Kuheilah Umm Zorayr Mafkhara 1387, grey mare born 2005 by Hamdany Wadhah 901 out of Kuheilah Umm Zorayr Corrat Al-Ein 798, at the Royal Stables , 12. February 2017
I came back from Bahrain with my head swirling with images of desert-bred Arabians, which still look like the way Arabians ought to look like (read: not like China dolls or sea horses or “living art”). One of the strains that survive over there — and nowhere else — is that of Kuhaylah Umm Zorayr, with a precious few mares left at the Royal Stud (below, a yearling from that strain in 1998, second photo credit Kina Murray). In her “pearls of great price” article series, Judi Forbis mentions the strain in passing among the many strains Bahrain had preserved by the early 1970s, but without elaborating further. There is a bit more information on the website of the Royal Stud, which relates the wonderful story of an old black mare of that strain that was first believed to be way past breeding age, but when put back in training in 1969, produced a daughter that carried the line forward. I thought this was all there was. Then, while flipping through the Abbas Pasha Manuscript — that bottomless treasure — I came across “the History of Kuhayla om Sareer, and Her Name is Dahma”, on pages 580 and 581 of the English…
This camel statuette is in the British Museum, and came from the Hadramaut area around 1907. It has a short dedication in Sabean to the god Wadd-Ab, “Wadd is the father”. From the 2nd or 1st century BC.
I finally saw the Arabian horses of Bahrain, those “Pearls of Great Price”, after a 30 year wait. Thanks to Jenny Lees who arranged the private visit to the Stud of the late Sheikh Mohammad Bin Salman Aal Khalifah, we, my father and I, had the privilege of seeing these horses two days before their presentation. In an unforgivable episode of forgetfulness, I only brought my camera phone, the battery of which died after snapping photos of the third stallion. The others are in my head, just like hundred of other horses seen but not photographed. Most impressive among the horses of the late Sh. Mohammed was a grey Hamdani (no photos). An older Rabdan, a chestnut Sa’eedan, a grey Tuwaisan, a grey Shawafan, and a dark chestnut Radban, many of these sons of the older Radban. The three below were among my favorites: from top to bottom: a very showy ‘yellow Ubayyan; a very balanced and powerful Jellabi; and a more refined, drier speckled Mlolshaan.
This was taken in 1980 or 1981, near the town of Rayak, in the Biqa’ valley of Lebanon. Rayak, more specifically the village of Hawsh Haala, outside Rayak, was where we put our horses. We had a partnership with the Hindi family over the horses, since the time of my grandfather, Edward Al-Dahdah, in the late 1920s. The young man holding me is Shafiq Hindi, a longtime family friend, who had taken over the partnership after the passing of his uncle Subhi Hindi. The mare, the mare, was my father’s all-time favorite, Zanoubia (III). A mare of great style, refinement and beauty in her heyday, gazelle-like, from an noble, prestigious and storied origin, and a notoriously difficult producer. She was born in 1976, by Ash-hal, a Kbayshan, out of Bint Wazzal, by Wazzal, a Ubayyan, out of Su’ad, by al-Jazzar, a Kuhaylan Nawwaq, out of Umm Mash’al, by Ghazwane, a Kuhaylan al-Kharas out of a ‘Ubayyah, by a Saqlawi al-Aama (the blind), out a ‘Ubayyah by a Kuhaylan Nawwaq out of a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah of the Sarraf family of Ba’albek in the Biqa’ valley, who had obtained the strain from Ibn Thamdan of the Sba’ah ‘Anazah. Another photo of the same mare, ten year after the first…
This Syrian mare bred by Basil Jadaan in 1994 was exported to France at a young age. Photo from owner Chantal Chekroun. Hijab met an untimely death, but leaves behind a son, Manjad Maram Al Baida, by Mokhtar, and a daughter Quokriya Al Shatane, both by Mokhtar, another of Basil’s horses imported to France. Mokhtar if still alive would be 30 today. She was a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah by strain, from the breeding of Ibn Amud of the Shammar. The pedigree of the maternal grand-dam, here, is incorrect. Marwa’s father was a Saqlawi Jadran and her sire’s dam a Ubayyan Suhayli (branch of Ubayyan Sharrak, originally from the horses of the Sharif of Mecca. Below, her daughter Quokriya Al Shatane, by Mokhtar. Photo courtesy of breeder Chantal Chekroun.
