He reminds of a mythological creature, with flowing lines, and a graceful way of carrying himself. The best blood of North Africa flows in this horse’s veins… Rubi de la Mouline (Ilamane x Hamma) is a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, tracing to the desert-bred mare Samaria, imported to France in 1887 by M. De Ganay, then exported to Tunisia, where her line bred on.
My fourth feature in the “Strain of the Week” series is late. This time, I will be telling you about the Ma’anaghi Hadraji strain, and in particular about the marbat (Bedouin stud) of Ibn ‘Ufaytan of Shammar. Meanwhile, here is a picture of Faddan Ibn ‘Ufaytan (left), the Shammar Bedouin who owns the strain, which we took at his house in North-Eastern Syria, in October 2005.
Rubi de la Mouline (Ilamane x Hamma by Raoui) is a 1983 Asil Arabian stallion of old Tunisian bloodlines. His sire Ilamane (David x Berriane) was from the stud of Admiral Anatole Cordonnier in Tunisia. Ilamane was one of several hugely influential stallions bred by Mr. Cordonnier. Others include: Esmet Ali (Hazil x Arabelle), the cornerstone of modern Tunisian breeding; David (Hazil x Salome); Aissaoui (Beyrouth x Cherbia); Iricho (David x Chanaan); Irmak (Aissaoui x Leila); Inchallah (Madani x Gafsa); the last three were imported to France, where they contributed to (short-lived) revival of Asil Arabian breeding. Rubi was imported from Tunisia in utero. Picture taken in 2006.
Algeria was a French colony from 1830 to 1848, and an integral part of France from 1848 till its indepedence in 1962, following one of the bloodliest colonial wars. The conquest of Algeria by France was extremely long and arduous, and could only completed by 1900, when the latest of the Tuareg chiefs (ethnic Berbers, not Arabs) surrendered to French troops. Horses were a major factor in the conquest and stabilization of Algeria. In 1877, the French Ministry of War (the equivalent of a Department of Defense), established a breeding stud near the town of Tiaret, in the mountains of central Algeria. The objective of the “Jumenterie de Tiaret”, which later became the “Haras de Tiaret-Chaouchaoua“, was to produce Arabian stallions, which were sent to local stallion depots, where they were used on Barb mares. The result was a sturdy Arab-Barb cavalry horse. Hundreds of Arabian stallions and dozens of mares were imported to Tiaret (and its equivalent in neighboring Tunisia, Sidi-Thabet) from the deserts of Arabia and the racetracks of Egypt and Lebanon. Depending on the expertise of the horse-buying commission and its budget, imports ranged from the outstanding to the mediocre. Overall, Algeria received much better quality desert-bred imports than Tunisia or even France. Outstanding genitors included: Bango, a grey Ma’anaghi…
The term Asil in the Arabic language means “pure”, “authentic” and “original” all at once. In principle, all Arabian horses should be Asil. Either Arabians horses are “pure”, “original”, and “authentic” (Asil), or they are not Arabians, but partbreds. Arabians just cannot be a little bit Asil. Still, things are not that simple! Most Arabian horses studbooks around the world include horses with varying, often tiny, percentages of non-Arabian blood. These horses are not Asil, and hence not Arabians, as far as I am concerned. Indeed, in some cases such as Spain, Russia and Poland, such horses compose the entire studbook (except for imports from another country that breeds “pure”, “original”, and “authentic” Asil horses.) These non-Asil, non-Arabian horses are nevertheless registered as Arabians in the Arabian horse studbooks, and these studbooks are accepted by WAHO (the equivalent of the United Nations for Arabian horses, and I leave it up to you to push that analogy as far as you want). Indeed, most of the world recognizes and designates these horses as Arabians. People like me and many of the readers of this blog are a small minority, a “subversive cell in Arabian breeding” to quote the words of Reba Troxell to Charles Craver (thanks Ambar for the quote). Hence the need arises to differentiate these so-called…
Look at the picture of the magnificent El Sbaa below: a French government commission led by M. Rieu de Madron purchased this Asil Ma’anaghi Sbayli stallion straight from the desert [correction: from Cairo, Egypt] in 1925. El Sbaa stood at the Stud of Pompadour, France, but he was ill suited for its humid climate, so he developed a form of asthma and died a few years later. He left too few offspring behind, including the stallions Nemer (out of Ninon), Khartoum (out of Kioumi), the full borthers Medard and Meat (out of Medea), and the dark brown stallion Matuvu (out of Manon). Nemer was exported to Poland, and Khartoum to Romania, where they both started famous racing lines that endure to this day (although not in Asil form). Meat was retained for the Stud of Pompadour, where he took over from his sire, and Matuvu was sent to the stallion depot of Blois, where only a handful Arabian horse breeders used him. Two Asil lines to El Sbaa survived well into the 1970s: one old French dam-line at Pompadour, and another Algerian dam-line with the French breeder Robert Mauvy. At Pompadour, the last Asil to carry a line to El Sbaa was the very typey mare Ablette (by…
This morning I stumbled on an article I had written on the stallion *Al Mashoor some six years ago. I wish I could find the time to research and write more of this stuff..
