The series on Barely Surviving Al Khamsa lines continues (and it’s not likely to stop anytime soon given the number of asil lines in dire straits now in the USA). This eighth entry on Barely Surviving Lines comes after earlier entries on the critically endangered tail female asil lines to Safarjal in Austria (Hamdani Simri, to Selma from Abbas Pasha’s stud); to Serije (Saqlawi al-Abd, to *Wadduda, desert-bred, imported by Davenport to the USA); to Dihkenna (Kuhaylan Hayfi, to *Reshan, desert-bred, imported by Davenport to the USA); to Koweyt and Kerasun (Hamdani Simri, to *Samirah, from Ibn Saud); to Rosina in South Africa (Kuhaylan Rodan, to Rosemary and her dam Rodania, desert-bred, imported by Anne Blunt to the UK); and to Rayim in the USA (also to Rosemary). Today’s entry focuses on the Kuhaylan Krush line that goes back to the mare *Werdi, imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. There are two tail female lines to *Werdi in America today. The first is through *Werdi’s grand-daughter Babe Azab (Letan x Tamarinsk by *Hamrah), it’s continuing in Davenport-only breeding, and it’s essentially doing well (picture below). The second of the lines to *Werdi is hanging by a thread. It is the line through Babe Azab’s sister Kapiti (Harara x…
Charles Craver took the first two this afternoon, and Nancy Becker, who owns Wadha’s full brother Tantris CF took the third.
Jeanne Craver just sent these along. They are the first official pictures of my filly, by Javera Thadrian out of Wisteria CF. She will be named Wadhah (pronounce it WAD-ha), in keeping with the “W” tradition, after which her dam, her older full sister Walladah CF, and her grand-dam HB Wadduda were named, and after Wadhah bint Falah al-Subaylah, a Bedouin princess of the Bani Sakhr tribe, whose romance with Nimr bin ‘Adwan of the rival ‘Adwan tribe was the subject of many beautiful poems by the latter. These poems, some of which you can read in English here (click on the arrows to read the entire article), are still recited today. The popular story of Wadhah and Nimr was also the subject of the first Arab colour TV series in 1975, which was produced in Jordan and aired in several other Arab countries. Wadhah’s sister was named after an Arab princess from Andalusia, Walladah bint al-Mustakfi. I confess liking these princess names, in no small part because of the temper of the Wisteria fillies, which Jeanne Craver refers to as “princess temper”. They’re distant and not easily approachable.
RJ Cadranell and Jeanne Craver are the custodians of the hujaj (original Arabic certification documents) of the horses imported by Homer Davenport from the Arabian desert to the USA in 1906. They kindly gave me the permission to use these hujaj on this blog for educational purposes, and I would like to thank them for doing so. The hujaj are a treasure trove of information which can be readily exploited. As these original desert-bred imports are the ancestors of today’s “Davenport Arabians”, I will first seclect one of today’s Davenport horses at random- say Jauhar El-Khala, whose lovely pictures are below – and look at the hujaj of her desert-bred ancestors, and second link these hujaj to those asil horses living in Syria today, wherever possible. If you take Jauhar El-Khala’s pedigree as displayed on the Davenport Arabian Horse Conservancy website, you’ll see that she traces exclusively to the following 11 desert-bred imports, all obtained by Homer Davenport in his 1906 trip to the northern Arabian desert: *HAMRAH, *URFAH, *WADDUDA, *DEYR, *MUSON, *JEDAH, *RESHAN, *HAFFIA, *ABBEIAN, *ABEYAH, and *WERDI. In other words these 11 horses, crossed with each other, constitute all the original imported ancestors of the mare Jauhar El-Khala. It is actually possible to reduce the number of…
This mare, Jauhar El-Khala, is arguably one of the pretties asil Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mares of Davenport bloodlines in the USA. Click on this link and then use the arrows to scroll for more pictures. She is very reminiscent of the prettiest Syrian desert-breds. Photos by C. Emmert, I think. Don’t you think she is just stunning?
Yesterday night, my Wisteria CF delivered a tall grey filly by Javera Thadrian at 11.30 pm, at Craver Farms. “Narrow blaze, nothing on her legs. Reddish coat, grey “goggles” around her eyes”, says Jeanne. Both mother and filly are reportedly doing well. I so wish I was there now. Instead, I am in a Washington corporate office drafting memos (and writing about the filly, from a distance). Oh well.
