Daughters of the Wind

Dr. Sandra Olsen published this article in “Arabian Humanities” on “Insight on the Ancient Arabian Horse from North Arabian Petroglyphs”. If you don’t want to read the entire article, skim through it, look at the pictures and compare with your own horses. Stylized depictions of the horse did not begin with the Orientalists.

It is hard to find more balanced and better conformed desert-bred horses than the 1999 Syrian stallion Jurnass (Ghaseeb x Raya) and his close relative Zayn al-Khayl (Ghaseeb x Raghdanah), both Rabdan by strain. Photo of Jurnass from Facebook, not sure who took it originally.

I just stumbled this AK PTF update from 2013. The early 2010s were a critical time for many of lines, as many breeders/owners were reeling from the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. However, most of these horses went to good breeding homes, and now have descendants. Ten years later, the results are encouraging.

Gleaned off Facebook. By the way, in case I haven’t written this before, I don’t believe these was yet such a thing as an “Arab horse breed” — the term ‘breed’ is a socio-cultural construct — at that early time, but there clearly was an oriental horse, some descendants of which eventually came to form the Arab breed. Notice the long, thick tail and the trimmed mane. The pair does look like my Jamr. Just saying.

Finally I feel confident about sharing a photo of Madinas Miracle, who arrived last year in poor shape, and has taken a long time to recover. I will try a breeding to Jamr in the spring, after treating her uterine infection. There are a lot of things to like about this mare. First, her origins: she is a direct great-granddaughter of *Muhaira, imported by Dr Esther Ames from Arabia, so she is very close to the desert. She hails from a Central Arabian lineage, of the ‘Ubayyan strain of Prince Ibn Jalawi. Second, she has prominent withers, extending long into her back. That’s a characteristic of good endurance horses. Third, the very deep jowls, a sign of asalah in Arabian horses. Fourth, the very thick tail set, also a sign of authenticity and quality. Fifth, the deep girth and round barrel. There are also things I like less: the short ears (an Arabian mare’s ears must be long); the straight hocks; the small-ish croup and short-ish hip that is typical of the *Muhaira descendants. Nothing that Jamr can’t fix, however, if she were to take. Photo by Monica Respet.

I went up to Pennsylvania with Jenny Krieg to see the horses this past Sunday. Monica Respet and Linda Uhrich met us there. We spent a nice afternoon catching up. All the horses looked great. Jamr in particular looked drop dead gorgeous, muddy winter coat and all. He was let loose in the upper riding paddock and put on a big show. May he and others like him live long and have many foals. I keep saying that — that such horses still exist in the current circumstances is a miracle. Some fifty years ago, speaking of the last asil horses of France, Robert Mauvy was already writing: de bons et beaux chevaux, sans mievrerie romantique — “good and handsome horses, without romantic soppiness”, i.e., nonsense].

I love it! Check out Mayassah’s entry for example. You can even hover over the photo icon and see the photos of the ancestors without having to click on each ancestor.

An interesting trend common to both Syrian and Bahraini Arabian horses is the disappearing of the old Bedouin concept of “Shubuw” or “Yishabby”. The concept means “fit for breeding” or “good for breeding”. Before the 1980s in Bahrain, and the 2000s in Syria, there was a distinction between the strains that were considered “fit for breeding” and the strains that were not. Within Syria, there was no broad agreement on which strains were “fit for breeding” and which were not, as each region, each tribe, even each group of people had their own opinion on the issue, but the concept did exist and was part of the conversation about Arabian horses. I recall that back in the 1990s a Syrian breeder could be chided for breeding his mares to a Sa’dan, a Rishan, a Rabdan or a Da’jani stallion. Today the distinction has become moot, and all strains are being bred from in both countries — for now.

The British Arab Horse Society (AHS) celebrated its centennary in 2018. For this occasion, it curated an exhibition in Newmarket, England, where it showcased three hujaj of desert-bred mares imported to the UK, among other original documents. Kina Murray, who was then WAHO Secretary, had asked me to translate these for AHS. Below is the translation of the first hujjah. “Testimonial paper We, the undersigned from the tribe of al-Ghurayr, testify by God concerning the bay mare, a stripe in her forehead, named Nuha Khanum, the daughter of Salma, her origin is Kuhaylat Aba Snun al-Nawwakah, her sire is the Saqlawi of Ibn Mahmud, she belongs to Hazza’ al-Rashed of the tribe of al-Ghurayr; for this [reason] we composed this testimonial paper concerning the origin of the mare; God is a witness to and a trustee of what we say. About the sire of her dam he is the Hamdani, and the sire of her maternal grand-dam is the ‘Ubayyan al-Suhayli. Ubayd al-Jammagh One of the heads of the tribe of al-Ghurayr ‘Abdallah al-Rumman The head of the tribe of al-Masalihah Ibrahim al-Muhammad One of the heads of the tribe of Qartan Aswad al-Salbuh [uncertain reading] One of the heads…

