Below is a copy of an advert for *Munifan, from volume 5 of Here’s Who In Horses of the Pacific Coast, an annual publication compiled by Betty Jellinek. Published in 1949, volume 5 covered the horse shows of the previous year.
The account of the visit of Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian RAS to Prince Saud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi (or Jluwi), Governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in 1936 can also be used to shed some light on the desert-bred stallion *Munifan. The same reasoning used in the recent blog entry about *Al Hamdaniah also applies to *Munifan. *Munifan was also born in 1940, four years after Mabrouk’s visit. He was gifted to George O’Brien by Ibn Jalawi, and imported in 1947 to the USA by O’Brien. His Saudi export document indicates that he was by an ‘Ubayyan out of a Kuhaylah. His sire could be any of the five Ubayyan horses Dr. Mabrouk saw on his visit two Ibn Jalawi: a 7 year old bay stallion, an 11 year old dark bay stallion, a 7 year old chestnut stallion himself sired by a chestnut ‘Ubayyan stallion, and two bay colts, both sired by a bay ‘Ubayyan, likely the first one on this list, who appears to have been the head sire. Dr Mabrouk’s list of the mares he saw at Ibn Jalawi includes several mares of strains typically classified as branches of the generic Kuhaylan strain.…
One of the earliest desert-bred Arabian horses to come to the USA from the Kindgom of Saudi Arabia was the mare *Al Hamdaniah. This grey mare with her conspicuous blood mark on the shoulder, was the subject of this blog’s first entry, some fourteen years ago. Born in 1940, by an ‘Ubayyan stallion out of a Hamdaniyah mare, she was bred by Prince Sa’ud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi, an early governor of Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, who gifted her to Admiral R.L. Connolly, who imported her to the USA. This morning I was thinking that her 1940 date of birth was significant. Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian RAS had visited the stud of Sa’ud Ibn Jalawi in 1936, a mere four years before the birth of *Al Hamdaniah. He would have seen her dam at Ibn Jalawi’s stud. The account of the visit of Dr. Mabrouk includes a list of the stallions, colts and mares he saw, some eighty horses in all. It yields some clues about the pedigree of *Al Hamdaniah: Of the three ‘Ubayyan stallions and two ‘Ubayyan colts he saw, none were grey. Because a grey horse like *Al Hamdaniah must have at least one…
In his 1936 book “A Journey to Arabia”, Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of Egypt’s Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) has this to say of the horses of Prince Sa’ud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi, the governor of the al-Hasa province of the new kingdom of Saudi Arabia: “In the Prince’s stables, near his private palace, I saw about 80 horses. These I believe are the most pedigreed in Arabian owing to their concentration in a limited spot and the consequent exclusion of any outside blood.” Dr. Mabrouk lists two mares of the ‘Ubayyan strain: 8. Ebeya El-Safra, grey, 8 y., fine bones and short neck. 9. Ebeya El-Hamra, bay, 10 y., big eyes but progeny with small eyes, spavin [sic], off hind, faint star and marking off hind coronet, very fine. He also lists two ‘Ubayyan stallions and two ‘Ubayyan colts: 1. Ebeyan, bay, 7 y., 140 cent, both fore off hind white, faint race 2. Ebeyan, dark-bay, 11 y. white coronet, near fore, off hind, week [sic] hocks. 3. Two colts, bay, ex Ebeya El-Safra, by Ebeyan El-Ahmar, four whites, blaze, like sire. [sons of number 8] The markings on stallion 1 appear to correspond to this picture in Dr. Mabrouk’s book,…
Below is a photo of Sahiby Bint Baraka, the daughter of Barakah and Tuwaisan, as an adult mare. Wollie Bollie is an affectionate nickname, meaning “ball of wool”. Sahiby Bint Baraka had four registered foals, two daughters and two sons. It is through her second daughter, Sahiby Noura, that the asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah line survives in southern Africa today. Her first daughter, Sahiby Danah, was by the half-Egyptian stallion Robdon Zingari (Zahir x Yasimet), and produced four colts. Through them, Sahiby Danah’s blood can be found in the pedigrees of endurance horses, such as Arkab Nazeer, Deo-Gratias Nazira, and Silvretta Brio. Her first son, Sahiby Asham, by Ahir (Morafic x Deenaa), did not breed on, while her second son, Sahiby Tuwaisan, died just short of his first birthday.
