This is how of the rescued Davenport Hadban Enzahi mares, RL Bilquis (DDA Rasan x RL Boomerette) looks like when in the knowledgeable, caring and responsible hands of someone like Jeannie Lieb. This mare, 6 months pregnant, was a pack of bones when Jeannie rescued her, and it was not certain she would survive.
Based on the racing records of some specific horse lines in the Middle East, and on the identity of horses from these lines imported to the USA, here is a list of US Arabian horse lines that would be expected to do well in the competitive racing and endurance realms, in addition to the *Hadba Davenport line, already discussed below: — Any line tracing to any of the Hearst imports, especially *Layya, *Lebnaniah, *Bint Rajwa, *Mounwer, *Bourhane and *Kouhailane. All these were good race horses in Lebanon prior to their importation to the USA in 1947. There is one Al Khamsa line left to *Layya. — Any line tracing to *King John, a good race horse himself when in Egypt, and a representative of the superior line of Saqlawi Jadran of Dari al-Mahmoud, many representatives of which were either race winners in the Middle East or sires and dams of race winners (e.g., the desert bred Saqlawi Ebbo, a close relative of *King John’s, and the sire of ‘Ataba, an outstanding race horse who sired the Hindi US import of *Bint Attebe). *King John had a thin line in Al Khamsa through Beau Nusik, but it is now gone. —…
I enjoyed the story that Edouard related about the Shammar Hadba female line and indeed it has fame in American racing bloodlines through Kontiki. It also interesting to note that in the Al Khamsa bloodlines one branch of the Hadba Davenport dam line has distinguished itself in racing according to AJC and DataSource. First of all, posted above are two chestnut mares and a yearling colt. The first mare is the Davenport mare Waddarlah (El Alamein x Trisarlah) and the second mare is her full sister Letarlah. Both of these mares were bred by Carolyn (Kiki) Case of the famed Glorieta Ranch. Glorieta is mainly renowned for the straight Egyptians it bred which have a big international following particularly in the Gulf and Egypt. However Kiki also had these two Davenport mares, one of which was at Glorieta when I visited in the mid 1970s, that was Letarlah. Waddarlah had just gone to Illinois before I arrived and became well known in Davenport breeding, particularly for her daughters Bint Oberon and full sister Aischia. Letarlah remained at Glorieta until the early 1980s when she then produced for Davenport lines. Prior to their Davenport breeding careers these two sisters at Glorieta…
Jeanne Craver just shared with some of us on the Al Khamsa board this video of the WAHO 2007 convention in Syria. Jeanne expresses it well when she writes: “It is such a bittersweet film, linking our minds to that wonderful trip and all of the spectacular photos, with the constant reminder of the disaster in Syria now….”
Today marks the 5th anniversary of Daughters of the Wind, and the 5th anniversary of my daughter Samarcande who inspired this website. She is now a young lady, a future champion swimmer and horse-back rider. She also loves ice cream.. I realize I have been less active than in previous years; this is partly because I am a much busier person now than I was before, and partly because the needs to act, and act fast, before it is too late on preservation emergencies in North America. This has increasingly shifted my focus from advocating for the preservation of the precious few Asil Arabian horses to actually helping undertake the time-consuming, labor-intensive, tedious and often uninspiring but oh-so-rewarding tasks of preservation in the context of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force: identifying the horses; contacting their owners, finding new homes; arranging leases, shipping, following up on breeding, etc. I will also be moving to Egypt for work in a few months, for a two or three year stint, and I hope I will be both less busy at work and more active on this website. Meanwhile, Samarcande was joined by a little sister three months ago. Solenn Hend Al-Dahdah is…
Last week I was talking with a Syrian friend from Aleppo over the phone. Conversations always start with updates on the security situation there, and end with what they were supposed to start with — horse talk. I was telling him about the recent concerted preservation effort that is underway in the USA, to conserve what remained of the Davenport Arabians of the Hadban Enzahi strain, which goes back to the desert mare *Hadba of the Northern Shammar Bedouins, imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. I was telling him how much I was struck by the racy, elongated, body structure of these Davenport Hadbans — see Anita Enander’s photo of the heavily linebred Hadban RL Boomerette as one example. He laughed, and told me how a now deceased horse merchant had told him that, in the past, the particular branch of the Hadban Enzahi strain from the Northern Shammar (which *Hadba belongs to) were very prized as racehorses across the Middle East, despite their small size. He told me the story of one of these Hadban stallions, who raced and won at the Beirut racetracks, was so successful there that he was sent to the Iraq racetracks, where…
The blind Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Jadah Kerasun, one of the last four remaining tail females to the Saud Royal Stud import *Samirah seems to finally have found a permanent home with Marge Smith of Oregon. Pamela Klein agreed to haul the mare from the Midwest to the Northwest at a discount rate, and Carrie Slayton single-handedly fundraised to raise the money for the shipping expenses, through facebook and on this website. This constitutes one of the nicest examples of the Al Khamsa preservation minded groups coming together to take collective action.
