As usual, scroll down along the right column, and you’ll find it..
Two nice articles (part 1 and part 2) from Joe Ferriss in the website/newsletter Arabian Essence on the influence of the grey stallion Rabdan Al Azrak on Egyptian Arabian lines.
While visiting Egypt for week a couple weeks ago, I spent a morning at the Egpytian Agricultural Organization’s (EAO) stables of El Zahraa in Ein Shams. I was joined by my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, who lives in Beirut, and came to Cairo to spend a few days with me. EAO Director Ali Said welcomed us, and we spent three hours visiting the stallions‘ stables as well as the mares‘ paddocks. The magnificent grey stallions Harras (Kisra x Hebat El Nil) , Serag El Din (Mourad x Safinaz) and Baydoun (Gad Allah x Bint Ibtisam), in that order, were both our personal favorites. Too bad I did not bring my digital camera with me.. The photo of Harras below is from the Asil Club’s website.
Je voudrais rappeler le cri d’alarme lancé par Monsieur Robert Mauvy ! : “Renouvelant mon cri d’alarme, mon cri de désespoir ! Il faut absolument et à tout prix sauver ce qui reste du véritable Pur Sang Arabe. Il est impossible de laisser disparaître l’une des plus belles oeuvres du Créateur. Que l’initiative privée, que les amis et admirateurs du Noble Cheval se resserent et prennent en main cette admirable mais dure tâche : Sauver à tout prix le Cheval Arabe ! Je les en supplie car demain … demain il sera trop tard !…” Monsieur Robert Mauvy qui avait plus de quatre vingt années d’expérience a fait éditer un petit livre; oh, non pas un album de photos ni même une encyclopédie mais le contenu en est d’une très grande richesse : “Le Cheval de Pur Sang Arabe” chez Crépin Leblond. Il est très néfaste et dangereux pour la race chevaline entière de vouloir élever l’Arabe en fonction d’une mode ou d’une discipline ! L’Arabe est et doit rester le cheval de chasse et de guerre des nobles Bédouins d’Arabie. c’est le “Don d’Allah”. “L’Arabe de Sang Pur” est fait pour l’attaque et le repli avec ses démarrages, accélérations et arrêts…
I am pleased to introduce Louis Bauduin as a guest blogger on “Daughter of the Wind”. Louis is a passionate preservation breeder, and a devoted enthusiast of true, “real” Arabians horses of old French and North African bloodlines. He was one of the closest disciples to the late masterbreeder Robert Mauvy, who is the main influence on his breeding philosophy (and mine). Louis is the vice-president of the Union pour la Sauvergarde du Cheval Arabe (USCAR) and the owner of Murad Arabians, which was the home of the Mauvy stallions Cherif (Saadi x Zarifa), and Ashwan (Irmak x Shawania).
Laszlo Kiraly kindly sent me this photo of an 1896 aquarel of an unidentified Arab horse at the French government stud of Tarbes. Thanks Laszlo!
I have started working on “Le French Directory” (click here to access) a section of this website dedicated to listing the hundreds of Arabian horses that were imported to France, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from the desert in the XIXth and XXth centuries. This is work in progress. So far there are only stallions, but mares will be added soon. If you have any additional informaiton about some of the horses listed, want to correct faulty information, or wish to add more horses, please send your comments!
Following an inquiry about photos of descendents of Mohalhil in an earlier post, Jeanne Craver kindly sent me the two pictures below. The first one of his unique offspring, Prince Faisal, out of the desert-bred Hadbah mare Mahsuda, herself a gift from King Abd al-‘Aziz al-Sa’ud to Charles R. Crane. This photo of a rather fat Prince Faisal was taken at an Arabian horse shown in 1952 by Charles Craver’s father (thanks Charles and Jeanne for the picture!). Prince Faisal in turn sired a daughter, Jeddah Princess (second photo), out the desert-bred Hamdaniyah mare La Tisa, another gift to Charles Crane from Ibn Sa’ud. It is such a shame La Tisa and Mahsuda did not leave more offspring. They seem to have been very beautiful mares even by today’s altered (do you like that euphemism?) standards of what an Arabian horse ought to look like. La Tisa was featured in an earlier post on this blog (click here).
These four rare photos of Mohalhil are courtesy of the late Billy Sheets. No idea where he got them from. Mohalhil was a grey Ma’naghi Sbayli bred by the Shammar tribe in 1922 and imported to Egypt in 1925, by Fawzan al-Sabik, who raced him there before presenting him Charles Crane in 1929. Crane imported him to the USA, where Mohalhil still has a very thin line. Notice the striking physical resemblance between Mohalhil and another stallion that was featured on this blog, Bango. But the similarities in their backgrounds is even more striking. Like Mohalhil Bango was a grey, desert-bred Ma’naghi Sbayli; like him he was bred by the Shammar tribe, at around the same time (Bango in 1923 and Mohalhil in 1922); like him he raced in Egypt.
