An article about Syria: Home of Horses by Hylke Hettema on her blog, got me to think about other references to horses in ancient times from what today is Syria. The following reference from the Archives Royales de Mari [ARM], with its mention of the chiding of king Zimri-Lim of Mari (1776-1751 BCE) by one of his senior officials for riding a horse is very significant: [My lord] must honor the head of his kingship. [Just as] you are the king of the Hana, you are secondly the king of the Akkadian. [My lord] must not (therefore) ride a horse. My lord must (rather) ride [on] a litter and mules, if he is to honor the head of his kingship. Source is ARM VI 76, letter to Zimri-Lim from Bahdi Lim, governor of Mari district. The word ‘Hana’ , meaning ‘tent dwellers’ is a general reference to nomadic tribesmen, as opposed to the Akkadian, the settled urban inhabitants of Mesopotamian cities. Of course, Zimri-Lim himself was from the Bani Sham’al, a nomadic tribal group of ‘Hana’. Nomads rode horses at that time. More on what this means later. Just noting here that an evaluation of the severe damage brought upon the…
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…
Finally some decent shots, after a clean up. She will be bred this month, for the first time.
Mlolshaan Mutab (Mlolshaan Hilal x Mlolesh Dhabiya), 1999 Bahraini stallion in South Africa. Bred by HH Sh. Mohamed Bin Salman Aal Khalifah of Bahrain. At Saruk stud with Pauline Du Plessis. He is full of the Mlolshaan blood.
A fantastic account and a funny story of a botched ghazu, from Rehan Ud Din Baber’s Facebook page, that treasure trove. “On occasions which a resident in the country and one on good terms with the Sheikhs can alone take advantage of, the most valuable horses and mares are sometimes picked up, in almost peculiar manner. A friend of mine secured a splendid Keheilen er Rodan mare of remarkable beauty, symmetry and speed, for £ 270, under the following circumstances which would supply materials for a sensational novel. This mare belonged to Faissal Ibn Shalan Sheik of the Roala tribe who had refused enormous offers for her. Five men of the Mowali on plunder intent, turned out on the picked mares of the tribe to steal camels from the Roala. They drove off some the first night, and, emboldened by their success, returned to poach again. The Roala were in waiting and attacked these freebooters. The Mowali, considering discretion the better part of valour, beat a hasty retreat, trusting to the speed of their mares. In the hot pursuit fifty Roalas were left behind, but two, better mounted than their comrades, continued it for ten hours. The Mowalis escaped with…
Yesterday. Left to right: Michael Bowling, Jeanne Craver, me and Joe Ferriss. RJ Cadranell, we missed you.
There was an article in the Khamsat magazine about the Centennial of Lady Anne Blunt. Yesterday, Greg Olson sent me these two images he took of her grave in the Italian Catholic cemetery of Abbassia in Cairo, three days ago. I visited it in 2015, and was so awed that I could not get myself to take a picture. It seems it was recently cleared of the plants and shrubs that had grown around it.
Yasser Al Tahawi has this excellent overview of the history of the Tahawi horses on his social media page: • Early 19th century: the great Egyptian conquests in the Middle East (Syria, Arabia, Sudan) … the Tahawies played a major role. Strong connections were developed between the Tahawies and the big tribes of Arabia including Anazah and Shammar. • Mid 19th century: the Tahawies are granted vast territories on the eastern borders of the Nile Delta … the Bedouin Tahawies are now settling for their first time in history. • Fall of the 19th century: the Tahawi Sheikhs were busy establishing vast studs and competing in importing the most prestigious strains form the Arabian desert. • Early 20th century: the Tahawies are the most important breeder in Egypt and its main provider of asil desert-bred horses. • Fall 19th century to mid 20th century: the Egyptian Royal family and aristocrats, Royal Agricultural Society, Lady Anne Blunt…etc. were all among the Tahawi clients. • 1940s/50s: around 3,000 heads of the finest Arabians of the time, all with distinguished race records. The peak of the Tahawi glory and their flourishing vast studs. • 1960s: the Egyptian revolution crackdown on the aristocratic elite and…
From Mohammed al-Matrooshi’s social media accounts come these photos of the very masculine 1986 Bahraini stallion Jellaby Kher M45, by Rabdaan Alwasmy (M19) {Maanagy Al Ahmar X Rabda (M16) } out of Jellabieh Al Khar’aa (M3) {Hamdany Riyadh X Jellabieh (M1)}, bred and owned by Sheikh Mohammad Bin Salman Al Khalifa. I am not sure who took the photo, but it seems to date from the first WAHO conference in Bahrain, in 1998.
