Lady Anne Blunt and the Tahawis

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From Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence under the January 13, 1903 entry: “Course to Om Kamr (for the third time). We started at 7.30 am making for the Hamad. Cantering on we  came in sight of a tent, which at first H.F. [Wilfrid Blunt a.k.a. Head of the Family] thought might be Abu’s tomb … Read more

It’s a girl!

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I am in Beirut, Lebanon, visiting family for a week. I opened my email with 24 hours delay and found this wonderful piece of news from Kim Davis, who told me that the Kuhaylat al-Krush Cynnabar Myst (ASF David x Mystalla) foaled a filly yesterday at 4.15 pm. Sire is the grand Clarion CF. Pics … Read more

Dr. Ashoub 1942 RAS book

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Did you know that what is currently considered as Volume I of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization studbook, the one published in English in 1948 (I think) was only the English translation of a previous volume published in Arabic in 1942 by Dr. Abdel Halim Ashoub? Well, I didn’t,  until Yasser Ghanem al-Tahawi pointed me to … Read more

Pam Baker

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Does anyone has a valid email address for Pam Baker of Myrtle Beach, SC? I had a valid email address but when I tried writing last week, it bounced back.  

Mailing Address Change

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I have now relocated to Cairo, Egypt for three years. If you want to write to me, please use this address: Edouard Aldahdah CAIWB 3301 Pennsy Drive Landover MD 20785 USA Mail (and books, magazines, etc, but not horses) to this address will be forwarded to my work address in Cairo via diplomatic pouch twice … Read more

New Photo of *Exochorda

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A “new” photo of *Exochorda, the best of her so far, has recently surfaced on Facebook. Here it is below, with filly Suleika at her side. It shows a well built mare of good Arabian type, reminiscent of some of the asil bloodlines from the Syrian desert such as the early Davenport Arabians, and the … Read more

Jane Ott Obituary by Edie Booth

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This is the text of Jane Ott’s obituary by Edie Booth on the Blue Arabian Horse Catalogue Facebook page: “On Wednesday, April 24th, 2013, at 1:50 AM, Miss Jane Llewellyn Ott slipped peacefully away.  Miss Ott is a major historic figure and prime mover in recognizing the loss of the original desertbred horses among American … Read more

Gorgeous Florishes CF

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Just love this photo of Flourishes CF (Lydian x Fragrance CF by Regency CF) on Randal Abler’s Facebook page. That Anthesis dynasty (Fragrance, Chancery, Firebolt, Lexington) is quite something within the Davenport lines.

Laarado

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Randal Abler posted this photo of Vice Regent CF son Laarado (x Laarisa EAF, who is by Alaadri). He is owned by Kathy Kelly in Georgia. My Jamr Al Arab (out of Jadiba) is his half brother.

She-camel beauty queen

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This she-camel recently won first prize in a regional Gulf beauty contest in the category of white camesl “al-wuduh”. I am increasingly interested in the production of camel beauty criteria in modern Arabia, because unlike Arabian horses, the lack of significant camel breeding in the West could mean that the codification of such criteria for … Read more

Quirky

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That’s how the clerk at the Egyptian consulate in Washington DC spelled my name on my visa’s receipt, when I dropped my passport last week.. I had always thought of myself as a Ma’naqi, but this fellow did not seem to agree.

Update on *Samirah tail female mares

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Carrie Slayton of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force has succeeded in placing the blind 1998 mare Jadah Kerasun (ASF Raphael x ASF Ubeidiyah by ASF Ezra), a rare Hamdaniyah Simiryah tail female to the Ibn Saudi mare *Samirah in the hands of preservation breeder Marge Smith of Oregon. The mare just got there yesterday. … Read more

Quote from Upton’s Gleanings

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Does anyone know which mare Major Upton is referring to in this section of his “Gleanings”, Chapter 4, “Visit to the Sabaah”? “Towards the close of a long and trying day, we made repeated offers for a bay mare, five years old and unblemished; she was a beautiful creature, just under fifteen hands in height, … Read more

Sad news from Aleppo

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The horses of Mustafa Jabri, located in rebel-held areas, were stolen and sold to Turkey, and so were the horses of Fouad al-Attar and other breeders. Half of the horses of Radwan Shabareq have died, not from starvation (plenty of grass there) but from inhaling strange and suspicious gases. The other are sick. Their caregivers … Read more

New tail female *Hadba filly

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Another piece of good news from preservation breeder Jeannie Lieb yesterday, with new hope for the Davenport *Hadba rare and endangered tail female. “RL Thunder Cloud x RL Bilquis delivered a beautiful chestnut filly with a perfect blaze, 3 white anklets and 1 white sock, last night around 11:00pm. Mother and daughter are doing great … Read more