I have been reading a passage in the Arabic original version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript on the testimony of an elderly man of the Ruwalah Bedouins about a certain Kuhaylah mare. Here is my translation into English: “Some say that she is Kuhaylah, and other people say that she is ‘Ubayyah, and we don’t know which stud [marbat] she is from, and it slipped our mind; after some years of breeding the mare, she produced a bay filly, which turned into a beautiful [zaynah], nadhir, and speedy [sabuq] mare… these are the stories we know about her, other than this we don’t know“. [He] was asked about the sire of the mare; [he] reported: “It has slipped our mind, O ‘Ali; however, at that time, they [i.e., the Ruwalah] mated the Saqlawi Jadran and Kuhaylan Tamri of the horses of Ibn ‘Abhul; these were the dearest of the stallions we used to mate; but we don’t know who her sire is, and we haven’t pinned down which horses her sire is from“; [he] was asked about the mare’s dam: did she happen to beget anything else [other than the bay filly] or not? [He] reported: “By God, O ‘Ali,…

The authentication document — in Arabic, hujjah — of the Blunt desert-bred import Meshura is not done yielding more information. One year after having published its translation and commentary into English in the book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha, I keep learning new things about it. As background, Meshura great-grand-dam, “The Mare of Daghir”, a Saqlawiyah Ubayriyah of the Marighi strain, was imported to Egypt by Abbas Pasha. The episode of the sale of this mare is narrated in the hujjah, as follows: “This mare was bought by Abbas Pacha from the house of Dirri and the sale transaction took place in the house of Jad’aan in the presence of Mujayhim ibn Dari and her price was 4000 ghazis [two illegible words] Muhammad Ali Sharif with Ali Bek and he was our guest in [three illegible words, including one place name] before the uprising of Aleppo ([illegible word] (the verification of the date of the year needs to be done)“; I was unable to unlock the meaning of that “uprising of Aleppo” (in the Arabic text of the hujjah qawmat Halab), nor to date it precisely — until now. While browsing a selection of Ottoman archives online, I came across…

PART ONE:  ARABIAN HORSES OF DON HERNAN AYERZA (‘El Aduar’) Arabian horse breeding in Argentina began in 1892/1893 when don Hernan Ayerza and his wife María Moreyra de Ayerza traveled to the Middle East with the purpose of buying Arabian horses and start breeding them pure upon their return to Argentina. Previous to their journey, some Arabian horses had already arrived to Argentina but they were used as breed improvers for other horse breeds; no one was breeding pure Arabians before don Hernan Ayerza.  Don Hernan and his wife María traveled  to the same region where Lady Anne Blunt and her husband Wilfrid Scawen Blunt had gone before to buy Arabian horses, and the same region to which Homer Davenport would later travel in 1906 to obtain Arabian horses and begin breeding them in US. Don Hernan was looking for horses of excellent Arab type, right temperament, with no white markings and above 1.53 cm in height. He encountered many difficulties regarding his selection criteria of height and coat color and he wrote in his letters back home that he had passed on some very fine horses  either because they were shorter than his preferred height or were heavily marked…

The Abbas Pasha Manuscript was completed in 1853 and is a compilation of accounts dating ca. 1850. Its Kuhaylan section has three short but interesting accounts about the “Five, the Mares of the [Prophet’s] Companions [al-Sahabah]. Account of ‘Arar Ibn Hunaydi, an elderly man, in a Ruwalah majliss of more than thirty people: “one Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah, one Jilfah Istanbalutiyah, one Saqlawiyah, and two that slipped my mind“ Account of ‘Ali ibn Daham, aged around seventy or eighty years or more, and Hamdan ibn Sani’, aged around seventy years or more, in a Bani Sakhr majliss of around fourty people: “one Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah, one Jilfah Istanbalutiyah, one Mukhalladiyah, one Kubayshah [uncertain reading], and one Saqlawiyah” Account of Tariq Ibn Dalmaz, owner of al-Saqlawiyah, of the Arabs of al-Sardiyah: “one Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah, one Jilfah Istanbalutiyah, one Saqlawiyah, one Mukhalladiyah, and one that’s not on my mind” A few quick observations on these accounts: 1/ Nowhere are the Five referred to as being the Five mares of the Prophet Muhammad [khams al-Rasul]; rather, they are referred to as the Five of his Companions [khams al-Sahabah]; it’s an important difference. In this regard, the Mukhalladiyah, which is listed in two of the three accounts,…

In my earlier dives into the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, I had somehow missed this statement on the origin of the Saqlawi Jadran strain: Talal Ibn Ramal [a Shammar Bedouin notable from Najd] was asked: from whom did the Jadraniyah originally reach Ibn Jadran? The aforementioned stated before the gathering that these were ancient utterances [qaalaat mubtiyah, meaning that recollections about them were faint]; but that they had heard from their first forefathers that the Jadraniyah was originally a Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz from amongst the Five [al-Khams]; that at the time of the [Prophet’s] Companions, the Kuhaylah had kicked [saqalat] another mare and injured her, and was named Saqlawi after that [incident]; that Saqlawi was a name [ie, for that Kuhaylah]; that she had originally passed to Ibn Jadran from one of two tribes, either from al-Dhafir or from al-‘Issa; that was what they had heard from the ancient ones. It is especially hard to disentangle foundational myths and legends from historical fact. In oral cultures, it’s almost impossible. That the source of the account acknowledged upfront “that these were ancient utterances” should be in this case be taken as a disclaimer of sorts, or at least a healthy dose of distancing;…