We don’t know for sure, but it is possible to list a number of hypotheses. One hypothesis has to do with the lifestyle of the Bedouins who created these strains. Bedouins were nomads who roamed the steppes of Arabia searching for food and water for their flocks. Migrating Bedouin clans and families crossed paths around wells and pastures, mingled there for a few days, information was exchanged, social events took place, horses were bred to each other, then everyone moved on, often in opposite directions. Foals resulting from these breedings were born eleven months later. If the sire belonged to a clan or family that was following a diffrent migration pattern from that of the dam, he could be hundreds of miles away at the time of the foal’s birth. Because the most practical way to identify a foal and trace its origin was to associate it with the parent it was born next to, foals took the strain (i.e., the family name) of their dams, rather than their sires’. A second hypothesis may have to do with Bedouins not keeping the same numbers of mares and stallions. It was not uncommon for a tribe that was endowed with two hundred broodmares to maintain only two or three breeding stallions. Why? One reason was that stallions were rarely used at…
Another photo of my beloved Zanoubia, an Asil mare of Lebanese bloodlines. Zanoubia was by Ach-hal, a stallion of the Kubayshan strain, and out of Zanoubia (II), a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah tracing to the marbat of Ibn Thamdan of the Sa’ba’ah tribe.
An American lady once asked one of my friends attending the 2006 WAHO conference in Syria whether I was a real person, or just an alias used by some other guy. She had apparently read a few of my writings on Asil horses here and there, and seen my name on the programs of a number of events, including that WAHO conference (which I eventually did not attend), but had never met anyone who had ever seen me. Well, I do exist, and guess what, some of you have even seen me! For those who haven’t, I am the guy on the right in the picture below. The guy on the left is more famous.
A previous post gave me the occasion to mention Zanoubia, which is something I have been looking forward to for some time now. Zanoubia was my first mare. Rather she was the first mare from my father’s horses in Lebanon that I considered mine. She did not make it in my recent top ten of the best Asil mares ever bred; she would have ten years ago, before I become acquainted with the wonderful Asil Arabians bred in the USA. Dad had bought her as a yearling in 1977 0r 78. At that time, he owned some 15 mares and a couple stallions, not all of them Asil. There were few Asil Arabians left in Lebanon, and Zanoubia was one of the them. She was a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the horses of the Dandashi landowners of Western Syria, who were famed for the beauty and purity of their horses. The strain came from the Sba’ah tribe. A couple of the Dandashi horses made their way to Europe and the USA. The Dandashi were the owners of the 1880 black Babolna stallion O-Bajan, who’s left such an imprint on Asil breeding in Europe. They were also the breeders of the Saqlawi Jadran, sire of the Asil mare *Muha, imported by Ameen al-Rihani to the USA. That Saqlawi Jadran was a gift from…
I just wanted to follow up with a few photos of some horses I mentioned in my previous comments on this blog that were of the Maanagi strain. These three I saw on my trip in 1996 through Jordan, Syria, and the Gulf region. I have other photos of representatives of this strain on that tript but these three just happened to be quickly available on my computer. The first is the grey Maanagi Sbaili stallion Atiyah, a son of the mare Wadeehah which Edouard posted. Atiyah was presented at Basil Jadaan’s place in Syria. As you can see he is a splendid horse. His balance and harmony were impressive, forming an ideal silhouette of an Arabian, and you can see the exceptional overall leg and conformation quality he has. the second picture is the grey Maanagi Hadruj stallion owned by Shaikh Mohamed Abdul Razak Al-Taiee. He was another magnificent horse and although our photo opportunity was more limited here, this horse left a very favorable impression on all of his for his quality, character, and noble appearance. The third picture is of a bay Maanigieh filly owned by the Emir of Bahrain and a part of the WAHO presentation…
This is one of my favorite old pictures. The horse pictured is Dahman, a dark chestnut stallion bred by the Shammar Bedouin tribe in 1905, and sold to a French horse-buying commission led by Inspecteur Quinchez in 1909. Dahman was a herd sire for the Shammar prior to his importation to France. He was by a stallion of the Dahman strain out of a mare from the Rabdan strain. Al-Rabdah is one of the many families of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, but somehow the Kuhaylan part is frequently dropped from the strain’s name, and the horses are simply referred to as Rabdan (fem. Rabdah). Dahman stood at the French government stood of Pompadour until he was 25, and sired some of the best Arabians of his day. Unfortunately, there are no Asil horses tracing to Dahman left today. [Correction, Jan. 06th, 2009: well, maybe there are]