New tail female *Nufoud filly

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It’s that time of the year again, and Arabian foals are popping up here and there. One of the newborns I chose to feature is little Niinah Nufoud (AEP Kamar x AB Dafiinah by HHA Manabi), a 2013 bay Kuhaylat al-Ajuz tracing to *Nufoud of the Saudi Royal Stud. This little filly traces twice to … Read more

Major General Ibrahim Khairi

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I have always been intrigued by some of the early sources of RAS foundation horses, and wanted to learn more about them. I am not only referring to the Princes (Mohammed Ali, Ahmad Kamal, Yusuf Kamal, Kemal el-Dine Husayn, etc) and Lady Anne Blunt, but also by the more minor sources. One of these is … Read more

A less frequent picture of Alwal Bahet

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This is one of the foundation stallions for the Blue Star program, he is a Hamdani Simri, a son of the imported Sindidah, and of the Ibn Jalawi stallion Jalam Al Ubayyan. The more I look at this picture, the more he reminds me of old Lebanese asil horses. The photo was posted by Susan … Read more

AAS Najl Enan

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This is the asil Hamdani Simri stallion AAS Najl Enan (AAS Enan x AAS Ardal Rafiqa by Ibn Taamri) bred by Edie Booth of Antique Arabians Stud for Canton, TX. A promising young stallion.  He is very reminiscent of some of Lebanon’s asils of the 1940s and 1950s.  

Ibn Duwayhiss

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This morning I was looking up “Ibn Duwayhiss” , owner of an excellent marbat of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak in my notes — why? I will tell you later; this is more like a note to myself at this stage — and I found the following: “Ibn Duwayhiss, a family from al-Mawazin, from al-Jabbar, from al-‘Umayrah, from … Read more

List of Families and

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Few passages from Lady Anne Blunt’s (LAB) Journal and Correspondence have left me thinking more than this one, from May 14, 1906:   “Saw Mutlak for some time going through old list I had of families in various tribes, owners of special strains of blood. Found most of them correct.” How I wish I had access … Read more

Ghadia’s soulful eyes

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I am so fond of this picture of Lady Anne’s Radia/Ghadia (Feysul x Ghazala) and can’t stop looking at these eyes and muzzle. Why did so many of today’s Egyptian horses, as beautiful and pretty as they are, lose these soulful eyes? Their eyes now have the size, the sparkle, the stare, the dark skin, … Read more

From the end of the earth

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Here is a comment from Gerd, from Chile: “Three friends, readers of his blog, also inspired by the Blog, joined forces to try to keep the line of a Tahawy Arabian mare who arrived in Chile. So they found 3 mares.The only Arabs asil there are in chile are Egyptian, so they must continue in … Read more

Ubayyat Ibn Thamdan at the Tahawi in Efypt, ca. 1955

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Mohammad Mohammad Osman Faysal Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi sent me this beautiful photo of his grandfather Faysal on a Ubayyat Ibn Thamdan mare, taken around 1955. I like everything about this photo: the whitewashed tombs in the background, straight out of the Arabian Nights, the mud brick walls and the mud houses and the oasis, the … Read more

Pain

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I grew up in Lebanon during the civil war, witnessed my shared of charred bodies and bloodstains on the sidewalks, and consider myself rather immunized against violent sights, but this photo of a little one sobbing after Thursday’s suicide bombing near a school in Damascus (83 dead, including several dozen children) broke my heart, and … Read more

Myth #1: “Hab El Reah” and “Bint El Sheik” in the pedigree of El Samraa (INS) are horses. No they are not.

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Some time ago, I announced on this blog a series of blog posts on “ten myths about Straight Egyptian pedigrees”, which I contended were harder to dispel than misconceptions about other groups of Arabian horses (see here, and the ensuing discussion). I did not plan to start with this one, but a recent side discussion about … Read more

Aqaydat Bedouin women, 1935

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Photo by Syrian traveler Hussain Ibish, who was accompanying faculty from the American University of Beirut (AUB, my alma mater) to a trip to the Syrian desert in 1935. I am sure the AUB library has a lot of hidden treasures about this period and part of the world.

How MtDNA helped identify remains of English King Richard III

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See what you could with mtDNA? Modern breeders who knowingly cheated with Arabian female lines should be scared… “Despite this, a team of enthusiasts and historians traced the likely area – and, crucially, also found a 17th-generation descendant of Richard’s sister with whose DNA they could compare any remains recovered. Genealogical research eventually led to a … Read more

More on Davenport Hadba female line and racing

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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 … Read more