Just looking again at this nice 2016 photo of my Kuhaylat al-Ajuz mare “Belle”. It’s the Arabian horse equivalent of that 1950 Edward Hopper painting “Cape Cod Morning” with the woman looking out the window at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.
Perhaps it’s time to share my latest attempt to keep the gene pool in my horses as broad as possible. It’s also a story of dedication, steadfastness and perseverance by Jessie Heinrick, who made it all happen. The bottom line up front is that some time ago, I acquired sight unseen an 11 year old stallion, MD Turfairan, tail female *Turfa close up, so a Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz by strain. I had been following him for a decade, year after year. At the time, I loved his overall balanced, his long withers, his shoulder, the facial bones and the deep jowl, based on these pictures. Some two years ago, at my suggestion Jessie Heinrick drove down from Oregon to Arkansas to visit with his breeder Susan Whitman. Jessie came back with Turf in her trailer. He did not have papers, and for a while it looked like he wouldn’t be able to get any. Susan was not sure of his sire, so the first attempt at matching his DNA with that of the most likely candidate (MD Hadids Hammer) failed. A second attempt with MD Ibn Hattairan succeeded. The registered owners of his dam, and his breeders, who were elderly, were…
Young Sharif really is a looker. DeWayne Brown who owns his dam Pippa, visited the Doyle farm last weekend and took the pictures. You gotta love the Doyle motor on this Ma’naqi colt. And the black skin around the eyes. Terry Doyle is standing in the background.
Today, my Barakah was bred to Monologue CF. I love this young mare of mine, and I am looking forward to the outcome of that cross. In general, I find that this particular branch of the *Nufoud damline is a diamond in the rough. It has plenty of desert type, but some defects too. Barakah’s dam Belle is the most deserty mare I own, but the girth lacks some depth, the back is a tad long, the forehead a little narrow and the barrel — the rib cage — is not round enough for my taste. But she has plenty of bone, long ears, a proud carriage and the croup and tail set are just the way they should be. The addition of Wadd — Barakah’s sire — fixed the girth, the longish back and the ribcage, all structural features that I have found hard to fix in one generation, but it messed up the croup. Barakah inherited her sire’s short droopey croup and short-ish hip, although when moving like in the pictures below, this does not show. So I am hoping Monologue will now fix the croup with his long, straight hip like in the photo, without affecting the…
The photo below shows 20 Farag, a daughter of the EAO import Farag, out of the mare 25 Amurath Sahib. Her dam was herself a granddaughter of the desert-bred stallion Kuhaylan Zaid, imported by Carl Raswan and Bogdan Zientarski for Bábolna on the same trip that they bought Kuhaylan Haifi and Kuhaylan Afas for Prince Roman Sanguszko’s Gumniska stud in Poland. Photo by Betty Finke, purchased from In The Focus. 20 Farag is tail-female to the mare Adjuse (60 Adjuze in the Al Khamsa roster), imported to Bábolna in 1885 by Fadlallah al-Haddad, along with the stallions Koheilan Adjuze and O’Bajan (both of whom feature in 25 Amurath Sahib’s pedigree). Foaled in 1876, Adjuse was a grey mare (Wrangel calls her forellenschimmel, “trout grey”), sired by a Koheilan Adjuse and out of a mare listed as Scheha; she stood 157cm tall, or just shy of 15.2. 20 Farag’s granddam 221 Kuhaylan Zaid was caught up in the Second World War, and it is by a small miracle that she survived to produce 25 Amurath Sahib. She was one of four daughters of Kuhaylan Zaid who landed up in the vaccine-manufacturing Behring Plant, Marburg, Germany, and who were subsequently exchanged for…
From Severine Vesco comes this beautiful photo of the handsome Syrian stallion Mahboob Halep, with his owner Jean-Claude Rajot in France. He is a Shuwayman Sabbah originally from the Shammar, and a personal favorite of mine. This stallion becomes finer and dryer year after year.