Three more pictures this time from the region in eastern Yemen known as Hadramout. From top to bottom, the magic city of Shibam (“the Manhattan of the desert”), the palace of the Kathiri sultan at Say’un (now a hotel), the minaret of the mosque of Tarim (the tallest in Arabia), and a palace in a Hadramout village.
Nothing to do with horses, but I thought some of you would enjoy these pictures of the green mountains of Yemen, which I gleaned from the internet. They help dispel some stereotypes about this area of the world.. The name ancient Romans knew Yemen by was ‘Arabia Felix‘, “Fertile Arabia”, because of its running waters, its lush vegetation and the riches it garnered from the frankincense, myrrh and spice trade.
According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century, a Bedouin warrior by the name of Rashid ibn Jarshan, from the tribe of al-Buqum, owned a branch of the strain of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz that was known as Kuhaylat Ibn Jarshan, after his name. His marbat was famous, and one of his mares was even the subject of a Bedouin ode. Ibn Jarshan sold one of his Kuhaylat mares, a grey by the name of al-Shuhaybah, to another Bedouin, Sarhan al-‘Abd of the tribe of al-‘Ajman. The strain of Kuhaylan Ibn Jarshan seems to have prospered at al-‘Abd, because al-Shuhaybah produced a grey daughter for him (by a Saqlawi), and that daughter in turn produced a grey daughter (also by a Saqlawi). Al-‘Abd leased the latter, the grand-daughter of Ibn Jarshan’s Kuhaylah, to a third Bedouin, Ibn Jallab of the tribe of Aal Murrah. She stayed at Ibn Jallab for six years without producing any foals, so al-‘Abd took her back by force, and sold her to Ibn Khalifah of Bahrain for a ton of money, plus camels, falcons, clothes, a slave (!) and a sizeable bunch of dates, a sale that effectively turned him (al-‘Abd) into a precursor of today’s Gulf millionnaires.. Her short and unproductive stay at…
Rosemary B. Doyle, who is attending the 2009 WAHO conference in Oman, just reported to the Al Khamsa Board about the first day of WAHO meetings. One event worth noticing is that Yemen was voted in as a WAHO member. Yemen, the cradle of the Arabian breed, if one is to believe the old Arab legends. Great. Now the Yemenis can safely import and register Polish and Spanish “Arabians” from the Gulf countries and cross them with whatever asil Arabians Yemen has left, in the name of “improving the heads of their horses”. Let me make a forecast, and I really hope time will prove me wrong: there will be no asil Arabians left in Yemen ten years from now. That’s how long it took to destroy the remnants of asil Arabian breeding in countries like Lebanon and Algeria. Asil Arabians in these two countries survived two civil wars (Lebanon: 1975-1990; Algeria: 1991-2004), looting by militias, air raids and bombings, famine and government neglect. By the time Lebanon was a full WAHO member, in 1992, non-asil stallions of Russian, French and Spanish lines had been imported to the country and crossed with the remaining elderly asil mares. By 2000, not…
I haven’t written for more than a week, and feel guilty about it. I just landed in Cairo this morning, where I will stay for three days, after spending one week in Morocco. The weather here is cold, and I am about to get out for a breath of (not so) fresh air. I wish the view from my window looked like the picture below, but it doesn’t..
It looks like the WAHO conference in Syria has given a number of Syrian entrepreneurs a bright idea: the desert Arabian horse as a commercial good. They are hosting “Arabian Passion: the Damascus International Horse and Equestrian Fair” (I made it a policy not to link to commercial stuff, so Google it yourselves if you want), for the second time, on October 16-19th, 2009 in Damascus. Not sure which passion they mean.. The exhibitors’ target is “making this exhibition an ideal place for those who would like to offer their products and services”. Fascinating. Gone indeed are the days when idealistic Syrians would offer visitors their lasting friendship and the hospitality of their homes and barns. Now they want to offer you their products and services, including those coveted “bedding and flooring products”. I knew that era would reach Syria one day, but I didn’t know that it would happen so soon… which reminds me of this quote from French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944): “Nous nous sommes nourris de la magie des sables. D’autres peut-etre y creuseront leurs puits de petrole et s’enrichiront de leurs marchandises. Mais ils seront venus trop tard. Car les palmeraies interdites ou la poudre vierge des…
Another horse from Egypt that has left his mark on Tunisian breeding is the chestnut Ibn Fayda (Ibn Rabdan x Lady Anne Blunt’s Feyda), a gift from Egypt’s Prince Kemal El Din Hussein to the Tunisian government stud of Sidi Thabet. This chestnut Ibn Fayda, b. 1925, is the full brother of the bay Ibn Fayda, b. 1927 (picture below), who was the sire of the Inshass stallions Adham (xZabia), El Moez (x Bint Zareefa) and Zaher (xZahra). Inshass is Egypt’s King Fuad’s private stable, which had acquired the bay Ibn Fayda from Prince Kemal El Din. The chestnut Ibn Fayda (I’ve never seen a picture) had a long career at Sidi Thabet in Tunisia, where he was noted as a sire of broodmares. One of his daughters, Imama, produced the chestnut masculine stallion Ourour (photo below, by Duc) and another was the grand-dam of the beautiful brown stallion Sumeyr (photo below, by Bango O.A.) both of whom become important government stallions in France (Ourour at Tarbes, and Sumeyr at Pau then Pompadour). Sumeyr is the sire of the pretty Pompadour mare Ablette, featured here.
