Another very rare Arabian horse strain is that of Rishan (feminine Rishah). The most common marbat is Rishan Shar’abi. I have developed a special interest in this strain over the years, because of the high quality of the individual representatives I have seen. A search for ”Rishan” in my digital Abbas Pasha Manuscript copy turned up a single mention. This reference is on page 346. A man who appears to be from the southern Shammar (the Shammar at Jabal/Mount Shammar in Central Arabia) speaks of his Saqlawiyah mare: “and we covered her at our place by al Rishan Sharabi of the horses of Beni Wahab, the horse of al Fawadi of Shammar al Jazirah.” Shammar al Jazirah is a reference to the Northern Shammar, the Jazirah (island) is Northern Mesopotamia between Euphrates and Tigris). The Beni Wahab are a ‘Anazah tribal confederation that includes the Wuld ‘Ali tribe among others. The Arabic i/y (ya’) letter is often mistaken for a b (ba’) in handwritten texts, because the only difference between these is a dot under the letter. The b has one dot, while the i/y has two. So I searched for “Ribshan” and “Rabshan” as well. The latter was more…
Just sharing it here for easy reference, given my lease of a direct paternal grandson of Siglavy Bagdady VI (b. 1949), an Al Khamsa horse since 2009.
It is nice to repost this Crabbet video every ten years or so.
This photo of Subanet Jabbar SDA caught my attention on Bev Davison’s social media feed. She bred him and still owns him. He is the sire of my Kinza Al Arab. Note the depth of the jowls, the thickness of the tail bone and the width between the eyes. Also the flat bone and the long withers.
Balia (top) was an asil daughter of Kuhaylan Zaid, bred in 1936 at Babolna in Hungary. Bona (bottom), bred in 1937 was another daughter of his, from the same damline of Bent El Arab. Both later went to Poland.
Lyman pointed to me the similarity between my young stallion Shaman Al Arab and his multiple ancestor Julep (Gulastra x Aziza) Shaman has seven close crosses to Julep. Putting side by side the photo of Julep that was recently shared online, and the last good photo I have of Shaman at three years old in August last year, the resemblance is striking. Lyman tells me that the likeness is more striking now that Shaman looks more mature, fuller, with bigger withers and a stronger butt. I was unable to see beyond the coat color difference but Lyman has a good eye.
A search for horses of the strain of Sa’dan (Sa’adan/Saadan) Tuqan in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, using two different spellings of the name, Tuqan and Tawqan, yielded three mentions, all pertaining to the same horse, which was owned by the Mutayr: The first is on page 439 and occurs in a testimony by Shafi ibn Fuhayd al-Sayfi, the leader of the Central Arabian Bedouin tribe of Subay’, about a mare from the strain of Ubayyan Sharrak that was known after his name (Ubayyan al-Sayfi): “And we mated the safra, Hosayna, to a Kuhaylan Saada Tuqan, the horse of Ibn Hobaylis of al Qublan of Muteer“. The second is on page 440, in the same account, about a close relative of the first mare being bred to the same horse: “We mated the safra Al Dughayim to Kuhaylan Saada Tuqan, the horse of Ibn Hobaylis of al Qublan of Muteer”. The third account is on page 620. It is by Sharyan ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Dawish, of the leading Dawish clan of the Mutayr tribe, about a mare of the Rabdan strain, which this clan bred: “And we mated the shaqra a second time to Sa’adan, whose mother is Saada Tawqan, the…
This is a recent shot of Shaykh Al Arab, courtesy of Lyman Doyle whose father Terry owns him. Shaykh is four years old this spring, so he hasn’t fully developed yet. He will become drier and more refined as he ages, and will reach full maturity around eight or even nine years old. Here’s why: he has a short back, a strong coupling, a high tail set, a round croup, a thick tail bone, a long, strong hip, a strong loin, a muscled gaskin, a deep abdomen, a round barrel, ribs well sprung, a deep girth, long withers extending well into his back, a sloped shoulder, a broad chest, a long forearm, a short cannon bone, flat bone, and a naturally shiny coat. Overall, he exudes balance, harmony, tightness, condensed power, like a compressed spring, all parts fit together, nothing is loose, nothing is too much or too little. That’s how I think Arabian stallions should look like. At least that’s how I like them, and how I will keep advocating for them tirelessly. The old-fashioned type (I balk at the meaning the term “classic type” has taken in today’s Arabian horse circles, so I say old-fashioned). It’s the type…
Two years ago, Judi gave me a digital copy of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. It’s been a game changer to work with, because it allowed me to search for a specific person’s name, or for a particular strain, across multiple recorded accounts by Bedouin breeders over hundreds of pages. Not only does it save time, but the large number of horses mentioned (in the thousands) also gives a bird-eye’s view of a certain topic, a horse, strain, making more in-depth analysis possible. For example, a search for “India” will result in 21 mentions. In the context of the Manuscript, looking for “India” will give you an idea of the stallions and colts that went there for racing, their strains, breeders, buyers, approximate area of origin, etc. Patterns emerge. More on some interesting findings later.
