A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
I am definitely not a fan of Tom Friedman of the NYT — far from it — but I thought that the last paragraph of his most recent NYT opinion piece applied well to the urgency of preserving rare Arabian horse lines (and whatever else needs to be preserved, for that matter): As I’ve noted before, … Read more
To continue with the series of this year’s foals, here are a couple from Regine and Warren Staas in Germany, from desert Saudi-Bahraini lines, tracking to *Savannah in tail female. This black filly is alredy on allbreedpedigree.com (here) by AAS Japik (AAS Sail out of AAS Al Kamila) out of AAS Ghazala, and both dam … Read more
I am catching up on weeks of backlog in correspondence. Here is Mayassah Al Arab (Clarion CF x Cinnabar Myst by ASF David). Photo credit to Kim Davis who is boarding her for me.
Yasser Ghanim is issuing News Letter 1 about their horses twice a year.
This one was bred by and belongs to Jenny Krieg and is a reward for the efforts of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force. His sire is Tamaam DE, a Doyle/Straight Crabbet stallion belonging to Rosemary Doyle and the dam is the wonderful, old-style, classy, grand and stylish Sarita Bint Raj, who in addition to … Read more
This one is from the Deblaise stud in France, a daughter of the Syrian Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq import Husam Al-Shamal out of their mare B’Oureah (Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak).
The Tahawi preservation breeders have the last (with her dam) asil Kuhaylat al-Kharass filly, by a Straight Egyptian stallion from US lines and out of the desert mare. I have not seen her yet, but from the photos Yasser took, she seems quite something. There was only one horse from that strain, an aged stallion, … Read more
Select pictures of new asil foals from around the world. This one is special, because she traces to the only desert-bred stallion in America, the old Mlolshaan Hager Solomon; he is a son of DB Khrush, so close up Davenport and Saudi imports there, and out of a daughter of Mlolshaan. Her breeder and owner … Read more
Lately I have been re-reading Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence to let steam off increasing workload. I try to read a few entries while in the car, in airport terminals, and — I confess — in the bathroom. I have been paying special interest to the entries about Ali Pasha Sherif horses — it’s … Read more
This stallion of Ali Pasha Sherif’s (APS) has always been a bit of a puzzle for me. One more than one occasion in her Journals and Correspondence, Lady Anne Blunt, whose favorite stallion of all APS’s stallions he was, clearly states that he was a Saqlawi Jadran by Wazir. If that’s the case, then his … Read more
This last photo from 1990 or 1989 of the late Mustafa al-Jabri (on the left), Radwan Shabareq (on the right) and my father, Gen. Salim Al-Dahdah marks the end of the 40 days of celebrating Mustafa’s legacy as a major breeder of Arabian horses. May he rest in peace surrounded by his beloved horses, Mahrous, … Read more
So today my wife made me take a break from work to see the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo. I enjoyed the visit. In the evening I checked the website of the museum and found this reference, about the collections in its library: “The late Prince Youssef Kamal collection is in the Museum library with … Read more
I was always intrigued by the scarcity of references in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence to her encounters with the Dahman Shahwan horses of the lines of Nadra El Kebira and Obeya, compared to her numerous references to horses from the lines of Yemama (Saqlawi Jadran ibn Sudan), Roga El Beda (Saqlawi Jadran, no marbat mentioned) … Read more
The entry in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals about her last visit to Ahmed Pasha Kemal’s stud (shortly after the Pasha’s death) on March 10th, 1907 is extremely informative. It was the last of several visits of Lady Anne’s to that stud, she remembered a lot of the horses from her previous visits, she spent a … Read more
While perusing old handwritten notes I found this bit of information, from a conversation with Radwan Shabareq: “Dr Iskander Qassis had four Krush mares which he got from Abu Husayn Khattab (the premier horse merchant and expert in Syria in the 1950s) who in turn got them from his father who had in turn obtained … Read more
This is the transcription of a conversation with Jean-Claude Rajot, in 2013, whom I had asked what master breeders Robert Mauvy and Anatole Cordonnier thought of Denouste: Here is what Jean Claude had to say: “Robert avait fait des recherches et Cordonnier aussi. Ils en ont parle une seule fois devant moi. Le point faible … Read more
I am b ack and will resume the series of photos on Mustafa al-Jabri’s horses, by backdating a few entries until we reach today’s.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
I am off to Kuwait for two days on Saturday, and I was just back from a week in Yemen before going back there in three weeks.. I am longing for a pause.
A reader had asked about a photo of Azyya (Kenur x *Aziza by Gamil Manial), the dam of Faziza by Fa-Turf in Germany (the line in the US is extinct). Here is a photo, from the Khamsat archives, courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
Qubbah Gardens was the upscale Cairo neighborhood surrounding the Khedivial Palace of Qubbah/Qubbeh. This list (in French) of the neighborhood’s residents in 1936 and their profession (if “Crown Prince”, “member of the royal family” or “Rentier” are professions) reads like a Who’s Who of Egypt’s rich and famous of that time. Note the diversity of … Read more