Nasr, the chestnut [January 23rd: Sporthorse-data lists hims as “brown”, and the French studbook as “bay”] horse pictured below was a desert-bred stallion that was imported to the Tunisian stud of Sidi Thabet in the 1920s. He was imported from Egypt, where he’d had a good career as a racehorse. French masterbreeder Robert Mauvy, who knew Nasr, referred to him as “the prestigious imported horse Nasr” in one of his books. MIchael Bowling tells me that the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) used a desert bred racehorse by the name of Nasr as a stallion in the 1920s, and that this horse was subsequently exported to Tunisia. He also tells me this horse is the reason why the other more famous *Nasr (Rabdan El Azrak x Bint Yemama) was renamed “Manial”, when he was raced by Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik before being exported to the USA. If so, then it seems like the chestnut horse in the picture is the “Nasr, a racehorse” of one of the early EAO studbooks. He left many descendents in Tunisia, and in France, of which Mauvy’s Moulouki is one. Moulouki’s maternal granddam Arabelle is a granddaughter of this Nasr. [Jan 23rd update: He is also…
Niazi is another desert bred stallion imported to France. He may have been part of the last importation before World War, but I am not sure. I don’t know his strain either. What is sure is that he is one of the first French imports whose records show the mention “asil”, a term seldom used before in French horsebreeder circles. The imported stallions Nibeh (from the Fad’aan, featured here), Telmese (from the Shammar), El Moustabel (also from the Shammar), El Nesmeh and Chams are also indicated as being “asil”. Niazi left some Arabian descendents whose lines survive in South America, but not in France. PS: Sorry for my silence of late. Blame it all on Verizon and my home internet connection.
Yesterday, January 11th 2009 marked the first birthday of “Daughter of the Wind”. I want to pause for a minute and take a look at one year of blogging about desert Arabian horses. As a trained economist I can’t resist sharing the latest figures from my dashboard. Since March 26th, 2008 (which is when I started keeping track of stats) there have been 10,694 unique visitors and 163,884 clicks or visits to the website; it has featured 6 bloggers (me included), who posted a total of 240 posts, with 87 readers posting 925 comments. 100 links were added and 281 tags created. Also, 70% of the reader used English on their web browsers (which doesn’t mean they all come from English speaking countries); 10% used French; 5% used German; 2% used Hungarian; 2% used Arabic and the rest were divided in 19 other languages. Beyond the numbers, Daughter of the Wind has drawn together readers from countries as diverse as Croatia, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Mauritania, Namibia and South Africa, in addition to the US, Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etc. It has featured the wonderful asil Arabians of South Africa as well as the precious Babolna lines of Hungary, and shed some light on…
A nice picture of Jalam al Ubayyan as a young stallion in Saudi Arabia. He was bred in 1949 by Saud Ibn Adballah ibn Jalawi, Governor of the Saudi province of al-Hasa, and was imported to the USA by Connie Cobb in 1966. He is present in many of the shorter (i.e., closer to the desert) pedigrees of US-bred asil horses (mainly through the category known as BLUE STAR Arabians). Photo courtesy of the late Billy Sheets. Not sure if it was published before. Click on the picture to enlarge it.
I don’t know where to start from.. the story of Kuhaylan al-Wati is so long and so rich, and begins way before the strain acquired its current name.. It also encompasses a number of other related, albeit better known strains. While I mull this over, let me leave you with this picture of Falat, a Kuhaylat al-Wati (by a Ma’naghi Hadraji from Ibn Ufaytan) from the sons of Hakem Hsaini al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins. This family is the owner of the strain.. Falat was later sold to Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo, Syria.
As a follow up to the previous post on the quizz mare, Binni II (*Shams x *Munirah), here is a picture of her dam *Munirah, a Kuhaylat ‘Afayr bred by the Saud royal stables, imported in 1962 from Saudi Arabia to the USA by Richard and Laura Cavedo. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Craver. Thanks Jeanne!
In my opinion, *Abeyah was the best mare of the Davenport importation, and perhaps one of the best mares to come out of Arabia. She was certainly the best authenticated one. Look at my translation of her hujjah (also published in Al Khamsa Arabians III): I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which on her face has a blaze and on her two back legs has a stocking, [i.e.] she has two stockings on her hindlegs, that she is ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, [that she] is to be mated in the dark night, [that she] is purer than milk, and we only witness to what we know and do not keep [information] about the unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [Faris al-Jarba’s seal] A hujjah couldn’t get any better than this. Concise, to the point, and written and sealed by the supreme leader of the preeminent Bedouin horse-breeding tribe of Arabia Deserta: the Shammar al-Jazirah. In comparison, how many horses otherwise known to have been berd by the Aal Saud have Ibn Saud’s own seal on their hujjah? How many other imported mares have Faris al-Jarba’s seal? [I know of only another one: the…
Do you happen know who this gorgeous beauty is (was)? Clue: bred in the USA, but a daughter of the desert. Definitely an absolute favorite of mine, judging only from the few (rather poor) pictures I have of her. Here is another one:
I just wanted to take this occasion to wish everyone a Happy, happy new year. It’s been a great year for Daughter of the Wind, which by the way will blow its first candle in a just a few days.. Here’s to another great year of enjoying these wonderful horses and the great people who breed them across the world.