From the Abbas Pasha Manuscript — that bottomless treasure — page 546: “and we mated her a second time to the Hadban horse of Saffuq al Jarba, and he is of the horses of al Jaless of al Kawakibah” Elsewhere in the Manuscript it is recorded that the stud/marbat of Hadban Enzahi of the al-Kawakibah section of the Ruwalah belonged to Nahi al-Mushayteeb of al-Kawakibah, and that it was an old stud. Al-Mushayteeb obtained them from al-Nazahi of the ancient Bedouin tribe of al-Fudul. That Hadban stallion in the testimony was the great-grandfather of a horse that was three years old in the early 1850s. This means that in the 1830s or early 1840s at the very least, there was already a branch of the Hadban strain of the Kawakibah with the Jarba leaders of the Shammar, and that one of the horses of this Shammar branch of that Hadban strain was used as a stallion. Saffuq al-Jarba, nicknamed “al-muhazzam”, meaning “Saffuq of the belt” because he was so warlike that he reportedly never left his military gear, died in 1843. This is very consistent with the testimony of the Jarba leaders of the Shammar in the mid 1980s about their prized Hadban strain…
When I started this blog, more than eight years ago, it was out of a need to connect American breeders and lovers of desert Arabian horses with facts, stories, and like-minded people from the rest of the world. I believe this task has now largely been fulfilled, not necessarily by this blog, but mostly by the advent of social media tools that connect people across the globe. With the endless loss of life, heritage, culture and horses engulfing the Middle East — Syria, Iraq, Yemen, others maybe soon — I have been feeling the increasing need to switch gears and reach out to those who live in the cradle of the Arabian horses, especially the youth. Amidst these tragedies, those who are normally the reference and the source of the knowledge, expertise, tradition about desert horses, and the original source of the horses themselves, are at risk of losing faith in what they have and in who they are. So pervasive is the influence of Western lifestyles, media, ideas, so overwhelming is the destruction of ancient centers of knowledge, tradition and culture — including about Arabian horses like Aleppo, Homs, Mossul, Sanaa, so large is the flow of refugees who lost everything, that the time has come…
Coat colors in old Arabic treatises on horses pose a big challenge not just because of their sheer number — close to a hundred — but also because they do not follow quite the same pattern as color coat definitions of Arabians in the west: grey, chestnut, bay, and black. I having been trying to look for an internal logic to color classification by the ancient Arabs and Bedouins for some years now. I am now certain of a few color correspondences. One of them is ablaq (feminine balqaa), and its roan. It’s defined in the old Arabic dictionaries as the appearance of white hair in any other coat color which does not fade as the animal ages (ie, grays). It’s also further qualified by the base color: so you have “ashqar ablaq” which is the equivalent of a chestnut roan, or a “kumayt ablaq”, which is a bay roan. Then you have different types of “ablaq”, depending on which part of the body the roaning occurs.
I had never seen this photo of Beteyen Ibn Mirshid of the Sbaa Bedouins before. It is apparently featured in Von Oppenheim’s book. Can anyone confirm? He was the owner of Queen of Sheba, of the Blunts.
This is with respect to the discussion on the color “yellow” in Arabian horses in the preceding entry. This mare (Pirouette CF) would qualify as “yellow” in Bedouin parlance. This is confirmed in old Arabic dictionaries (“Lesan al-Arab” which dates back to the 14th century AD), and also by Tweedie and Raswan.