I am very happy to have obtained the 2001 stallion Dahhmany Bagdady (two photos of him below, from a few years ago) on a permanent lease from his owner, through the good offices of his breeder Laszlo Kiraly. He arrived in France this past Friday, to Arnault Decroix’s stud farm, together with an older bay mare Laszlo also gave me. More on her later. I will share pictures of both soon. Dahhmany Badgdady, born in 2001, is the only asil son of the 1977 Sweden-born stallion Wahhabit. He has at least three breeding age sons across Europe, in Hungary, Switzerland and Lithuania. His sire Wahhabit had the distinction of being the only asil son of the 1949 (!) Babolna stallion Siglavy Bagdady VI (photos below). Wahhabit’s dam was a Kuhaylan Krush from the line of the Davenport mare *Werdi. Notice the resemblance between the grandson Dahhmany Bagdady (first photo on this page) and the grandfather Siglavy Bagdady VI (the photo just above). Siglavy Bagdady VI was the son of Siglavy Bagdady V (b. 1939), also a head stallion at Babolna, out of a daughter of Kuhaylan Haifi I (himself the son the famous desert-bred tallion Kuhaylan Haifi). Two photos SB…
Bev Davison recently posted these two photos of Bint Sierra SS (Parnell x Sierra Summersong), one of her previous mares. I had never seen photos of her before. She is of Babson and Doyle lines. She is the paternal granddam of Subanet Jabbar SDA, the sire of my Kinza. You can see the resemblance between him in the third photo and his granddam in the second. All photos from Bev Davison That’s how I like them, coat color included.
I am really liking how the new little filly is shaping up. She is beautiful, three circle, and solidly built. Too early too tell if she features some of the damline’s characteristic legginess and dryness, which I like. What is certain is that Monologue fixed the dam’s short and droopy croup, at least in part, and brought more width between the eyes, and a larger and lower-set eye. The shoulder-girth complex is still there (thanks to her maternal grandsire Wadd), and so is the short back. I decided to use Monologue a lot more. He was bred to Wadha two weeks ago. Jamr was bred to Miracle on the same day. Photos from Monica Respet’s visit to the horses last weekend.
The superb Larabi, born in 1966 and a Jilfan Dhawi by strain, was together with the Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Guercif (b. 1961), one of the last asil stallions from Algeria. The small group of asil Arabians from the Algerian state stud of Tiaret were, in my opinion, the best in the world. As a group, they were better than the Straight Egyptians in my view. Too bad only one stallion and one mare are now left. Below, a photo of Larabi’s asil daughter Bakra (x Guemria by Zilzal), from the collection of Jean-Claude Rajot.
The article was written by Fouad Abaza, the Director-General of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt and a Governor of the Arab Horse Society of England. It includes a description by Doris Walter of her 1934 visit to Kafr Farouk, as well as a description of T.G.B. Trouncer’s Sidi Salem stud. There are a few studs of pure-bred Arabs, of which we may mention those of:— His Royal Majesty the King. The Royal Agricultural Society. H. E. Mahmoud Attribi Pasha. Said Bey Samaha. Mr. Trouncer. Daira Lotfallah Pasha. Some members of the the El Tahaoui family in the Sharkia Province, and a few other individuals, also own mares obtained from the above-mentioned studs. The mares in the first five studs are nearly all the descendants of Abbas Pasha I famous horses, and all these studs maintain their own stallions. Nearly all the other breeders all over the country depend entirely on the Royal Agricultural Society’s stallions, which are distributed in twenty-five districts in Egypt. The stallions were distributed as follows (p. 107): Doris Walter records her impressions of some of the horses at Kafr Farouk: Prominent among the mares in the paddocks was FARIDA, mother of BALANCE, and all those…
From time to time, I see nice photos posted on Facebook, which I feel deserve to be featured here. This is one of them. I don’t know the source or the photographer. That stare..