A recent entry featured the beautiful Mauvy stallion Moulouki. Here is a picture I took in 1995 of his son Doum (x Shawania) who like his sire before him, stood at stud at Pierre-Henri Beillard’s Le Sureau (South western France), which is now being dispersed. [Update Jan. 5th, 2009: Doum was also bred by Mauvy]
When I started this blog, I thought I’d be able to write about a strain each week, which means you should have read about 50 strains by now. Well, I was able to only feature six strains on this blog, with varying degrees of detail: Kuhaylan al-Hayf (i.e., K. Hayfi), Kuhaylan al-Dunays (i.e., K. Dunaysan), Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan (a branch of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz), Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida, and Ma’naghi Ibn Ufaytan (a branch of Ma’naghi Hadraji). Here’s a new year resolution: I will try to feature ten strains in 2009, and will call it “Strain of the Month”, accounting for the summer break, when I will try to leave my laptop at home. Here’s what I have lined up so far in no particular order. The list is based in part on requests received from readers and friends, and in part on personal selection: – Kuhaylan al-Wati – Kuhaylan al-Khdili – Jilfan Dhawi – Kuhaylan al-‘Armush – Kuhaylan al-Sharif – ‘Ubayyan Suhayli – Ma’naghi Abu Sayfayn I still have three slots to fill; if you have any favorite strains you’d like me to feature, just let me know by replying to this threads, and I will do my best…
The distinctive descriptive characteristic of the Arabian Horse is that it is “Pure”. What is “Pure”? Among the Bedouin breeders from which we have these horses, the term “pure” is related to the concept of “asil.” To these people it was extremely important that a horse be asil. The trouble is that asil is even harder to define than pure. It is related to nobility of breeding and can be used in regard to creatures other than horses, including people. According to the literature, the Bedouin themselves did not agree as to what the term meant. A horse might have been asilto one tribe and not to another, or asil might simply mean that a horse’s ancestors had been owned by one family for many years: “My grandfather owned this family of horses and his father owned them before him. Of course, the horse is asil.” Chances are the Bedouin owners of horses are inclined to consider their own horses asil. Maybe there is some tendency for horses to be described as asil when sold to western countries. An interesting illustration of this is given in Davenport’s book where a pretty filly is offered for sale. Questioned, the seller said the filly was pure to Davenport, but not to God. [The…
I can’t resist sharing with you the nice holiday card I just received from Joe and Sharon Ferriss. Thank you Joe and Sharon.. and the one Laszlo and Eva Kiraly also sent me.. Thanks Laszlo and Eva.. and a Happy Holiday to all..
The magnificent grey stallion pictured below was bred was Robert Mauvy in 1969 near Tours, in France. Mauvy also bred his sire Amri (Saadi x Zarifa) and Amri’s dam Zarifa (Matuvu x Iaqouta). He sold Amri to Idaho in the USA as a three year old, but not before he used him on a couple of his best mares (I actually sometimes wonder if Amri left anything out there). Moulouki‘s dam Izarra, a beautiful grey mare, was a gift to Mauvy from Admiral A. Cordonnier, who certainly maintained the best private Arabian stud in North Africa, near Bizerte in Tunisia. Izarra (by David x Arabelle by Beyrouth) was bred by Cordonnier and so was her dam Arabelle. Their tail female was to Samaria, a grey Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare born in 1882 imported to Pompadour by Mr. de Ganay in 1887. Ganay bought Samaria for 8,000 Francs (an enormous amount!) from Khalid Bey al-As’ad of Taybeh, a village now located in Southern Lebanon. The al-A’sad were until the 1970s the overlords of South Lebanon and the most powerful family among this area’s Shi’a population. The older al-A’sad lords were known to maintain a small stud of Arabians that they’d usually acquire…
If you anyone knows someone who could volunteer to write intelligently about asil horses in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain today, please email me privately at ealdahdah@hotmail.com. I am looking for someone who knows the horses and the country context hands on, and preferably but not necessarily from there. Fluency in English is not required since I am ready to translate. This would leave me handling Syria and North Africa.