The most interesting feature of this article by Hylke Hettema on her blog is the observation that Assyrian reliefs featuring horses displayed what seems to be bead necklaces similar to those used on horses today to keep the evil eye away, such as the one on this stallion of the late Dani El Barbary’s below with her beautiful stallion Wali El Ahd “Crown Prince”. Photo taken by Gudrun Waiditschka in 2003. The reliefs also feature another necklace below it, with three tassels similar to breast collars still used today, some two thousand seven hundred years later (!) The continuity of artifacts in the Middle East is sometimes mind-numbing. Below is a similar breast collar with tassels on the desert import *Wadduda from ca. 1906, just to make the point that the modern artifacts above were not copied by someone who took a tour of the Assyrian gallery at the British Museum.
Arabian horse strains have a way of surviving and turning out in unpredictable places outside their countries of origin. When the Bahrain Royal Studs first lost their precious Kuhaylan al-Kray strain, they turned to Jenny Lees in the UK, who had received the mare Kray Mohammadia (Jellabi Alahmar Montasir x Kray Manifa) from Bahrain as a gift some years before, and was blessed with fillies from her. Now the Kray horses are back to Bahrain thanks to Jenny, who tells the story here. Today I learned from Mohammad al-Matrooshi that another branch of the same strain has actually survived in the UAE. This is awesome news. Mohammad is a passionate and knowledgeable Emirati preservation breeder, who now owns Kray Edah M171 (Jellabi Saad [by Mlolshaan Al Marshoosh M37 out of Jellabieh M6] x Kray Manifah), the 1996 bay sister of Kray Mohammedia. She was a gift of HH Shaykh Muhammad Bin Salman Aal Khalifah to a friend of his in the UAE. Her photos are below. She is so beautiful and deserty. Mohammad bred the 22 year old mare to the 1999 stallion Rabdan Kehram (Jellaby Nader x Rabda Farha) also from Bahrain (below, grey at liberty), and was blessed with…
Linda Cottle from New Zealand shared this treasure of a photo on the page of Rehan Ud Din Baber on Facebook. The photo was taken by her grandfather, a soldier from New Zealand who visited the Sheykh Obeyd Stud of Lady Anne Blunt during World War One. The photo shows Lady Anne Blunt and a mare Cecil Covey told Linda Cottle was Fasiha. History comes alive.
This colt is growing into superb young stallion. He was bred by Jenny Krieg, with help from the Doyle family and their stallion Tamaam DE, out of a mare from the single rarest lines in Al Khamsa Arabians: the blood of *Euphrates, *Al-Mashoor, and *Mirage flows through his veins. Bashir Al Dirri, 2014 Stallion Bashir Al Dirri, 2014 Stallion?????? ????? ??? ???Tamaam DE x Sarita Bint Raj Posted by Doyle Arabians on Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Kirby Drennan and Jeanne Craver shared this beautiful photo of two Craver Farms mares, the 1986 Hamdani Simri Chinoiserie CF (Dharanad x Levant), on the left, who died in the stampede that followed the 1993 Illinois River flood at Craver Farms, and the 1984 Kuhaylah Krush Minaret CF (Heir Apparent x O-Henrietta), on the right.