This is what winter looks like in Northern California. And this is what a 19yo Davenport mare looks like when training a young eventer (note stirrups crossed over withers). Bruce Peek will immediately note the reach of her inside hind. 🙂 Blessings of the new year to you all — Ambar
Here’s of one of the joys of maintaining a website like Daughters of the Wind: a few weeks Husayn al-Mansur al-Yami of Najran in Saudi Arabia sent me the following message, which I reproduce here in full: Hello Edouard, Under the” Video of the Day” section of your blog, I read something about Najran horses and especially, Khumayssan or Khameesan as we pronounce it. I would like to add what I know about the strain and wish to know more about it and the people who still preserve it. Al-Khameesah horses are bred and preserved for one and only one purpose, the war. In addition to their beauty, they are fast, strong, brave, smart, loyal, and alert. They can carry heavy weights, and run for long distances. They can stand harsh weather and geographic conditions. Their solid hooves and bones, and massive muscles enables them to perform well in the mountains and the desert. So, I guess having Al-Khameesah horse in the old days is like having a modern war vehicle today. Even though it is well known in our area and in the neighboring areas of the country of Yemen, it is not listed among the Arabian horse strains.…
I was looking at the current Babson Egyptian Arabian stallions tonight, and I was struck by this younger stallion, bred by Dan Ulm. The 2001 chesntnut Saqlawi Jadran stallion Du Akhir Flame (Ibn Mahrouf x Serra Afina by Serr Rou) is quite something. He is really well built, and I especially like the shoulder, the depth of girth and the withers. I even like the color. He is owned by Kim Cooper of Missouri Virginia.
A couple blocks from the Casdagli palace, in the Garden City district of Cairo, lies the palace of Princess Nematullah Kamal El Dine, wife of Prince Kemal El Dine Hussein, and daughter of the Khedive Tewfik. The palace, restored and renamed Qasr al-Tahrir (Liberation Palace) but amputated of its garden which became part of the now-famous Tahrir square, now belong to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Click here for a slideshow.
Old Egyptian Arabian horse records have preserved the trace of a Mr. Kasdughli, who owned Arabian horses which he obtained from Lady Anne Blunt during her last years at Sheykh Obeyd near Cairo and from Prince Kemal El Din Hussein of the Egyptian Royal family, and perhaps other sources as well. Here’s on the Dahmah Shahwaniyah mare Durra of LAB in the Al Khamsa Roster (I use it because it’s online and easily accessible, in addition to being a precise source): Durra (BLT), 1917 bm 1.36 RAS; Breeder: Lady Anne Blunt; A Dahmah Shahwaniyah bred at Sheykh Obeyd Stud. Purchased by the Royal Agricultural Society from Mr. Kasdoughli in 1924. Died 1930. NOTES: The above information is from the RAS History, p36. Durra was probably purchased by Mr. Kasdoughli from Prince Kamal al-Din, who purchased the horses (including several pregnant mares) left at Sheykh Obeyd after Lady Anne’s death, and re-sold some of them. Another reference to him is in the Al Khamsa Roster entry for the horse Aid, to whom Durra was bred to produce Bint Durra, bred by Mr. Kasdughli: Eid (RAS), 1920 _s RASp-*Bint Bint Durra; Breeder: A Dahman owned by Mr. Kasdughli in Egypt. NOTES: The above information is from the 1932 pedigree for *Bint…
My kind of mare. By Sportin Life out of Sarra Al Krushah by Asar Al Krush. Davenport lines. She reminds of Qadheefah, a bay Ubayyah Suhayliyah from the stud of Mustapha Jabri outside Aleppo. Note the high withers, the deep girth, the hocks well let out, and the long ears. As long as there are still mares like that 100 years after Davenport’s importation from Syria to the USA, then there is hope for this breed.