Kirby Drennan owns this beautiful in Virginia, IL. He is by Pageant CF out of Anthesis, and a half brother of Lexington CF, below. PS: Everything out of Anthesis CF is outstanding, including Fragrance CF at Michael Bowling’s, Chancery CF with Debbie Jessen and Firebolt CF, also with Kirby.
There are only four mares and filles from the *Nufoud tail female accounted and all are in PA. Linda Uhrich owns AB Dafinah (HHA Manabi x LD Rubic), and Monica Respet owns her daughter, Niina Nufoud. Then there is “Belle” and her daughter Barakah, with me. Jadah Necessity, 1997 gm, is unaccounted for, last with Randal and Mary-Sue Harris in IL. MSF Rubie, 1993 cm (EA Salute x LD Rubic) is I think still with Pam Baker in SC, but she has never had a foal, and is now 23.
Kim Davis bred his superb Kuhaylat al-Krush yearling filly of Davenport bloodlines. She is by by HH Tantalus Krush (Quantum LD x Kashmir Krush LD) out of HH Nadira Krush (RC Janub Krush x Naufali Al Krush). She has 14 crosses to the original desert import Kuhaylat al-Krush *Werdi, and 10 out of 16 ancestors at the fourth generation. If she looks that great at this growthy stage, I wonder how she will look like when she matures fully. I had already written about her when she was born.
From the same Billy Sheets photo collection as the ones in the entry below. I don’t think these had ever been published before.
These are from the photo collection Billy Sheets gave me. For more on this 1960 stallion, click here. Maybe someone can find more about Khalid Hamid al-Dawsari who was living and working in al-Khobar in the 1960s.
I am very proud of this 16 year old mare, which I acquired about a year ago. She is having some trouble conceiving but we will be working on that over the coming year.
I have been trying to get a photo of him. He was Miqhim Ibn Mhayd’s slave and one of his most trusted men. Following the relocation (exile?) of Miqhim from Syria to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the late 1950s, he acted as Miqhim’s agent to acquire several hundreds of desert bred horses, mostly mares, and mostly from the ‘Anazah but also from other Bedouin tribes, as gifts to Saudi royals and other senior officials. As distressed ‘Anazah Bedouins from Syria gradually moved south to Saudi Arabia, they sought public sector and military jobs, registration and immigration documents, and various social and resettlement benefits in their new home country. They were eager to obtain the support and good will of Saudi officials and members of the royal family, and through Miqhim and his sons, presented them with their best mares. This explains the influx of hundreds of Bedouin mares in the Saudi royal studs in the 1960s. Several dozens of these mares found their way to the Saudi Arabian Studbook, where they were registered as “desert bred”. Back in Syria, Farhan al-Olayyan gained increasing influence with the ‘Anazah who had not left yet, to the point of speaking in the name of Miqhim and his sons.…
One of my favorite Davenport mares, based on photos I have seen, and on liking her two brothers: Pomp Charbonneau and Firebolt CF. Photo Christine Emmert.
The handsome 2005 stallion Chatham DE (Huntington Doyle x Gulida Tara DE by Maloof Najid), photo from DeWayne Brown.
The sweet Juans Aana (El Reata Juan x Suuds Juli Aana), a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah from the line of Haidee, 26 years old this year, left to what seems to be a good retirement home yesterday. I kept her 16 year old daughter which I still hope to breed this year. If it’s a colt, I will keep him as a stallion. There is nothing better than a Ma’naqi stallion for breeding. I say this, but Hakim ibn Mhayd also said it and wrote it to Davenport, and he knew what he was talking about.
Here you really see the Crabbet influence from his dam blending with the blood of his paternal grandsire Regency CF.