From Rehan Ud Din Baber’s beautiful Facebook page. From Gertrude Bell’s archives at the British Library?
Some eight years ago, Louis Bauduin wrote a wonderful article about riding the Tunisian Asil Arabians of Mrs. Bergmann in the Sahara desert. Of these were Mrs. Bergmann’s stallions Jehol Sahraoui and Marzouk. Yesterday, Severine Vesco posted this photo of Marzouk, a stout little stallion of Jiflan bloodlines, ahead of this ride.
When I first opened Volume One of the Syrian Studbook some twenty five years ago, the first thing that struck me was the very limited number of horses that traced to the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe. After all, this powerful and wealthy tribe which is part of the larget ‘Anazah confederation spent its summer quarters in the area directly east of the city of Hama in central Syria. As a result it was familiar to Western travelers and government agents who took off from Aleppo, Damascus or Beirut, in search for Bedouin Arabian horses. Another result of this geographical location was that many of the early desert-bred imports to the West and Egypt, which form the antecedents of many of today’s Arabian horses, hailed from the Sba’ah tribe. Major Roger Upton, for instance, spent some time with Sba’ah leader Shaykh Sulayman Ibn Mirshid in 1874, and bought horses like Kesia, Yataghan and Haidee from his tribesmen. Similarly, Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt visited with Beteyen Ibn Mirshid a few years later and some of their best known early desert imports were bred by the Sba’ah: Queen of Sheba, Meshura, Azrek, Pharaoh, Dajania, Hagar, etc. Some of the horses imported by Homer…
Hurrian Hymn N.6, also called the “Hymn to Nikkal” is the most ancient piece of music in the world to have reached us, dating from 3,400 years ago. Nikkal was a Canaanite goddess of fertility (of the soil and of humans). French archaeologists discovered the melody in 1955 on a clay tablet in the ancient Canaanite site of Ugarit, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast (not far from my mother’s town). I was reminded of it yesterday while listening to Ibrahim Maalouf’s “Levantine Symphony N.1” (extract here).
Una CF (Saranad x Femina by Ibn Alamein) is the rarest mare in Davenport breeding. She has no lines to Tripoli, no lines to Schilla, and is of the Kuhaylan Haifi strain. Here with her owner’s daughter, who is very proud of her. The mare looked thin in that photo taken last July and had just arrived from Oregon a couple months before. Una CF is in foal to Gilad Ibn Dubloon and due in April 2018. They are wishing for a colt.
From his new owner Jessie Heinrick. He has never looked better.
I have been working on a translation of Abu ‘Ubaydah al-Taymi’s (died 822-823 AD in Basra) masterful “Book of the Horse” for close to eight years now, on and off. I am doing for my friend Radwan Shabareq, on my free time — meaning some nights and some weekends, with Jeanne Craver as editor and Joe Ferriss as designer. All of us believe its publication will be a big deal. Yassine raised the issue of the mysterious, hidden signs of purity by which Bedouins determined the purity of the Arabian horse. I have heard some of these from XXth century Bedouins, and written about them before (here), and ‘Ubayd al-Hafi al-‘Utaybi has also written about them on this blog (here), a few years back, and a fascinating conversation ensued. Here is on one of these signs, by Abu ‘Ubaydah, some twelve hundred years ago. Translation mine (as part of the upcoming book). Arabs like the forelocks [al-nasiyah] and the downy hair [al-zaghab] circling their root [al-shakir] to be soft, and the place from which the forelocks grow [al-’usfur] to subside; all this is for beauty. The softness of the forelocks and the softness of the downy hair at their root…
A lot has been said about “secret” signs, which Bedouins used to recognize and evaluate the purity of a horse. Rszewuski mentioned them, claiming that he possessed an empirical knowledge of these signs, shared by his Bedouin friends. Nothing about these was found in his personal archives after his death. Was he boasting ? Is this all a matter of tradition and superstition without any scientific basis? Or do we have lost an irreplaceable treasure thousands years old? Can we find and collect some of this knowledge, if not all of it , and use it to select and improve the asil Arabian and perhaps other horse breeds ? There is very little I can bring to that topic, and most of it is about the sloughi, the North African sighthound. A lot of signs exist in this breed, constituting a real and valid standard. For example, the prominent occipital bulge, the terminal ring of the tail, the marks on the metatarsal bones, the amount of fur in some places of the face … Some of these signs are very useful clues aboupt stamina, speed and the general quality of the sighthound. Back to horses, I met a renowned horseman in…
Two rare photos of Egyptian stallion El Sud El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), born in 1957 at the Egyptian Agricultural Organization and gifted to the King Mohamed V of Morocco in 1960. Original post from the Facebook group Straight Egyptian Arabian horses in Morocco through Sheila Cone and Olivier Wibihal. A full brother to Hansi’s Serenity Ibn Nazeer (aka Lateef).
