stallions Kashgar, Tamaam, and Buckner. We will be trying again this year. The lineage traces to the Sba’ah Bedouins of North Arabia, as it should for this precious and highly prized strain.
This is yet another photo from the same collection at the Arabian Horse Archives, showing the mares of King A. A. Aal-Saud at his stud of al-Kharj. Notice the pretty head of the bay mare on the left, and the plain head of the chestnut one near, and the convex profile of the bay one in the center. Clearly, all desert mares, all royal mares, and all different. There was not one single type.
From the website of the Arabian Horse Archives comes this photos of a handsome desert bred stallion at the stud of King Abd al-‘Aziz Aal Saud of Saudi Arabian, in 1946 or 1949. Notice the very dark skin around the eye and the muzzle, a distinctive trait of authenticity (asalah). This photo is “part of a series of 120 primarily glass slides taken by Joe Buchanan’s father, Robert Earle Buchanan, a professor of Agriculture at Iowa State University, on trips to the Middle East in 1946 and 1949. In the Comar Arabians collection of Garth and Joe Buchanan. Now held by Carolyn and Dick Hasbrook, Twinbrook Arabians, Ames, Iowa.”
This precious image of a Bedouin in Saudi Arabia, recently uploaded on the website of the Arabian Horse Archives is “part of a series of 120 primarily glass slides taken by Joe Buchanan’s father, Robert Earle Buchanan, a professor of Agriculture at Iowa State University, on trips to the Middle East in 1946 and 1949. In the Comar Arabians collection of Garth and Joe Buchanan. Now held by Carolyn and Dick Hasbrook, Twinbrook Arabians, Ames, Iowa.”
Photographer Kevin Bubriski in a new book: “Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War”, which the blog “Roads and Kingdoms features here.
Saraly El Shahin (Ansata Aly Jamil x Saree by Salaa El Dine out of Selmah by Shakhs out of Sappho by Bleinheim) is, at 24 years old, one of the most precious asil mares in Europe. She is with Laszlo Kiraly in Hungary. One of the very last asil mares of the precious strain of Hamdani Simiri, tracing to the mare Selma of Abbas Pasha, she has a predominantly Egyptian pedigree, with the addition of two of the desert bred stallions of the Courthouse Stud, in England, Nimr and Fedaan. She has a three year old daughter, which is not currently in a preservation program.
The following article on the life of the mare *Naomi was tracked down by Kate McLachlan and dug up by myself, and can be read online through the Hathi Trust website courtesy of the New York Public Library [click here.] Written by the Rev. F. Furse Vidal, it was published August 16, 1900 in The Country Gentleman – an American agricultural magazine founded in the 1830s. He writes about his acquisition of the mare, her disposition with children, and of several of the foals that he bred out of her. I am struck by his pointed description of her attitude toward children, and it only further confirms for me what I’ve long thought: Arabian mares and children go together like the moon and the stars.
This unique photo is part of a series of 120 primarily glass slides taken by Joe Buchanan’s father, Robert Earle Buchanan, a professor of Agriculture at Iowa State University, on trips to the Middle East in 1946 and 1949. It is in the Comar Arabians collection of Garth and Joe Buchanan. Now held by Carolyn and Dick Hasbrook, Twinbrook Arabians, Ames, Iowa. It is on the website of the Arabian Horse Archives.
Laszlo Kiraly sent me this head shot of the Babolna mare 25 Amurath Sahib, from the last asil female line from Babolna. The photo was never published before Laszlo’s recent article in the Khamsat magazine about the asil lines of Babolna.