I found a picture of a Kubaylat Ibn Jlaidan to show you, as well as a writtten certificate of origin (hujjah, plural hujaj). The picture, taken in the mid 198os, does not do justice to the mare, and I hesitated a bit before posting it: it shows a chestnut desert-bred mare in rather poor condition, against a background of miserable mudhouses. These were built in the second half of the twentieth century by impoverished Shammar Bedouins who had finally abandoned their black tents and camel herds, and settled in a relatively barren area of North Eastern Syria (known as the Upper Jazireh), not far from the Iraqi and Turkish borders. Many Shammar clans paid a heavy price for clinging to their nomadic lifestyle till the very end: the more fertile lands had already been grabbed by earlier settlers. The picture also shows the concrete houses which Bedouins started building as of the 1980s, to replace the older mudhouses. Barely an improvement. The mare herself is well built, with a deep girth, high withers, a round hindquarter, a well-sloped shoulder, a nicely set tail, and a pretty head. Her neck is thick though, a defect typical of many of the desert-horses of the twentieth century. The man holding her…
Wilfrid Blunt thought seriously about the breeding program at the Crabbet Stud. Some of his thoughts are preserved in his stud memoranda and also his remarks prepared for delivering to the crowds at the Crabbet auction sales. The Wentworth Bequest includes comments dating from 1904 discussing the wisdom of developing a separate breeding program at Crabbet using horses not tracing to Mesaoud. Mr. Blunt posited that those horses could be used as the Crabbet Stud’s own outcross, should one be required in another 50 years. Mesaoud was the most successful stallion the Blunts ever used. They had sold him to Russia just the year before, in June of 1903. Mesaoud’s 12 seasons at Crabbet resulted in more than 100 foals, with the last arriving in 1904. After Mesaoud’s departure, it’s no surprise that Mr. Blunt was wondering whether it was possible to have too much Mesaoud blood. Of the 94 horses listed in the 1904 Crabbet catalogue, only 22 did not have Mesaoud in their pedigrees, and only two of those were male: Nejran and Rijm. Nejran’s 1904 non-Mesaoud colt out of Bint Helwa died. It was a grey colt, so it was unlikely that the Blunts would have used…
The Kuhaylan Jallabi strain as an extant female line in Egyptian bloodlines will forever be something of a curiosity. Modern evidence of MtDNA work on this line combined with interpreting Lady Anne Blunt’s notations should make people feel comfortable in choosing the Saqlawi Jidran strain for this line though it is not officially recorded as such. To be fair to Judi Forbis, in her 2003 book Authentic Arabian Bloodstock II, in the section on Kuhaylan Jellabi, she gives a five page presentation of most of the known information over time on this strain including citing Prince Mohamed Ali, Travelers Rest, Abbas Pasha Manuscript etc. She implies that people need to make their own choice on this. She chose to follow the name of traditional record as certified on the pedigrees of the imports. The Pyramid Society also footnotes this in their reference handbook pedigrees. How that traditional record became certified as Kuhaylan Jellabi is a mystery but it must have its origins somewhere yet to be discovered. Judi does make the point that no matter what the strain, the authenticity of the line is without question. When I first heard of the MtDNA, it was no surprise to me having…
Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is the third strain featured in the “Strain of the Week” series. You will almost certainly not find a representative of this strain outside of Arabia today. A few of you may have heard of it in the context of their trips to Syria. The strain is emblematic of the Shammar tribe, as opposed to the two other strains featured previously, Kuhaylan al-Hayf and Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, both of which were owned by the ‘Anazah group. Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is very simply, Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz of the marbat of Ibn Jlaidan, a Bedouin from the Hdibah clan of the Shammar. Many Shammar Bedouins still refer to the strain as Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Some time in 2006, my friend Hazaim and I spoke to ‘Abdallah Ibn Jlaidan over the phone, as part of our project to collect as much information as possible strainght from Bedouin sources. ‘Abdallah told us that his “fifth grandfather” (i.e., the grandfather of his grandfather) Muhammad al-Jlaidan once visited the Sharif of Mecca, and that the latter gave him a Kuhayla al-‘Ajuz mare as a gift. He could not tell us the exact day when this occured, but said that it was more than a hundred years ago…
