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.
Check out the Davenport Arabian Horse Concervancy (DAHC) front page for a series of great articles on this unique group of USA asil Arabian horses, written by long time breeders such as Charles Craver, the late Carol Lyons, Pat Payne, Dr. Fred Mimmack, Debbie Mackie, and others. A lot of insightful reading and interesting reminiscences about what now seems like the heyday of asil Arabian breeding in the USA — the 1960s and 1970s. The striking picture of the 1970 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Dharanad below, was taken from there. Thanks Ambar and Darlene for pointing me to the link.
*Samirah is a Hamdaniyah Simriyah from the stud of the House of Saud in Najd, which was imported to the USA by Albert Harris in 1921. She has a very thin line that was the focus of a number of courageous, almost desperate preservation efforts over the last fourty years. The result is that the tail female line still goes on, albeit barely. A first line tracing back to *Samirah through her daughter Koweyt was discussed earlier, here. The second line to *Samirah is through her other daughter Kerasun, by the desert-bred stallion *Sunshine. *Sunshine was also from the Saud studs, and was imported in utero to USA in 1931 by Albert Harris, along with his dam *Nufoud, *Samirah, and two other mares. Kerasun in turn had two daughters, both bred by Albert Harris: Kaleta (by Alcazar) and Karamia (by Kulun, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion from really old bloodlines tracing to *Nedjme). Through Kaleta runs a very thin line high in desert bred blood straight from Najd and the Syrian desert, with the arrows indicating a mother-to-daughter link: Kaleta –> her daughter Faleta (by Ibn Fadl, another Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz and a son of the desert, his dam being *Turfa) –> Faleta’s…
225,000 is the size of the Bedouin population of Syria and Lebanon in 1924, as estimated by the French Haut Commissariat de la Republique Francaise (the HCRF, which is the French mandatory power in both Syria and Lebanon) in its 1930 report “Les tribus nomades et semi-nomades des Etats du Levant places sous Mandat Francais”. This number consisted of 125,000 nomadic individuals and 100,000 semi-nomadic ones, for a total combined Syrian and Lebanese population of 1.5 million. Now check out the graph below to follow the evolution of the Syrian population alone since 1960:
I just bought this book, “From Camel to Truck: the Bedouin in the Modern World“, by Dawn Chatty, one of the foremost authorities on nomadic societies and migrations. I will tell you what I think when I read it.
A friend who is around fifty years old just told me that he used to ride the grey mare who is the grand-dam of the chestnut Abu Junub colt when he was young, and that his grand-father had bought the original Kuhaylat Umm Junub mare from the Bedouins on the basis that she was asil, and on the basis of her hujjah which he said contained the seals of tribal Bedouin shaykhs. He said they had bought the original mare from Ibn Rakhis of Shammar who was settled in Rafha to the north of Hafr al-Batin. He also told me that they will look for her hujjah and if they find it, they will give me a copy. So fifty years ago, the tail female of the few Abu Junub horses now in Saudi Arabia were were with Ibn Rakhis from Shammar.
Footage from Bahrain’s celebrations of Aid al-Adha in 1958. At 00.25, you see the current King of Bahrain, Sh. Hamad b. Isa Aal Khalifah, then aged 8. At 00.10, his grand-father, then ruler, Sh. Salman b. Hamad Aal Khalifah, who passed away in 1961.
I have always felt considerable sadness whenever an Arabian horse strain dies out. With it, part of the rich and colorful history of this breed vanishes forever. I can’t really say why, but to me it feels just like losing the last copy of a rare manuscript. Most of the best-known and most important Arabian strains are still represented today in asil form, and we are lucky to have them. A number of really significant ones were lost in Arabia Deserta over the last fifty years. These include Kuhaylan Tamri (known to US breeders as the strain of the Davenport import *Houran), Kuhaylan al-Kharas (the strain of the Blunt import Proximo), Kuhaylan Harqan (the strain of the grandsire of the Ali Pasha Sherif stallion Mesaoud) and Kuhaylan Om Soura. Until last week, I thought Kuhaylan Abu Junub was one of these. Kuhaylan Abu Junub is a strain I have always been interested in. There are some indications it is somehow ‘related to’, in a way I am not yet in a position to explain fully, to Ma’naqi, Jilfan, and Frayjan, all of which are ultimately Kuhaylan branches as well. It is on the list of Abbas Pasha’s ten favorite strains,…
ADA Intuition (“Poppy”) is the 2005 chestnut daughter of Atticus and Capucine, a straight Davenport Kuhaylah Hafiyah. This is her third ride after a year in pasture after just three months of under saddle work, so she is quite green still, but well behaved through an arena with jumps (and a neighboring goat pen, and 3 braying miniature donkeys, and let’s not forget the flocks of brightly colored bicyclists whipping down the road past the arena!) If you get tired of watching her balance herself in the arena, skip to about 6:20 and watch her stroll across the little stream and head up into the hills… If you want more, here she is on the longe line, a scant hour after getting off the trailer:
I still haven’t resolved a lingering dilemma that has been haunting me since I started ‘Daughter of the Wind’. In the course of this blog’s life, I have come across a lot of precious information I did not have access to before. That’s in no small part thanks to the readers of ‘Daughter of the Wind’, most of the time through personal emails. A lot of this information is generally positive, in the sense that it confirms the asil status of a particular line. This for instance is the case of the Tunisian desert-bred import Barr, or the Egyptian desert-bred import El Nasser, who were been outcasts for decades until they were recently rehabilitated. Sometimes the information is negative, in the sense that it throws the asil status of a particular line into serious doubt. In such cases what I usually do is try to go back to first-hand sources to verifiy it, or cross-check it with another indepedent sources. Sometimes things are clarified and everything falls back into place (ie, the line is asil). Sometimes, more research is needed to disentangle rumor from reality and the horse remains in limbo, at least as far I am concerned. Sometimes, the suspicion is confirmed…
This photo shows Brass Band CF and Charles Craver in what Americans call (Arab) “native costume”. As this photo shows, Brass was an exquisite mover. I remember my first afternoon at the Cravers in 1999 (it had been raining in the morning and we had looked at stallions inside the barn, but it had stopped raining after lunch and we’d moved to the little arena next to the barn to turn stallions loose). Brass came out and enjoyed his liberty just like the others, but once Charles had caught him, the routine changed. Charles shook the lead line a bit (I remember no other cue), and Brass started to piaffe. My jaw dropped — flies buzzed in and out — possibly I stopped breathing, I don’t recall. Another quiet request, and he halted. Wow.
My personal laptop chose to die in San’aa, Yemen where I have been for one week. I can’t blame it, it’s a beautiful city. It fell on a paved street outside the buidling of the Ministry of Health, and the screen broke. Oh well. He was 6 years old, which in laptop life is maybe like 60 for humans. At least the photos and other horse material are safe, I think. Keep the conversation going while I find him a successor. RIP Toshiba Satellite.
Monique Brandenburg from the Netherlands sent me this picture of a chestnut Arabian stallion from Iran, along with some information. Before delving into discussing these extremely interesting horses, let me say a couple things upfront: first, Iran is not an Arab country; it is an ethnically diverse country populated by ethnic Persians (who speak Farsi, among other tongues), Turkmen and Azeris (who speak Turkic dialects) and Kurds (who speak Kurdish), among others. That said, Iran does have a small Arab minority of about 1 million people (who speak Arabic), mainly but not only concentrated in its south-western province of Khuzistan. Many of these Arabic speakers belong to long-settled tribal groupings like Bani Kaab and branches of Bani Lam. The latter are originally from Central Arabia way back and are well known breeders of asil Arabian horses. So in many ways Iran is like Egypt: neither are in Arabia Deserta, the homeland of the Bedouin and their desert Arabian horse, but both nonetheless have a very small population of settled peasant Arabs tribes in the parts of the country closest to Arabia Deserta (e.g., Egypt’s peasant Tahawi tribe in the Sharqiyah province). These tribe kept breeding Arabian horses, and neighboring Persian tribes like the Bakhtiaris also bred Arabians. The…
Blog reader Elena Latici who lives in Italy recently bought this young fellow from Louis Bauduin’s farm in France. Murad Mandour (by Shuayman El Badawi x Murad Ouffah Habib by Jahir) is a bay Shuwayman Sabbah yearling who combines modern desert-bred blood from Syria (through his paternal grand-sire Mokhtar, bred by the Shammar Bedouins) with older desert-bred blood through imports Tunisian/ Algerian bloodlines. He also carries a hint of old French blood, and has a distant line to the desert-bred import Nibeh, featured here, and whom French master-breeder Robert Mauvy really liked. Mauvy was a big advocate of the idea of re-invigorating old European Arabian bloodlines with fresh desert-bred blood at leart every three generations, as as to sustain the physical and mental characeteristics of the Arabian horse of Arabia Deserta. Mauvy’s friends and students adhered to this theory early on, and bred some of their mares to desert-bres stallions such as Mokhtar, and now Mahboob Halab.
Since we were admiring Fragrance, I thought I’d share this one, taken by Anita Enander this summer, of Fragrance CF in her summer coat . Though unfortunately the shot is not perfectly framed, the mare’s style comes through.