Very proud of the lastborn Al Arab filly. Both Monologue CF and Barakah Al Arab did a wonderful job there. Jeanne Craver said that the filly looked like a camel — in a good way. I so agree.
I saw Judi last week at a Pyramid Society even in Morocco, where she spoke about her long and successful career as a breeder, and asked me to speak about the consistency of Arabian horse type over the past 500 years, based on Western and (the very few) Arab first hand accounts. It was a nice event hosted by Pyramid Society Morocco’s president Youcef Laghzal and his group of breeders. Judi and I reminisced about the time we spent at Joe Ferriss’ working on the book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha” in November 2022. Sharon Ferriss took the photo, and Joe did the captions — not me. I do not remember what he was talking about, but it was certainly interesting, like everything Joe says.
This precious photo of Julep (Gulastra x *Aziza by Gamil Manial) popped up on my Facebook feed this morning, posted by Julie Koch, who indicated that it was “a photo Joan Yerkie took of Julep at Cedardell Arabians in the 1960s”. It is dated Aug 1966. Julep is in at least three horses I have owned and in two I bred and still own. He is one of the treasures of US asil breeding.
The Hamdani Simri stallion Monologue CF (photos below, earlier and in 2022) has been producing extremely well over the years. His son Haykal Al Arab (x CSA Baroness Lady), now gelded, is perhaps the showiest colt I have bred so far (video below as a colt). My recollection from seeing Monologue’s other son Inaam Al Krush at Jackson Hensley’s several years ago is that of an outstanding horse (more photos here by current owner Kim Davis). A third son, now gelded, Malaak Al Talj (x Mi Blue Angel), at Laura Fitz, has also been getting a lot of compliments. Photos below at a young age, then as a long yearling. There is also Kandahar TW, which I don’t recall having seen, and Darlene Summers’ Rose Petal Rhapsody (x Divine Little Rose), now with Aida Schreiber. And now my own little Badiah Al Arab (x Barakah Al Arab), born April 2024. Pity that there are not more of his progeny around, because Monologue is an excellent representative of Arabian horse true type. I can say that because the credit for breeding him goes to Charles and Jeanne Craver. I am just lucky enough to co-own him with Darlene Summers. I wish…
Jeanne Craver tells me that she “love[s] “the head shape, and the low set eye, nicely cut ears, very close coupling, love[s] the angles of the shoulder and hip”.
This was once one of the largest and nicest groups of Al Khamsa Arabians in North America.
This morning Barakah delivered a strong, healthy filly by Monologue CF. Mother and baby are doing well. I feel so blessed, and I pray things continue to go well. The vet is coming this afternoon for an IgG blood test and plasma transfusion. This filly is special because she is the first third-generation foal from my breeding, after her dam Barakah Al Arab (b. 2016) and her maternal grandsire Wadd Al Arab (b. 2011). Wadd was the son of my first mare in the USA, Wisteria CF. She is also the outcome of a sustained effort to preserve the rare female line to *Nufoud, Albert Harris’ imported desert-bred mare. This effort is one of the many bright spots in the preservation campaign Al Khamsa launched in 2010, around the AK Preservation Task Force. This filly is the the third one I have bred from that strain in eight years. I also retain her dam and her dam’s half-sister. *Nufoud was named after the Great Nafud sand desert of Central Arabia, so it’s only fitting that her eighth-generation descendant in the female line be named Badiah. Badiah in Arabic means both “nomads” as a collective (a synonym for bedu, the Bedouin,…
My friend Muhammad Ma’sum al-Agub recently acquired a promising young Saqlawi Marzakani stallion of Shammar lines. His sire is my black Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion Mushahhar, his dam is a daughter of Zayn al-Khayl. Notice the short back, the long hip, the sloped shoulder, the round barrel, the strong coupling, the long neck, and the (moderately) large, black eye.