My favorite city in the entire world: Shibam, in Yemen, the “Manhattan of the desert”, and it’s six-centuries old mud skyscrapers. One day, I will go back there, and give back to Yemen and its wonderful civilization and people a sliver of what it has given me.
“And a crest like a tall frankincense tree set on fire by an offender” (“wa-saalifatun ka-sahuuqi al-Labaani adrama fihi al-ghawiyyu al-su’uru”) The vision of a blazing frankincense tree is fitting for a chestnut horse. Below, a frankincense tree:
To the upper right is Bab Tuma, one of Damascus’ Christian neighborhoods, with the Armenian Catholic church standing out. In the upper left is the neighborhood of al-‘Amarah. In the lower right is the Jewish quarter, ‘hayy al-Yahud’. Note the inner courtyards of many of the houses. In the center, the Mariamite church; in the center left is the prestigious Maktab ‘Anbar, which at the time the photo was taken was school for the Damascus elite, and before that the house of one of the city’s Jewish notables, ‘Anbar. Below, the women’s courtyard of Maktab Anbar as it stands today.
The striking difference of the two stallions Dhahmaan Hoobeishi and Montasar demonstrate the large range of heads of the Arabian breed. The “modern” “dished” face with a pronounced jibha stands in opposistion with the more konvex profile of a “desert bred” stallion. There are many statements that the Bedouins did not favour horses with a dished profile, because it hinders air flow and results in horses not fit for speed and endurance. In order to investigate this further, I made an x-ray of Montasar´s head, that clearly shows, that this kind of profile of the head does not interfere with airflow at all. Montasar, by the way, was a fast and never tiring riding horse. There are also descriptions of the head of the Arabian by Upton and Raswan, indicating that a head with pronounced jibha was favoured for by the Bedouins. More on this topic can be found in the following PDF (an excerpt from my book BEDOUIN HERITAGE – The World of the Arabian Horse) The Arabian´s Head
In order to start a discussion on the controversial topic of the Arabian´s head two photos of very different stallions of the Dahman Shahwan strain follow: the dark bay Dhahmaan Hoobeishi (Kuheilaan Umm Zorayr Al Dheleem X Dhahma Umm Wajnah) 1998 from the Royal Stud of Bahrain: Grey straight Egyptian stallion Montasar (Madkour X Maymoonah) 1981 – 2009, breeder and owner the Seidlitz family, Germany:
This spring Wadha’s mate will be the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais, thanks to Jenny Lees. He is seen here competing in endurance at Windsor, UK. Other recent photos that show the breadth of his chest, the length of his neck and that of his forelocks, the depth of his ribcage, the length of his hip, and his good disposition.
This spring will be the time to breed my Ginger, who is now at Bev Davison’s in Idaho. A strong contender is Bev’s junior stallion, Subanet Jabbar SDA (Summer Sonnet SDA x Bint Bint Subani by Ibn Saafaddan), a tail female Gulida, and an even blend of old Doyle and Babson bloodlines. I find it almost miraculous that this female line of Saqlawis to Ghazieh has more survived 170 years outside the desert first in Egypt, then in England then in the United States, uninterrupted, in asil form.