Jazour est né en 1968 chez Mr Robert Mauvy. Ce magnifique bai, par Saadi et Izarra, par David, de lignee Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz (tracant sur Samaria), très athlétique a fait ses preuves sur le terrain, en participant à des raids d’endurance qu’il a souvent gagné. Il fut aussi un excellent géniteur. Il gagna notament une course d’endurance où il y avait un lac à traverser à le nage, avec une telle avance sur les “grands chevaux” que certains ignorants auraient dit: “ce n’est pas possible, cet étalon n’est pas arabe, un arabe ne peut pas faire ça!! Nous pouvons citer sa fille Billytis (Jazour et Gomera d’el Horr par Horr et Charaf ) ou encore son fils Issam (Jazour et Bismilah par Irmak et Belle de jour par Iricho) castré trop tot! Malheureusement, il a bien peu produit car les éleveurs francais à cette époque se tournaient progressivement vers l’élevage de show par l’importation massive de souches polonaises. Dans ces années 1985 – 1988, les courses de pur sang arabe sont en plein essort en France et les étalons de souche francaise sont de plus en plus populaires (Manganate, Djelfor, ou encore Tidjani). Jazour est le 3/4 frère de l’étalon Moulouki, fantastique étalon lui aussi. Je…
I am excited to introduce Adrien Deblaise as a guest blogger on Daughter of the Wind. Adrien comes from a distinguished French family of Arabian horse breeders and equestrian librarians. His family’s stud of Blanc Marine, near Saintes, in western France, has been breeding Arabians of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian lines since 1985 with an emphasis on endurance lines. In addition, their bookstore, Philippica, is a real treasure trove of old literature on horses and horse people. He will be writing in French about horses that were significant in French and North African breeding in the 1970s and 1980s. Those of you who can’t read French can cut-and-past the article, and throw it into Google Translate, which keeps gettting better and better. I will personally translate some articles as time permits. Adrien, like Pure Man, Ambar, Jill, Teymur, Majid, Clothilde, Patrick, Bassam H, and many other readers and contributors to Daughter of the Wind from around the world, including myself, is part of a ‘younger’ generation of desert-bred Arabian horse enthusiats who are keeping the flame alive. Daughter of the Wind was originally intended as a platform for them to communicate and share information with each other, while also reaching out of the ‘young at heart’.
Bred by J.C. Rajot of Tournus, France from Robert Mauvy lines, Murad Chahin (Shawani x Hamada by Irmak) is a Shuwayman Sabbah blending Algerian and Tunisian lines with old, asil French blood. He traces to Cherifa, a Shuwaymah bred the Sba’ah Bedouins in 1869 and imported to Algeria later. He is very reminiscent of some of the Doyle horses I saw at Terry’s and Rosemary’s this summer.
I “stole” this picture from the Internet, but it’s for a good cause. This is Jehol Sahraoui (Ouaffar x Kalthoumia by Sabour), for a long time the head sire at Mrs. Gisela Bergmann’s stud in Ghardimaou in western Tunisia. Mrs. Bergmann has bred precious ‘old’ Tunisian lines for some thirty years, and Jehol Sahraoui, born in 1978, is representative of these lines. He hails from a very rare sire line in Tunisian/Algerian breeding, that of El Managhi, imported from Hama (Central Syria) by the French to their Algerian Stud of Tiaret in 1924. His dam line, that of Dolma-Batche, is even rarer, and I don’t think it survives away from Mrs. Bergmann’s small breeding program (to be checked). Note that the Jilfan (no marbat recorded) line of Dolma-Batche, chesntut, born in 1869, imported to Sidi-Thabet in Tunisia in 1876, is a different line from the Jilfan Dhawi line to which was imported from the Syrian desert to Tiaret in Algeria in 1875. A number of good horses trace to Dolma-Batche, including the beautiful Sumeyr, who was featured on this blog before. Jehol is now represented by his son Tchad (b. in 1986 out of Binsar, by Koraich out of Hadia).…
Yesterday night there was a fascinating one hour program from 2.00 am to 3.00 am Mecca time on the first Channel of Bahrain TV on the Bahrain horses and their history.