Jose Manuel from Spain sent me this nice note: “I am a follower of your blog and I would like to tell you thanks so much for your wisdom about the arabian horse and the Bedouins because they go together. following your suggestions I saw the stallion Najm Yarob in abrash krush stud near Madrid( if you want you have photos of him in the stud website) and I bought him to breed to my Egyptian mares. Please continue writing; you are helping many asil arabian horses (for exemple, najm yarob). I THINK IF YOU SEE THIS HORSE YOU WOULD LIKE HIM. YOURS SINCERELY.” I want to tell him: your courage (yes, this requires courage) encourages me.
Photo from the Davenport Project on Facebook. This was the benchmark for an Arabian stallion, by the way. Today’s beauty champion winners belong to another race, a distant descendant from the original one. They are post-Arabians, and it is time to recognize this fact.
I have one thing to say to those Arabian horse breeders around the world who cheated by replacing a mare with another, and registering the progeny of the second mare as being from first: with mtDNA scientific progress on your doorsteps and the genetic tracing of female lines, you are doomed. You, your horses and your reputation. For those who did a similar deed by registering one stallion’s progeny as another’s, your turn is coming soon.
Something needs to be done for the Syrian Arabian horses in the Aleppo area, fast. The price of fodder has been multiplied by ten, and horses from solid studs are starving. Some of us are trying to think of long term solutions, fast. A question here: it is currently difficult to get export papers from the government. Suppose horses are made to cross the border with Turkey, without export papers, vet papers, but with their registration papers, what would happen to their registration? Would it be possible to register them in another country post-factum? Or are they not register-able forever? Is one harming the potential future contribution of these horses to the breed by getting them outside of the country without proper papers?
I am stuck in the Frankfurt airport on my way to Cairo (again) because of a snowstorm, and was reading this future studies article on what the Middle East will be looking like fifty years from now. The scenarios outlined are quite grim. Most of them involve a combination of large-scale and extended droughts, environmental degradation (salinity and rapid urbanization are rapidly killing the Nile Delta), water shortages (San’aa, the capital of Yemen will be the first city in the world to completely run out of water by 2020– that’s in 7 years), water wars, demographic explosion, urban unrest in sprawling slums, large scale unemployment, violence, etc. This brings me to the subject of the survival of the Desert Arabian horse in its original homeland, which is seriously threatened. It reinforces my belief that the valuable genetic material still available in the Middle East will need to find its way to more stable parts of the world (like the USA or Canada, because I just don’t see Western Europe on a path of long term stability) where it can be preserved for generations to come. I am not talking about the high-end, overbred, delicate Egyptian Arabian horse creatures that grace Egyptian and Gulf studs; the blood of Nazeer, Moniet, Bukra, etc, is all over the world, and it’s not…
Jamal Pasha, known as al-Saffah (“The Blood Shedder”) was governor of the Ottoman Vilayet of Syria just before World War I. He is shown here surrounded by the Shaykhs of Iraqi Bedouin tribes, celebrating the completion of the al-Hindya dam on the Euphrates river near al-Hilla, south of Baghdad. Photo from Wikipedia.
I had never seen this one of him. From the Davenport Project on Facebook. Titled: “Muson at the New Jersey State Fair, 1907”
I have just returned from an exhausting trip to Cairo, Egypt, and will be back on Daughters of the Wind soon. Sorry for the prolonged absence.
Carrie Slayton finally found the whereabouts of the oddly named 1994 Saqlawiyat al-Abd (*Wadduda tail female) mare Oupz Running W (Midbar Balladeer x Serbinti by Serhm), who is a niece of Jadiba, and which turns out to be chestnut (the AK online Roster says she is grey). Joe Ferriss had written about both mares a couple years ago in the Khamsat, and Oupz was presumed lost, until Carrie found a trace of her current owner. With this mare now located, the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force has found all the mares on the endangered list that appeared on this blog in october 2011, except two (n. 13 and n. 15).