Today I took — yet another — deep dive into the Saqlawi Marighi section in the Arabic version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript as published by the KAPL from the original of Gulsun Sherif. What I like the most in the book are the snippets where Bedouins share their views on breeding and conformation. These are usually buried within accounts of how horses passed from person or tribe to another. As such there are not gathered in one place. For example, here’s what al-Hudayri, a Bedouin from the Frijah clan of the Ruwalah, and otherwise a key source on the histories of the Saqlawi Jadran, Saqlawi Ubayri and Saqlawi Marighi strains, had to say about the impact of inbreeding Saqlawi Marighi mares to Saqlawi Marighi stallions on the size of their progeny: Whether the body of the mares is large or small has to do with the stallions, because the mares were not “struck by” (i.e., bred to) other stallions, only [to ones] from within and among them, the strain to itself, so they became the medium-sized mares that you are seeing now; and it is common knowledge that the shape [of the mares] is from the stallions; so when…

From Rehan Ud Din Baber’s page, quoting King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud in the book ‘Ibn Sa?oud of Arabia, his people and his land’ by Ameen Rihani: “The Arabs of the North,’ he said, ‘ are heavy of foot and stolid; the people of Najd are quick, light, wiry. They snap and break not. Like our camels. The zelul of the North is strong but slow; that of the south is fast, although he has not so much enduring power. But the people of Najd are like the Bedu in hardship and adversity. We train ourselves in endurance. We put up with much that is hard and onerous. It is our land, our habit of life, our destiny —all one. We have to be always ready and fit. I train my own children to walk barefoot, to rise two hours before the dawn, to eat but little, to ride horses bareback, —sometimes we have not a moment to saddle a horse—leap to his back and go! This is the Najdi —the Najd spirit—the Najd condition of life. Especially the Najdis of the South — we are like our Bedu in this. ‘The people of Al-Qasim are traders and are not,…

I am happy to introduce Silvia Bacci as a guest blogger from Argentina on Daughters of the Wind ab horse in the way it came to us, when they were taken away from their cradle land. From Silvia: I have loved horses since I was born. And that love hasn’t diminished with age but on the contrary grew to encompass all and everything horse related. Was riding horses in the open fields by myself at 3 years old and riding in the sierras fresh-off-the track TB at 8 and enjoying them like the horse crazy kid that I was – and in part still am. My professional career took me away from the horses that I loved but the first thing I did when I stopped traveling and finally settled in one place was to buy a horse. My first Arabian horse. I have loved and admired Arabian horses and their history and relationship with their people all my life. Since discovering the Arab horses I have been a student of them – and I guess I can say, I will keep studying, learning and loving them until the end of times. With the study and learning of the Arabian…

In the British Museum lies this wall panel relief believed to represent queen Shamsi of the Arabs following her defeat at the hands of Tiglath-Pileser III’s Assyrian armies in 732 BCE. The four camels and the vase she holds in her hand are a representation of the tribute her Arab tribes had to pay to their victor. The relief dates from 728 BCE and was set at the central palace of Nimrud in today’s Northern Iraq, where British orientalist Sir Austen Henry Layard excavated it and moved it to London in 1848.

Twenty three years on, this remains one of my favorite pictures ever. I miss the man and the times.

Little Wujra, Wadha’s new filly by the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais, was put down yesterday at the veterinary hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She only lived three weeks, two of which at the hospital. She was born dysmature (with a “dummy foal syndrome”) and was afflicted with soft tendons. At first she was unable to rise to nurse, then she was unable to walk with ease. Things got better after two weeks, so she left the hospital with socks on her toes and wrappings around the front legs. Her prognosis was very good so I felt that the effort was worthwhile. Her left hock got infected at the farm and the infection quickly spread. She was rushed back to the vet hospital, but her low immunity got the better of her. I thought she would pull through. This is Wadha’s third failed attempt to put a live foal on the ground. In 2021, she slipped a foal by Monologue CF when seven months pregnant. In 2022, the foal, a colt also by Monologue, was too large and died half way out of the womb. Wadha suffered injuries in her vulva and almost died. This year at least she…

Today the vet found Barakah Al Arab (Wadd Al Arab x Jadah BelloftheBall) 22 days in foal to Monologue CF. I am very excited about this foal prospect, expected in mid April 2024. A foal from Monologue is something to look forward to, especially at his age.

Can anyone guess the origins of this stallion? A/ Babson Egyptian B/ New Egyptian C/ Davenport D/ Syrian E/ Bahraini F/ Saudi G/ None of the above

Muhammad Ma’sum al-Aqub has got a nice filly by my black Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion, out of his Ubayyah Sharrakiyah mare, from a Shammar strain that traces back to the Sba’ah. It’s the strain of Habbo al-Shgayyif of the Thabit Shammar.