I find it baffling that some Arabian horse breeders here in the US still believe that the strain of Kuhaylan Jellabi is carried on in Egyptian Arabian horse breeding. Ten years have elapsed since Michael Bowling’s ground-breaking article on the Arabian mare Bint Yemama and her descendants at the stud of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik in Egypt, yet most breeders of Asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines still refer to the stallions *Fadl, *Nasr, *Adhem, among others, and the mares *Maaroufa, Mahroussa, Negma and their tail-female descendants as Kuhaylan Jellabi. I refrained from using the pedigree website www.allbreedpedigree.com to link to the pedigrees of the horses mentioned above, because it erroneously has them tracing back to the desert-bred mare Jellabiet Feysul, owned by Abbas Pascha, and otherwise a Kuhaylah Jallabiyah true and true. Even respected Arabian horse breeders and researchers such as Judi Forbis show these horses as Kuhaylan Jallabi (I prefer to write Jallabi with an ”a”, but I aslo want this entry to be found by those using the more common form “Jellabi” in their search engines). Michael Bowling shows that the mare Bint Yemama (Saklawi I x Yemama) of Prince Mohammed Ali is actually the maternal half-sister of the famous Mesaoud, the Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Sudan bought by Lady Anne Blunt from Ali Pasha Sharif. …
The presence of a French mare of Algerian/Tunisian bloodlines in my top ten list of best Asil Arabian mares ever bred has achieved its (undeclared) goal: it has sparked an interesting and lively debate about the Asil status of these bloodlines and their place within the broader community of Asil Arabian horses. Such a debate was way overdue, in my opinion. Yet before delving into a discussion of these little-known Asil Arabians, let me share with you a few pictures of some of these horses, to give you a feel for what they look like. Below is the magnificent Nichem, a 1970 Asil stallion, bred in France from Tunisian and Algerian bloodlines. Nichem was by Iricho and Caida, who was Rabat and Salammbo, by Bango. Nichem’s sire Iricho was born in Tunisia in 1959 at the stud of French Navy Admiral – and otherwise master Arabian horse breeder – Anatole Cordonnier, who sold him to the French government a few years later. Iricho subsequently stood at the Haras de Pompadour for most of his breeding career. Although a horse of excellent conformation and irreproachable bloodlines, Iricho was shunned by French Arabian (?) horse breeders who preferred taller stallions of racing (i.e., highly dubious) bloodlines. In addition to a number of…
Al Khamsa Arabians III is out! Order your copy now. AKA III is the ultimate reference on Asil Arabian horses in North America (but then, I do have a couple articles in there, as well as translations of some Arabic original documents). I wish someone had the time (and energy!) to produce an Arabic version of this book.. Maybe I will some day, Lord willing. Meanwhile I haven’t managed to maintain my daily blogging routine this week, so I should keep my expectations (and yours) reasonable.
After Kuhaylan al-Hayf and Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, next week’s “Strain of the Week” series will feature Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan, a personal favorite of mine. Stay tuned.
I am so pleased to see that Edouard’s mare Wysteria is in foal to the stallion Javera Thadrian, 1982 grey (Thane x HB Diandra). He is another of those classical “19th century engraving” horses with very fine skin and very expressive eyes. Photos do not hardly capture the impression he leaves in person but I offer here a photo that I happened to snap of him being ridden in a costume exhibition at Alice Martin’s StarWest during an Al Khamsa convention. As you can see he truly is a classic.
Since I do not have a website and I could not find a place in the comment window to post some pictures with my list, I am instead offering it as a blog post. So here goes. Well Edouard you have done it again! How can I pick just ten? Maybe next week the list will change but instead of going crazy I decided without over-thinking to post my top ten. I could not rank them in any particular order so there is no preferential treatment in my list as each is significant to me for different reasons. One thing that is common to most all of them is that I like very much their genetic influence as I have seen many descendants from all of these, except one whose line is extinct in Al Khamsa. My top ten mare list with reasons for them: 1. *Ansata Bint Bukra (Nazeer x Bukra), though crippled, she was absolutely magnificent and radiated beauty from within her soul as well as exterior. Once you saw her you never forgot her. She is now hugely influential world-wide. 2. Dharebah (Dhareb x Antarah) – I did not see her but saw many of her produce…
This is Reem al-Oud, a desert bred Ubayyah Suhayliyah of the horses of Mayzar al-Ajil al-Abdul Karim al-Jarba of Shammar, and the number one on my top ten list of best Asil mares ever bred. A diamond in the rough.