This morning I woke up to a message from Jeanne Craver to the Davenport Owners list serve on Google Groups that Triermain CF had died the night before. Her message, titled “Another end to another era”, was: I went to feed about 30 minutes ago, and Triermain was gone. It looks like he strolled out to the water tank and was heading back to the shed and just dropped. No sign of struggle. He ate his breakfast with his usual gusto, and had seemed well. I am glad he went so quickly. Jeanne The passing of the last senior stallion at Craver Farms indeed marks the end of an era. Triermain was my personal favorite, after his sire Thadrian. He will forever have a special place in my heart. He was just perfect. First photo by Anita Westfall. Second photo from the Craver Farms collection. Of his several sons and successors, Aurene CF (below, photo by owner Hannah Logan) is, in my opinion, the new king. Long live the king! In homage to Triermain, a quote from the poem of Walter Scott “the Bridal of Triermain” after which Charles Craver named him, because only him was worthy of Plantagenet daughters:…
Quite by accident yesterday, I came across the following photograph in the Getty Museum’s collection, of an Arab stallion presented to Napoléon III by the Sultan of Turkey in 1867: The caption reads “Aladin, étalon de pur sang arabe offert par le Sultan Abd-ul-azis à l’empereur Napoleon en 1867”. The occasion of the gift was Abdulaziz’s visit to Europe; Paris was the host city of the World’s Fair that year, and there was a significant Ottoman presence at the fair. Aladin was not the only Arab horse presented by the Sultan to European heads of state in 1867 – he also gave horses to the British royal family, among them Kouch, sire of Gomussa, who was given to the future Edward VII. The Illustrated London News from 16 November that year mentions four of the horses by name and provides an engraving of them to boot: The gift of the Sultan of Turkey, our late guest in London, to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, consisting of four noble horses of the purest Arabian breed, has been mentioned in this Journal. The Engraving on the preceding page represents these superb animals, which have been placed in the stables of…
Happy New Year everyone. May it be a year of peace, and peace of mind, for all of you. For me, it will be the year when I will launch this blog in Arabic. I am in my hometown, and I miss speaking and writing my language.
This is a photo of Dwarka, published on page 55 in the book Hooves in the Heather by Virginia Pope, granddaughter of Arthur Hurn, who managed the Tor Royal Stud during the time that Dwarka stood at stud. This image was apparently taken after he landed in from Arabia in 1897, meaning it very well could have been taken whilst he was in India! I think this is my favorite photograph of his profile that I’ve seen thus far. You can see the slight bulge of the forehead, the slight dip in the nasal plane, and what is clearly a wedged shape of a head attached to an arching throat. The photo presented is a direct scan from her book, which the author has granted me permission to share until she can find her original digital file to share.
Bev Davison tells me my beautiful Ginger, 20 years old, is confirmed in foal. I am over the moon with this news. I had been trying since 2015 and the aborted pregnancy from the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, which was a big blow. I am so hoping for a filly. The outcome of this breeding will be high percentage Abbas Pasha and old Crabbet blood up close, which I find miraculous. Kualoha (Ghadaf x Rabanna) and Jady (Jadib x Im Gulnar) are four generations away on Ginger’s side, and Parnell (Ibn Gulida x Bint Ghadaf) and Subani (Ghadaf x Im Gulnar by Nusi) three generations on the sire’s side. The lucky future dad, if all goes well, is one of Bev’s stallions, Subanet Jabbar SDA. Jabbar means mighty in Arabic. He sure looks so in this photo.
I keep marveling at this horse, and how close to the desert bred Arabians the Hadban Enzahi stallion Wahid CW (Wahid CW x RL Zahra Assahara) looks like, 112 years after the importation of his ancestors from North Arabia to the USA. Photo by Hannah Logan
I love these photos of my friend Yasser Ghanim, riding the Shuwaymah mare Challawieh of Jean-Claude Rajot who appears in the other photo on her dam, Naalah. Here he is on the Syrian asil stallion, Mahboub Halep, while JC is on Dahess Hassaka, the other Syrian stallion.
Jenny Lees posted this superb photo of the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisaan Thaathaa on Facebook the other day. The Tuwayssan reportedly strain came to Bahrain from Syria in the 1920s, and prospered there. It has disappeared everywhere else, and is now mostly associated with Bahrain and thought of as a Bahraini strain. The strain was formed in North Arabia, and is one of the oldest Arabian horse strains. I personally know of two branches of it: Tuwayssan ‘Alqami (‘Algami) and Tuwayssan Qiyaad. It will forever hold a special place in my heart because of my beloved Halima (registered in the Lebanese studbook as a Al-Tuwayssa), the grand-dam of which hailed from the ‘Anazah east of Homs, Syria.