Pictured above is Zarlan the handsome 1964 chestnut Al Khamsa stallion who I saw at age 15 and was noble and full of Arabian character. His pedigree blends 5 different ancestral elements. In person, he was beautiful, agile, noble and the image of many of the traditional turn of the century horses in my old books. I want to thank Edouard for such a stimulating series of posts on the fate of Al Khamsa bloodlines. I wish to add my reasonable reply here in response to the this topic “combined source” and “straightness”. This subject has its complexities which are great food for thought and need to be explored further. Since my reply is a bit long I decided to put it up as an additional thread on this subject. I am just old enough to remember the common types of terminology that were circulating in 1970 and also before that, when such terminology was found in various books and magazines on the Arabian horse. Before there was a Pyramid Society, there was, for a long time, a general interest in labeling terminology in the Arabian horse market place in America so we need to put the roots of this…
In Al Khamsa parlance, a “Combined Source” Al Khamsa Arabian, is one that has more than one Al Khamsa ancestral element in its pedigree. Ancestral elements are the basic building blocks of Al Khamsa. You can learn about them more by clicking here. Take the Early American Foundation Stallion Caravan (Ribal x Fasal) for instance. Caravan is a Combined Source, and respresents one of the most popular early combinations (Crabbet and Davenport) as his sire Ribal is a Crabbet stallion that blends the EGYPT I and the BLUNT ancestral elements, and his dam Fasal adds the DAVENPORT ancestral element. Combined Source horses such as Caravan, Alla Amarward (Stambul x Makina) , Ghazi (Rodan x Guemura), El Sabok (El Jafil x Narkeesa) Bint Sedjur (Ribal x Sedjur) and many, many others, helped popularize Arabian breeding in the USA in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, way before Straight Egyptian Arabians became popular. All the big farms and breeders of these early days, Kellogg, Maynesboro, Selby, Travelers Rest, Hearst, and even Babson (with the introduction of Turfa and others) were based on some measure of Combined Source breeding. Combined Source breeding was all motherhood and apple pie. Now, Combined Source is looked down…
Marge Smith asked this very poignant question in one of the comments to an entry below. If anyone has answers to this specific question, please feel free to share them in the form of comments to this entry. I have my own set of answers, which I will thrown into the mix.
In sharp contrast to the appalling number of non-Straight Egyptian asil foals born in the USA over the last few years, here are the number of registered Straight Egyptian (as defined by the Pyramid Society) foals registered in the years from 2001 to 2008: Two observations: first, the relatively hight number of Straight Egpytian foals born each year: 834 on average (a low of 717 in 2008, to be attributed to the economic crisis, and a high of 980 in 2001, in the prosperous American pre-9/11). Second, the flat trend: there is little variance between the yearly figures. No increase, but no sharpe decrease either. In other words, this segment of Arabian horse breeding has withered the storm relatively well. Now compare that trend with that of the non-Straight Egpytian Al Khamsa foals born in the USA over the same period of time, in the graph below: In blue, Straight Egpytian Al Khamsa foals born from 2001-2008; in red, non-Straight Egyptian Al Khamsa foals born from 2003-2008. The red line is dangerously close to the horizontal line that marks zero foals born, and hence, the extinction of the breed…
I was talking to Anita Enander yesterday, and she alerted me to an alarming statistical trend in the numbers of live births of non-Straight Egyptian, Al Khamsa Arabians in the USA, over the past few years. Just glance at the graph below: It plots the number of non-Egyptian, Al Khamsa foals born in each of the years 2003 (126 live registered foals); 2004 (140); 2005 (104); 2006 (92); 2007 (70) and 2008 (60). You can see that the number of births has dropped by half in 5 years. If this alarming trend does not abate (and I feel pessimistic about this), then in ten years’ time, by 2020, there will only 15 births of asil, Al Khamsa foals that are not Straight Egyptians. In other words, non-Egpytian asil breeding is on the brink of extinction. This trend gets even more alarming if you consider that the vast majority of these foals belong to three relatively organized, well-established and recognized breeding groups within Al Khamsa, involving more than a dozen breeders each: the Davenport group (roughly, asil horses from Syria tracing back to imports by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906); the BLUE STAR group (roughly, asil horses from Saudi Arabia brought back by US…
The other day, I was reflecting back on what is already ten years of interest and involvment in asil breeding in the USA. Ellen May and Jeanne Craver had asked me to provide some answers to questions they had drafted about the experiences and memories of second generation Al Khamsa supporters (i.e., people whose parents had been involved in breeding Al Khamsa horses, in my case desert-bred horses from a similar background). And these answers, which you can read in the next Khamsat magazine, got me thinking further: “of all the horses and bloodlines I was fortunate to become acquainted with in the last ten years, how come I ended up with a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare of Davenport bloodlines”? Part of the answer is fate. I did some of my studies at the University of Chicago, four hours away from Craver Farms, where there were still some 100 plus Davenport mares and stallions back in 2000. Tzviah Idan put me in touch with Charles and Jeanne Craver, and an ensuing friendship developed that endures until today. Fate again in 2007, when Anita Enander called me and said: “You need to own an Arabian mare, and I think I know which…
Two more pictures from Sohaila and Ahwaz from Basil Jadaan.
If you now type “daughtersofthewind.org” and “daughtersofthewind.com” (with an “s” in daughters) you will be redirected to this site, because I just bought these two domain names. Two years ago, the plan was to buy these two domain names, and the idea was to call this blog “Daughters of the Wind”, or “banat al-rih”, which is how Arabs used to refer to their Arabian mares in literature, poetry and folklore. The two sites were not available then but they are now.