My Wisteria is in foal to Javera Thadrian! Due date: late August. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a filly. I even have a name ready! Wisteria, which is at Craver Farms, already has two foals by Thadrian, a five year old stallion, Tantris CF, and a yearling filly, Walladah CF. Wisteria and a few other mares of the “Core Haifi” groups she belongs to, are often referred to as a “four generation pure-in-the-strain Kuhaylah Hayfyiah”, which they are of course. I like to refer to Wisteria as an Asil Kuhaylat al-Hayf tracing to the marbat of Ibn Hubayqan of the Fad’aan. It’s a question of personal preference, really. The latter description reflects my Arab heritage, and my desire to keep emphasizing the Bedouin origin of these horses. If Charles Craver were a Bedouin – God forbid, for it would be fair game to raid his farm and take some horses – then Wisteria and her relatives would be called Kuhaylat Craver or Kuhaylah Craveriyah. I wonder how that would fly with today’s Bedouins…
It tends to change every other day. For what it’s worth, here is today’s top ten: 1. Reem al-Oud, (Ubayyan Suhayli x Ubayyah Suhayliyah) desert bred from the Shammar tribe, born ca. 1980 2. Reema, (Ma’anaghi Sbayli x Hamdaniyah Simriyah) desert bred from the Aqaydat , born ca. 1975 3. Jauza, (Dahman Shawan x Kuhaylat al-Krush) desert bred from Mutayr, born ca. 1910, imported by Lady Anne Blunt to her Sheykh Obeyd farm in Egypt 4. Bismilah (Besbes x Berthe), a Jilfat al-Dhawi, bred by the French government at the Pompadour stud, born ca. 1985 5. Sahmet (Hadban Enzahi x Jatta), from the strain of Murana, bred by the German government at the Marbach stud, born ca. 1960 6. *Turfa, (Ubayyan al-Hamrah x Kuhaylat al-Khorma), bred by Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud at the Al-Khorma stud, imported to the USA by Henri Babson, born ca. 1930 7. *Bint Maisa al-Saghirah (Nazeer x Maisa) , a Dahmah Shahwaniyah, bred by the Egyptian government (the Egyptian Agricultural Organization) at the al-Zahraa stud, born ca. 1950 8. Sayfia, desert bred from the Fad’aan tribe (Ma’naghi Sbayli x Ma’anaghiyah Sbayliyah), born ca. 1985 9. LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla), a Kuhaylah, bred by Carol Lyons, born ca. 1980 10. Ceres (Aramis x Dharebah),…
As with many Arabian horse strains, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah takes its name from its owner. The Kuhaylat al-Maryum mare that came from the tribe of al-Dhafeer to tribe of the Sba’ah became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah, or Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah, after the Sba’ah Bedouin who owned her. The strain bred on at al-Mimrah’s, and was passed to his sons and grandsons. Of these, Subaylah al-Mimrah was the most well known for breeding it. Al-Mimrah (the people) is one of the many closely-related families that compose the larger Muwayni’ clan (click here for a genealogical table of this clan). The Muwayni’ is the leading clan of the Bayayi’ah section of the ‘Abdah tribe — itself one of the two branches of the Sba’ah tribe. The clan even assumed the leadership of the entire ‘Abdah, until a date in the 1880s when an armed incident with an Ottoman tax-collecting detachment resulted in its downfall and replacement by another rival clan. Still, the Muwayni’ enjoy special respect within the Sba’ah tribe and the general ‘Anazah, partly because of their past status, and partly because of their famous copper seal, one of ‘Anazah’s oldest. Around the time the Abbas Pasha Manuscript was compiled, the Shaykh of the Muwayni’ and head of the Sba’ah ‘Abdah was Nahar Ibn Muwayni’, whose close cousin was Za’aazi’ al-Mimrah. Za’aazi’ al-Mimrah was a fierce warrior who owned a…
According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah was one of the favorite strains of Abbas Pasha, the man who ruled Egypt from 1848 to 1854. The Manuscript contains an interesting account of the history of the strain. Unfortunately, it assumes a good deal of prior knowledge of Arabian medieval history, without which the story’s full significance cannot be grasped. Here is a summary of the account in the Manuscript: the strain is one of the most ancient Kuhaylan strains. Its history can be traced back to the time of a certain ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim, “from the ancient tribe of Aal Mughirah”. The Kuhaylah of ‘Ijl was lost to the Qahtan tribe during a raid, and a mare tracing to this Kuhaylah was taken from Qahtan by al-Maryum, a Bedouin of the Suwayt ruling clan of the al-Dhafeer tribe. It became known as Kuhaylat al-Maryum after his name. The strain then went from al-Maryum to al-Mimrah, a Bedouin of the Saba’ah tribe, and there it became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah. This may look like your standard story of Bedouin horses constantly changing hands, and changing strains in the process, but it isn’t. The mention of ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim is very…
It is a great honor for me to introduce my third guest blogger: Charles C. Craver III. Charles is to Asil Arabian horse breeding what Franklin D. Roosevelet is to American history: someone who assumes stewardship of omething on the verge of collapse, dedicates a lifetime to restoring it to its former glory, and hands it over to the next generation when the job is done. Charles is a second father and a friend. I am thrilled he has agreed to share his thoughts and about breeding Asil Arabians on this weblog, drawing on 50-plus years of experience and knowledge at the helm of Craver Farms.