Pedigree here. She is six generations removed from the original desert import *Nufoud from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I am in absolute awe of DeWayne Brown’s young Ma’naqiyah filly, DaughterofthePharaohs, a.k.a. “Pippa” (Chatham DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince), photo below by DeWayne. She is a throwback to the old Crabbet type of a hundred years ago. She has crosses to three of the four Gulastra descendents in Al Khamsa, namely Julep, Gulida, and Nusi.
Belle (top) looks the most deserty of all my horses by far, and has the longest ears, Jamr (middle) has the crested neck of his Crabbet ancestors, and Wadha has the most “classic” head and largest eyes of the three. And there is only so much a smartphone camera can do.
This serves mostly as a note to myself: I found an intriguing reference to Farhan al-‘Olayyan in a Syrian hujjah of a horse born in the mid 1980s. I had long thought that Farhan al-‘Olayyan, a former black slave who had acted as an agent of the Saudi royal family for the purchase of hundreds of desert horses from Syria, was active in the 1960s and the 1970s, but this reference extends his activity up until the 1980s. It is from the hand of ‘Aissa al-Sallal, a stallion owner (in Arabic “hassan”, in french “etalonnier”), and in it he mentions that his main stallion, a Kuhaylan al-Khdili bred by Omar al-Huwaydi al-Mishlib, of the ‘Afadilah tribal Shaykhs, was bought by Farhan al-‘Olayyan for expert to Saudi Arabia, but had already sired a Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion in 1984. This is really interesting, and potentially establishes a connection with the horses registered in the Saudi Studbook and know to be coming from “the north”. Worth digging further.
My Syrian friend Radwan — one of the persons from whom I keep learning — told me that desert mares from the Ma’naqi strain were characterizeda, among other features by long ears, large and long mouths that ran deeper into the muzzle than horses from other strains, and horizontally placed eyes, more so than horses from other strains whose eyes were parallel to the axis of the head. This was in connection with a discussion of the precious desert Ma’naqi Sbayli strain known as “Ma’aaniq al-Tanf” (after their location at the Tanf desert border crossing between Syria and Iraq) or “Ma’aaniq Abu Jarn” and its tracing to the Black Marzaqani (al-Marzaqani al-Adham), the famous Saqlawi stallion of the Maraziq of Shammar later owned by Alaa al-Din al-Jabri in the 1960s. These are the horses of ‘Affaat al-Dbeissi of the Fad’aan, a precious marbat which Jean-Claude Rajot and other French and German purists visited in the 1990s in the Syrian Desert (Jens Sennek has stories about that visit to them in his awesome book), but the Syrian Studbook does not show that the line actually traces to the Black Marzaqani. The old chestnut Ma’naqiyah mare which Ibrahim Khamis of Hama owned in the early 1990s…
Ahmad Saffar from Bahrain told me the other day that wealthier Bahrainis from the ahali — the population, so not royals — kept marabet of Shawafan and Wadhnan until the 1970s, when they turned to Thoroughbreds and part bred Arabs for racing. They had obtained these strains from Southern Iraq — presumably the area around Basra and al-Zubayr.
I never believed straight profiles were a defect. Most of the desert Arabian horses I grew up with in Lebanon and Syria had straight profiles. Very early on, I found that quote in Lady Wentworth’s “Authentic Arabian Horse”, perhaps taken from Lady Anne Blunt’s unpublished manuscript; it echoed what I was seeing and learning about around me: “A straight profile should not be a defect if the forehead is very broad, the eyes placed low and very large, and the muzzle small” I would add deep round jowls and prominent facial bones to this description. Together, a deep jowl, a small muzzle and a broad forehead form a head with a triangular shape in both the profile and the face. I am actually striving to breed an Arabian horse with all these characteristics, to make the point that the resulting outcome is an attractive, even “classic” head. Jamr’s head, below, approaches this description. The jowl is unbelievably large, and the muzzle is small. The eyes are placed low, but they are not large (a legacy of his maternal grandsire Dib). The facial bones are somewhat apparent but the face will be drier with age. The overall shape of the head…
This time it was hard to grab good shots of my young stallion Jamr, who kept prancing. His hindquarter is shaping into true old Crabbet style, and each time I see him he looks different. He is 43.5% old Crabbet lines, his dam was double that percentage.