I am so intrigued by these Iranian Asils. Some eight years ago, pictures of these were a fixture on my blog. I confess always having felt uneasy about the purity credentials of Iranian Arabian horses, mostly because Iran falls outside the cradle countries of the Arab horse. Pienaar Du Plessis and I were talking about this recently, and I confessed my attitude has more to do with my ignorance of these horses’ backgrounds than anything else. Above, the Iranian stallion Gap (Charis x Yeltakin) from an Instagram thread. Strain Hamdani Simri, bred by Shirin Salartash, and owned by Harandi Kerman. He is stunning, and not unlike the good Bahraini horses.
… poetically, as Pienaar Du Plessis put it to me. I am soo excited.. a 25 year old (yes!) dream of mine has come true, five generations later.. UPDATE: Less cryptically, Pienaar Du Plessis gave me the opportunity to realize a 25 year old dream of acquiring an asil mare from the Egyptian Kuhaylan Mimreh line. We had been looking for a mare from this line but without show blood, and he found this 21 year old grey beauty, which his family had owned years and years ago, MH Egyptian XTC, a couple hours down the road from his farm in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. She had been the owner’s daughter’s riding horse, and his daughter had gone to college. The mare is a problem breeder and has never had a foal. She is now at Pienaar’s Saruk’s Stud, with Mlolshaan Mutab, her future husband (top photo). The idea is to do embryo transfer at a clinic in George in the Western Cape. She carries eight diverse lines to Morafic (3x through Ibn Moniet El Nefous, 2x through Ahir, 1x through Shaker El Masri in the tail male, 1x through Inas, 1x through The Egyptian Prince) and otherwise plenty…
Today marks the 100th year anniversary of the end of World War One, and incidentally the real beginning of the end of the horse’s era as a creature of war. Without getting too political, I have been reflecting on the loss of so many Arabians in the breed. The Polish studs were virtually decimated in WWI, and along with them a very high percentage of horses that were likely asil. And what might well be one of the greatest tragedies of the Blunt horses (and there are a good many, alas) is that Mesaoud, one of the most influential herd sires to come out of the program, was sent to Russia in 1903 and was presumably lost to the world in the slaughter of the Russian Revolution, shortly before the end of World War One. A ghastly end for an elderly stallion such as he. Nothing much else to say, except that I am glad that our horses have survived modern warfare and are still with us today. It’s a precious thing.
The original scan of this photo has cut off the name of the horse, but it’s fairly legible even so, and the following page is able to identify this horse as Osman III: As you can see, he was sired by Aslan and out of the mare Ablulu (Aslan x Hazam), born Oct. 27th 1890. The article this photo was found in dated to 1902 at the very earliest, making this horse 12 years or younger at the time of it being taken. Osman III was owned by Nathan Miers Cox. Interestingly enough, in this same series of articles, Aslan is said to have been imported in 1871, and the same paragraph indicates that he was around 29 years old in 1896 – putting his date of birth at around 1867. Both of these dates are different than the previous information listed for Aslan, but the proximity suggests that we may be on the right track with those dates.
As Moira has pointed out in the comments on the post on Gomussa there is an unexpected curve ball in the matter of Gomussa’s parentage. In the 1896 Harper’s Weekly Vol. 40, Borden quotes Vidal as saying that Kouch “was an undoubted Saglawi Jedraan, a blood bay, 15 hands, the most beautiful horse I ever set my eyes on”. Earlier in the same volume, Borden mentions two full sisters bred by Vidal, by Kouch out of an Exmoor mare named Mitre. These pony mares were Coquette and Beauty, and the photos accompanying the text show Coquette to be bay and Beauty chestnut.