I know there were Al Khamsa eligible tail-female descendants of Dajania after Nadirat, although they might not yet be in the Al Khamsa database. One is Nadirat’s 1946 daughter Aalastra, by Gulastra. And of course there was Nadirat’s famous 1935 daughter Aarah, by Ghadaf. Nefisa is one of the most interesting of all the Crabbet broodmares, with her 21 live foals. Nine of these were fillies. Although Narghileh and Nasra were the two retained for breeding at Crabbet, and probably two of her best, the other fillies are worth a look too. Nefisa’s first filly was Nahla 1889 (by Ashgar). The Blunts actually planned to retain her for breeding, but she died in the fall of her three-year-old year from overeating acorns in Crabbet Park. Nefisa’s next filly was Nejiba 1892 (by Azrek). From her picture, this was a really dandy grey Azrek daughter. She did produce four foals at Crabbet, all colts. One died, one was sold to India, one to Scotland, and one was given to a nephew of Lady Anne’s who lived in Greece. Nejiba herself was given away at age 11 to the son of a longtime friend of Wilfrid Blunt’s. Nefisa’s next filly was Narghileh 1895,…
It seems almost impossible to believe that this line has been lost to asil breeding in the tail female. Where have all the Kuhaylan Da’jani gone? Dajania‘s was the second-most important line in Crabbet breeding, which is one of the preeminent components of today’s mainstream Arabian horse breeding. True, there has never been as many mares from the Dajania tail female as there has been from the Rodania line at any given point in time, but that makes this line’s contribution to the breed all the more spectacular. Dajania’s daughter Nefisa (x Hadban) produced 21 foals at Crabbet. Of the mares, Narguileh (x Mesaoud) and Nasra (x Daoud) were the most prepotent. A look at Al Khamsa’s online Roster allows one to trace the evolution of Nefisa’s Al Khamsa eligible progeny over the first half of the twentieth century. The record is impressive, but but most of the contribution to asil breeding is through males: Nadir, Narkise, *Nasik, Rustnar, Najib, *Nafia, Nusi, Adonis, etc. The last Dajania Al-Khamsa eligible tail female descendent is Nadirat (Rizvan x Nusara), born in 1927, when most of us were not born yet.. That said, Al Khamsa doesn’t accept Nureddin II (by Rijm x Narguileh,…
Part 1 introduced the young stallion Menjad Maram al-Baida, whose sire and dam were imported from Syria to France. Some people would refer to this horse as a “Straight Syrian”. I don’t like this phrase, nor any term with “Straight”. Others who know more than I do don’t seem to like it either. [Incidentally I wonder whether the descendants of the Arabian horses imported to the USA by H. Davenport would qualify. And the Tunisian, Algerian and French horses too. All these folks imported most if not all their horses from Syria]. We had left off with Manjam’s maternal great granddam Marwah, a Saqlawiyah Jadaniyah straight from the marbat of Ibn Amud, arguably the most authentic desert-bred marbat of Saqlawi Jadran in the second half of the twentieth century. More about this marbat in a subsequent entry dedicated to this strain. I first saw Marwah at Basil’s in 1990, when I took the (rather poor) picture above. A very small mare (you can tell from the way her handler is holding her bridle in the picture), with a strong girth, high withers, a very short back, a flat croup, a round hindquarter, she conveyed an overall appearance of roundness and sturdiness that was reminiscent of the descriptions I had read of…
The new Al Khamsa website’s got a facelift. Check out the nice feature on Portico CF, too.
It’s been some time I have been telling you this: some really good Arabian horses can come out of the North African government studfarms. This is an unidentified mare at the Tunisian government stud of Sidi Thabet. Photo courtesy of Jean-Claude Rajot and Louis Bauduin, 1988.
Recently I became aware of the existence of a young bay stallion of desert-bred stock that was bred in France, where he is now standing at stud. The name of this young stallion is Menjad Maram al-Baida, and his strain is Saqlawi Jadran (photo below, from his owners website). Menjad was bred by Mrs. Chantal Chekroun, and sired by the black stallion Mokhtar out of the bay mare Hijab. Both Mokhtar and Hijab were owned by Basil Jadaan in Damascus, Syria, then by Mrs. J. Menning to whom Basil gave them, and are now owned by Mrs. Chekroun. Mrs. Chekroun sold Menjad to Sophie and Dominique Balthasar of the Haras de la Lizonne, and still retains a full sister. A sketchy pedigree of Menjad looks like this: Awaad (S. Shaifi x Mumtazah) Mokhtar …
A heads up for the joint Al Khamsa / CMK preservation symposium that will be held in Redmond, Oregon in August 2009. The 1924 stallion Gulastra will be the star of the event. It will coincide with the 2009 Al Khamsa Convention.
Here is the link to the Babolna Roster Proposal that seeks to include Babolna bred asil Arabians into Al Khamsa. It contains a wealth of information about the proposed foundation horses, as well as the rare pictures, including the only picture of 25 Amurath Sahib I am aware of. Jeanne Craver put the proposal together, with key support from R.J. Cadranell (mainly), T. Idan, T. Rambauer, J. Sennek and myself. The proposal passed a first round of voting at this year’s Al Khamsa convention in Tulsa. If it passes the next round at the 2009 Oregon convention, then the eligible living descendants of these horses are in!