Another stallion imported from Arabia to Tiaret. Click to enlarge.
An absolutely superb male specimen of a Desert Arabian horse, in Algeria. The legend says “syrian stallion”, yet so far I was not able to match with him with any of the grey stallions the French imported to Algeria from the East. Not Bango, not El Nil, not Sidi Gaber, not Aziz. If you know him, let me know. Photo courtesy of Farid Chaoui, of Algeria.
Those Lysander grand-daughters look like they came straight out of Arabia. So special. So stylish. They age well, too. It also helps that this one, Wotans Windancer (Wotan x Danceuse CF by Lysander) is a Wotan daughter. Note the fine mane and muzzle. I love the straight profile.
The first picture features Dixie Cup (Prince Hal x Dixie), which must have had one of the nicest set of ears on an Arabian of Davenport bloodlines. Abu ‘Ubaydah’s “Book of Horses”, written ca. 803 AD, has more than eighteen description of horses’ ears, and of features Arabs appreciated in them, long, upright, pricked, finally shaped, with soft fur inside, like Dixie Cup’s. The second photo is of Viola (Prince Hal x Cressida), and shows her beautiful flowing forelocks. Forelocks were really important to Arabs, and Abu ‘Ubaydah’s “Book of Horses” has no less than twelve descriptions for them. Ancient Arabs composed and recited poetry about forelocks, which they liked to be long, smooth, abundant and covering horse’s foreheads and even eyes, like Viola’s.
These 1929 photo depict the entrance gate of the royal palace of Guzana (modern Tall-Halaf, in Northeastern Syria), capital of the Aramaean kingdom of Bit Bahiani. King Gabara of Guzana built the palace in the Xth century BC (so three thousand years ago). The palace was discovered by Max Von Oppenheim (of “Die Beduinen” fame, for Arabian horse enthusiasts) in 1911, who dismantled it and took it to Berlin with other artifcats (below) where they was displayed in a museum especially dedicated to Tell Halaf. In 1943, a British warplane dropped a phosphorus bomb on the museum, which burnt down to the ground. The royal gate and all the other artifacts were smashed into dozens of thousands of pieces, some of which were stored away, awaiting their reconstitution. Before leaving Syria, Oppenheim had casts made of the entrance gate of the palace (and some of its sculptures), which now form the entrance of the Aleppo Museum. I saw it there several times (below). The casts are a poor, plain copy of the originals. Between 2001 and 2010, some 30 sculptures were painstakingly reconstructed from 27,000 fragments. The reconstruction of the palace gate will be completed in 2025. That’s 92 years after…
For several years, Hansi ran the same ad about Serenity Arabian Farms in the Khamsat magazine, featuring some of the several hundred horses she and her first and second husbands Bradford Heck and William Melnyk bred over the course of more than four decades. I recall being in awe of three stallions in particular (photos from this ad below): Serenity Sharaf, with a depth of girth like no other stallion; his brother Serenity Lamir, who was an ode to balance, and above all, racehorse champion Serenity Mamlouk, whose photo below exudes power, balance, perfection of conformation, nobility and … these staring sparkling eyes. Hansi was indeed a master breeder (and master breeders in this country can be counted on the fingers of one hand), with an eye to functional conformation like no one else’s. As a race horse trainer and an owner of horses that have excelled in halter, flat racing and endurance alike, she knew what makes a superior, athletic performance horse, and even more so, she knew how to breed one, working with a closed pool of Egyptian lines. I am particularly worried about the fate of her immense and immensely precious collection of photos, letters, documents and books,…
From an Al Khamsa news bulletin: “The Arabian Horse community worldwide lost a fierce advocate this morning. Hanna Luise Heck-Melnyk, known to all as Hansi, passed away at 11:43am EST, Sunday January 14, 2018, at her farm in Hawthorne, Florida, at the age of 86. Founder of Serenity Arabians, Hansi has been a long time supporter of Al Khamsa, Inc. The summer 2018 issue of the Khamsat will feature Hansi, her breeding program, and her accomplishments.” Hansi introduced me to western Arabian horse breeding and breeders, and instilled in me the passion of defending asil bloodlines. We met in 1994 and remained friends since. This page is a tribute to Hansi, her horses, her legacy, and her achievements.