A new mare has joined my preservation herd of old American Arabian bloodlines. In what is by now a long-standing Edouard practice, she is 23 years old.. She is a Kuhaylat al-Krush tracing back to *Werdi. Her name is Nuri Al Krush. She was bred by Trish Stockhecke of Ontario, Canada, from the Krush stallion Janub Al Krush out of the Krush mare Mystalla. She carries some of the very last lines to the desert-bred imports *Haleb and *Azra in Al Khamsa. She has produced two outstanding colts before, one for Trish, gelded, and another for Kim Davis in Illinois. This latter one, dead in a freak accident, was the colt of the century in my opinion (photo below). I also owned her two half-sisters, and still own a daughter from one of these sisters, Mayassa. She will be bred to my Jamr al-Arab, to line-breed to Hanad (Tripoli, Sanad, Mainad, Ibn Hanad, Ameer Ali), but also he will complete her physically, with his short back, stronger coupling, and long hip. I am grateful to Laura Fitz for letting me have her.
The subject has come up in earlier entries, so I wanted to get a discussion going about where the black color came from in Arabian horses bloodlines in the West. In Crabbet bloodlines, it’s clearly through Queen of Sheba (and I think Mahruss and Sobha too, personally). In Egyptian bloodlines, it’s through Ibn Rabdan, but where from before that? Is is El Sennari and hence Muniet el Nefous (dark bay, says Lady Anne Blunt). In Blue Stars, it’s through *Furtha Dhellal, and perhaps *Muhaira? In Davenport bloodlines, it’s through *Jedah. Notice the connection of the color to the Hamdani Simri strain of both Muniet El Nefous and *Jedah, and maybe Sobha.
In 1971, Judi Forbis took this beautiful and timeless photo of a Kuhaylah Jallabiyah mare in Bahrain, the daughter of an old speckled Jallabi stallion. The photo was published in Arabian Horse World, in Judi’s series of articles “Pearls of Great Price”. The croup is short as in many Bahraini horses, but otherwise, what a mare, what look. She oozes Arabness. When will be go back to breeding horses like this, instead of the china dolls and ‘living art’ of today? And, this is by far my favorite color in Arabians.
Here is the proposal I submitted last year on the inclusion of 14 Bahraini horses and their offspring in the Al Khamsa Roster, for reference purposes. It passed the first year, and there will be another vote next year.
Shared by Miguel – this is Gomussa (or Gomuza), the son of Naomi and Kouch*, born in England in 1884. * Spencer Borden appears to have attributed Gomussa’s sire as the bay stallion Kars, which I find myself curious about, now – Naomi was red, and Kouch was grey, but Gomussa is bay. Kouch was probably heterozygous grey, but I have no idea what his base color was – black or bay**, if he is in truth the sire of Gomussa. I can’t find any discussion on this, though – anyone want to spitball? ** Interestingly enough, Kate and I were speculating a little bit ago that perhaps one of the reasons that black was seen so infrequently in the desert was not that it was necessarily ‘rare’, but because because black was generally not bred for, those born with black pigment were winners of the genetic lottery in that they had both a recessive ‘aa’ agouti expression AND at least one copy of grey. After all, all horses are born with either black or red as their base extension, with the agouti controlling whether a horse is black, or bay – with most non-grey horses presenting phenotypically as red…
Amurat II is by Aslan, and out of the German Weil mare Hazam, a full sibling to the mare Ablulu. It looks like this is a male horse. In ‘El Stud Book del Valparaiso Sporting Club’ (1895) a list of registered Arabian horses reveals that there is a registered horse, also by Aslan and out of Hazam, named AMURATH. What is unclear at this time is if Amurat II is in fact the son of Amurath, or if Amurat II is a typo, with the ‘II’ having been switched in the stead of the ‘H’. Hopefully more will be revealed when the full studbook is accessed.
This is MAHABA, the full sister of the mare I posted yesterday (Aslan x Ramdy). She has a quality about her – she could gladly grace my stable anytime, I think.