One more picture of Omar Anbarji’s now deceased desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Ra’ad, this time by a professional photographer. I think this is the fourth picture of him I post. I would like to familiarize readers with the foundation stock of the Syrian Arabians, because I feel they will become more and more significant in the future. You have already seen pictures of some of the most influential Syrian Arabian stallions, many of which are personal favorites: Ra’ad, a Kuhaylan al-Musinn; al-Aa’war, a Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mubarak, another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mokhtar, a Kuhaylan al-Krush; Marzuq, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, etc. Look them up in the search function of this blog on the right hand column, and you will see the relevant entry with their photos. Ra’ad was bred by Jamal al-Turki al-‘Ilyu of the Saw’an clan, which is the leading clan of the settled, part peasant, part sheep-herding tribe of al-Sabkhah, on the banks of the middle Euphrates. Jamal’s family also bred Ra’ad dam Nawal al-Kheil, and her grand-dam as well. The Sabkhah, who occupy the area of same name (click here to see it on Google Map) are themselves part of the larger peasant confederation of the Bu Sha’ban.…
If you live in Europe or the USA and want to breed your Arabian mare to an asil stallion straight from Arabia Deserta, one who was actually born there, you now have a number of options at hand. 1) If you live in the United States, then your only option for the time being is Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, a 1986 grey stallion bred by Shaykh Muhammad bin Salman Aal Khalifah of Bahrain, and owned by Bill Biel of Michigan. Strain: Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish, his sire a Rabdan stallion. Hager Solomon is 23 this year, and he has sired only one or two asil foals so far, so you should catch him while he is still alive. 2) If you live in the United Kingdom, then the place to go is Jenny Lees’ Pearl Island Arabian Horse Stud. Jenny has Krayaan Dilmun, a 1992 chestnut stallion, also bred by Shaykh Muhammad bin Salman Aal Khalifah of Bahrain. Strain: Kuhaylan al-Kraay, sire a Ma’naghi stallion. Krayaan Dilmun, like Mloshaan, is from a very rare strain of Arabian horses, of which only the Kingdom of Bahrain has representatives. I also undestand that Jenny has an old grey Rabdan stallion on loan from Bahrain, but it is perhaps not the right time to talk…
I took this photo of the venerable Malakah in 1990, at the stables of Syrian breeder Salih Khaddam al-Sruji, south of Damascus. She was more than 30 years of age, which explain why her croup and legs look the way they do. Malakah was bred by the Mudarris family, an old Alepine – ie, from Aleppo, Syria – family of great social standing and influence. The Mudarris family owned one of the most famous city marabet of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni, which the ‘Anazah Bedouins from the area around Aleppo recognized as ‘mazbut’ (well-ascertained, well-authenticated). I have Malakah’s hujjaj somewhere and will need to dig it up for you to read. There is a very thin tail female line to Malakah left in Syria today. That said, Malakah’s blood is mainly present in Syria through her son al-Abjar, who was standing at the Yakan studfarm in al-Bab, north of Aleppo. Many people in Syria thought that Malaka’s was the only line of Saqlawi Jadran ibn Zubayni left in Syria, and this is certainly how the Syrian Studbook presents it. Fortunately, there is at least one other equally mazbut line of Saqlawi ibn Zubayni left there. That’s the line of Mabrouka, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah…
Click here for an informative article on the Jordanian Bisharat family, by one of its scions, George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College in San Francisco. The article appeared in a political journal, and is not concerned with Arabian horses but it nonetheless offers interesting background information about the Bisharat family, which may be of interest to those of you who breed Arabian horses of Egyptian lines. The Bisharat family is a Christian family of merchants and entrepreneurs, orignally from the area around the palestinian city of Nablus. Like several other palestinian christian familties, the Bisharat moved to the eastern bank of the Jordan river at some point in the late 19th century, and settled the area of al-Salt and then moved to the south of Amman. They rose to economic and social prominence in the first part of the 20th century. At some point in the 1940s, a member of the Bisharat family, Shibli Bisharat (who may or may not be the Shibli mentioned several times in the article), sent three horses as a present to King Faruk of Egypt. Two of these, the mare Badria and the stallion Besheir (also known as Besheir El Ashkar) left modern descendents, and famous…
Amr Allah al-Hafi is my three year old stallion of my breeding, a desert bred Hamdani Simri, sired by al-Sarim (#1820 in the Saudi Arabian Stud Book) and out of al-Majmulah (#3164 in the same).
Don’t know who took this beautiful, sweet, human-like picture of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Fragrance CF, bred at Craver Farms in Illinios, and owned by Michael Bowling of California, but the photographer was certainly inspired. I just couldn’t help stealing the picture from the Davenport Conservancy website. Fragrance traces to *Galfia, imported to Chicago by the Ottoman Hamidie Society in 1893, but otherwise descends from horses brought from the Syrian desert by Homer Davenport in 1906. To learn about the horses of the Hamidie Society, click here.
[Dec 4, update: Tzviah is announcing a herd reduction] If you have not done already, check out the new photos Tzviah Idan has uploaded on her Facebook page. These are horses of Egyptian bloodlines bred by the Hungarian state stud of Babolna. I think you will hear a lot about these horses in the months and years to come. Ralph Suarez’ blog has an entry on Tzviah’s horses, too. Sara Gefen photo.