This morning while looking at old pictures I stumbled on two photos of my first mare (or at least the first mare of my father’s stud that I considered mine): Halima, registered in Volume 1 of the Lebanese Studbook as Al Tuwayssa (Malik x A Tuwayssah mare by Radwan), was a 1986 grey mare of the old Tuwayssan strain, and will forever be my favorite Arabian mare. She is the reason for and the earliest manifestation of my passion for desert Arabian horses. She was bred by my father, who bought her 26 year old dam from the late Fawaz al-Rajab, a horse merchant from Homs in the early eighties. Her sire was the Saqlawi Jadran stallion Malek, the last asil stallion of Lebanese lines and a favorite of my father’s. I posted photos of him on this blog a few years ago. Click here to see them. Her dam was a very small bay mare with a beautiful classic head, sired by the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Radwan. Radwan traced to Sba’ah ‘Anazah bloodlines, and was standing at stud in Homs after a good career at the racetrack in Beirut, although he did not produce many race winners himself. The small…
This facebook website pictures some of the widespread desctruction that befell several historical sites and old cities in Syria. “Like it” or rather, dislike it..
I am quoting this passage of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s “My Diaries, being a personal narrative of events, 1888-1914” about his visit to the stud of the Ottoman Sultan in 1893, page 126: “In the evening we drove to the Sweet Waters and were shown the Sultan’s mares. There were, I believe, about 150 of them, all ‘mares from the Arabs’, but the greater part of them of very small account. Among the herd, however, one was able to pick out about a dozen really good ones, and two or three of the first class. But there was no mare there at all equal to Ali Pasha Sharif’s best, or the best of our own. The best I found had come from Ibn Rashid who, two years ago, sent thirty. But the Egyptian who manages the establishment tells me they will insist upon tall horses, and I fancy the Bedouin who send the Sultan mares get the big ones on purpose for him, and keep the little ones, which are the best. There was a great hulking mare which Sotamm Ibn Shaalan had brought with him, one I feel sure was never foaled among the Roala. Of horses, they showed us…
Check out the hundreds of beautiful photos of Davenport horses in Christine Emmert’sfolder of the ‘not yet sorted’ section of the Davenport Arabian Horse Conservancy website. Most photos were taken at Michael Bowling’s open barn/house in September 2012. Wonderful collection of horses including: Pretty Special CF, Eldar HD, Poeticus HD, Latitude HD, Porte CF, Pirouette CF, ADA Lionne, Almohada, Aurecole CF, etc, and the gorgeous Fragrance CF, pictured below. Photos by Christine Emmert.
I am going to start a new series on this blog on “ten myths about Egyptian pedigrees”. Stay tuned.
Jeanne Craver sent me this photo of the black Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Jadah Sharuuq (Lifes Capade LD x Belladonna CHF by Audobon), a Sharp (no Blunt/Crabbet blood) stallion bred by Randall and Mary Sue Harris of Peoria, IL, from lines from Carol Lyons. This rare and precious stallion is just five generations removed from the 1925 desert bred Saudi mare *Nufoud, in the dam line. He combines in my opinion, the best of American asil Arabian bloodlines: the Davenports, the Saudi Arabian imports of Albert Harris, the blood of *Turfa up close, and the Egyptian lines of H.H. Prince Mohammed Ali (*Fadl and *HH … Hamida). Jeanne had already sent me a photo of his beautiful dam Belladonna CHF — click here.
Recently I reactivated my “Daughters of the Wind” page on Facebook. Everything I post here will show there, and so will the comments you post here. One basic rule I learned from the social media types at my work is that, if you want to reach more people, you’d better go where they already are (i.e., to Facebook) rather than have them come to you (i.e., this website). Of course I will also write from this website here, and those among you who are blessed enough not have a Facebook account will not be missing anything.
The other day, Jeannie Lieb pointed me to an excellent Davenport Hamdani stallion which I had not heard about before: Titian CF (Riposte x Neroli by Regency), a full blood brother to my and Darlene’s Monologue CF. Look at his long neck and his balanced conformation.
Also from Facebook — and I gave up on trying to compete with it here, lol — comes this gorgeous photo which Edna Ehret posted of the asil 1984 Ma’naqi Sbaili stallion Dakhala Bashiq (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir), the full brother of my 1985 Dakhala Sahra, both bred by Jeanne Craver. Two failed embryo transfer attempts on Sahra so far, third is the charm, please wish me luck. Mrs. Ehret sold him to a person whose name she does not remember.