Arneb is yet another offspring of the stallion Aslan, and is also the foal of the other earliest German Weil mare that found her way to Chile, Ramdy. Ramdy was born in 1867, her dam also carrying the name Ramdy and her sire being the bay 1851 stallion Tajar (Amurath x Geyran III). Again, we see the foundation elements of Bairactar, Sady III & Hamdany I, Geyran I, and Bournu & Kabron I. This horse’s name, I believe, means ‘hare.’ It was unclear to me whether or not this horse was a mare or stallion, but I believe Arneb is a mare. In ‘El Stud Book del Valparaiso Sporting Club’ (1895) a list of registered Arabian horses contains this gem on pg 85:
This is RASCHID (the “b” is a typo), a grey stallion born in 1894 by Gomuza (Gomussa, Kouch x Naomi) and Kothaf (Aslan x Ablulu). Ablulu was also by Aslan, and her dam was the mare Hazam, one of the original imports from the German Weil along with Aslan and Ramdy (also spelled Randy). All of these horses are very interesting – it can be noted that the Early American Arabian supermare Naomi is felt in Chile through an element that precedes any Huntington or Borden influence, and is one of the stallion Kouch’s very few registered Arabian offspring. Aslan appears to be a desertbred stallion, but Raschid’s tail female line to Hazam contains several generations of Weil breeding, including three crosses to the Or. Ar. stallion Bairactar and three crosses to the Sady III and Or. Ar. Hamdany I mareline. We also see the asil elements of the stallion Bournu, the stallion Dzelaby, and the mare Geyran I. You can view a copy of the pedigree here.
I am posting this on behalf of Miguel, who is quite knowledgeable of the history of the Arabian horse breed in Chile, where he tells me that he believes the Chilean registry is the oldest of all those in South America. The Chilean registry includes Peru, and is said to have begun in in 1872, the details of which you will find below.
Earlier I shared a photo of the Chilean Tahawi stallion, PB Muahjid. I am now sharing a photo of the other Neveen foal in Chile that Miguel Acuña Álvarez has in his program, PB Mushka, who is tail female to the Hamdan Tahawi mare, Folla. This is her with her 1997 grey filly, Nueva Ortigosa Ghezira, by the Chilean National Champion stallion HS Kisra.
Miguel Acuña Álvarez has shared this photo of his foundation stallion, PB MUAHJID [pedigree] by the Ansata-sired Nasani and out of the imported Hamdan Stables mare Neveen, with whom he was with in-utero during her importation to Chile. Neveen’s dam was the 1963 Bint Folla II, and her dam was the Tahawi mare and Hamdan Stables foundation mare, Folla. In the United States this is a rather rare line, as Bint Folla II is only felt through the mare Neveen, and Neveen had but one daughter to carry her line forth, the 1990 grey mare Amira Neveen, by the ubiquitous TheEgyptianPrince. Amira Neveen had several offspring: two stallions, 1996 Amir Farid and the 2010 Amer El Khalid LDV; and four mares, Sulayah LDV, Morocco LDV, X Quisite LDV, and Perla LDV, all bred by La Dulce Vida Arabians / Martha Suarez and born respectively in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2008. So far, it appears that the only one of these 6 offspring to breed forward is Sulayah LVD, who foaled the mare Amira Jewel LDV in 2008, meaning that it’s been a decade since this line last saw a foal on the ground. There’s still time, but this is definitely…
The following photos have been shared with me (and with permission to share) by Virginia Pope, the granddaughter of Arthur Hurn. Among other things, Arthur Hurn was the stud manager for HRH the Prince of Wales (Prince Edward)’s Tor Royal Stud in Dartmoor from the years 1918-1931, meaning he was present when the stallion *Aldebar was born in 1919, and knew/cared for Dwarka up until his death in in 1921 at the advanced age of 29 years old. Virginia Pope has just published a book about her grandfather’s time at Tor Royal, which reportedly includes an account of Dwarka’s journey from the desert to India and then to the UK – which I will hopefully be reading and perhaps obtaining permission to share with the more global audience on DOTW, since the book itself is currently only really available for shipping in the UK (I was very fortunate that Virginia and her assistant were willing to personally work with me to get a copy shipped Stateside.) Until then, these are several pictures of Dwarka’s personal bridle! I may be wrong, but I think this bridle may have come with him from India.
((please click on the photos for larger views!))