It is that time of the year, and asil foals are starting to crop up everywhere. I just received these two photos of newborns at Basil Jadaan’s stud in Damascus, Syria (thanks Basil and Joe). They are representative of the latest generation of Syrian asils: pretty, expressive, and true to type. Their grandparents and great-grandparents were desert-bred and were acquired by Basil at a time when less than a handful of breeders cared enough to save these horses from extinction through registration, marketing and intelligent breeding. The story of the registration of the Syrian desert-breds is a fascinating odyssey that deserves to be told, and I trust it will be. I was a little more than twelive years old when I first saw these desert-breds at Basil’s in 1990. Twenty years have passed since, and their offspring keep getting better and better. Note the large, expressive eyes, and the black skins around the eye, and the delicate muzzle. The first one is Sohaila, by Shadeed out of Manolia, and the second is Ahwaz by Shadeed out of Ameerat al-Fadi. I don’t know the strains.
Joe Ferriss has a short article on the Egpytian mare Nefisa (Balance x Helwa by Hamran II) in the newsletter Arabian Essence.
Check out the program of this interesting conference to be held in Sicily, Italy in two weeks time. The choice of the venue is ominous, since Sicily is along with Andalusia, one of the regions of Europe where Arabo-Islamic culture blended with Western culture over several centuries. Note also the panel of speakers and the sponsorship by WAHO, which brings me to my next observation: that WAHO is slowly but surely moving towards more and more emphasis on linking the Arabian horses to its roots, its heritage and historical context. A good thing, for sure.
I recently saw in the online brochure of a well known stud that breeds “Straight Egyptians” that the Saqlawi Jadran descendents of Roga El Beda (i.e., the tail female line represented by Moniet El Nefous and El Bataa in modern pedigrees, among others) was made to trace back to the desert-bred mare Ghazieh through Bint Horra (allegedly the dam of Roga El Beda, according to this brochure). This is plain wrong, and was based on erroneous information from the Raswan Index, which has been relayed in Al Khamsa Arabians I and II, and later corrected in Al Khamsa Arabians III. Decade old Mitchondrial DNA research (Bowling, 1999, unpublished) indicates that the haplotype market for the Roga El Beda tail female is different from that of the Ghazieh tail female. I don’t know what you think, but I have found some of these errors much harder to dispel in the case of Straight Egyptians than for the rest of the asil Arabians, despite rock solid evidence to the contrary (e.g., the myth of the Kuhaylan Jallabi tail female as surviving in Straight Egyptians).
I just received this beautiful headshot of the bay stallion Al-Bark (Beebars x Etidal by Burhan x Obeirah) from Joe Achcar in Syria. This stallion is a Shuwayman Sabbah by strain, but from a different marbat that that of the Jarbah leaders of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. The marbat of Shuwayman Sabbah to which Al-Bark traces is known as “Shuwaymat al-Rahbi” from the name of their breeder Mohammad al-Rahbi, who also happens to be from Shammar. The Shuwayman horses of Mohammad al-Rahbi trace their origin to the leader of the large Bu-Mutaywit Bedouin tribe of Northern Iraq, which has bred them for several generations. They are a well respected marbat, according to Shammar elders, such as ‘Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Da’ran Ibn Ghurab, who used to breed from one of their stallions. They were also known as good racehorses.. Al Barq in particular traces to a really good old stallion who was active in the area of settlement of many Shammar tribes in the early nineteen eighties: the dark bay Ma’anaghi Hadraji of Dahir al-‘Ufaytan, perhaps of the best desert-bred stallions of the late twentieth centuries, in my opinion.
Just reposting this old article, to stimulate a new discussion around it. It is slightly revised, to reflect the evolution of thought on this issue. —————- The idea of an international registry for Asil Arabian horses has been gaining momentum over the last few years, not only within Western asil breeeders’ circles, but among Arab breeders as well. Such a registry is long overdue and would be the purists’ answer to WAHO, in my opinion. Several Western organizations have come close to establishing such a registry. The largest effort so far is that of the Asil Club in Germany, which in addition to bloodlines represented in Western breeding [Egyptian bloodlines, various bloodlines from the USA, the remaining asil lines from Crabbet in the UK, Weil-Marbach in Germany and Babolna in Hungary] also includes the horses of the Royal Arabian Studs of Bahrain and those of the Saudi Arabian government stud of Dirab. In the 1970s, the Asil Club also considered adding the Tunisian horses to its list, and is currently considering adding the Syrian horses (more on this move later, and what I think of it). Then there is Al Khamsa. While their roster is not the most inclusive (indeed,…
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I love this old photo of the stallion *Houran, a Kuhaylan Tamri, imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. The horse is standing so proudly, his neck beutifully arched, and his gaze fixing a far-reaching point on the horizon. Tood bad *Houran only left one daugher in asil USA breeding (the Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah mare Bint Nimnaarah). *Houran was sired by a Hadban Enzahi stallion of the ‘Anazah tribes, some branches of which were home to many Hadban Enzahi marabit, such as Hadban Mushaytib, the most respected. By the way, have you seen the updated site of the Davenport Conservancy? It has a series of seminal articles by Charles Craver, which I am never tired of re-reading.