Dahjani Al Arab, a Kuhaylan Da’jani born in 2008, is one of four authentic, desert-bred Syrian stallions in France. The other three are Mahboub Halep, a grey Shuwayman Sabbah; Nimr Shabareq, a chestnut Ma’naqi Sbayli, and Dahess Hasska, a chestnut Kuhaylan Nawwaq. Photo of Dahjani taken earlier this month by owner Arnault Decroix in Normandy. I love the arched throatlatch and the small pricked ears on him.
This morning I received this email from the Penn Equine Assisted Reproduction Laboratory (PEARL) at U. Penn’s veterinary school, where I was trying this new ICSI technology on one of my older mares, CSA Baroness Lady. We have 2 cleaved embryos in culture for Baroness Lady x Dahjani Al Arab. Today is “Day 7” and 1 has developed to the blastocyst stage! Congratulations!! As a reminder, this embryo was frozen for future transfer into a recipient mare. We will continue to monitor developmental progress of the remaining 1 cleaved embryo in culture for another several days and I will provide a final update next week. How cool is that, the lay person that I am thought.
My beautiful Ginger, now owned by Bev Davison, got a pretty, pretty filly for Bev by her stallion Ahsahm. This is Ginger’s third filly in four years. Surely this great broodmatron, now 24, has done more for the Rabanna female line than any other mare of similar lines in the last decades. Photos by the proud owner.
DeWayne Brown took these. This young horse has style and substance.
Some twelve years ago, Luis Baudin wrote this beautiful piece on Daughters of the Wind, in French. Here is a translation, largely done with Deepl (the best instant translation engine by far): “I would like to come back to the Tunisian horse named Jehol Sahraoui (Ouaffar x Kalthoumia by Sabour), a deep bay born at Mr Heinz Gerd Bergmann… I had the opportunity to ride this stallion in 1989 during a visit to the Ghobber, who were at the time semi-nomadic breeders in the Maknassy region. I had gone riding with the chief of the tribe Rhida Ghobber, his brothers and cousins including Youssef and Amara Ben Ghabri. I still remember the look on the face of my friend Jean-Claude riding beside me while filming with his eyes the superb steed in full action. I still remember hearing Rhida shout from behind me: “Luis, can you imagine going like that for thirty kilometers?” We were swarming on the horizon of this desolate landscape at very high speed. Jehol knew only one pace: the gallop! Prancing as we were still treading, my reins elastic and his mouth soft, this devil of a horse seemed to sink into the ground before skidding…
My beloved Wadha nearly died while foaling, and her foal by Monologue died too. A large bay colt, both hindlegs white, so large that he was stuck at the level of his hips for two and a half hours and died before he could come out. Wadha’s vagina was teared up pretty bad and she did not pass her placenta until several hours after she was rushed to the vet hospital of the U. of Pennsylvania. She remains there, but is doing better now. It was traumatic. It reminds of me of the note Lady Anne Blunt put in her herdbook about her Jallabiyah mare Makbula: “Foal dead, mare nearly dead”.
Lovas Nemzet, Laszlo Kiraly’s 22 years old Hungarian horse magazine is having its annual photo competition. The deadline is July 24, 2022. Everyone is encouraged to apply.