Ten years already. I can hardly believe it. I feel so blessed for the old friends it has allowed me to keep in touch with, and the new friends it has allowed me to make, from around the world. Above all, I feel blessed for the collective knowledge and memory gathered here. One day we will all meet face to face, from Germany and the USA and France and the UK and Chile and Hungary and Canada and Croatia and Tunisia and South Africa and Australia and Spain and Pakistan and Belgium and Morocco and Egypt and Lebanon and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Iran and Israel and Palestine and many, many other places around the world. And we can all already tell what will be on the menu of discussions.
Don’t you love that strong, powerful neck and broad chest. Shueyman Redjem exudes power, and is reminiscent of his sire Murad Dahman (Ahshwan x Murad Hadiya by Ourki x Hamada) whom I rode across the fields and trails of Burgundy in the summer of 2010, with Jean-Claude Rajot. I also rode his dam Shueymah Sabbah (Mokhtar x Murad Haouda by Cherif x Hamada). r
Another daughter of Mach’al, this time a Ma’naqiyah named Cha’lah, also from an old strain of the Dandashi lords of Tal Kalakh. Sire of dam: al-Jazzar, a Kuhaylan Nawwaq; sire of granddam: Ghazwan, a Kuhaylan al-Kharas; pictured with a foal by a partbred stallion. Photographed by my father somewhere in Western Syria, most likely in Tal Kalakh in the late 1970s, and pedigree in his handwriting on the back of the photo. How much I would give for just one of those mares now. There numbered in the low hundreds at the height of the Lebanese national program, before the civil war of 1975-1990. In 1991, there were only 25 mares left, most born between 1965 and 1975. Today, zero left in asil form.
An asil Saqlawiyah, daughter of Mach’al (and hence paternal sister of the stallion Achhal, the sire of the tree mares in the previous entries), from an old strain of the Dandashis (perhaps the Saqlawi Ibn Zubaynah strain tracing to Umm al-Tubul), photographed by my father in Tal Kalakh, Syria, in the late 1970s. She was exported to Qatar during the Lebanese civil war. Many of the best asil Lebanese mares were sent to the Gulf countries, where they were wasted.
This is Nawakiat ‘Akkar, a Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah, and yet another Achhal daughter, born in 1976. She was the most valuable mare my father owned, and had established a dynasty of (part-bred) race winners of her own. She was a gift from Henri Pharaon at three years old, and was sold in 1992 to Henri’s cousin, Pierre Pharaon, along with Zenobia and a third mare (part-bred). This was when my father was transitioning to “purebred Arab” horses of international lines, which he then felt were equally “asil”, and had just acquired two mares of predominantly Crabbet lines from Jordan, Ziba (Dancing Magic x Shazla) and Shela (El Batal x Siva).
This mare, also a ‘Ubayyah, and also a daughter of Achhal, was the last two “asil” Lebanese mares. She was owned by Abd al-Hamid al-Halabi, who bred her to French stallions (non-asil) that my father had selected for Lebanon in 1992. She left no “asil” progeny as a result. Like most everyone in the Middle East at the time (and until today), he had no idea at the time that the notion of “asil” and the Western notion of a “purebred Arab” registered in a studbook were not the same. Years after that, we eventually understood that not all “purebred Arabs” traced to Bedouin-bred horses in all their lines, but it was too late for the Lebanese breeding from an “asil” perspective. When the Lebanese studbook was accepted by WAHO, it already consisted of 25 or so elderly mares, and one gelding racehorse. Stallions had to be imported from aboard. This mare was one of the youngest, born in 1980 I believe. I think her name was Chahla, but I am not sure.