This young filly is the happy outcome of a sustained preservation effort of the Kuhaylan ‘Ajz line of *Nufoud, and of the small number of Arabian horses without Crabbet bloodlines. Her name means “divine blessing”. May she be blessed and continue this precious line of royal horses. Her dam Jadah BelloftheBall (“Belle”) was rescued several years ago by Jeannie Lieb, who drove to Colorado to pick her up after the previous owner had fallen on hard times. Upon seeing her, my father, who was here visiting, told her she reminded him of the daughters of the great asil Lebanese stallion Machaal. He was very fond of these. I will breed her to a stallion from Saudi lines next time.
Jackson Hensley sent this photo of his stunning Monologue CF son, Inaam Al Krush. I had seen him a few months ago, and liked him, but he looks even better in this photo. Reminds me of that iconic photo of Kuhailan Haifi O.A. That Monologue CF, I should have bred all my mares to him.
Wadd, who is now five years old, is maturing into a handsome, masculine stallion in the line of the Kuhaylan Hayfi sires of Craver Farms. He is more reminiscent of his grandsire Javera Thadrian than he is of his sire Triermain CF. Large eyes, broad forehead, prickled ears, bony face, arched neck, curved throat, short back, deep girth, broad chest, sloped shoulder, silky hair, fine skin, solid tendons, short cannon bones, high tail carriage, and good movement. I would have preferred a deeper jowl, a longer hip and a straighter croup, but I can live with that, because when moving the slightly droopy quarter does not show. His daughter has both his many qualities and his few shortcomings.
Barakah Al Arab — fuzzy picture — was born on June 23, 2016, at 4.00 am, a tall filly by Wadd Al Arab (Triermain CF x Wisteria CF by Triermain CF) out of Jadah BelloftheBall (aka “Belle”, by Invictus Al Krush x Belladonna CHF by Audobon CF). She will probably be grey. She is a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz by strain, tracing to *Nufoud of the horses of King Abd al-Aziz of Saudi Arabia. She is the first “Sharp” (no Blunt/Crabbet blood in the pedigree) filly of that rare strain in fifteen years, the previous such filly being her own dam, born in 2002. She is also my first “second-generation” foal, her sire Wadd having also been bred by me. I plan to go see her on Sunday.
DA Ginger Moon (“Ginger”, by DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI by Monietor RSI), my 1998 Saqlawiyah of Ibn Dirri is looking increasingly good and has stopped loosing weight and even started gaining some. The last shot is from February 2016, with Chris Yost, who owns Ginger’s 2014 yearling colt El Moubarak BLY.
This is the mare I will be breeding this spring. Shadows Aana (SS Shadowfax x Juans Aana by El Reata Juan), a 2000 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah with five crosses to Julyan (and hence, Julep, and Gulastra), three crosses to Antez, and two crosses to Hanad (through his daughter Schiba) has been with me since last July. She will be bred to my Jamr, who will add another fourteen crosses to Antez, ten more to Gulastra and five to Hanad, through Sanad, Tripoli, Ibn Hanad and Ameer Ali. Their conformations are also consistent with each other: both have deep jowls, short backs, and are built like tanks.