The last thing I wanted this year is another colt. Still, my appreciation for this latest one is growing at each candid shot Terry Doyle sends me through DeWayne Brown, who owns the dam. Look at that neck, that gaskin and these hocks, at such a young age. Bashir is really a good sire. I fancy the lines to *Mirage, *Euphrates, *Shahwan and *Al-Mashoor way in the back of the pedigree, and more closely, the cross to *Faleh and of course the Doyle blood. I have the highest respect for the influence of *Faleh and his full brother *Farazdac in any pedigree. Just a drop of that blood makes a huge difference (likewise with their maternal uncle *Aswan).
I finally managed to get a better photo of Assad Princess Surrayah. Please excuse the candid photo. She’s putting weight on nicely. Assad Princess Surrayah She will be put out to pasture with Gülilah Sawwan very soon.
I like this little chap. He speaks well for his sire as a breeding stallion. The dam is of course excellent.
It’s a colt — the third in a row from that Ma’naqi line. This morning Pippa went into labor and quickly delivered a healthy chestnut colt at Terry and Rosemary Doyle’s in Oregon. He is by Bashir Al-Dirri, Jenny Krieg’s excellent horse (below). His name is Sharif Al Arab. Sharif means “distinguished, eminent, illustrious, noble, highborn, high-bred”, and he is all of that by birth. Other than his tail male to Mesaoud, his Ma’naqi tail female to *Haidee and his high percentage of old Blunt blood, he is the last horse — together with his sire — to carry the bloodlines of early Arabian imports *Euphrates and *Al-Mashoor in Al Khamsa, and one of the last ones to carry lines to desert-breds *Leopard, *Mirage, and *Houran. These are quintessentially American lines of Arabian horses.
Wadha’s foal by Monologue is due this week, and Pippa’s foal by Bashir (“the Dude”) the next. I am hoping for a bay foal in the first case, regardless of gender, and for a filly (chestnut, because no other option) in the second. Both should be nice foals, if delivery goes all. In other news, Belle is in foal to Jamr again.
My new book with Kate McLachlan and Moira Walker, “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha” will be published in late-July 2022, capping six years of work. It is based on the (re)discovery and translation of the Abbas Pasha Sale List, an original Arabic document drawn at the close of the auction sale of the famed collection of Arabian horses of Abbas Pasha I, Viceroy of Egypt and the Sudan (r. 1848-1854), following the sudden death by drawning of his son Ibrahim Ilhami Pasha, who had inherited his father’s horses and bred them them on for six more years. The Sale List has 278 stallions, mares, colts and fillies, excluding very young foals at their dams’ side. The new book also features translations of six other smaller documents, including an early scrapbook of Ali Pasha Sherif, and two entries from his studbook, which is now lost. Taken together, the Abbas Pasha Sale List and the six smaller documents translated and analyized in this book allow us to fill in blanks in the pedigrees of the horses which Lady Anne and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt acquired from Ali Pasha Sherif between the 1889 and 1896. These horses traced entirely to Abbas Pasha stock…
Kate and I started talking about the mare Sidi Bint Maistro a while ago. I finally summoned up the nerve to get my 2 cents together and make an offer for her. Who was the first horse you bought?
This photo from Mirko Ulram at Yeguada Schieferegg this morning. Their third foal and first filly. Both mom and daughter are doing well. sired by Ibn Hamza out of Hassirah
Ghazal Al Layel and Louna are maternal half sisters, out of the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Ghazal Al Banat. Louna/Loonah is the 1993 daughter of the Hamdani ibn Ghorab stallion Mobarak, featured previously on this blog. The younger half-sister, Ghazal Al Layel, is the 1995 daughter of the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Shaddad, who has also featured on the blog before. Their dam, Ghazal Al Banat, is a daughter of the ‘Ubayyan Sharrak stallion Mashuj, whom Edouard has written about here. Photos were purchased from In The Focus.
The other day I was telling Carrie Slayton that I wanted to breed and own very powerful Arabian horses horses, with very deep girths, very round barrels, short backs, long hips, high and extended withers, flamboyant action, lots of spirit, fire in the eyes, dark skin on the face, very fine skin, shiny coats, masculine males, feminine females, very dry overall. And of course of unquestionably pure origins.