For a while now, I have been trying to compile as many first-hand accounts of Arab horses written by eighteenth and nineteenth century European travellers in the Levant, the Middle East, and Arabia as I can, and one of the things that I have found fascinating is the changing of the five strains listed as Al Khamsa over time, with the only constants being the Kuhaylan and the Saqlawi. D’Arvieux’s Voyages dans la Palestine, published in 1717, is one of the earliest European works I have yet found to give an account of Arab horses in their homeland. He talks about the Kehhilan, contrasting it to the “ancienne race” Aatiq and to the Guidich, but does not mention any of the strains, save for Touysse, probably the Tuwaisan, which he gives as the name of a mare belonging to one Abrahim Abou Voüassés. In his Beschreibung von Arabien (1772), Niebuhr gives rather more information on the strains of the Arab horse. Using the term Köchlâni to denote the breed as a whole, he refers to the strains as families, listing the most common strains of each area. Such familiar names as Dsjülfa, Mânaki, Seklaúi, Hamdâni and Daádsjani are listed, along with some rarer strains, such as Sáade, Toreífi and Challaúi –…
Keels Mol gave me this unique photo of *Turfa, likely taken in Jeddah prior to her export to the UK, Ias a royal gift from King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia to King George VI, in return for the hospitality shown his son when the Saudi prince attended the British King’s coronation. I then donated the photo, along with several others, to the Arabian Horse Archives, which published it here in high resolution, with an explanation of its provenance.
The chestnut Arabian mare Kariban, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, was imported from the Middle East by Hernan Ayerza in 1898 for his large El Aduar stud in Argentina. El Aduar can be thought of as the historical equivalent of Crabbet in Latin America. Kariban is the tail female for the mare *Aire. She has a very thin tail female in Al Khamsa, down to a single mare, San Luis Solstice, despite having contributed many important horses to US breeding programs. I had translated Kariban’s hujjah for Al Khamsa Arabians III some twelve years ago, but the fact that the mare is in the pedigree of one of my mares led me to take another look today, which proved fruitful. Here is my translation of the original Arabic document: On the below date, we sold our chestnut mare, the daughter of our burnt bay mare; the mare that was sold, her strain is Saqlawiyat Jadran, she was born with us; her sire is the bay Ma’naqi horse of Shawkat Pasha; her dam is from Bagdad, her origin being from the horses of Ibn Sattam Sha’lan, leader (Amir) of the tribe of the ‘Anazah Arabs. She was born with us, her age is three…
This photo was identified as BINT FEREYHA with an IBN NURA filly. I was hoping that a quick check of the pedigrees would identify her, but such is not the case – the book was published in 1898, and both Ibn Nura fillies out of Bint Fereyha that are listed on Allbreed (I know, not the best of sources) were born within this timeline: the 1893 bay filly FULANA and the 1898 grey filly WUJRA. My guess based on that was that this is Fulana, just because Wujra was born the same year this book was published, but that’s not definitive proof. The only photo I have been able to find of Fulana unfortunately does not show her face very well, so I’m uncertain of the facial markings. That said, Edouard also shared this with me, from the Sheyk Obeyd Studbook: 1897 – WUBBR, chestnut colt that (I believe) eventually went grey, by Ibn Sherara — which brings us to a third possibility. Does anyone else recognize this photo, or the little foal (perhaps as a grown horse?)
Skowronek’s widespread presence in the pedigrees of horses registered as Arabians is arguably the raison d’etre for a number of different preservation initiatives including Al Khamsa, the Asil Club, the Pyramid Society and probably even this blog. Since I was a boy, I had heard about Skowronek and thought his non-Arabian ancestry was common knowledge since the 1940s when my grandfather first learned about it. Attending the 2017 WAHO conference made me realize I was mistaken. Below are a number of viewpoints from people I either personally interacted with or overheard during my trip: Two Arabs friends, from different Middle Eastern countries, who wanted to know what I thought about the whole Skowronek issue. Is he really not Asil? A prominent British breeder who had this to say to me when I mentioned Skowronek and his non-Arabian ancestors: “Oh that’s not proven now is it? It’s just unsubstantiated rumor.” A European breeder conversing at a dinner table: “Oh the DNA shows the Asil horses are all part breds too, so who cares?” A European and an Australian shouting in a bus: “All the evidence has been published on Skowronek over 50 years ago. He has non-Arabian blood in his pedigree”…
Both below are courtesy of The Toronto Star Archives and have been provided by the Special Collections Department of the Toronto Public Library. Either that was a very tall man, or *Aldebar was a rather short horse. Caption: ” PRINCE’S STALLION FOR CANADA. The Prince of Wales’ Arabian stallion Aldebaran, which was shipped on the Canadian Pacific liner “Minnedosa” from Glasgow. The animal will compete at the Canadian National Exhibition at Toronto before going to the Prince’s ranch in Alberta.“
As we broached up the subject of Arabian Horse Archives in a previous entry, I am excited to say that I will be giving annotated, digital copies of my entire collection of photos and negatives, mostly taken in Lebanon and Syria in the 1970s-80s (by my father) to the 90s and 2000s (mostly by me). I encourage those of you who have relevant collections to do the same. I have already donated a never-seen-before image to Turfa taken in her home country, together with the British imports Kasim and Faras, which was given to me by Kees Mol. Below, Mawj al-Rih, a Saqlawi Jadran at the Beirut racetrack in the 1940s. From the book of Ali al-Barazi.