In 1931, Chicago businessman Albert Harris imported four desert-bred mares from Arabian ruler Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud through the Lebanese poet Amin Rihani. The mares were obtained through Mohammad Abd al-Ra’uf, Consult of the Sultanate of Najd and Hijaz in Beirut (this Sultanate would take the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the following year, in 1932). Thee of the four left asil descendants here in the USA, and two of these have tail female descendants: *Nufoud and *Samirah. *Nufoud’s descendants, which include some of my favorite horses here in the USA (that is, LD Rubic and Belladonna CHF) were featured in an entry sometime last year. We’ll talk about *Samirah’s here. Two of her daughters left asil progeny: Koweyt by Alcazar, and Kerasun by *Sunshine, the latter being *Nufoud’s son, imported to the USA in utero. The mare Koweyt produced a daughter, Konight, by the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Kaniht (Katar x Niht). Kaniht in turn produced the mare Amira Moda, by a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz from another line: Fa-Turf (*Fadl x *Turfa). According to the Al Khamsa Roster, there are only three asil mares left from this branch of the *Samirah’s family, all in their mid-twenties and none…
Click on the YouTube link below to listen to a story and poem (in Arabic) about ‘Arar ibn Shahwan, the original owner (ra’i) of the marbat of Dahman Shahwan. The audio was prepared by Sa’d al-Hafi al-‘Utaybi. ‘Arar is the from the very noble and ancient Dhayaghim clan of the Abidah section of the Qahtan Bedouin tribe. The poem records an episode of the Dhayaghim saga, when this clan and others left their original home of Wadi Tathlith in Southern Arabia after a sequence of severe droughts, and moved northwards to settle in the mountains around the central Arabian town of Hail, which were then inhabited by Tai tribes and were known as Jabal Tai. There the Dhayaghim and other southern clans merged with some Tai tribes to form the core of the Shammar confederation, which gave Jabal Tai it’s new name: Jabal Shammar. By the way, the Ibn Rashid ruling clan of the Shammar of Jabal Shammar traces to the Dhayaghim clan.
Joe Achcar recently circulated the following list of stallions imported by the mission of Mr. de Portes to the Syrian desert in 1819. The list comes from the book written by the veterinarian of that mission, Louis Damoiseau, which appeared in 1832: Abou Far, Abou Arkoub, Abjar, Abou Seif, Berek, Cheleby, Choueyman, Bedouin, Daher, Aslan, Addal, Sakkal, Haleby, Tadmor, Saraf, Ourfali, Hachmet Bey, Meckawi, Orkan, Gazal, Massoud, Mahrouk, Hadji,Richan, Medani, Durzi, Effendi, Diva, Kebeche, Hadeidi, Houteif, Munki, Mahama, Frigian, Drey, Kelle. All these stallions were apparently imported from the Anazah tribes. The list is interesting because at least six of these stallions (Abou Arkoub, Choueyman, Kebeche, Richan, Munki, Frigian) carry recognizable strains names, which means that these strains were well-established at a relatively early date. Of course, the most famous stallion of this importation was Massoud, who contributed significantly to the founding of the Anglo-Arab race.
Busy at work these days, so little time to write in-depth pieces, yet I itch to write something, which means lots of Photos of the Day! This is Elegance (by Triermain x Enchante CF by Zacharia) owned by Darlene Summers of Maryland. She is Kuhaylah Hayfiyah tracing to the horses imported from Arabia Deserta by Homer Davenport in 1906. Photo Christine Emmert.
This morning Troy Patterson of Texas sent a few pictures of a yearling colt of his. The colt is by the Ubayyan stallion Zairafan (Alwal Bahet x Maarah by Taam-Rud) and out of the Canadian-bred Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Saideh (Bahri x Qaisumeh by Qaisum). Below is one such picture. In the USA and Canada, these horses are called BLUE STAR (with the caps). While I don’t adhere to this denomination (BLUE STAR = no recorded Ma’anaghi strain in the pedigree), and don’t buy into the underlying assumptions (e.g., recorded Ma’anaghi blood = not pure) behind such a denomination, I love these horses, and value them for what they are: real horses straight from the heart of Arabia Deserta, straight from the stables of the House of Saud. The antecedents of these horses were in their original desert homeland as late as the 1960s. I feel that horses such as this yearling would bring new strength and stamina to many of the older lines of asil Arabians (e.g., the Egyptian lines).
These have been quite busy days for me, and I have not been able to write as often as I wanted to. That said, I wanted to quick highlight the fact that two new proposals to add new horses to the Al Khamsa Roster have been sent to the Al Khamsa Board of Directors. The first was sent by Joe Ferriss, and concerns the three Tahawi (an Egyptian peasant tribe of Arab stock) mares that are the foudation of Egypt’s Hamdan Stables: Fulla (a Shuwaymah Sabbah), Futna (a Kuhaylah Khallawiyah), and Bint Barakat (a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah). The second proposal (click here if you interested in reading it) was submitted by yours truly and concerns the mare *Lebnaniah, a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah imported by W.R. Hearst to the USA in 1947. The AK Board is currently discussing both proposals.