A nice article by Gudrun in her magazine “In the Focus” on this important Central European asil sire.
Jeannie Lieb recently provided an update on social media on the Davenport Hadban horses that she helped put in Al Khamsa preservation homes in 2010. Quoting her: Updated March 2024: 1998gg RL Thunder Cloud (DDA Tyreb CF x DDA Hadba) Owner: Kathryn Toth, OH 2003gm RL Shelby Girl (RL Thunder Cloud x DDA Shalaana) Owner: Jessie Heinrick, OR 2011gm Wordah CW(RL Thunder Cloud x RL Shelby Girl) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2013gs Zubayr CW (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Shelby Girl) Owner: Karlee Mason, Alberta Canada 2006cm RL Bilquis (DDA Rasan x RL Boomerette) Owner Jeannie Lieb, MA 2013cm Suri Al Sahra (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Bilquis) Owner: KathyWerking, KY 2010bm Zuraidah Assahara (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Kadbat Abril) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2018bm Free Reins Tahir’s Lotus (pending)(Wahid CW x Zuraidah Assahara) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2010cm Zubaidah Assahara (Rl Thunder Cloud x R L Angel Girl) Owner: Hazaim Alwair, NC 2020bs Nawaf Alasil
These two figures from the seminal paper Remer et al, 2022 on Y-DNA in Arabian horses will become the subject of much attention in the coming years.
Severine Vesco and I were doing some background work on the Tunisian sire lines today. We found that the Volume IV of the Tunisian Studbook (1977-8-9) had the strains of the horses assigned in the good-old-fashioned European way… by using the strain of the tail male ancestor. The stallion Rial, for instance, was given the strain of “Seglaoui” while he was actually a Jilfan Dhawi, because his dam traces to Wadha. Rial goes back to the Tahawi-bred stallion Nasr in the sire line (Rial-Esmet Ali-Hazil-Fadjer-Nasr), and Nasr was a Saqlawi or “Seglaoui”, hence the mistake. Similarly, the stallion Soufyan, was given the strain “Hamadani El-Samri”. That’s the strain of the desert-bred stallion in his sire line, a horse called Dynamite II. Dynamite II was himself recorded as being “de race Hamdani Semri”. The error becomes even more conspicuous when you notice that Soufyan and Sibawaih, the stallion right above him on the screenshot above, are assinged the same strain while tracing to two different dam lines, one to Mansourah, and the other to Emtayra. Finally, the strain of the fourth stallion on the screenshot, Raoui, a head sire at the government stud, is listed as Hamdani. However, Raoui’s tail female…
This morning my neurons’s synapses made a long-overdue connection concerning the strain of the 1899 grey desert-bed stallion Ibrahim, who was famous for siring Skowronek. Ibrahim’s recorded strain is “Saklawi Faliti” (cf. the comprehensive list of sources of information on him on allbreedpedigree.com). There has been much speculation about this Faliti qualifier, some of it involving a fake pedigree of Skowronek drawn by Lady Wentworth (but that’s not the point of this article). This morning it occurred to me that the Faliti were none other but the leading clan of the Frijah section of the Ruwalah Bedouin tribe (see here for example, spelled Fliti). That Ibrahim was a Saqlawi by strain makes this inference very plausible. That’s because the Frijah were the wellspring of the Saqlawi Jadran and Saqlawi Ubayran strains, as shown in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. The Qidran (or Gidran, hence Jidran and Jadran) are one of the ten or so subsections of the Frijah. The Ubayrat are another section of the Frijah. One of the many, many Saqlawi mares Abbas Pasha acquired from the Frijah was known by his agents as the “Mare of Yahya al-Faliti”, after the Bedouin leader of the Frijah Ruwalah (cf. the Abbas Pasha…
The striking1985 chestnut Kuhaylan al-Ajuz stallion Samir (Sibawaih x Chajaret Eddour by Esmet Ali) was the other chief sire at the government stud of Sidi Thabet, together with Dynamite III. I saw him at Sidi Thabet in 2005. He reminded me of Regency CF at the time. Photo from the social media account of the Tunisian national federation of horse breeders.