Just about a year ago I wrote about the mare Jezabel , “die Wüstenstute” and her journey from Iran to Europe. Mirko Ulram graciously sent me these photos of her great-granddaughter Jasminah. She is the product of a mating between a grandson and a granddaughter of Jezabel. Mirko confirmed that the pedigree is correct. (AllBreedPedigree can sometimes be… entertaining, shall we say?) The photos are from last summer.
This document is a milestone, and it took a year to get it this far, in a true collective effort.
I woke up in Beirut this morning to good news from Yasser from his countryside house in the Nile Delta. My Khallawiyah mare Bint Rammah just foaled a well-built filly by Batal al Zaman. Yasser and I are partners on the filly. Yasser’s photo. We will name her Jawaher Al Arab. Her older sister was already Jawharah (jewel), and she is jewels in the plural, so Jawaher. Yasser and I carefully selected Batal al Zaman for his pedigree (a very simple pedigree, old EAO-lines only, and low Nazeer) and his outstanding racing record in Egypt. He is by Ibn Dahsha (Wasel x Dahsha by Adeeb, tf Bint Radia) out of Saddeeqah (Adawy x Eetimad by Mourad, Farida tf).
… and I did not even celebrate it. Shame on me. The young girl after which this website is named was born on the day it was launched, and is now a teenager (left on the photo).
اقول ويلفظها البعض التخيرة بالتاء
.وأضيف الكحيلة الشكيلية هي وكحيلة العشيّر رسن واحد
The mare in the photo below is Al-Qahira, daughter of the mare ‘Abeerah from Edouard’s earlier post, bred and owned by Basil Jadaan. Her sire was Mokhtar. The photo was taken at the Pure Syrian Show in 2008. Picture purchased from In The Focus.
This horse is actually Montezuma (Sir x Tara), a Kuhaylan Hayfi of Davenport lines that was mostly used to produce half-Arabs.
First time I see a photo of this mare. She was beautiful. I wish that her type had prevailed in these *Turfa horses. She was 44% *Turfa.
I usually try to follow these news, but this one escaped me: a cuneiform inscription — 26 lines, the longest discovered in Saudi Arabia so far — along with a stone relief of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, was discovered this past July in the ancient Central Arabian town of Fadak, south of Hail*. So far the best known representation of Nabonidus was in that in Harran Stela (below), which features him along the effigies of the moon-god Sin, the winged sun-god Shamash, and the goddess of Venus, Ishtar. The snake must refer to either Nabu or Marduk. Why Nabonidus (the wikipedia article is good) left his son to co-rule in Babylon and established his residence at Tayma in Central Arabia, remains a matter of debate. Some specialists say he went there to control the South Arabian trade routes, which forked at Taymaa — one road went to Syria and the Mediterranean cost and the other to Mesopotamia. Others say he was exiled there by the religious elite, who did not appreciate his attempts at religious reform, above all how he tried to put the moon god Sin atop the Babylonian pantheon. Soon after his return to Babylon, the elite…
Another rare set of photos, these of the Dahmat ‘Amer mare Ridaab also a the farm of Basil Jad’aan — with a young Basil holding her. She has a nice colt by Marzuk that year. Her sire was the Dahman ‘Amer stationed at the Military Housing in al-Hasakah in North-East Syria, and her dam one of the two Dahmat ‘Amer mares of Khidr al-Dairi of Ma’daan near Day al-Zur. Both sire and dam Dahman ‘Amer, but from different branches, the sire from a Jubur strain, but taken in war by them from the ‘Ajarrash clan of the Shammar ca. 1935, and the dam from a Sba’ah strain. Back in 1992, she was already the last Syrian mare from this precious strain, but her line survives today, thirty years later.