Bonnie Brown Duecker posted this photo on Facebook of her lovely 28 year old Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare Pretty Special CF (Lysander x Pretty Fancy by Ionian), one of the last Lysander daughters. Photo by Ch. Emmert.
These two photos of Ribal (Berk x Rijma by Rijm) I had not seen before.
One reason I enjoy keeping this blog is the unexpected encounters that I had the chance to make through it over its nearly five years of existence. One such encouter was the one with Obeyd al-‘Utaibi (“a.k.a Pure Man”) a ‘Ataiba Bedouin of Saudi citizenship who maintains the spirit of old Arabian Bedouin horse breeding — as opposed to the new Arabian horse breeding spirit largely prevailing in the Gulf today, which is not based on old Bedouin knowledge and practices and is basically just mimicking Western practices, minus the West’s knowledge (there are exceptions, of course). Another was the encounter with the Tahawi clan (Yehia, Mohammed, and of course Yasser) a couple of years later. Great things happened as a result of both encounters, knowledge gaps were filled, missing pieces of puzzle put together, and in the Tahawi case great progress was made on the preservation of the few remaining asil mares they have. The latest encounter of this type took place when Jibril Kareem Melko of the UK contacted me recently. He is the grandson of Mrs. Nazeera Qassis who was the niece of Dr. Iskandar Qassis. Dr. Qassis was the foremost preservationist Syrian horse breeder in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, a well of…
Just like “code is poetry” to the WordPress blogging community, to me the way sires and dams, strains and names, tail males and tail females combine to make a pedigree come to life feels like the rhymes and rythm of verses in a poem. Bad pedigrees are like bad poems, I cannot read them without cringing. A good pedigree on the other hand is something I can gaze at for hours, marveling at the delicate craftsmanship and genius — sometimes unintentional — behing them. Look at this one for instance, or this one, or this one: can you hear them speaking to you? Below, my favorite poem, from Rimbaud
A great article by Rick Synowski by Michael Bowling and RJ Cadranell — of course, sorry — on “Reconstructing Domow”, that matriach of old American breeding. I never tire of re-re-reading it. I leased two Krush mares with Domow in the pedigree. The usual instruction with this photo: flip your head 30 degrees to the right when looking at it.
There was a meeting of Davenport and CMK folks and their horses in California last week. Many horses were shown, and many photos were taken. See some of the photos by Carol Mingst, here. Here is one of my favorite Davenport mare Pirouette CF, by Carol Mingst, and another of her daughter, ADA Sareeah (by Dubloon CF), by Christine Emmert. Both are excellent photographers, au naturel.
Lorien HD (Trilogy x Jonquil CF) 2006 gray mare. 2012 photo by Carol Mingst. Her sire Trilogy (Prince Hal x Trill) 1980 grey stallion. 2003 video capture by Kat Walden.
… a Kuhaylan Hayfi grandson of Portia. This was taken yesterday (22 Sep 2012) at the New Albion Stud in Davis CA. (Also recently confirmed by a repro vet: Porte’s semen should ship well.)
Also from the DAHC website, this gorgeous photo of Portia (Tripoli x Dhalana by Salan), a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah bred by Charles Craver, and the founder of a dynasty of her own at Craver Farms. I have met a couple of mares in Syria at the stud of Basil Jadaan in the early 1990s that bear a striking resemblance to her. There was in particular an old Kuhaylat Ibn Mizhir mare at Basil’s and a Saqlawiyat Ibn ‘Amud whose heads look almost exactly like Portia’s.
A photo of the Kuhaylan Hayfi Davenport stallion Anchorage (Ibn Alamein x Alaska by Tripoli) bred by Charles Craver. From the DAHC website
Lisa is asking how well Davenport and Part Davenport Arabians do in high level endurance racing. Does anyone have numbers, facts, etc to share?
Cathie Fye recently shared with me this picture of her 2003 Dahmah Shahwaniyah mare Thank Heaven (*Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer x Ru Serr Llany), one of two daughters of the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan in the USA. She is doing well in endurance, as she should. Look at the gaskin, and the clean hocks. Where do you see this anymore? I had already decided to breed one of my mares to this stallion before he is done, but seeing this photo confirms my decision. He will be 25 next year.