Think of this new “Lost asil tail females” series as an obituary section in a newspaper.. I know there is no point in grieving over what is lost, but it’s a good reminder of how lucky we are to have what we still have. The series starts with *Nedjme, just because “she was given the position of the first registration in the stud book of the Arabian Horse Club of America, […] an indication of the regard in which she was held by Arabian horse breeders in this country of her day” (Craver and Craver, Horses of the White City). *Nedjme was one of the horses the Ottoman Hamidie Society exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. She is registered as a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz by a Saqlawi Jadran. However, evidence from a letter J.R. Dolbony (who was involved with the Hamidie Society, perhaps as an performer in the Ottoman exhibition) to Homer Davenport, mentions that her dam was of the Sa’dat al-Tuqan strain, from the Wuld Ali Bedouins and her sire of the Nkhayshi strain, from the Hssinah tribe, which is certainly more interesting. Whatever the case, *Nedjme was the pick of the Hamidie Society horses, and fetched the highest price when the…
A previous entry had discussed how the young children of Shammar Shaykh (and prominent Syrian politician) Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba lost the ownership of their father’s prestigious marbat of Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida strain upon the latter’s death (late 1960s? early 1970s?), and how the man Mayzar had entrusted with his assets took the horses for himself. That man was a Bedouin from the Faddaghah section of the Shammar tribe, by the name of ‘Iyadah al-Talab al-Khalaf, and was also known as al-Qartah. Al-Qartah bred Mayzar’s horses until the mid-1980s, continuing the practice of close inbreeding that Mayzar (and perhaps Mayzar’s father and grandfather before him) had been practising before. The grey Mumtazah was Iyadah al-Qartah’s main broodmare. Both her parents were bred by Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarbah, and all four grandparents were from the same Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida strain. It’s not clear whether Mumtazah was bred by ‘Iyadah al-Qartah, or whether she was taken by him from Mayzar’s estate as a foal. An impressive mare with a crested neck not unlike the Godolphin Arabian (see my picture of her in old age, below), Mumtazah produced the bay mare Doumah, also by a Kuhaylan al-Krush (maybe a full brother), and the grey…
. These two horses are from the Tabib blood line They are completely diferent from the French horses,with Thouroughbred blood, that we posted and from today French race horses. The Iraqis are saying roughly that if Tabib (al Souri) was really a Thouroughbred or an Anglo Arab his sons and grand -sons should have been faster than ordinary Arab horses. Dr. Mohamed el Nujaifi have published the results and times recorded by Iraqi horses on the Bagdad racetrack with and without Tabib blood they are almost the same. He also posted the times of Iraqi Anglo -Arabs, there is really a difference between the times recorded between them and the Tabib blood line horses. I ‘m not taking the Iraqi horses defense ,they are WAHO registered,and free to be sold anywhere in the world.This is what matter for the Iraqis after a ban who lasted more than 15 years,and many scandals due to wars, horses substitution and forged papers;the same happened in the beginning of the 90’s with Russian horses due to the late USSR end. Today everything is in order and they can export horses,the Nujaifi’s sent, this year, 6 horses to race in Europe with not much success ,I may say. They dont care much on what we think about their horses, as long…
I am preparing an entry about the stud of the Iraqi family of al-Nujaifi near Mosul. This family has been breeding Arabian horses for the past 100 years and even sold some mares to the Turkish horsebuying commission in the 1930s. This short report from the WAHO website showcases the young stallion Dahman Bagdad from the al-Nujaifi breeding (scroll down to the Iraq section). Dahman Baghdad
Third and last photo sent by Laszlo Kiraly of his horses in Hungary. This is Dahhmany Bagdady (Wahhabit x Tisrina B), Laszlo’s stallion. Dahhmany is a unique combination of Egyptian bloodlines, Davenport (Old American) and Babolna blood (through Siglavy Bagdady VI). Wahhabit was Siglavy Bagdady VI’s only asil son.
Another photo courtesy of Jean-Claude Rajot is of the stallion El Obayan, a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, which the Veterinary Dr. Bardot bought in 1923 from the city of Hama in Syria, for the stud of Tiaret in Algeria. El Obayan was in the stall next to El Managhi, who was featured earlier. In Algeria, El Obayan sired the Jilfat Dhawi mare Baraka, who in turn sired the mare Gafsa by Bango. Gafsa was owned by master breeder A. Cordonnier of the Sidi Bou Hadid stud in Tunisia, and was the dam of the Cordonnier stallion Inchallah, exported to France, where he stood at the government stud of Pau. I need to scan a picture of Inchallah and share it with you.