This is the 3rd trim since Thalia joined my barn around the first of the year. An improved connection of her hoof capsule to the coffin bone (P3), which you can see in the “Right Front” photo, has grown down from the coronary band enough for me to feel comfortable with REALLY backing her toe up. I used my nippers laying flat on the barn floor to clip away dead hoof. This is the rough cut before rasping smooth. Saves me lots of rasping! What you see in the picture is all dead hoof, called the Lamellar Wedge . The lamellar wedge is what forms in between the live structures of the inner hoof and the hoof capsule. In other words the “white line”. That thin yellow/whitish line between the hoof wall and the sole. This is what happens to the white line when the coffin bone loses its connection to the hoof capsule. The white line in the area where separation has occurred stretches. And the more it stretches the more severe the rotation. The more severe the rotation the larger the lamellar wedge will be. The “Left Front” picture shows how Thalia’s coffin bones have become “sinkers”. “Sinkers” are…
The top picture is Thalia in early January right after I brought her to my place from Virginia for Edouard. The bottom picture was taken yesterday, March 20, 2016. I want you to notice how the fat pat from her croup to her tail head has evaporated. She no long has a rear-end that looks like a Percheron. She has been shedding her excessively thick and long haired coat since January. As of now she is down to a normal winter coat. The crest of her neck has slimmed down. We had blood work done, glucose and insulin from the same draw, and ACTH to test for PPID (Pituitary Pars Intermedia Disfunction aka Cushings). Thalia came back positive for both conditions though fortunately only slightly high in both. (See note below) This is the best scenario we could have hoped for given what her external symptoms were telling us. Getting her metabolic system back under control is obviously much easier and bodes better in terms of breeding her for a preservation foal. The physical changes that have occurred include appropriate supplementation to balance the major and trace mineral content of the hay she consumes. She gets almost no concentrated feed…
Clarion CF (Regency x Chinoiserie by Dharanad), 1991 liver chestnut stallion, is the sire of my Mayassah, and is standing at Kirby Drennan’s, in Virginia, IL.
From my visit to Illinois, last weekend. With Marty Bugg. The first photo is my best shot of a horse in motion in a long time.
This 2003 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion (Regency x Kiddleywink by Regency) is, according to Jeanne Craver, the most look-alike of his Regency’s sons, and his second youngest.
Debbie Mackie’s Reema CF (Trilogy x Fragrance by Regency) was the prettiest mare I saw in my trip to Illinois over last weekend. She is so refined and yet so well built and balanced.
I was blown away by Pulcher (a.k.a Anecdote CF, by Triermain CF out of Aniq El Bedu by Iliad), while visiting Jackson Hensley and Alice Martin last weekend.What beauty, what type, what personality, what nobility, what “Arabness”, what “desert appeal” (I am coining the phrase) this horse has! Whew! Certainly Triermain’s best son.
This is my 2013 Kuhaylat al-Krush filly, Mayassah Al Arab (Clarion CF x Cinnabar Myst by ASF David). Three years old this summer. I am very proud of this filly I bred for several reasons. She embodies my preservation efforts. The antiquity of her bloodlines is an obvious reason: for instance, Abu Zeyd (Mesaoud x Rose Diamond), b. 1904, is just five generations away. For comparison, he is thirteen generations away in a stallion like Marwan Al Shaqab. The extreme rarity of her lines, too: the stallions Gharis (Abu Zeyd x Guemura by Segario), Fartak (*El Bulad x *Farha), Abu Selim (*Azra x Domow), Tabab (*Deyr x Domow), Royal Amber (Ribal x Babe Azab), and Oriental (Letan x Adouba), were all popular stallions in early Arabian breeding in America, with thousands of descendants in general list Arabians, and she is very much the last Al Khamsa horse that traces to them — and pretty closely too. The effort I went through to make that breeding happen is a third reason. I leased, then acquired her dam and her dam’s sister from Trish Stockhecke in Canada. They were 19 and 20 years old, and had never been bred before. The older…
Elegance had her third dental visit and second power tool dental procedure on March 1, 2016. She was ready for another adjustment as I saw her starting to avoid the long stem hay and searching for the fine stuff that falls out during their selecting what hay to eat. Also, washing her mouth out every 3 or 4 days showed more packing between her left upper dental arcade and her cheek. My equine dentist sent me a mouth washing tool, bless his heart. What is used is called a “drencher” for sheep and cattle if you care to look up what those look like. Here is what her mouth looks like after he finished. Please note how “short” her right side lower molars are. This is from years of over grinding on the right side. What he told both myself and my veterinarian, who was present for the special sedation she needs for this type of dentistry, is he isn’t trying to make both sides of her mouth look the same. He is balancing each side to itself. The two sides will never look “equal”. He said if this problem had been caught when she was young it could have…
Oh how much I would give to know the strain and the breeding of this handsome desert stallion. I have a fascination for the mounts of Arab kings, sheykhs and other leaders, and I pay particular attention to the photos featuring them — this one by Gerald de Gaury of King Ali of Hijaz, the last Grand Sherif of Mecca, was featured on Rehanuddin Baber’s facebook page. That’s because I feel that there are specific reasons these horses have been selected to be ridden on official occasions, when photos were taken. I believe that these horses of kings embody a certain ideal Arabian horse at the time, and can be looked at the equivalent of today’s show champions. This ideal may even influence the tastes of the spectators. Notice the broad chest, the deep jaws, the short ears, the strong muscular neck, and the big bone. This is what I hope my Jamr (Vice Regent CF x Jadiba) will look like in a few years.