The caption says Rose of Jericho and Dahna. Both mares were bred at the Crabbet Farm and then exported to Australia to live at the Quambi Springs Stud owned by Sir James Penn Boucaut. Rose of Jericho and Dahna, were both in 1891, and had foals on the ground as early as 1893. Dahna had 7 foals by Rafyk – 10 in total – whereas Rose of Jericho had at least 11 foals by Rafyk in her time in Australia – including Bedaween, the “Grand National Champion of Australia,” and his younger brothers, Zubeir and Suleiman – shown below. Zubeir, in particular, was a rather successful sire, breeding not only pure Arabian get but also horses suitable for the colonial life of Australians in the early 20th century. He was purchased by Mr. Warburton of Northern Australia. I was fortunate enough through the power of the internet to have a copy of his stud listing sent to me, which you can see below — It is from Zubeir that we derive the mystery of Minaret. Michael Bowling wrote a wonder article on this a while back, but to rehash: with any familiarity with the story of the Crabbet Stud, you’ll know that for some…
I’m always a little disappointed when people tell me that Arabians cannot jump, despite evidence to the contrary. As Kate likes to put it, they’re unique, and “they trust to the hand of God.” These mares are at the Arab Stud Farm in Needham Market, which is, of course, the farm of the Rev. F. F. Vidal. I’m not surprised that they’re jumping at his farm. Naomi herself was said to be quite a successful hunter in England before being imported overseas to Huntington’s farm – I know I’ve read it in a periodical source somewhere, but the easy example is the Allbreed info citing her as “An exceptional and widely-acclaimed field hunter known for clearing 7-foot fences carrying 196 lbs.” I wonder who these mares are. Michael Bowling suggests that they might be Shiboleth and the Anglo-Arab Trigonia.
Neither of these photos are new, but they are the largest, most complete versions I have seen, extracted from the 1898 reprint of Sarah Buckman-Linard’s book “My Horse; My Love.”
I am excited to introduce Kate McLachlan as an occasional blogger on Daughters of the Wind. Kate is a lecturer at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa, and holds a graduate degree in Ancient Philology from Oxford University. I am really looking forward to her contributions.
I am issuing this call as an adviser and a friend to the project ———————– Invitation YOU ARE INVITED to help shape the future of Arabian horse history as an Advisor to the Arabian Horse Archives Inc. — not to choose some aspects as important and sideline the rest, but to identify, preserve and protect archival materials relating to the world-wide history of the ancient and influential Arabian breed. The goal is to catalogue, and to facilitate the preservation of, such materials so that they are not only conserved but made accessible to students and researchers. We need to become visible in order to be noticed. Our first goal is to populate arabianarchives.org and illustrate the wide range of topics of interest, and the forms in which information exists. We ask that each of you provide a high-resolution scan (or photograph of a three-dimensional object) from your collections, representative of some aspect of Arabian horse history. Local or international, antique or mid-century modern — it’s all history. We need, in the current on-line environment, to develop an active social media presence. There is someone out there with the time and the skills to maintain Archives announcements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms.…
The high resolution photos of *Halool and *Koubishan, in the new Annotated Quest, courtesy of Jeanne Craver.