The “Strain of the Week” series continues this week with the second strain featured: Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. Modern breeders and pedigree students, especially those familiar with Asil Arabian bloodlines from Egypt will remember Kuhaylan al-Mimrah as the strain of several of the older Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) horses: the stallions Mansour and Mabrouk Manial, present in almost every pedigree of Asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines, are both from this strain, and so are their respective maternal half-brothers, Ibn Samhan and Hadban. Mansour and Ibn Samhan trace to Donia, a bay desert-bred Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah bred by Ibn Muwayni’ of the Saba’ah Bedouin tribe, and imported to Egypt in 1880. Mabrouk Manial and Hadban trace to Freiha, another bay desert-bred Kuhalyah Mimrahiyah bred by Ibn Huraymis of the Fad’aan tribe and imported to Egypt around the same time. The line to Donia has died out a long time ago, but a thin Asil line to Freiha survives in South Africa, through the famous Barakah, which the RAS sold to this country in 1945. Other than its rarity and prestigious origin, this line is of interest because it brings in the blood of the Asil stallion Tuwaisaan, a present of the ruler of Bahrain…
I took this photo of the Asil stallion Khalid (Mahrous x Khalidah) in Aleppo, Syria in the mid-1990s, at the farm of Mustapha al-Jabri. Khalid is a half-brother to the stallion Basil, the subject of an previous post by Joe Ferriss. Both Khalid’s sire and dam are desert breds. Notice the excellent legs and the strong sinews on this horse. Khalid’s dam, Khalidah, is a Saglawiyah Jadraniyah from the horses of Hulu al-Hulu, the leader (Shaykh) of the ‘Adwan Bedouin tribe, and traces to the glorious marbat (tribal stud) of Ibn ‘Amud of the Shammar tribe. His sire is a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli (a branch of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak), also from the Shammar. According to Mahrus ibn Haddal, who was Shaykh of the al-‘Amarat tribe in the 1920s, Ibn ‘Amud obtained his original mare in a ghazu (tribal raid) against the al-Frijah section of the Ruwalah tribe. Ibn Haddal’s testimony is given in Khairi al-‘Azzawi’s great book on the tribes of Iraq (in Arabic). Other accounts I have gathered from recent conversations with Bedouins have the Saglawiyah Jadraniyah of the marbat of Ibn ‘Amud (or Saglawiyat ‘Ibn ‘Amud for short) trace to the ‘Anazah tribe in general, of which the Ruwalah is a part of. To me Khalid is the quintessential Asil stallion: powerful but graceful, strong but…
It’s Friday afternoon, and I am in a light mood. So I have a game (again!) for you all. Give me your ultimate top ten list of the greatest Asil Arabian mares ever bred. Here are the rules of the game: 1. The mares need to be Asil. A working definition of Asil for the purposes of this game is: Al Khamsa eligible if the mares are from bloodlines imported to North America, Asil Club eligible if the mares are from bloodlines imported to Europe, and tracing exclusively to Bedouin-bred horses if the mares are in Arab countries. For a more accurate (and conceptual) definition of Asil, click here. 2. The mares don’t need to be alive now: they may have been bred as early as the late XIXth century (when photography was invented). 3. You have to provide me with at pictures of at least two mares out of ten, preferably your top 2. 4. You don’t need to justify why you have ranked them the way you did (but it would nice if you did) 5. You can be the current or former owner of all ten mares (but it would be nice if you included at least some mares owned or bred by others in…
.. is Naziha, an Asil Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from Tunisia. That this small North African country is home to such classic specimen of Asil Arabians as Naziha may come as a surprise to some, yet Tunisia harbors one of the best collections of Asil Arabians anywhere. Most Tunisian Asils trace to desert-bred horses imported from Arabia by the French. The French? France occupied Tunisia in 1881, but kept the local ruling family in place. The ruling family owned a small stud of Arabian horses in the town of Sidi-Thabet, to the southwest of the capital city of Tunis, which the French overtook and expanded. The stud of Sidi Thabet specialized in breeding Asil Arabians using original desert stock imported from the Arabian desert. The resulting Tunisian Asils were either raced or bred to Barbs to produce an Arab-Barb cross that was highly appreciated by the French cavalry units stationed in North Africa. When the French finally withdrew in 1956, the newly independent Tunisian goverment took over Arabian horse breeding at Sidi-Thabet, following the French’s footsteps, but many fine horses went to France with the returning European settlers. More horses went to France in the 1960s, and 1970s. Naziha was one of those. She was raced in Tunisia before being exported to France. I took this photo of her at the farm of her owner Pierre-Henri Beillard, in 1995.…