We need a concerted, sustained c ollective effort to save what remains of the Asil Tunisian Arabians before the French invasion for racetrack pseudo-Arabian makes is too late. This is the gorgeous 1963 Kuhaylat al-Ajuz mare Naziha (Chetoui x Chouka by Ibn and Idara by Ibn Fayda and Selma by Azem and Isaoub by Negrach).
I scanned this archive photo of a famous event among Syrian horse breeders, the Latakia race of 1993, which I attended with my father. Arabians from all over the country and neighboring ones flocked to this national event, the first of its kind on such a scale. This is a photo of the finish line of the eighth and last race, over a distance of 2000 meters. Mokhtar, Basil Jadaan’s black desert-bred Kuhaylah al-Krush, (now in France and turning 30 next year) won the race, with minimal training. Khalid, Mustafa al-Jabri’s Saqlawi Jadran (Mahrous x Khalidah) came a close second. The biggest surprise was the third place (not showing in the first picture, but to the right in the second one) of Hakaya, the black desert-bred Shuwaymah Sabbah of the Sheykh of the Bedouin tribe of Tai. She was 15 years old, heavily in foal, ridden bareback, without formal training, by a bulky Tai Bedouin (the others were ridden by professional jockeys), and without a bit… only a Bedouin halter. Let me write this again to let it sink in: a 15 years old mare, heavily in foal, ridden bareback, without formal training, by a bulky Bedouin, and without a bit coming third in…
Jeannie Lieb took this beautiful photo of Thalia CF (Javera Thadrian x Bint Dharebah by Monsoon). She looks so much like her sire Thadrian, and his sister Cheslea, and his other sister Janet.
I had not seen this photo of Letan (*Muson x *Jedah) before, but now I understand who some of the pretty faced grey Davenport stallions, like Tantris CF, and Quatrain CF, took after. It comes from Dharebah, through Dhrareb, a son of Letan.