I took these two rare photos of ‘Abeerah, the black Shuwaymat Sabbah at the farm of Basil Jad’aan in 1992. Sired by the dark Ma’naqi Hadraji of the ‘Ufaytan clan of the Shammar, and out of a grey mare by the Saqlawi Jadran of Farhan al-Nayif of the Tai, and out of a black Shuwaymah by the ‘Ubayyan Suhayli of the leader of the Jubur, ‘Abeerah was one of the most beautiful desert-bred mares. She was much prized by Basil, and give him a beautiful black filly by Mokhtar, which he named al-Qahirah. ‘Abeerah traced to the horses of Sfuq al-Rahbi (al-Jarba), who obtained the damline from the leaders of the Bu-Mutaywit (a sub-tribe of the Juhaysh between Sinjar and Tall ‘Afar) who in turn got her (again) from the Jarbah leaders of the Shammar, who owned the strain. ‘Abeerah (alt. spelling Obeirah) was the dam of Khaldee, a horse present in almost every Syrian pedigree today, by the seal brown desert-bred Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan sire al-Asda’ (Khaldee was not by the Hadban Enzahi stallion Burhan, his official pedigree notwithstanding).
I grew up reading Lady Wentworth’s massive book “The Authentic Arabian Horse” as well as Robert Mauvy’s little book “Le Cheval Arabe”. I had a great deal of trust in the first, and the second was bedtime reading for me for many years. Both books featured intriguing mentions of an Arabic legend about “Hoshaba” and “Baz”, a pair of free-roaming wild horses in Yemen that were tamed by Biblical characters of same name (?), becoming the ancestors of today’s Arabian horses. Baz was supposed to be the female progenitor and Hoshaba the male one. The legend, according to both Wentworth and Mauvy, led credence to the belief that the Arabian horse was indigenous to the Arabian peninsula from time immemorial. I remember searching for both characters in the Bible and not finding anything remotely related, but still trusting the authorities’ word on it. A cursory Google search for the “Wild Mare of Baz” shows that, from the “Horse Encyclopedia” and “The Story of America’s Triple Crown” to the “Ultimate Guide to Horse Breeds”, the legend of Hoshaba and Baz is alive and well in recent mainstream equine literature, having spread well beyond Arabian horse books. See here for instance: …
In the French “Journal des Haras” much is said about the French Government missions to purchase Arabian stallions (and sometimes a couple of mares) during the 19th century. Although private initiatives may have occurred before, the first and oldest record I have found so far is the breeding program of Count of Tocqueville, with a strong emphasis on purebred Arabian breeding. The Count of Tocqueville was then owning the castle of Gueures in Normandy (photo above). Besides being involved in his earlier years in Arabian horse breeding, he also held in Gueures, the first racing events that would lead to the famous Dieppe City’s Racing Events in Normandy. The Count owned also talented Thoroughbred horses but he is likely one of the very first horsemen of his area to purposely create a separate breeding program focused on Arabian horses. By the late 1820’s he had managed to secure a group of Arabian mares and stallions. He thought of them as a “superior quality” compared to the oriental ancestors of the English Thoroughbreds and possessed “authentic titles” certifying their origins (probably some hujjaj which are left to be found!). Let me introduce them to you, translating their review in a 1828…
An excerpt by the French Gamont, who was in charge of Mehemet Ali’s stud of Choubra between 1828 and 1842. Google Translate will get you a good translation. Haras d’abas-pacha. — Le haras d’Abas-Pacha est situé dans une plaine de sable, auprès d’Héliopolis. Ce haras est une copie de celui de Choubra. Longtemps, Abas-Pacha a tenu ses chevaux en plein air, au soleil, à la pluie, sans qu’il en résultât d’accidents. Juments et étalons du Nejd; les plus belles variétés. La direction du haras est confiée à un homme de l’Hedjaz. On n’y voit point de maladies de misère, comme morve et farcin. Beaucoup de naissances, mais moins qu’à Choubra. Les poulains sont nourris avec du lait de chamelle et des dattes; Orge concassée; luzerne; paille hachée. Admission de quelques principes mis en pratique par nous. Appareillements comme à Choubra. Bonne tenue des écuries. Poulains en liberté. Pas d’entraves. Très beaux produits. C’est le haras le plus riche de toute l’Egypte, par la qualité très supérieure des étalons et des juments. Cet établissement renferme de cent cinquante à deux cents têtes. Abas Pacha aime extraordinairement les chevaux. De tous les enfants de Méhémet-Ali, c’est lui qui les connaît le mieux.…