As Edouard said “relying on second hand sources can be a problem”.I say relying on first hand sources can also be a problem. Are the sources and information for accepting a horse as Asil always reliable.? Take the Egyptian Stud Book we have to rely on the word of Egyptian stud manager who sometimes wrote under “Asil” Anglo Arabs(Raswan index photocopies),we never heard about this horses, were they being used as “Asil” on Arab mares ? who knows? maybe. The horses bought from Hazem Pasha( a thcherkesse) by El Hadad were very tall horses,a little bit unusal for Bedouin bred horses. the mares height: Geheilt el Sheriff 1.58m, Kheila 1.60m, Siglavy Bagdadi was 1.56m.Mersuch 1.57m.Those horses were not ,except Mersuch, Hazem pasha breeding.Siglavy Bagdadi is said to be by the Ruweylat, Wifrid Blunt wrote that Iraqi tribes crossed their mares with Turkmen horses,the south of Bagdad region was breeding horses for the Indian race market, (Major General Tweedie,The Arab and his horse). It is very difficult to recognize a Pure from a part bred ,Edouard father experienced this in Beirut,the only way is inside informers like the police. Ie:In 1897 Prince Roman Sanguszko acquired from Ali Pasha sherif a white stallion called “Massad”.”Massaad” was “the one sent from…
Another 25 Amurath Sahib tail female, and Asil foundation mare at Laszlo Kiraly, is 205 Farag II (Farag II x 226 Ibn Galal I). 205 Farag II is a grand-daughter of 25 Amurath Sahib through this mare’s son Farag II, and a great-grand-daughter through this mare’s daughter 3 Siglavy Bagdady VI, which adds the precious blood of Siglavy Bagdady VI (b. 1949), who was recently featured on this blog… What a bonanza of great horses in one pedigree, so close: Kuhailan Zaid (featured here), Kuhailan Haifi, Amurath Sahib, Kuhailan Haifi I (here), Siglavy Bagdady II, Koheilan IV (here), etc. Photo courtesy of the mare’s owner, Laszlo Kiraly, who is certainly one lucky man.
Cher ami, Un grand merci pour vos très édifiantes communications. Oui,le cheval arabe asil a toujours été très rare et extraordinairement précieux . Il a toujours été majoritairement aux mains des bédouins car c’est chez eux qu’il est apparu et chez eux qu’il se maintient dans sa pureté originelle. Le pur-sang arabe est ARABE et ses éleveurs sont les bédouins. Vérité première . Avant de poursuivre, j’ai cru percevoir dans vos propos une certaine nostalgie voire une certaine inquiétude quant à l’avenir de la race. Si cela était le cas , et bien que je ne puisse me targuer d’une expérience semblable aux vôtres, il est de mon devoir de vous soutenir et de vous donner confiance. Sachez qu’aux pires moments pour ce cheval, R. Mauvy , tout en dénonçant amèrement les dérives constatées, n’a jamais douté que la race perdurerait dans toute sa noblesse et toutes ses qualités. A une certaine époque (au milieu des années 70), l’hypocrisie des « marchands » était telle qu’ils annonçaient, à grand renfort d’articles dans les revues spécialisées, sa disparition effective dans son berceau d’origine et présentaient bien évidement l’occident, et eux-mêmes en particulier, comme ses nouveaux détenteurs. Là encore, seuls les Mauvy, plus timidement les…
Jean-Claude Rajot just sent me this rare photo of the important desert bred stallion El Managhi, bought in 1923 in Hama (central Syria) by veterinary Dr. Bardot for the Algerian stud of Tiaret. The stallion Bango, bought in Alexandria was part of the same importation. There is another picture of him in F. Klynstra’s book “Nobility of the desert”. Note that according to R. Mauvy, there is no indication that his strain was Ma’naghi, as his name may suggest. Most Tunisian Arabians now include his blood yet El Managhi’s most important product was perhaps the Asil Jilfat Dhawi mare Saponnaire, dam of Bassala which was acquired by the Pompadour stud in France. Here is an incomplete list of El Managhi’s progeny.
Food for thought: “The Arabian is not a color breed, so markings and color are not all that important, except that the body spot has been discriminated against in the judging rules — though recently modified and accordingly, has been considered “unclean” by novices. Some the more naive — unfamiliar with the breed’s tradition of plentiful markings — have considered it a “sign of admixture.” Instead, it is more likely a sign of the breed’s antiquity. In the first place, the reason for this “anti-white” clause was to discourage production of pintos in the breed, and after decades of teaching that “Arabians are never parti-color,” it is embarrassing to admit that they are.” Gladys Brown Edwards “Know the Arabian Horse”
This picture of 225 Scheherezade (Ibn Galal III x 220 Ibn Galal I)is courtesy of her owner Laszlo Kiraly of Hungary. 225 Scheherezade has two crosses to the Babolna mare 25 Amurath-Sahib (Amurath Sahib x 221 Kuhailan Zaid), including one in the tail female. As such she traces to the desert bred 60 Adjuze imported by M. F. el Haddad to Babolna. More on 60 Adjuze in a next post. The Asil Club recognizes 25 Amurath Sahib (and hence 225 Scheherezade) as Asil, and by next year Al Khamsa will vote on whether to include 25 Amurath Sahib in its Roster too. The mare unanimously passed a preliminary vote this year. 225 Scheherezade, you truly are a princess of the Arabian Nights.