Zenobia, born in 1977, was one of the prettiest asil mare in Lebanon, my father’s favorite horse, and a notoriously difficult producer. A ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah tracing to the marbat of Ibn Thamdan of the Sba’ah, with a regal pedigree that was linebred to Mach’al, the foundation stallion of Lebanese asil breeding. She left no asil progeny, and my father sold her in 1992 at the age of 15. Sire: Achhal, a son of Mach’al; dam: Bint Su’ad; sire of dam: Wazzal, another son of Mach’al; dam of dam: Su’ad; sire of granddam: al-Jazzar; dam of granddam: Mash’al’s sister, a daughter of Shaykh al-Arab.
While scanning old photos this morning, I happened on these two photos. There is a story to them. One evening in 1985 or 1986, a Lebanese visitor came to see my father in Beirut, and left the two photos behind. He spoke emphatically about his trip to the Syrian Jazirah (Upper Mesopotomia in North Eastern Syria today) and the desert-bred horses he had seen there. I was seven or eight years old, I did not catch much of the conversation but the photos made a lasting impression on me. It was in the middle of the Lebanese civil war, communications between Syria and the part of Lebanon we lived in were infrequent and difficult, and most Lebanese horsemen involved in the Lebanese horse racing scene, including my father, were convinced that no more good, authentic, pure desert-bred horses were left in the Syrian desert, because of the degenerescence of the breed and its contamination by part-bred Arabs from Iraq. “You will only find leftovers there”, my father was once told. These photos and the visitor’s description showed otherwise, just at a time when the Syrian breeders were launching a large-scale effort to register all the horses of the Bedouins. Indeed,…
“If you’ve ‘eard the East a-callin’, you won’t never ‘eed naught else.” No! you won’t ‘eed nothin’ else But them spicy garlic smells, An’ the sunshine an’ the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells; On the road to Mandalay . . .
The neighborhood of al-Darb al-Ahmar. Photo from the Facebook page Ahl Masr Zaman.
Pauline Du Plessis’s Saruk Arabians is standing the bay 1999 Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Mutab (Mlolshaan Hilal x Mlolesh Durra by Jellaby Adari) at stud in South Africa. He was bred by the stud of Sh. Mohammed Bin Salman Aal Khalifah, and is heavily linebred with Mlolesh (Mulawlishan) blood. He is a sire of endurance winners. Photo from Saruk’s stud Facebook page.
“Belle” (photo below) is one of just four Al Khamsa mares from the female line of *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from the stud of King of ‘Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud of Saudi Arabia, imported to the USA in 1931. When *Nufoud was born around 1925, Saudi Arabia was still known as the “Kingdom of Najd and the Hijaz”. Peter Upton, in the tables at the end of the book “Royal Heritage: The Story of Jordan’s Arab Horses”, mentions that *Nufoud was from originally from the stud of the Hashemite King of Hijaz, ‘Ali ibn al-Hussain, whose short-lived kingdom was overtaken by the Saudis in late 1925. I don’t know the source of Upton’s information, but it is certainly likely, since the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz strain was bred by the Hashemites in the Hijaz. A mare from this strain accompanied King ‘Abdallah (King ‘Ali’s brother) on the armed march northwards from Hijaz to Syria, during the Arab Revolt of 1916-17, and founded a line that still exists at the Royal Stud of Jordan. The Saudis maintained a stud near Ta’if, in the Hijaz, which Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egypt RAS visited in 1936. This stud may well have included horses taken…
The three imported mares of Jenny Lees (her photo): Hamdanieh Habiba, Shuwaimeh Bint Warda and Kray Mohammedia
Wadhah and Belle are now boarded at a farm near my home where the children can enjoy them and see them more often. They will return to Pennsylvania for breeding to the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais this spring.