Anchor Hill Serfa I thought I would share a few comments about the notion of the “War Mare”, a term used to describe mares of particular nobility and courage throughout the ages. The late Mark Mayo, who I used to refer to as the “American Bedouin Cowboy” used to tell stories of the “war mare syndrome” which he experienced personally in the deserts of Oklahoma on his 17,000 acre ranch riding his asil mares while herding cattle. He talked about that special trait of total courage and nobility and how these special mares defended him against snakes and other predators as well as many other adventures. 38 years ago when my wife bought me Homer Davenport’s book, “My Quest of the Arabian Horse”, I never forgot the wonderful stories Homer Davenport gave about riding the great war mare *Wadduda, truly a noble mare. I used to imagine that my first half-Arab mare in 1970 would grow up to be a war mare. But in fact my own personal experience with the “war mare syndrome” was a decade later when we purchased, in 1980, an older mare that we had wanted for years, Anchor Hill Serfa (Ibn Sirecho x Serida by…
Basil, the masculine grey stallion pictured in Joe’s entry below was one of the first acquisitions Syrian Government Stud as it began operating in the mid 1990s. Basil, born in 1985 at the stud of Mustapha al-Jabri in Aleppo, was not Bedouin-bred, but both his sire and dam were. He was by Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli from the Shammar, then Mustapha’s head stallion, out of Hallah, a chestnut Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah also from the Shammar. Basil’s dam Hallah, pictured below at al-Jabri’s farm in 1996, was arguably the best of Mustapha’s herd, which consisted of 100-plus mares; Mustapha owned her dam and her sister as well. Basil joined his sire as a herd stallion for Mustpaha before he was gifted to the Government. Abdul-Qadir Hammami, a veteran horse-merchant and one of the sharpest experts on desert horses I have come to meet, picked Hallah, her dam and her sister for Mustapha’s stud. Next week’s “Strain of the Week” series will be about Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. It will discuss Hallah’s family, among other families belonging to this ancient strain.
Another horse that I saw at Al Basel was, to me, a real charmer. His name is Shawal. He is a Shuwayman Sabbah stallion. He is handsome, very charismatic and an excellent mover. Unfortunately I did not get the chance to go inside the arena to take pictures so he was photographed from the railing and it cuts of the view of the whole horse. Nonetheless, I wanted to share his photo because even in his body language you can detect a special personality, one which is enhanced by his very dark bay color against the backdrop of bright sand. He is another prized Asil stallion at Al Basel. I don’t now about his present status. -Joe Ferriss
I just wanted to quickly add to the wonderful blogs on the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain. I learned much by reading them. I just wanted to add that I found it comforting when I visited Syria in 1996 that the Kuyahlan Hayfi strain that came from there via *Reshan is still very much alive. When we were visiting the newly built Al Basel government stud, they introduced a number of their stallions of various strains. One handsome young bay stallion was of the Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion. I got a snap shot of him. It is fairly descriptive and I wanted to share it here. It is not a very sharp image because he was quite far away in a very large paddock and we did not have the opportunity to get in the arena close up. So I set my camera to the max telephoto and offer the image here in web resolution. The sire of this colt was the senior stallion at the time, a handsome grey named Basil. I do not recall getting to see the dam but perhaps someone who sees this blog and is familiar with the breeding at the stud can tell us more about this…
Today I am pleased to introduce my second guest blogger, Joe Ferriss. Joe is known to most breeders and enthusiasts of Asil Arabian horses, East and West; he needs no introduction. Joe’s reputation extends to unlikely places. In the fall of 2006, I was in the desert near the Syrian-Iraqi border with some friends. We were gathered around a camp fire on a late afternoon, sipping coffee and talking horses. Some Bedouins from the neighboring village had joined us, and one of them asked me where I came from. When I mentioned that I had lived in the USA for some time, the Bedouin, who was from the Tai tribe, told me of an American man he had come to meet a few years back: “Ju Faris”. He said of Joe: “Hada Faris”, which roughly translates into: “Now that’s a horseman”. I thought it was funny that Joe’s last name translated in to the Arabic word for “horseman”. Joe and I go back a long time. When we started corresponding in 1994, I was still living in Lebanon, and email had not been invented yet. We did not meet in person until the year 2000, when Joe visited me at the University of Chicago, and I returned the visit to his home in Quincy, Michigan. I am thrilled to resume our correspondence on this blog.