Finally, a photo of Shaykh Ahmad al-Taha, leader of the Juhaysh tribe in Northern Iraq. The Juhaysh were a large sheep-herding tribe. The belong to the larger Zabid confederation, which migrated northwards from Yemen to the Euphrates valley some 500 year ago. Only the leaders of the tribe kept horses. The Juhaysh had two main strains: Kuhaylan Da’jani (of which the RAS El Nasser, bred by Ahmad al-Taha, was the best known representative) and Hadban al-Malali. They also had a Dahman ‘Amir strain, which I think they got either from their Shammar or their Jubur neighbours. The leaders of a Juhaysh peasant subtribe, the Bu Mutaywit, owned a strain of Shuwayman Sabbah which is they got from the Jarba Shammar in the early 1900s. This is the strain of the stallion al-Khaldi, who is now in most Syrian pedigrees.
I am sure many of you have alreay seen the piece Yasser Ghanim al-Tahawi recently wrote for the Kuwaiti Bait Al-Arab’s magazine. Yasser has emerged as one of most precise and boldest thought leaders on the subject of the identity of the Arabian horse. Scroll down to the end of the pdf for the piece.
This is Jamr again, in stills. I want to see similarities with the Blunt horses in this 1922 video by British Pathe. Again, I wish the neck was a tad longer; and if he had three more inches to him. Part of it was due to poor nutrition because he was weaned at three months old;
I feel very comfortable with Jamr‘s head, because of the combination of the straight profile, the small muzzle, and the deep jowls. I think one needs to see beyond the flashy, in-your-face, provocative, even disturbing “beauty” of present day heads of Arabian horses of the showring kind, with its exaggerated features. One instead needs to learn to look at the proportions and the interrelation of all the individual elements of the head together. A relaxing sense of harmony needs to prevail, one that draws you in, and makes you want to look longer, and look slower.
In relation to the previous post, I am showing here two screenshots from the book Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition, by Dwight Fletcher Reynolds (Cornell University, 1995). They provide a good introduction to the epic of the Bani Hilal.
On a very old strain, from the Arabic original of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, translation mine: The Gmassah [a branch of the Sba’ah tribe] were asked about the [strain of] ‘Ubayyah of Ibn ‘Alyan, which marbat she is from? The elders of the Sba’ah informed that: ‘She is ‘Ubayyah Huwaynah, [belonging] to [the tribe of] Bani Sakhr; she came to them [i.e. to Bani Sakhr] in ancient times; when they [the Sba’ah elders] asked about her, they found out that she was from an ancient marbat, and is to be mated, so they started mating her; it is said that she belonged to Bani Hilal; the Qudat [a branch of the Bani Sakhr] took her in war [qila’ah] from under the Sultan Hasan [the leader of the Bani Hilal] when the Bani Hilal went westards [gharrabu, i.e. to North Africa].‘ Some context here: The tumultuous XIth century migration of the Bani Hilal and other tribes from Arabia to North Africa, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the defining moments in Egyptian and North African history. The historical events were described by XIVth century historian Ibn Khaldun. The saga of their migration was transmitted in verse by…
The following are excerpts from the RAS Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk’s book “A Journey to Arabia”, pertaining to his visit to Eastern Arabia in 1936: [King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia] gave me two recommendations, one to H.H. Prince Seoud Ibn Galawi, Ruler of El-Ehsa […]. The well known hospitality of H.M. The King and his Governors in Arabia was evident in H.H. Prince Ibn Galawi. In the Prince’s stables, near his private palace, I saw about 80 horses. These I believe ar the most pedigreed in Arabia owing to their concentration in a limited spot and the conseuqent exclusion of any outside blood. Nevertheless, I do not consider them bedouin bred horses but stable bred like those in Egypt […]. Photographs and descriptions of some of these horses follow. Among the stallions he noted, there were three of the ‘Ubayyan strain, two bays (one dark) and a chestnut; he also noted two ‘Ubayyan bay colts; two ‘Ubayyah mares, one a safra (light grey) the other a hamra (bay). Other strains he saw horses from include Krayaan (which he wrote was a branch of the Krush), Harqan, Krush, Musinn, and Kuhaylan (no details), and Hamdani. Mabrouk also noted the horses markings,…
A mes lecteurs francais: je vous conseille vivement ce livre, auquel j’ai eu le plaisir de contribuer il y a quelques annees: Homer Davenport’s Quest of the Arabian Horse. Les images sont superbes et les annotations tres documentees.