For a long time there was a shadow hanging over the lineage of the senior Tunisian stallion Dynamite III (Esmet Ali x Nachoua by Madani), photo below. He and his many sons (Akermi, Safouen, Bardo, Halim, Touwayssane, etc), were accomplished racehorses of the first order and sires of racehorses in Tunisia and beyond. They were so fast, won so many races, were so powerfully built that some doubted their origins and felt that there must be some English Thoroughbred blood in their male line. As part of a broader project on sire lines, some of us — names are withheld for now — decided to compare the racing sire line of Dynamite III with the non-racing, preservation-focused, sire line of Jahir (Iricho x Ciada by Ghalbane OA and Malika by Masbout OA and Themis by Bango OA), photo below. On paper, the two lines are closely related. Dynamite III was the son of Esmet Ali (bred by Admiral Cordonnier), son of Hazil, son of Fadjer, son of the famous RAS stallion Nasr of the Tahawis). Jahir was the son of Iricho (bred by the same Admiral Cordonnier), son of David, son of Hazil, son of Fadjer, son of Nasr. So…
This iconic photo of the 1967 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres), taken by Anita Westfall, was republished on Facebook recently, and received many “likes” and nostalgic recollections. The late Charles Craver holding the bridle.
لاحظ حجم واستدارة الحنك ودقة الخشوم ورقتها وهي من صفات العتق في الخيل ولهذه الصفات تأثير مباشر على شكل الرأس فيصير مثلثًا وهذا مستحب أما الرأس المستطيل فهو مستقبح لما يدل عليه ضمنًا من ضعف الحنك أو غلاظة الخشوم أو الاثنين معًا
This blog entry features a conversation that recently took place on Facebook between two friends of mine, both bold and provovative thinkers (and doers). Yassine Jamali is a farmer and occasional horse and dog breeder who lives in Morocco. He recently authored an important book on the past, present and future of Barb horses. Severine Vesco is part of the Beni Sakr breeding program in France, which breeds solid, authentic Arabian horses of North African lines for utilitarian purposes. Her stud is one of the very few to have incorporated the bloodlines of the Syrian imports to France. They are both active on Facebook, where they often engage in substantive debates, sparring occasionally and agreeing some times. I translated and lightly edited an excerpt of this conversation, which was triggered by Severine (S) sharing a video which some “online content creator” had posted of a short 1km (0.6 miles) race somewhere in the Middle East, and Yassine (Y) reacting to that. Y: From 20,000 meter races to 1,000 meter races. I mean ,it’s a nice race, but it’s against the nature of these horses. And it speaks volumes about the lack of understanding of tradition, and the influence of Western…
I don’t know if these two photos of the desert-bred mare *Ghalia was published before. According to Al Khamsa’s online roster, *Ghalia was a 1956 bay Hamdaniyah bred by the Sa’ud Royal Stud at Khafs Daghrah, Saudi Arabia. She was purchased in 1958 and imported to the USA in 1961 by Donald A. Holm. She was by Murjan, a Hamdani of Sa’ud and out of Falhah, a Hamdaniyah of Sa’ud. She appears to have been registered by the International Arabian Horse Registry of North America Stud Book (Vol. 1), rather than the AHA. Pictured here in old age, but still looks like a nice mare, noble, and dry, with an intelligent and sweet look in her eyes, reminiscent of the best desert-bred mares I saw in Syria in the 1990s.
The handsome Dahman stallion Ibn Mahrouf, bred by the Babson Farm stood for breeding at the Sheets in the 1980s, when this picture was taken.
Not sure I published this one before. It’s from the collection of Billy Sheets, which he left me.