This is an excerpt from Christa Salamandra’s book “A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria”, which I am about to finish reading. It has nothing to do with horses nor with Bedouins, but I thought you’d find her characterization of ‘asala’, authenticity, (from which ‘asil’, “he who is authentic”) interesting: “In Syria, as elsewhere in the Middle East, modernist notions of authenticity operate alongside and sometimes merge with indegenous understandings. The concept of authenticity, asala, has long been an important component of notions of the self and society in Arabic-speaking regions. Derived from the Arabic root, A-S-L, asala, “authenticity”, is related to asl, which translates as “origin”, “source”, “root”, and “descent”. Asl refers to a person’s social, genealogical, or geographic origins, or to the place from which his or her roots extend.” Then follows a discussion of the Western roots of this notion of asala and asil, which the authors traces to Romanticism in Europe, and the longing for everything pristine and unspoilt, and that’s when things becomes extrememly interesting, if applied to Arabian horses. It might (just might, because this is a complex issue, which needs more research) mean that Bedouins did not primarily refer to their horses as “asil”, at least not when interacting with each other.…
I will be in Kuwait for the week, for work, and paradoxically this might mean you will be reading more of me, just because there is little to do there after 9.00 pm, except work very hard (in case my boss is lurking)
This pretty and deserty 17 year old Hamdaniyah mare of Davenport breeding, Artemisia CF (MV Reflection x Artema by Tripoli) “recently completed 70 miles at the El Paso-Las Cruces endurance ride in Texas in fine form and loved every minute of it, and made the list for Top Twenty Limited Distance Endurance Mileage Horses of all time in what is her 12th year in endurance riding” according to her proud owner Linda Sherrill who maintains the Happy Trails Blog. Photo Linda Sherrill.
A few days ago a friend asked me if I knew whether anything about the Egyptian stallion Ibn Ghalabawi and I said I didn’t. Then I consulted his pedigree on allbreedpedigree.com. Granted, this is by no means a reliable source (anybody can enter, remove or edit whatever the want), but in this case I suspect the information in there was extracted from information Sayed Marei (of Al Badeia Arabians) has provided and which was used to make a case for the acceptance of Ibn Ghalabawi’s daughter Azeema by WAHO, in 1978 I think. I did not have access to any other information anyway, except for a two liner in the last pages of Colin Pearson’s (and Kees Mol) excellent “The Arabian Horses Families of Egypt”, but there was no pedigree information in there either. Later I thought more about it, and it remembered that Ibn Ghalabawi’s recorded great grandsire Soniour (to be pronounced Senor like in the Spanish for “Sir”) was mentioned in Ali al-Barazi’s old book in Arabic as as a famous desert-horse having raced in Egypt in the 1920s or 1930s. He is mentioned alongside other famous old racehorses such as Renard Bleu and Nabras, who was later…
Gertrude Bell took this view of the rooftops of the Arabian city of Hail in march 1914. Her collection of pictures at the University of Newcastle is a treasure trove.
Now look at these Assyrian wall panels, from a palace in Nineveh, in Northern Iraq today. Note the short back, rounded croup and arched neck. And the slightly dished profile and inflated nostrils of the one on the left. We should go back to breeding horses like these.
I still taken by the realism and accuracy of the Assyrian representations of horses of distinct Arabian type on the walls of their palaces. Here is one more. Note that I am not saying “desert-bred Arabian horses” but rather “horses of distinct Arabian type”, because there is no way to tell whether these horses came from Bedouins.
Here’s an interesting and well-referenced analysis on the social transformations of Bedouin society in Jordan spanning 150 years from the middle of the XIXth society until today, from Rami Zurayk’a blog Land and People. Rami teaches at the Faculty of Agriculture of the American University of Beirut (my alma mater).
The photo in the entry below got me looking for more Assyrian wall panels representing horses of distinctly Arabian type, like the one below. Compare with this shot of the Crabbet stallion Abu Zeyd (Mesaoud x Rose Diamond).
I realize I haven’t written for two weeks and I apologize. These are busy days at work and in general, with little time left to other endeavors. I received my Khamsat magazine in the mail last week, and I have been reading it in the metro on my way to work. In it is an article by Peter Harrigan, adapted from his talk at the Al Khamsa 2009 convention in Redmond, Oregon, where Peter introduced his audience with the travels and works of Czech explorer and academic Alois Musil. The Khamsat writeup from Peter’s talk has this excerpt from Musil’s masterpiece “Manners and Customs of the Ruwalah Bedouins” (which by the way is widely recognized as the single best work of the ethnography of Bedouin tribes): “The Bedouins assert that no horses were created by Allah in Arabia. According to their tradition, they brought their first horses from the land of the settlers whom they raided”. There is increasing archaeological, epigraphic and zoological evidence that points to a domestication of the horse by settled population in an area straddling today’s nations of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, in the plains by the foothills of the Taurus and Zagros chains of mountains.…
Since this blog is not just about horses but also but the people who breed them, I am thinking of starting a new series on some of the twentieth century most influential yet most controversial horsemen of the Middle East. It will likely include the following horsebreeders who were also noted political and social figures in their times — horsebreeding and horseracing being a privilege of this region’s elite: Henri Bey Pharaon (of El Nasser fame, among others); Ahmad Ibish (of *Exochorda fame, among others), H.H. al-Sharif Nasser bin Jamil (of *El Dhabi fame) and Dr. Iskandar Kassis. I will omit a fourth influential figure, H.H. Prince Mansour ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud for now. A fair and comprehensive treatment of these important characters will need some thorough research, on top of what I already know about them, so this is more like a medium term project. Stay tuned.