I went to see Jadiba and her foal on a rainy day couple weeks ago, and all I could back with were a few head shots of which this is one, against an unflattering background.
What follows are pictures of horses from a little known and much underlooked asil line in the USA, that of the Saud Royal Stud’s Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare *Samirah, through her daughter Koweyt by Alcazar, Koweyt’s daughter Konight by Kaniht (all from Albert Harris’ breeding) and Konight’s 1963 daughter Ameera Moda by Fa-Turf (so lots of desert horses upclose). Two pictures of Konight are below. All the pictures are from Carrie Slayton, a long time breeder of this line, to whom the credit goes for saving it from extinction. I had written about this branch of the *Samirah line back in 2009 (click here) but did not learn of its current status until Carrie contacted me recently, and we started a conversation about these horses, which led her to send me these pictures. Carrie leased two daughters of Ameera Moda (Fa-Turf x Konight by Kaniht) from the original breeders — the Bancrofts — and bred them to asil stallions over the years. One such daughter is Sha Bint Ameera (below) by the Hamdani Simri stallion Fa Charlamar, of old Davenport/Babson/Saud lines. From the photos, Sha Bint Ameera looks like a mare of old desert type, the like of which you…
Christine Emmert just shared with me this beautiful photo she recently took of the Davenport Kuhaylah Hayifyah mare Wotan’s Winnie (Wotan x Danseuse CF by Lysander) during the Ed Skinner Memorial Trail ride. Thanks Christine!
Take a preview of the 2015 Arabian Horse World Championships, and get your snorkels and wet suits ready if you don’t want to miss them. Notice the “ultra-refined” head, “exotic” arched neck, the “classic” dished profile, and the “extreme” muzzle of this young competitor. The eyes would have looked bigger if the makeup wasn’t wiped away by the water. Don’t waste time looking for legs, there aren’t any: toothpick legs are deja-vu (so pre-2010!), the new fashion is no legs at all!
The grand Hamdani Simri stallion Regency CF (Ibn Alamein x Bint Antan by El Alamein) died last week at age 31. Of the more than 600 (!) Davenport stallions horses (of course) bred by Charles Craver over more than 50 years from dozens and dozens of stallions, 76 (more than 15%) are his direct offspring. Photo from the Craver Farms collection.
From the archives of the Institut Francais du Proche-Orient in Damascus
I found an interesting online database of Arabian horse pedigrees, which includes “all Arabians bred by Wilfred Blunt, Lady Anne Blunt, Lady Wentworth, Cecil Covey between 1878 – 1971”. It seems serious, and is perhaps based on access to the Blunts’ various studbooks. I am going to use it.
Someone Marie Arthur posted this picture on Facebook of the Kuhaylah Hayifyah Davenport mare EK Asiirah UF (Portico x Astranah by Astrologer) bred by Joyce Gregorian, and it struck me. I really like this mare. I even like her one obvious defect: a shorter and thicker neck, which is/was the case with many many desert bred Arabians of the past. That long swan-like over-arched neck is a ugly western invention. Rather, notice the black skin around the muzzle and the eyes, and that overall air of shyness, gentleness, and modest femininity, as if the mare was ashamed of being so beautiful.
Much of Arabian horse breeding program in the West follows patterns based on the exclusion or inclusion of specific horses or groups of horses: within the Babson Egyptians, for example you have the non-*Maaroufa, which is a sub-group that excludes lines to this mare. The Babson Egyptians are themselves an artificial sub-group of Egyptians Arabians, tracing in all lines from the horses imported by Henry Babson. Here’s what I mean by artificial: had Mr. Babson imported another mare than *Bint Bint Sabbah, the descendants of this other mare would have been labeled as Babson Egyptians, and the otherwise eligible descendants of *Bint Bint Sabbah would not. Within the Davenports Arabians, you have the non-Fasal, all without lines to this mare, even though the ancestors of Fasal (*Hamrah x Amran by *Deyr *Wadduda), are present in the pedigree of all non-Fasal Davenports. These groups and sub-groups have their own logic, and are usually meant to preserve different phenotypes. The Sharp breeding program is one of those rare artificial Western-created breeding groups that I think are worth breeding in isolation and preserving, when the bigger picture of Arabian horse breeding is taken into consideration. The Sharps are basically Al Khamsa Arabian horses…
This is a bottle in the ocean.. about whether anyone knows anything about a 1999 grey Al Khamsa Arabian mare oddly named Kiefer El Sherif (Hadaya Nile Anwar x Sherlaila by Sheriz) tail female to the W.R. Hearst import *Layya, hence an Obayyan by strain. Jenny Krieg — who owns her sister Maraya and Maraya’s daughter Labwah pictured below — and I were wondering if that was not a stallion mistakenly registered as a mare, because of the name, but then again you never know.