A beautiful photo of the interior of one of the few remaining wonders of Syria still standing.
Different theories on the origin of the Arabian horse exist. The range is from a wild Proto-Arabian that lived in Arabia and is said to have been domesticated by the Bedouins, to theories that an already domesticated horse reached Arabia from outside. Some authorities maintain that the Arabian horse came from Egypt and compare the pictures of horses in ancient Egyptian art with petroglyphes (stone carvings) in Arabia and the modern Arabian horse. But except from the resemblence of those three groups no other proof can be found. The Arabian vocabulary concerning horses and horse-gear (saddles and so on) is on the other hand derived from Arameic or Persian words. Furthermore genetic findings, especially on maternal DNA (mtDNA) suggests that the Arabian horse has its origins from different sources. On the latter I have attached an excerpt from my book BEDOUIN HERITAGE. Click here for more: science Assyrian horses on the so called Lachisch relief Stallion Musannan Awaad (Rabdan Baher X Musannah Ghazwa) 2011 in Bahrain at the stables of Prince Mohammed
A photo of the desert-bred stallion Cherine from the magazine Le Sport Universel Illustre. Cherine, born in 1903, was one of the best looking stallions to be imported by the French to their government stud of Pompadour, and then on to their Algerian stud in Tiaret in 1909.
I have visited many great cities around the world, and nothing comes close to Aleppo before the Syrian civil war. Fes, in Morocco is a distant second. Photo from the Aleppo Photographic Museum
After several centuries of existence, the last French National Studs were sadly disbanded last year. However, bad things can sometimes lead to lucky opportunities. Many of the regional stallion stations and National Studs have kept listing of stallions at stud, details of imports, reports of missions to purchase foundation oriental horses, and those are now available for public review at the National Archives. I hope in the coming months to provide more information about them, recover our forgotten heritage and give more insight about some of the most important European foundation horses. Malheureusement, après plusieurs siècles d’existance, les derniers vestiges des Haras Nationaux français ont été dissous l’année dernière. Néanmoins, un événement aussi triste peu aussi parfois amener son lot de surprises. De nombreuses stations locales et certaines de nos grandes écuries nationales ont maintenu pendant toutes ces années des listing détaillés des étalons à la monte, de nombreux détails sur nos importations, les rapports sur les achats en Orient etc. Ceux-ci ont été regroupés et sont désormais accessible via les Archives Nationales. J’espère dans les prochains mois pouvoir vous donner de nouvelles informations à ce sujet, renouer avec notre héritage oublié et récupérer de nombreuses données sur certains de…
The following excerpt from the book BEDOUIN HERITAGE – THE WORLD OF THE ARABIAN HORSE deals with a question of importance: violence in Bedouin society. The horse made an important contribution to Bedouin warfare and raiding and has thus increased violence. click here Wadi Rum, Jordan
Arabic Poetry, the only art of the desert, reflects the close relationship between man and his horse. In the book BEDOUIN HERITAGE – THE WORLD OF THE ARABIAN HORSE this is discussed at length. Here is an excerpt: Powerofpoetry To order this book, please go to www.arabianheritagesource.com! Price 63,50 € (includes shipment worldwide), payment via PAYPAL. The power of Bahrain: Hamdaany Zaizoom (Saqlaawy Saba´an X Hamdanieh Khaznah) 2004
Jeanne Craver just shared this short note signed on a White House card by US President Theodore Roosevelt to the US ambassador to Turkey. The note reads: “June 13 1906. Dear Mr. Leisheman Mr. Davenport is an awfully good fellow in every way. I hope that you can make a special effort to help him in his arab horse scheme; and any courtesy you can show him I shall accept as personal. Sincerely yours T. Roosevelt.”