I just emerged from more than three days of power outage due a record setting snow storm that buried the Washington area under 30 inches of snow. I lost my telephone and internet connection last Friday night and did not get it back until this morning. I apologize to those of who wrote and were expecting a response during these few days, and particularly to the ladies at the Association du Cheval Arabe Bedouin (ACAB) in France. I have promised them a short article for their upcoming catalogue, which is going to press soon. So I am getting back to work on it now.
Bien que je suive très attentivement et très régulièrement les articles de ce blog merveilleux , je me rends compte avoir laissé passer de nombreuses occasions d’apporter commentaires et précisions. Je m’empresse donc de réparer cette négligence en ce début d’année 2010. Tout d’abord , je m’étonne de la perplexité qu’a suscité la petite maxime : ” Le cheval de pur-sang Arabe (asil) est le cheval de l’homme, le cheval de course est le cheval du diable “. Robert Mauvy citait très souvent cette phrase; il la tenait , comme je l’ai dit, des Rouallah . Jamais je ne me permettrais de parler au nom de ceux-ci- seul Pure Man me paraît habilité à le faire ici- mais dans l’esprit de Robert l’enseignement en était très clair: L’emploi des chevaux asils et, pire encore, leur selection par les courses plates à l’européenne est un non sens tel qu’il confine à la monstruosité… C’est dévoyer la race voire avilir le cheval . Je suis en mesure d’apporter commentaires et exemples , d’ailleurs connus de tous, par la suite. Si ces épreuves sous poids ultra-léger, sur de très courtes distances et sur le velours du “turf”sont celles du pur-sang anglais , il n’en est…
Even since I found Caroyln’s McIntyre’s blog “Girl Solo in Arabia”, I have been reading it avidly to the point of neglecting everything else. Just take a deep breath, click and start reading. You’ll emerge from it three hours later, with red eyes, but the journey it takes you on is worth every minute of your time.
I just noticed I wrote my 500th blog entry a few days ago, and with it came the realization that the amount of material available on ‘Daughter of the Wind’ may soon become unmanageable to some of the readers less familiar with the various – and not always user-friendly – ways of navigating it. So here are few tips, keeping in mind that there are three columns to this blog, with the articles appearing on the left column: 1) if you are looking for information on the horses of a particular country (Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, France, Germany, etc) or just for a broad topic (Bedouins, Tribes, Strains, Racing, etc. ) then click under “Themes”, in the central column. You will find under each broad theme category all the blog entries that directly related to it. 2) if you are looking for more specific information (a particular strain e.g., Hamdani, Hayfi ; a particular breeding group e.g. Davenport or Crabbet; or particular famous breeder or family of breeders e.g. Saud, Mauvy, Blunt, then click under “Labels”, in the right column. You will need to scroll down to the middle of the column. 3) If you know what you are looking for and it’s very specific,…
This very old mare is a Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah from the Middle Euphrates valley in Syria, near the small town of al-Mayadin. This area general is home to the tribe of al-Aqaydat (Ageydat), a wealthy and powerful semi-nomadic tribe of cultivators and small herders whose Shaykhs obtained a number of really good desert-bred mares in the first part of the twentieth century, sometimes through ghazu (raids) and sometimes through purchase and gifts. They bred these mares well, and protected them by using only asil stallions, and hence came to own reputalbe marabet. Today some of the prettiest and typiest Syrian horses came from these Ageyday marabet. One of the most well known Aqaydat marabet is that of Kuhaylat al-Trayfiyyah, which is an old strain the history of which I don’t know well. All I know is that it might – just might – derive its name from Matarifah clan of the ‘Anazah tribe. The strain is mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, in connection with events that took place in Eastern Arabia, either in Bahrain, Qatar or the al-Ihsaa region of Saudi Arabia. The Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah is the photo was not registered in the WAHO Syrian Studbook and I don’t know the reason. Perhaps…