Have those of you who live in the Mid-West and South of the USA vaccinated your horses against the West Nile virus? Soon I will be needing a vaccine for the East Nile virus, which is a good virus to catch 🙂
This is true and an important point Edouard in looking to the future options of diversity. The Egyptian horse has long benefited from the influence of the Astraled sons: Sotamm (Astraled x Selima), Rustem (Astraled x Ridaa), and Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare) as well as the Berk son Hamran (Berk x Hamasa). All of these stallions are of the Mesaoud sire line. Which sadly is now in jeopardy within straight Egyptian lines. However the concentration of Mesaoud through out the whole part of Egyptian pedigrees is more so especially when one looks at the pedigrees of these stallions above and the Blunt mares Bint Riyala (2x to Mesaoud) and Bint Rissala (Mesaoud granddaughter). The image you post of Sotamm is one of his better ones. He is double Queen of Sheba close up which I think accounts for the black color in some of his descent. Also there is a kind of “Queen of Sheba” look that is coming down strong from him and from Rustem in some of their descent. You can see it in the stallion Gharib where the look and also the brilliant action from Queen of Sheba comes through. As appreciated as the contribution of these…
The Blunt Hamdani Simri stallion Sotamm (Astraled x Selma II) is in every single Egyptian pedigree by now. He is of course the sire of Nazeer‘s maternal grandsire Kazmeen (Sotamm x Kasima). He is also in the n0n-Nazeer’s New Egyptians through El Sareei (Shahloul x Zareefa by Kazmeen), Sid Abouhom (El Deree x Leila out of Bint Sabah by Kazmeen) and Sheikh El Arab (Mansour x Bint Sabah by Kazmeen). He is also in all the Babson Egyptians, either through Bint Serra (Sotamm x Serra), or *Bint Bint Sabbah (Baiyad x Bint Sabah by Kazmeen). This means all Egyptian horses (the Straight Egyptians, but also the horses with Doyle and Rabanna blood, obviously) alive today have a measure of Blunt blood. This makes the few remaining asil Arabian horses without Blunt blood, which the late Carol Lyons identified as a separate group and called the “Sharps” through a clever play on words) all the more worthwhile.
Guillaume Lambert has published excerpts of a precious 1866 letter from Emir Abd al-Qader al-Jazairi to French Army General Eugene Daumas about the asil Arabian Horse and its living conditions of French USCAR website . It is in French but worth translating through Google Translate and reading. Guillaume thinks this letter was probably the last one between the two men, former war enemies in the context of the conquest of Algeria by the French, and as such it was not integrated in their famous joint book “Les Chevaux du Sahara”, also published in 1866. Click here to read the letter in French.
I wrote this entry mostly for myself, for the record: I was finally able to retrace the whereabouts of my mare Jadiba from the time she was born until she ended up in my ownership, thanks to information from Shirin Samiljan, Charlotte Newell, Carrie Slayton, Pam Studebaker and Jill Erisman. — She is registered as having been bred by Wayne and Rosa Cunningham of Colorado, in July 1987; they were the owners of her dam at the time of breeding; — Her breeders must have either leased or somehow given her pregnant dam to Teddy Lancaster of Ohio (who was the owner of her sire Dib at that time), or sold Jadiba to Teddy at birth; she is registered as owned by Teddy Lancaster at the time of her birth on June 28, 1988; — In Nov. 1988, she was sold as a weanling to the late Joyce Gregorian, who was looking for a mate for her stallion Ibn Tirf; they were of similar bloodlines. — Upon the passing away of Joyce in 1991, her estate gave Jadiba and Ibn Tirf to Patty Andrews-Moore of Rhode Island, who never registered her in her ownership; — When she ran into some…