This blog article quotes the famous and very funny exchange between Lawrence of Arabia and his proofreaders during the process of preparing his Seven Pillars of Wisdom for publication in 1926:
The other day Moira Walker pointed me to the book “A trip to Baghdad: With an Appendix on the Arab Horse” written in 1908 by an Indian senior official, Nawab Hamid Yar Jung. He traveled with his father, Colonel Nawab Afsur-ul-Mulk, and another man, Mahboob Ali Beg, to Baghdad in March 1907, and its vicinity, in search for Arabian horses. The following is the account of his purchase of a chestnut stallion, Faleh: “My father had seen almost all the horses in Baghdad and had a great desire to purchase a chestnutof the Nejd breed; but the owner of the horse, who was a wealthy Arab, absolutely refused to part withit, saying: “You can take any horse you like from this herd, but I cannot allow any of the SaglaviJadrania breed to go out of the land, which breed is especially brought up in our clan, and the rest ofthe Arabs have not got this kind.” When my father saw that nothing could persuade the Arab to give up the horse, he could do no better than ask Huzrut Syed Mahamood Effendi (son of Huzrut Nakeeb-ul-Ashraf), who is the religious Preceptor of all the Arab tribes and is held in…
The latest edition of the Swift Runner newsletter has an article by Betty Finke about the Crabbet foundation stallion Mesaoud being the most influential Arabian stallion of all time, an observation I agree with. The article also includes a nod to the new pedigree of Mesaoud on the sire line, which was published in the new book: “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha”. This new pedigree, stemming from the re-discovery of the Abbas Pasha Sale Catalogue of 1860, and other original Arabic documents from the time of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sharif, traces Mesaoud’s sireline all the way back to Ghadir, the foundation stallion of Abbas Pasha.
I am awaiting three foals this year, all representing the second generation of my breeding. Kinza Al Arab (to Bashir Al Dirri), Barakah Al Arab (to Monologue CF) are due in April, and Mayassa Al Arab (to Anecdote CF) in the fall. Fingers crossed after Wadha’s filly’s tragedy last year. In my fantasy world, there are thirty Al Arab foals a year, not three, from my mares and the mares I would like to have.
A picture of Monica Respet’s JDA Husaana as a younger mare. Husaana, born in 1999, has one of the nicest old pedigrees on a US Arabian horse, with a rare tail female to *Urfah and plenty of old American blood. Her line was bred by Mrs. Ott and her daughter Jane Ott for three generations. Husaana, was bred by Pam Baker, and has one daughter born in 2004.
Facebook has these superb photos from the ancient Sabean capital city of Marib in Yemen in 1987. These were likely taken by archaeologists working on excavating the temple of South Arabian god Ilmuqah (known locally as Mahram Balqis, Balqis being the Islamic name for the Queen of Sheba). No credit were given.
The last Al Khamsa mare of the Ferida lineage, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, was put down last month. I had given CSA Baroness Lady to Sue Moss in 2023 as a pet companion to one of her horses. She leaves behind a 2015 bay gelding, Haykal Al Arab (registered name Lucero De Santana, why? long story), who now belongs to Sue Moss. I also have four frozen embryos from her, at least one of which I hope is a female so that the line can keep going. Below, Lady and little Haykal.
Jeanne is the mother of Al Khamsa. Her involvement with the organization she helped found, which she documented in a recent post on Facebook, reads like a history of Al Khamsa of sorts: I was graduating from college, and realized that I could now fulfill a dream and have a horse. Fell in love with Arabians by seeing one presented at a clinic. Read the Ott articles in Rider and Driver, and wrote to them. I got a gracious reply from Mrs. Ott, who told me to get educated by visiting Walter Schimanski, HB Stubbs, and Charles Craver. All three were wonderful to newcomers. I fell for Lothar at Walter’s, and will always remember the special quality of the *Al Hamdaniah daughter, Al-Ka-Han. Skin like oiled silk, which gleamed. Walter sold me a mare bred by “Chubb” Stubbs named Fatimah, by Julyan x Fadaa. And I bought another Julyan daughter out of Sirrulla, named Sirrulya. Leased Sirrulla, and she was a real treasure. And of course, Charles and I fell in love and got married. Before that, Jane Ott had stopped publishing annual updates to the Blue Catalog, and the “Blue” community was losing contact. So like the idiot kid I…
I wrote about H.R.P. Dickson’s 1949 book “The Arab of the Desert” in an earlier blog entry about the Ubayyan strain of Ibn Jalawi. This entry is about about the horses of the rulers of Bahrain, in the context of Dickson’s mention of specific Arab leader being famous for keeping a certain strain of Arabian horses, their rabat or marbat: Every Shaikh of standing is supposed to always keep his rabat, i.e. a mare or mares from which he breeds a certain particular strain. He gets name and prestige by doing this. […] The Shaikhs of Bahrain similarly keep the Roman-nosed Shawaf (Kuhailan) breed. Kate referred me to this quote a few weeks ago. Several things struck me about it. First, how Dickson, who collected information for his book between 1929 and 1936, primarily associated the Bahraini rulers with the Shawaf strain rather than the Jallabi strain for which they are usually better known. Second, how Judith Forbis, who visited the royal studs of Bahrain in March 1970, forty years after Dickson (or his informants) made their observation, essentially echoed him about both the look and the status of the Shawaf strain. In her 1971 seminal Arabian Horse World article…
A rarely seen photo of the Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz stallion Ibn Fadl (*Fadl x *Turfa), chief sire at the Babson Farm. Photo through Jeanne Craver. It’s worth noting that, of the *Fadl sons, he was the only one the Babson Farm deemed worth naming after his sire (a bit like Ibn Morafic at Gleannloch). Do you see a dished face?