Joe Ferriss has a nice article on Egyptian Arabian stallions of the Hadban strain in the online newsletter Arabian Essence. Speaking of Hadban stallions of Egyptian bloodlines, I was lucky to have known the grey stallion Kaheel (by Ashour who was by Anter out of Ayda x Yosr by Ibn Fakhri out of Bint Yosreia), who was bred by the Egyptian Agricultural Organization in Cairo, and died in my home country of Lebanon, leaving no progeny, some time in the late 1990s. I made plans to purchase Kaheel after I saw him for the first time. When I went to see him again at some equestrian center north of Beirut, he had just died from a colic. Kaheel was a unique individual in many ways: a Anter grandson in the tail male, both sire and dam from the Hadban strain (he actually qualifies as Sheykh Obeyd and Heirloom) and otherwise the direct grandson of three lesser known but very special Nazeer offspring, all three of which belong to good racing lines: 1: Ayda, by Nazeer x Lateefa, and hence a full sister of Serenity Ibn Nazeer / Lateef 2: Bint Yosreia, by Nazeer x Yosreia, and a full sister of Tersk’s Aswan / Rafaat, among…
Ghuzayyil was a famous desert-bred horses from Syria, whose bloodlines are present today in a number of modern pedigrees from Syria, including that of the stallion Hussam al-Shimal now in France. This is his entry in the Aldahdah Index: GHUZAYYIL: a grey desert-bred stallion, born c. 1952; [no picture available] Strain: Saqlawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, also called Saqlawi Marzaqani. Sire: Hamdani al-Jhini a Hamdani Simri of the Shammar tribe, a celebrated horse among the Bedouins, sometimes simply referred to as al-Jhini; sire of sire: Hamdani Simri of Shammar, known as al-Malkhukh, also a famous horse; dam of sire: Hamdaniyat al-Jhini of Shammar; Dam: a Saqlawiyah Marzaqaniyah, from the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe. According to Fawaz al-Rajab, a horse merchant from Hims, who told Hazaim al-Wair, who told me, the dam of Ghuzayyil and the dam of Mawj al-Athir were maternal sisters. Racing and Breeding Career: Ghuzayyil raced in Beirut starting in 1956, in the ownership of the Marquis Musa de Freije and won at least eight races (he is recorded as having won eight races in one of my notebooks, based on notes I took from one of…
Ghaddar is another desert-bred race-horse mentioned in the newspaper clipping below. He was racing at the same time as Mawj al-Athir. The Aldahdah Index happens to have an entry on him as well, with all of the information coming from old horse merchant Abd al-Qadir Hammami. GHADDAR: a gray desert-bred asil stallion; Strain: Hamdani Simri of the marbat owned by ibn Ghurab, also called Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; bred by ‘Ajil ibn Ghurab. Sire: al-Marzaqani al-Adham, “the black Marazaqani”, a Saglawi Marzaqani bred by the Shammar and later taken by the ’Anazah; Dam: a Hamdaniyah ibn Ghurab of Ibn Ghurab of Shammar. Racing and breeding career: Ghaddar raced successfully in Beirut in the 1950s, where he won 14 races. Races were held on both Saturdays and Sundays at that time, and Ghaddar was one of the very few horses that were entered and won races on two successive days. He was later used as a stallion. He died within the first year of his breeding career, and only left a few produce, and none of them have left lines today.
If you follow this blog regularly, then you must have already heard about the chestnut desert-bred stallion Mawj al-Athir: he is in the pedigree of the bay stallion from Syria, Hussam al-Shimal, now in France. He is also the sire of the pretty mare below, whose photo you have already seen before. Joe Achcar also scanned and sent this old Lebanese newspaper clipping from Nov. 11, 1954, which has a picture of Mawj al-Athir on the racetrack, with the mention, in French: The “strongest horse of the Middle East”. Note the mention in the clipping of two other desert-bred asils, about which there will be more on this blog, soon: Chatt el-Arab and Ghaddar. Now here is Mawj al-Athir’s entry in the ‘Aldahdah Index’: MAWJ AL-ATHIR: a chestnut desert-bred Asil stallion [photo available]; Strain: Saglawi Nijm al-Subh, of the marbat owned by the Maraziq clan [or guild] of the Shammar tribe; the strain is also called Saqlawi Marzaqani. Sire: a Saqlawi Marzaqani; according to Abd al-Qadir Hammami, an old horse merchant from Aleppo, his sire was al-Marzaqani al-Adham (“the black Marazaqani”), a celebrated stallion of the Saqlawi Marzaqani strain, bred by the Maraziq clan of the Shammar tribe, used by them as a…
Kent Mayfield of Second Wind Arabians invited me to speak at the Pyramid’s Society National Breeders Conference, 2010, in Atlanta Gerogia. The National Breeders Conference is an annual event organized by the Pyramid Society’s Education Committee, which Kent chairs, to educate its members about the Arabian horses of Egyptian bloodlines. This year’s theme is “Back to the Future: Models for Egyptian Arabian Breeding”. Other invited speakers are Joe Ferriss, Judith Forbis, Hans Nagel, Anita Enander, Scott Benjamin and Cindy McCall. I bet it’ll be extremely interesting.
I wish to thank Troy Patterson for sharing with me this rare picture of the asil stallion Zairafan (Alwal Bahet x Maarah by Taamrud), from Mrs. J. E. Ott’s breeding. Zairafan is a Ubayyan whose tail female goes back to the mare *Mahraa, bred by Prince Saud ibn Abdallah ibn Jiluwi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and imported to the USA in 1950. Zairafan is a true son of the desert.