These photos illustrate how the horse grows a new hoof with correct mechanics if it is set up by the trimmer to heal itself. Thalia’s front hooves were first trimmed by me 2 weeks ago on January 12. I waited 2 weeks and did a touch-up trim on those front hooves today and took new photos. I am very pleased with her progress. She has a long way to go but good stuff is happening. Of particular note please notice how the hairline is starting to achieve a smooth straight slope to the ground if viewed laterally (from the outside). The bulge in the hairlines in both the right and left front heels will not disappear until a tighter laminae connection is made further down the hoof wall as it grows out. This tighter connection will “lift” the coffin bone back into the correct position within the hoof capsule , lowering the now elevated back wings of the coffin bone and leveling the bottom of the coffin bone, and she will achieve concavity and straight hairlines in her front hooves as this happens. A couple of things in her favor for a sooner rather than later recovery, she has…
Thalia’s hooves. Where do I begin? I knew she’d had laminitis (active) in mid-October 2015 due to eyewitness reports. What I’ve discovered, now that she is with me, is she has been having laminitis attacks, off and on, for at least a year. And without supportive care. The coffin bones (P3) in her front hooves have descended so close to the ground that if the compacted sole on the bottom of her hooves were removed (which I’d normally do) her coffin bone would penetrate right through the live sole. What this means is that she has had attack after attack after attack of laminitis and her laminae have torn apart all the way up to just short of the coronary band. Laminae are much like velcro in the way the sensitive tissue adheres to the insensitive horn of the hoof wall. This happens over time, a slow insidious degenerative process. How am I so sure of this? The state of her hoof tells me this. First lets look at the outer wall. Each one of those rings represents a laminitis attack. Rings in and of themselves don’t necessarily say “laminitis”, however this clue, along with the angle of her…
Meet Thalia CF, a 23yo 100% Davenport mare of very old lines whom Edouard stepped up to give a home to and also hopes to get a foal from in the future. He officially became her owner when I recently picked her up in Virginia and brought her to my place for “rehabilitation”. All Edouard and I knew about the mare aside from her pedigree, before picking her up, was her age and that she’d had laminitis (founder) in the early fall of 2015. We had seen a couple of pictures of her taken by friends who visited the farm where she lived with her then owner. They had noted Thalia, at that time, resting in a laminitic stance. This resting stance is recognized by the front legs being extended out in front of the body to take weight off the toes, and the hind legs camped under the body to support the weight of the body. This was in mid-October 2015. Thalia had recovered from that laminitic episode enough to be safely trailered by the time I picked her up on December 28, 2015. What I saw when she was led out to the trailer, for her trip to…
Above on the left is the relevant portion of the output provided you by Equi-Analytical for their (601) Equi-Tech hay analysis. For purposes of education I also added a test for Selenium (not part of the Equi-Tech analysis). I already know I live, and my hay comes from, a selenium deficient area of the United States (and Canada where this hay came from). On the right side is a portion of the spreadsheet I have for analyzing the diet in total,including all feeds and supplements. I’ve selected just the hay portion for the purposes of this post. It shows what 20lbs of hay/day provides the horse. 20lbs/9kg per day is what you would feed a 1000lb/454kg horse if feeding at 2% of desired body weight. As you can note from the analysis on the right, this hay provides way too much Iron (Fe) and Manganese(Mn) at a gram each and not near enough Copper (Cu) or Zinc (Zn) to combat excessive uptake of those two potentially toxic minerals. How do I know there is too much Fe and Mn and not enough Cu or Zn? I’ve used the National Research Council Nutrient Requirements of Horses, 6th Edition to create my spreadsheet with modifications suggested by…
Stan, now 10 years old (big boy!) and Haykal, 5 months, are equally handsome and are good friends.
Walid’s mare, Mouna (Kesseb x Mamdouha by Ilamane), a 2000 grey, is one of the last, if not the last, asil Shuwaymah Sabbah in Tunisia (Tosca line back to Primevere, a foundation mare of the Tiaret Stud in Algeria). She is special in that she is a younger mare that is very close to the desert (Barr, Cheikh El Ourbane, Mansoura are very close, and Bango and El Managhi are not far behind). She is also special in that she does not trace to Esmet Ali, who is ubiquitous in Tunisian breeding. She is also rich in bloodlines from the stud of French Navy Admiral Anatole Cordonnier, as it is very rare to find the blood of Cordonnier’s 1959 Ilamane (David x Berriane by Titan) so close up in modern Tunisian pedigrees. Judging from the photos, Mouna looks like she is a strongly build, well-conformed, deserty mare of the style to be found in Syria before the civil war. Walid is selling his mare, and wants her to remain in purist hands. If you know anyone who fits the criteria, please let him know.