Lebanese-American poet and advisor to first Saudi king Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud with *Noura, a desert-bred Ma’naqiyah Hadrajiyah. Noura, born in 1917, was a gift from her breeder Ibn Saud to Rihani, and was imported to the USA in 1928. She has no asil progeny left. As an aside, this mare is living proof, if more proof was needed, that the preeminent rulers of Najd bred and owned Ma’naqi horses. So much for those who pretend that Najd people did not have that strain. They had no reason to. It was and still is as good as any other desert blood. Photo from the frontpage of the website of the Ameen Rihani organization, dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of this “founding founder of Arab-American literature”.
Shamsah Al Arab (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere) is the Ma’naqiyah filly I had been planning for several years. She has her dam’s very dark chestnut coat color, strong build, short back, and … short neck. Pictured here with her dam running behind her. Photo DeWayne Brown.
Another horse from my breeding that went to a friend is the 2020 chestnut Ma’naqi Sbayli colt Shaykh Al Arab (Tamaam x DaughterofthePharaohs), owned by Terry Doyle. Shaykh, who Terry calls “Notch” (because he says he is top notch!) is going to be Terry’s trail riding horse. DeWayne, who owns his dam sent me this fuzzy yet representative photo of him last month.
I had published this beautiful photo of the 1994 Syrian Kuhaylan Khallawi stallion Al Sabik (*Ta’an x Hallah) some ten years ago. Recently Arnault Decroix shared with me another photo of the same handsome horse taken a few moments before or after the first one. This was truly a special horse.
Landrace Belisasius turns one at the end of this month. He is the son of Jamr out of Belle that went to Moira Walker in utero. He is a light bay, the color of his damline ancestor, *Nufoud. I like very much, as to me he exemplifies the permanence of the old type of Arabian horses, which is the true type.
I have writtten about the Ubayyan strain specific of Ibn Jalawi several times before, mainly here, here and here. It is the strain of my mare Madinas Miracle, and my stallion AAS Nelyo, which trace back to the Ubayyah mare *Mahraa, a gift from Saud Ibn Jalawi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to Esther Ames, an ARAMCO woman doctor. Recently, Kate pointed me to a quote about the Ubayyan strain of Ibn Jalawi in the 1949 book of H.R.P. Dickson, “The Arab of the Desert: A glimpse into Badawin life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia”. Dickson, who was the British political representative in Kuwait, reportedly began collecting material for his book in 1929 and finished research for it in 1936. He wrote: Every Shaikh of standing is supposed to always keep his rabat, i.e. a mare or mares from which he breeds a certain particular strain. He gets name and prestige by doing this. […] I will only mention one more instance, and that is the ’Ubaiyan strain of the late ’Abdullah bin Jiluwi, the Governor of Hasa. He was a great horse fancier like all the family of the Al Sa’ud, and had many famous mares in…
I have long been a fan of *Al Hamdaniah, the desert-bred mare that was imported to the USA in 1947. This “bloody-shouldered” mare bred by Saudi prince Saud ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Jalawi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia — was the subject of the first entry on this blog, more than 16 years ago. Joe Ferriss had commented on that thread about mares from her lineage that he had seen and liked at the Otts, noting their clean bone. RJ Cadranell had observed how someone whose “eye” he trusted had told him that a daughter of *Al Hamdaniahs, a mare bred by the Otts and named Blue Star, was one of the best mares he had ever seen. More recently, I wrote about the connections between *Al Hamdamiah, born in 1940, and the 1936 visit of Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) to the stud of Ibn Jalawi, where he saw a heavily fleabitten grey mare of the Hamdani strain that was likely the mare’s dam. Today, I am excited to announce that Becky Stanfield Burckheart and I are working on putting a close descendant of *Al Hamdaniyah into production. This is Becky’s mare…