In 1971, H.R.H. Prince Salman b. Abd al-Aziz Aal Saoud, brother of the present king of Saudi Arabia, and then and now governor of the Province of Riyadh (which more or less corresponds to the historical region of Najd), presented the bay Hamdaniyah mare Gazala to a Dr. Klaus Simons of Germany. The latter imported his prized mare to Germany, where the Asil Club accepted her and her offspring, three mares by Farouss (Kaisoon x Faziza by Fa-Turf) and two stallions by Hamasa Arslan (Farag x Shar Zarqa by Negem) Jeanne Craver forwarded me her typewritten hujjah, which is signed by the hand of Prince Salman, and exists in both the original Arabic, and an awkward English translation. Here is the English version as it appears in the original document, word for word (capitals mine): [Printed Letterhead for Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud] To Whom It May Concern We certify hereunder that Gazala is Thoroughred Arabic (Assila), she is of Hamadaniah Kuhaylan family, she is brown colour, white line of the face, white spot on the upper lip, white line between the nostrils, white colour on the lower extremities of the limps. Her father Saker and her mother is…
This striking bay stallion who recently came to France from Syria has already been featured here before. Hussam Al-Shimal is a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq from the old-established Stud of Saed Aghan Yakan in al-Bab, Syria. His sire is a desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Mussin called Raad who has also received a lot of visibility on this website. Hussam traces to some of the best desert-bred horses that were sent to the Beirut racetrack for racing: Ghuzayil, Mawj al-Atheer, and al-Malkhoukh. More on all three later. You can view Hussam’s near-full pedigree here. Joe Achcar of Lebanon has arranged for Hussam to come to France to be training for endurance racing with Arnault Decroix in Normandy, where these photos were taken by a professional.
This one is Thank Heaven, a 2003 grey mare (by Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer by Ru Serr Llany), owned by Cathie Fye in the USA. As far as I know she is the only progeny of the Bahraini asil (heck, super-asil) stallion Mloolshaan Hager Solomon who has been in this country for 22 years now…
Dick Reed of Toskhara Arabians in Texas shared this photo of the Ubayyah mare *Hamra Johara which was imported by Lewis Payne (pboto) to the USA in 1961. Dick’s stallion Line Dancer, who won 24 races in 30 starts in the USA and the UAE, traces four times to this mare which was bred in Najd, Saudi Arabia, by the House of Saud in 1952. Thanks Dick for sharing this photo and the information on this precious mare.
Recently, Jeanne Craver was able to access the hujjah and supporting documents about the mare *Hamra Johara, a desert-bred Arabian mare imported to the USA in 1961 by Lewis Payne. *Hamra Johara has no asil descendents, unfortunately. Jeanne obtained the documents from Gari Dill-Marlow, who got them from Dick Reed, who breeds Polish Arabians in Texas. I don’t know where Dick got them from. The mare’s hujjah in Arabic, and its very accurate English translation are part of the documents. I am reproducing the English translation here, which was originally done by James C. Stewart, “Acting Translation Analyst of the Translation Division of the Local Government Department and the Arabian American Oil Company [ARAMCO], in the offices of that company at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia”: In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate Village of Khufs Dhughurah, Province of Nejd, Saudi Arabia 6 Rabi’ II 1978 (Corresponding to 20 October 1958) I, the undersigned, Turki Al-Hashishi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, residing in the village of Khufs Dhughurah, Province of Nejd, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, declare the following to be true: The mare Johara described as chestnut with a white left hind foot and a white stripe from her jibbah…
[Republishing this piece, which was already published here last July – Edouard] The mare El Samraa is certainly one of the least documented horses in Egytian Arabian horse breeding. To me, that’s a big problem. Heck, it should be a big problem for every researcher and breeder with an interest in these horses. Given El Samraa’s contribution to mainsteam Egpytian breeding (she is the grand-dam of Sameh, and the great-great-grand dam of Al Metrabbi, among countless other descendents), it is even surprising that researchers have not spent more time investigating her. Below is what we know of El Samraa: her color (grey); her date of birth (1924); the year she was acquired by the King of Egypt (1931); the name – only the name – of the man she was purchased from (Shaykh Omar Abdel Hafiz); her registration number in the Inshass (the King’s private stud farm) Original Herd Book: (#13); the name of the man she was later sold to (Mostafa Bey Khalifah); and the year she was sold to this man (1941). In short: three dates; two names of people, none of which appears to have been her breeder; and a color. That’s it. Most of you will have to agree with me that such factual…
This picture is from Hungary, and features Laszlo Kiraly’s lovely mare Scheherazade B, who is heavy in the blood of the Babolna mare 25 Amurath Sahib.
I recently added a new feature that allows readers to visualize the geogprahical location of the readers of this blog. In red, those who have accessed the blog over the past 24 hours; in green, the readers who are still on the page. Check also the new poll, on the same column.