Even the otherwise ultra-standardized pedigrees of Egyptian Arabians can yield a surprise or two. That of the mare Bint Nafaa and her descendents, with their cross to El Gadaa, a horse bred by Fad’aan Bedouin leader Miqhim ibn Mahayd, and later raced in Egypt and used by Hamdan stables, is a case in point. The stallion Ghandour (ca. 1930) is another. Ghandour was reportedly sired by Merzug, a good racehorse owned by Mahmoud al-Itribi at one point, out of Lady Anne Blunt’s Jazia (Sahab x Jauza), a Kuhaylat al-Krush. Jauza is one of my all-time favorite Asil mares judging from the one picture I have seen of her. Ghandour was also raced by Itribi Pasha before being used by the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) of Egypt as a stallion. The RAS History book has him as “an imported Arab and very good racer, owned by the late Mahmoud Pasha El Itribi”. A quick search on Itribi Pasha on the net yielded meager results: a list of Egyptian Pashas mentions him as a notable from the Daqahliya farming area by the Nile delta, who was granted the title of Pasha in 1919. I recall seeing a photo of him somewhere. That said, Ghandour was the sire…
This is a picture of Nouro, an Arabian stallion from Syria being trained at the stables next door to where I work as a racehorse trainer.
As I put the final touches of the fourth and last entry of the feature on the Krush al-Baida strain, take a second look at the three previous entries on this precious strain, here, here, and here. Also, check out this account of a conversation about Krush al-Baida with Shaykh Faysal ibn Sattam ibn Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. By the way, the Royal Stud of the Kingdom of Bahrain still retains a line from the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain, from the same branch as Krush al-Baida, “the White Krush”. Here is an exerpt from the Krush page of the Royal Stud’s website, followed by a picture of a Bahraini representative of this strain: “It is said by some that the original Krushieh mare came from the Muteyr tribe – and by others that the original came from the Al Rasheed, Amirs of Hail from 1835-1924. Yet everyone agrees that the strain has been in Bahrain since the 1850’s. This old family of Krush is perpetuated through the tail female line, and is predominantly of bay colour.” Note that the Krush al-Baida horses of the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar tribe in Syria are from the very same fountainhead – that…
This paint horse has 99.8% Arabian blood. If he were to be crossed with an Asil mare, the offspring would be a 99.9% Arabian horse, much like more than 95% of all WAHO-accepted horses. Count Alexander Dzieduszycki, the president of the Arab Horse Breeding Society of Poland from 1925 to 1945 called such horses “full blooded Arabs”. Now someone try and explain this to a Bedouin!!
I just bought Edward Skorkowski’s “Arab Breeding of Poland” from the website of a bookstore in Iowa. I read many excerpts of it before, but was never able to put my hands on a copy. My first reaction was: “okay, so that’s where all these old photos of Polish Arabians on the Net comefrom..”. My second reaction while browsing through the book was one of astonishement at the enormous amount of information squeezed between the two covers. Then I started reading, and I was quickly turned off after a few pages. I need to vent my frustration on someone, and you, my patient reader, are going to be that someone. So, what’s this whole business of linking strains to types based on skull measurements? “The family of Milordka is a Saqlawi judging from the measurement of the skulls”. Really? The last I heard was that Milordka was an indigenous Polish mare. Not a desert-bred mare. Not an Arabian mare. A mare with no origins. A kadeesh, in my language. Appending Arabian strains on indigenous Polish mares to turn them into Arabians, and using some pseudo-scientific way such cranial measurements to justify this new “metamorphosis”, is a smart trick indeed. Nice try.…
Kuhailan Haifi I is the only son of the desert bred import Kuhailan Haifi out of the Babolna mare Mersuch 1-3-1 (Kohejlanka in Polish breeding). He was exported to Babolna in 1938, where he was renamed “Tajar”. He left two Asil mares: 21 kuhaylan Haifi I, which left no Asil progeny; and 250 kuhailan Haifi I the dam of the Stallion Siglavy Bagdady VI which Edouard recently wrote about. This leads me to surmise that there may be Asil horses from Babolna lines left, trough the Babolna mares taken by the Germans during WWII, rescued by the Poles, who returned them in 1951 to Babolna. Maybe Tzviah can help ?
The three mares Rabda Khuszaiba, Hadba Inzihi, and Szeikha were bought by Zientarski and Raswan in the same mission as the stallions Kuhailain Haifi, Kuhailan Zaid, Kuhailan Kruszan and Kuhailan Afas. The photos of these 3 mares are taken from Britta Fahlgren’s “The Arabian Horses Families of Poland“. All three mares were bred by and bought from the large Muntafiq Bedouin tribe. Rabda Khuszaiba (by a Kuhailan Krush x Rabda Khuszaiba) had a small breeding record, and all her progeny seems to have been lost during World War II. Hadba Inzihi (by a Kuhailan Krush x Hadba Inzihi) was also lost during the war with nothing left from her (neither Asil or non-Asil). Szeikha (by a Dahman Shehwan x Kuhailat Adjouz) produced three mares by Kuhailan Kruszan OA. Only one mare, Udzda, left some non-asil progeny: that was the asil mare Ferha by Kuhailan Abu Arkub (himself by Kuhailan Zaid db).