I thoroughly enjoyed reading — and learned a lot from — the short article presenting the ninth century CE treatise of Ibn Akhi Hizam al-Khuttali’s “Book of Horses and Hippiatry” (Kitab al-Khayl wa al-Baytara, its most commonly used Arabic name). This 2021 article by Jamal Hossaini-Hilali and Abdelkrim El Kasri follows their French translation in 2018 of Ibn Akhi Hizam al-Khuttali’s treatise, based on three of the surviving Arabic manuscripts. Prof. Hossaini-Hilali informs us that Ibn Akhi Hizam was master of the horses (i.e., stud manager, in today’s parlance) for the sixteenth Abbasid Caliph al-Mu’tadid (892-902 CE) in Bagdad, then the economic, scientific and cultural center of the world. His paternal uncle, Hizam (“Ibn Akhi Hizam” means the “son of the brother of Hizam”), was master of the horses for the eighth Abbassid Caliph al-Mu’tasim (833-842 CE), while his father, the senior al-Khuttali, was the head veterinarian for the tenth Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawwakil (847-861 CE). Horse husbandry and management were clearly a family affair in their case. The first part of his treatise, a lexicographical compendium of names for horse body parts, teeth, colors, markings, behaviors, qualities, etc., draws heavily on Abu ‘Ubaydah (d. 826 CE) Book of the Horse,…
Over the past couple of years, I have been working on several projects with likeminded friends and preservation breeders from around the world. These projects seek to complete and expand the original mission of DOW, which has always been to raise awareness about the true Arabian horse, its people, history and heritage, in a way that builds bridges between the East and the West. One of these projects is my sire line project. It first germinated in my head some years ago, when a quick survey made me realize that there were only 10 asil sire lines left in the West. Since then a few more were added, thanks to importations from Syria. Sire lines can vanish particularly quickly. Once a few stallions from one sire line become fashionable, everybody uses them, then more people use their sons, horses from other sire lines don’t get as much of a chance, and disappear within two or three generations. This is what is currently happening in the general (ie, non-asil) Arabian horse population, with Marwan Al Shaqab and WH Justice, both from the Saklawi I sire line through Nazeer, dominating the breed. Within the sub-population of the asil Arabians, the Saklawi I…
Arabic language Facebook pages concerned with historical photographs of the Arab world, its populations, and its culture occasionally turn up photos of Bedouin Arabian horses. Below is one example: The text under the photo is in Ottoman Turkish, a language I don’t read, but close enough to Arabic for me to make up that the mare was a Kuhaylah, aged 7 years old, 148 cm tall, color “coral grey” (marjan gri, if I am reading it correctly), and that she was gifted to a senior Ottoman official (perhaps the Sultan himself) by Far’un al-Yaqut, one of the leaders of the Bedouin tribe of al-Fatlah. The Fatlah are one of the main branches of large Bedouin tribe of Dulaym, whose territory lies in the Lower Euphrates valley, in and around the Bedouin cities of Hit, Fallujah and Ramadi. The Dulaym, themselves a branch of the larger pre-Islamic tribe of Zubayd (to which the Jubur and the Juhaysh also belong) have a reputation of bravery and fierceness in battle. Although the tribe was largely settled from early on, the leaders of the Dulaym were considered by the shaykhs of nomadic Bedouin tribes such as the Shammar, the ‘Anazah, the Dhafir, etc., as…
Laszlo Kiraly’s Hungarian magazine Lovas Nemzet is holding its 2024 photo competition. Participate if you can.
The latest edition of Swift Runners, the refreshing and much welcome monthly newsletter launched by Denise Hearst, Betty Finke, Scott Benjamin and a few others features a reprint of an earlier article by Charles and Jeanne Craver, Wisdom from the Breeding Shed. It deserves to be read and reread far and wide.