Lebanese-American Amin Rihani (1976-1940) was a man of many talents. He is best remembered as the man who introduced free verse into Arabic poetry. He was also one of the early figures of the Arab literary movement known as “kuttab al-mahjar” or “writers of the diaspora” to which Khalil Gibran and other Arab-American intellectuals also belonged. He was one of the first intellectuals to support Arab nationalism. He was also a close friend of Saudi Arabia’s king Abdul al-Aziz al-Saud, and wrote a number of accounts of his travels in Arabia such as “Muluk al-Arab” (Kings of the Arabs), which won critical acclaim, and “Tarikh Najd al-Hadith” (the Modern History of Najd). The historians of oil discovery in the Middle East will also remember him as one of the first brokers of the enduring relationship between the House of Saud and the American businesses in general and oil business in particular. It was perhaps through this latter role that he became acquainted with Arabian horses. Rihani was influential in the importation of four Arabian mares bred by the House of Saud and imported to the USA by Albert Harris of Chicago in the early 1930s. He was also a key…
We in Syria always judge horses by their breeders and where they come from, an Arabian horse is as good as his breeder. When we have a horse bred by a legend we never ever question the purity because we take the word of men as a contract and when they swear by the name of the mighty god we do not listen to what other people think or say about the purity of our horses and modern registration does not mean much to people who are still concerned about their Asil horses, specially the legendary Bedouin breeders. We are very proud we still call horses by their strains and breed them by their strains and non in the world does that apart from us or may be in Bahrain. We do not talk about other people’s horses and it is considered a bad character to talk about Asil horses and doubt their purity and it is against being a man as it is like talking about our women and their purity. Since old times the Arabs recognised the Asil from non Asil and there were always people whose job is to recognise these horses but the Arab did use…
This morning I woke up to find these two pictures of horses from snowed-in France in my inbox.. the first one is from Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians, and features her new acquisition Bint Fay Amy (Mahrouf x Fay Amy by Ibn Fa-Serr), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah born in 1995 at the Babson Farm. The second features the stallion Hussam al-Shimal (Raad x Rouba Al-Shimal by Al Abjar), a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq bred in Syria at the Yakan Stud near Aleppo, Syria, and now on lease from Al Fadi Stud of Damascus, Syria, to Arnault Decroix in Normandy. By the way, Hussam’s ears are a direct legacy of his maternal grandfather, the old stallion Al-Abjar, a Saqlawi Jadran of the marbat of Ibn Zubayni, who was famous for this pricked ears, and whose dam Malakah was featured here. If you have more pictures of horses under the snow from Europe or the USA, feel free to send them to me.
Since the subject entry below was the Dandashi horse breeding clan of Tall-Kalakh, Syria, here is a 1958 YouTube video of Dandashi family members celebrating the union of Syria and Egypt into one single state with horse fantasias and other equestrian games with swords and spears. Note the pretty grey horse from 2.20 to 2.40 PS – the Arabic title of the video mentions the Dandashi clan as a part of the Shammar tribe. That’s a modern fabrication since the Dandashi are known to be Kurdish origin.
My father took these two photos of the grey Lebanese stallion Malek in the mid 1980s, at the farm of Husayn Nasir in Rayak, Lebanon. Malek (Achchal x Bint Ghazwane by Ghazwane) was the last stallion of Lebanese breeding that did not trace to the infamous Iraqi-born part-bred Arabian racehorses thath flooded the Beirut racetrack in the 1950s and 1960s, and ultimately led to the demise of the Lebanese Arabian horse breeding, after they were crossed with Lebanese (and some Syrian) asil Arabian mares. Malek was used mostly on non-asil part-bred arab mares tracing to these Iraqi stallions, and bred only one asil mare: a bay 28 year old Tuwaysah mare from Syria, which we owned and which traced to the horses of the ‘Anazah tribe. That old mare settled, and her daughter was my favorite mare while I was growing up. I recall hearing that Malek ended his life pulling a cart in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli. His strain was Saqlawi Jadran from the horses of the Dandashi landlords of Tall Kalakh, in Western Syria. This wealthy and powerful clan of chieftains of Kurdish origins, who had the title of agha were the premier asil Arabian settled (i.e., non-Bedouin) horse breeders of Syria.…
Beshier El Ashkar and Badria, the two Arabian horses known in modern Egyptian pedigrees as the Bisharat horses, are some of the least documented Arabians to have joined the Al Khamsa Roster of Arabian horses (in 1995, I think). There was another mare, Ward, from the same source, but she did not leave any modern descendents. Most of what we know about Beshier and Badria is from the Inshass Original Herd Book (IOHB, entries #80 and #83, Inshass being the stud of King Faruk of Egypt), and some of that information later found its way in Volume 3 of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization Studbook. This includes information on the horses’ color, sex, date of birth and the date the horses were presented to King Faruk. The Al Khamsa Roster, which aggregates all the information available on the two horses, has this succint but telling note: “Neither offer strain or family history”. Since Beshier and Badria’s blood runs in the veins of some of the most popular (and expensive) Arabian horses in the world (e.g., Jamilll, Ibn Galal-I, Salaa El Dine, etc), many breeders, especially in Germany, tried to learn more about them. Dr. Hans J. Nagel in particular, has a 1982 letter or letters from Midhat Bisharat,…
Pure Man tells me there is one more horse to be added to the list of desert-bred stallions born in Arabia Deserta, and now in Europe or the USA. This is Jellaby Bin Ambara, a bay 1989 stallion, bred in Bahrain by H.H. Shaykh Muhammad Bin Salman Aal Khalifa, the uncle of the present King of Bahrain. Jellaby Bin Ambara (M62) is by Saidan Lazaz (M29), out of Jellabieh Anbara (M28), and was exported to Austria in 1991. He is AAS*823 in the Austrian Studbook. Not sure he is still alive.