Here’s Charles Craver on the very masculine Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Tybalt (Tripoli x Asara by Kasar) doing a piaffe.. Photo by Judith Franklin, through Jeanne Craver
Since it’s been busy out, another round of horses and rider — this time Charles Craver with horses of his breeding, born in 1957, 1958, and 1983: Aramis: Fairy Queen (dam of the previously featured Atticus): Brass Band CF:
This morning Laszlo Kiraly of Hungary sent me this picture of his young Sahara (Sabek ibn Saher x Shahhra by Wahhabit), a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz that combines some of the best asil bloodlines from the world over: Her sire Sabek ibn Saher (picture bel0w), from the German Government Stud of Marbach, has not one but two close lines to Soldateska (1911), and so plenty of that precious old Weil blood of Ghadir, Amurath 1881, and Tajar. Her grand-sire Wahhabit (Siglavy Bagdady VI x Delicate Air by Laertes) is half Davenport bloodlines from his dam and half old Babolna bloodlines from his sire Siglavy Bagdady VI (Siglavy Bagdady V x 250-Kuhailan Haifi I), which is a unique combination. He brings in the equally precious blood of Kuhaylan Haifi and Kuhaylan Zaid. Her grand dam 225 Sheherazade B (Ibn Galal III x 220 Ibn Galal I) brings in the tail female to the Babolna asil mare 25-Amurath Sabib, as well as the Egyptian lines to Hanan that Dr. Hans Nagel breeds. Laszlo, can you find a good stallion from Syria or Saudi Arabia to breed to her?
Above is a distant photo of another son of the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad. This is Hussam al-Shimal, a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq stallion from the marbat of Sa’ed Ameen Yakan, in al-Bad, north of Aleppo. Hussam is going to be sent to France where he will stand at stud with Arnault Decroix. I am no fan of the show-ring. I firmly believe that an asil Arabian horse was not born to be paraded around like a puppet, and that among all asil Arabians, the Syrian asil horses deserve this ridiculous treatment the least (these were war and endurance machines, remember), but I thought it was worth noting that Hussam, this son of a desert-bred, was twice Syria’s National Reserve Champion.
Charles Craver took this picture of my Wisteria yesterday, and sent it to me.
This is Popinjay (Banter CF x Persimmon by Brimstone), a 1992 Hamdani Simri tracing to Schilla, and at Maria Wallis’ in Texas. On these horses being Hamdani Simri as opposed to Saqlawi al-Abd, read here. I am trying to organize a breeding that involves him, and will tell you all about this exciting venture once it has materialized (fingers crossed).
Gisela Bergman has been living in Tunisia and breeding Arabian horses from old Tunisian lines for more than three decades. She is one of the very last breeders of the Dolma Batche tail female in Tunisian breeding. Gisela has recently had trouble feeding and taking care of her horses. She is elderly, suffers from arthritis, and lives on her own on farm in a remote area near the Tunisian-Algerian border. A number of her friends and supporters, some of them veterinarians led by Sofiene Ezzar, have set up a support group on Facebook, Tous Unis Pour Aider Gisela, and are doing the best they can, with limited means. The Facebook site has photos and a video which shows the condition of the horses (one photo below).. Things look pretty ugly. If you can do(nate) anything for Gisela, her horses and her asil sloughis, or just want to express your moreal support to this “Lady of the Horses” please hop on this site, or give Gisela a call at: +216 212 92 350. You would need to keep trying, because the cell phone network is poor in that part of the country.. Anything you can do will help. Over the past year and a half of doing the blog,…
Note again the huge expressive eye, the big jowl, the tipped ears, and the small muzzle. All that in a desert-bred stallion. I will dig his hujja out and translate it for you.
To follow up on the earlier entry on the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad, here is a picture of one of his sons and one of his daughters at the Anbarji farm some seventeen years ago. The colt, either a Kuhaylan al-Khdili or a Hamdani al-Ifri by strain ( I don’t remember, even though I am in the pic), was recovering from an illness, and the photo is not to his advantage, but you will no doubt notice the refinement that his sire Raad transmits, as well as the fine muzzle, the deep jowl and the big eye. Note also the dark, full bay color which Raad passed on to his progeny. The filly is a Hamdaniyah Ifriyah (a well esteemed branch of Hamdani Simri from the ‘Amarat Bedouins, more on it later), and in my opinion, is the epitomy of refinement and feminity. I don’t recall her name either, but Omar Anbarji, her breeder, can perhaps refresh my memory. Omar, you were standing behind my father who took the picture..
This is the fourth part of a great series by Joe Ferriss in Arabian Essence, featuring popular sire lines from the Egyptian breeding.
Blog reader and friend Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, Syria, sent me the following picture of his foundation stallion Raad, a desert-bred (yes) asil Kuhaylan al-Musinn, born in 1982, and now deceased. Raad was bred by Jamal Turki al-Saw’an, out the mare Nawal al-Kheil, and traces back to the famous marbat of Ibn ‘Amayir of the Fad’aan Bedouin tribe. Back in the early 1980s, Omar’s father, civil engineer Munir Anbarji, was working on projects in the Syrian desert. He purchased this young Kuhaylan al-Musinn colt to use on his desert-bred mares. The handful of Aleppo horse breeders who cared about asil arabians at the time knew that this colt, Raad, was of mazbut (authenticated) origin.