I bought AAS Nelyo last July from Edie Booth as a potential outcross for my horses down the line. He is a ‘Ubayyan, from the line of *Mahraa, a 1943 mare of the horses of Sa’ud ibn ‘Abd Allah Ibn Jalawi Aal Saud, the governor of the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. I think the full strain is ‘Ubayyan al-Suyayfi, a branch of Ubayyan Hunaydees, which is itself among the best of branches of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, but I can’t prove it yet. AAS Nelyo, who is six years old, is closely linebred to a few of the early horses imported from Saudi Arabia, including close crosses *Taamri (9 crosses), *Rudann (8 crosses), *Munifan (8 crosses), *Munifeh (8 crosses), and Muhaira, his female line (7 crosses). He was being training for endurance racing. He is very different in type, temperament and coat color from anything else I have seen before. He is registered as bay, but he looks to me like he could be a seal brown or a dark shade of chestnut.
Barakah is now 5. I think she may have more growing (and widening) to do. She is 95% Davenport (four generations of Davenport stallions on top) but she looks nothing like full-Davenport horses. She is leggier, and differently balanced, with flatter bone. She has her sire’s drooping quarter (when moving this does not show). Pity she did not inherit her dam’s beautiful level croup, highly set tail, extra-long ears or blood mark. There may also be a looser coupling than either sire or dam, and I am not sure where that came from, or if it’s here to stay. Still, she has her sire’s deep girth and his broad chest. Overall, her build is an improvement over her dam’s, and I believe the line is now ready to be crossed with Monologue CF, who will bring extra balance. Like her dam, she has a lot of style, and a “dry”, “deserty” look.
Wadhah is now 11, and looks truly magnificent. She is in foal to Monologue CF, and due in mid-May for her first foal. She really looks like the Thadrian daughter that she is. She has fully transitioned from the zarqa (darker, blue-grey) to the safra (light grey, almost white, with yellowish mane and tail) shade of grey. That’s when you wish you had brushed her before the photoshoot.
I am about to state the obvious about horses that combine different, well-established bloodlines: sometimes they look like horses of one bloodline, and sometimes like horses of the other bloodline, depending on the angle, the stage of growth, the light, etc. Jamr, who is roughly half Davenport, half Doyle (i.e., Blunt), sometimes reminds of me his sire Vice Regent CF, like in the picture below; at other times, he reminds me of his paternal grandsire Regency CF (but he’s not nearly as good); and yet at other times, he looks like his material grandsire Dib, a Crabbet/Doyle horse. Vice Regent has a longer neck; his son has a better coupling, and longer hip (at least in this picture of Vice Regent, I have never seen him in real life). Both are smooth-bodied. The heads also look the same, with the small muzzle and the deep jowls. Vice-Regent’s eye is larger, but I think it’s because the muscles around the eyes, including those of the eyelids, are stronger and more dense in Doyle horses than in Davenports.