This video was taken in August at the open barn session hosted by Diane Lyons of Desert Lily Arabians. Lustre CF, Affinity CF’s full sister, is seen about 4:30 into the video. (I have it on good authority that Affinity is an even better mare–) Right after her is Javera Thadrian’s full sister, GH Janet. Enjoy! Desert Lily Arabians Open House 2009 This video was taken in August at the open barn session hosted by Diane Lyons of Desert Lily Arabians. Lustre CF, Affinity CF’s full sister, is seen about 4:30 into the video. (I have it on good authority that Affinity is an even better mare–) Right after her is Javera Thadrian’s full sister, GH Janet. Enjoy!
I just got word that two asil mares of the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain, from the horses tracing to the desert-breds imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906, were exported to the United Arab Emirates. Both are now owned by Mohammed Bin Humooda of Al-‘Ain, UAE. They are Affinity CF (Javera Thadrian x Audacity) bred by Craver Farms and Jadah Beshan (Baile La Bamba x Cinnabar CF) bred Randall and Mary Sue Harris. Mr. Bin Humooda already owns a number of asil Saqlawi Jadran horses bred by the Doyle family, as well as an asil Hadban Enzahi stallion bred by the Dirks family who is being used in endurance racing. This exportation is encouraging news for the asil Arabian, and a sign of Arab breeders’ emerging interest in old USA-bred, asil bloodines. May there be more of these. Below is a picture of Audacity, Affinity’s dam, and another of Javera Thadrian, Affinity’s sire, with Nancy Becker on top.
At last I get to see a picture of Bossa Nova (Iricho x Bassala by Masbout), thanks to Adrien Deblaise who sent me this one today. Bossa Nova, of the Jilfan Dhawi strain that traces to the mare Wadha from the Fad’aan tribe, was bred by the French government stud of Pompadour, by Iricho, an asil imported from Anatole Cordonnier’s breeding in Tunisia, out of Bassala, an asil imported from the Tiaret government stud in Algeria. Bossa Nova, together with the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Ablette (photo below, by Sumeyr x Attique by Meat), was deemed the “best”, “purest”, and “most classic” mare in Pompadour” by master-breeder Robert Mauvy. Now I see why.
Ce modeste article intitulé des paroles du Sage (Robert Mauvy) fait suite à celui traitant de la consanguinité : « Ah cet embreeding », ainsi qu’en réponse au questionnement de Monsieur R.J. Cadranell. Il fallait lire : « (…) la dure vie nomade, alliée à l’environnement hostile ainsi qu’aux conditions climatiques implacables joueraient leur rôle de régulateur éliminant du même coup sujets et gènes récessifs indésirables (…) » Dans de telles conditions de survie, un sujet affligé du moindre handicap n’a que peu de chance de salut, et, par voie de conséquences, n’engendre aucune descendance. Le sujet éliminé ne peut donc être porteur ni parasiter de quelque manière que ce soit le reste du cheptel. Il est reproché très souvent à la pratique de la consanguinité d’infliger une diminution de la vitalité ainsi que de la fertilité et pousser à l’hypernervosité ; pour tout dire conduire à une dégénérescence. Nous nous trouvons donc au fait de la question : « le sursum des hérédités entre elles et la possibilité de leur faire atteindre leur maximum d’intensité » avec ce dilemme entre l’hérédité saine … ou morbide. Mais encore une fois, la race chevaline la plus aboutie qu’est le Cheval Arabe de Sang Pur nous a apporté des géniteurs dotés des plus…
In 1952, Charles Craver acquired the asil Crabbet mare *Ringlet (by Astralis x Rudeyna by Daoud), around the same time two other giants, Dr. Joseph L. Doyle, and Richard Pritzlaff were acquiring the asil mares Gulida (by Gulastra x Valida by Ghawi) and Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr), respectively, which they bred to the stallion Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare by Rodan). Ghadaf, Gulida, Rabanna and Ringlet, all pictured below, are unique in that they carried the highest concentration of Abbas Pasha (Viceroy of Egypt, ca. 1850, and Arabian-horse-freak-in-chief) bloodlines available in the USA at the time. Gulida and Ringlet were entirely of old Crabbet stock, and so was Rabanna with the addition of the line to *Nasr (Rabdan x Bint Yemama), who of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq’s breeding in Egypt, but out of a sister to Crabbet’s Mesaoud (Aziz x Yemameh). Gulida and Rabanna bred on, Ringlet didn’t. She is now lost to asil breeding. Thank God for what still remains of these glorious old Crabbet bloodlines.
Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the Syrian desert, and as such was the main marketplace for the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, which was famed for its many marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan al-Usayli’, Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan which by the way is Queen of Sheba’s marbat, ‘Ubayyan Ibn Thamdan,’Ubayyan Ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan Labdah, etc). The Saffaf family were in close business contact with the Sba’ah Bedouins, from whom they obtained a number of desert-bred mares. One of these mares was Tahirah’s maternal grand-dam, a chestnut ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, bred by Ku’ayran al-Amsa’, a Bedouin of the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah tribe. She was by a famous Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion, then the herd sire for the Rasalin section. Tahirah’s sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush, also from the Saffaf family, who owned a Krush marbat as well. Her dam’s sire was a Hamdani Simri, also from Hama. Tahirah has many of the features…
Yesterday evening, I threw away my 2000 Arabian Horse Datasource CD-ROM, and bought a new one year online membership. The geek in me was so excited. Now guess what is the first studbook I looked up in search for lost and forgotten asil Arabians? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Bahrain? Iraq? the USA? France? No. I looked up Algeria first. I guess that’s where my heart really lies. This is where France sent its best desert-bred imports and its best horsemen. This is where, in my opinion, some of the most authentic, true-to-type Arabians were bred. Every mare at the the West-Algerian stud of Tiaret was a gem. Of course, following their country’s independence , the Algerians went ahead and imported “Arabians” from Spain, the UK and elsewhere, effectively putting an end to some 100 years of asil breeding. I wanted to see what remained of the Tiaret breeding, which up to the 1980s was centered on the two magnificent stallions Larabi (Fil x Ledmia by Ghalbane) and Guercif (Ghalbane x Gaila by Bang0). The news is not good, but there may be two or three mares of breedable age still alive, with progeny in 2000. I feel like jumping in an…
I just received my gift copy of the book “The Babson Influence: A Retrospective”, which is published by the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse. I started looking at it tonight, and there are lot of nice pictures I have never seen before. Thank you Anita, Kent and John. 🙂
Don Hernan Ayerza, a well-to-do Argentinian landowner imported desert-bred Arabian horses from France, Hungary (Babolna) and the UK (Crabbet) into his El Aduar Stud. He also went to the Middle East (but not the Arabian desert itself) and bought a number of Arabian horses from there. He also bought two stallions for his friend Leonardo Pereyra. I leave you to ponder this quote about the reliability of hujaj (authentication certificates), from a letter Ayerza wrote to Pereyra, quoted from “the Crabbet Heritage in Argentina” an article by Mary Lockwood in the the Crabbet Journal – Winter 2006 No. 7: “I am sending you the only kind available in all Arabia and anyone who says he has a legal certificate, like the ones used in Europe, lies! I’ve insisted on being shown something with every horse I inspect and they jot down more or less whatever occurs to them at the moment of sale in front of witnesses. I have seen over 500 such ‘certificates’!” Hmmm.. lets debate that one over the next few days..
In 1887, Lady Anne Blunt purchased the little-known desert-bred mare Jilfa from her breeder, Khashman al-Kassab of the Mawaheeb section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe. She was imported to Crabbet in 1888, as part of a batch that also included Azrek, and Ashgar, a Saqlawi Ubayri from the Shammar. Jilfa, a Jilfat Sattam al-Bulad by strain, was given away in 1896. I have never seen a photo of Jilfa.. At Crabbet, Jilfa produced Jamusa by Azrek, who in turn produced Mareesa in 1902, by Mareb (Mesaoud x Mansura, by Ashgar out of Meshura, another imported mare rarely found in Crabbet pedigree). Interestingly, Mareesa blends the three 1888 desert imports with the rare Meshura line, providing for an unusual early Crabbet pedigree. Mareesa produced the pretty Alfarouse by Berk (by now the line was out of Crabbet) and her sister Yakuta by Rasim (Feysul x Risala). In 1937, the latter produced Rasheeqa by the closely related Azym (Sher-i-Khurshid x Alfarouse), a son of Yakouta’s sister Alfarouse. Rasheeqa was 100% old Crabbet breeding and both her sire and her dam were of the same Jilfan strain. Rasheeqa produced the mare Resique in 1948, by Aaron (Algol x Rythma by Berk), carrying the asil Jilfa tail female…
In the 1990s, Syrian breeder Mustapha al-Jabri, of Aleppo, owned a sturdy, deserty little mare that was bred by the Shammar of Mesopotamia. He name was Mouna, and her strain was very precious: ‘Ubayyan Hunaydis (Lady Anne Blunt: “Mutlaq [her Mutayr stud manager] says mazbut strain”). She had at least two sons and one daughter by Jabri’s then head stallion Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli – another precoius marbat of the ‘Ubayyan strain. Both sons stood in Jabri’s stallion barn, but I don’t know whether he used them or not. I don’t recall their names, either, and I used to call them Ibn Mouna I and Ibn Mouna II. Below is Ibn Mouna I, with a youthful Edouard in the background. This horse had some defects, including longer cannon bones and a slightly thicker neck than I’d like, but he oozed real, bold, masculine, desert type. If he could roar he would.