When I was a child (not too long ago), I used to enjoy playing a game with my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, where I would sit in his lap and try to guess the names of the horses in the pictures he was showing me. My all-time favorite was Zenobia, a ‘Ubayyah mare we owned at the time, and I wanted to see Zenobia in every picture. Lets see whether any of you recognizes where the Asil mare in this picture came from (don’t worry, I won’t go as far as asking you to guess who she actually was). Three hints: 1. This is not Zenobia (she was grey) 2. This is not Moniet El-Nefous, either. 3. This is not a Moniet descendant, nor a Moniet relative, nor an Egyptian horse for that matter, nor … ok, you should be playing, not me.
Several readers informed me they had trouble posting comments to this blog. It is as easy as 1,2, 3: 1. Click on the title of the entry you want to comment on (e.g., “Books: The Rwala Bedouin Today”). This will take you to this entry’s specific page. 2. Scroll down to “Leave a Reply” 3. Write your comment, enter your user name, your email address, your website (optional), and click “submit”. That’s it. Note that you needen’t be logged in, registered or anything else. I realize I may have unintentionally misled some of you in an email in which I announced the launch of this blog, by wrongly linking a reader’s ability to post comments to his/her being registered, and to receiving an email with a password upon registering. This was an error, for which I apologize. I am still learning here, so please bear with me…
I am never tired of showing this picture of the lovely mare Wadeehah, a 1970 desert-bred Asil Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah from the marbat of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn. The strain is also known as Ma’naghiyat Abu Sayfayn. I took this picture of Wadeehah in 1992 in Aleppo, Syria, where she spent the latter part of her life in the ownership of my friend Kamal ‘Abdul Khaliq. It is a shame Kamal never managed to get a filly out of her, only colts. She did produce the mare Sayfia, however, which is the subject of an earlier post. Sayfia is now in her early twenties and is still in the desert with ‘Abdallah Abu Sayfayn, ‘Atiyah’s son. Sayfiah has now a filly by a Saglawi Jadran of from the tribe of al-Baqqarah. So the line goes on. Kamal had bought Wadeehah in 1982 from ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn himself. She had a young colt by her side. The colt, named Marzuq, was accidentally hit by a truck soon after arriving at Kamal’s, but he survived his hinquarter injury and went on to become a leading stallion for Kamal, leaving plenty of splendid colts and fillies, before dying a few months ago. The most striking thing about Marzuq was his kindness. You…
If anyone of you is in the mood for some serious reading about Bedouin tribes in modern day Arabia, then William Lancaster’s The Rwala Bedouin Today is the book to read. I found it a rather easy read for an academic book that delves deep into into anthropological theory. It describes in detail how the Rwala creatively used a number of assets and options in their possession to cope with the many transformations modernity brought about to their identity and lifestyle. The chapter on the history of the tribe is informative, too.
Early mentions of Kuhaylan Hafi by Western travelers to the desert link it to two Fad’aan clans (large families): al-Mahayd and al-Hubayqan. Lady Anne Blunt mentions that the strain acquired a certain reputation when Turki Ibn Jad’aan al-Mahayd, the head of the Fad’aan tribe, was killed in a raid against the Ruwalah tribe, who captured his war mare, a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah. Turki was slain by Khalaf al-Adhn al-Sha’laan after he fell on the ground, his mare having stumbled on a jerboa – a desert rodent – hole. The Fad’aan felt that the Ruwalah had violated the rules of desert warfare, and a long feud between the two tribes ensued. Bedouin accounts of the story say that the mare was not captured, but that she made it back to the Fad’aan camp, where Turki’s fellow tribesmen ragingly hamstrung her for letting their leader down (yikes!). I don’t know the exact date of this event, altghough I suspect it took place in the 1890s. The clan of al-Mahayd, which is the ruling clan of the Fad’aan, is generally acknowledged as the “owner” of the marbat of Kuhaylan Hayfi. Most hujaj (authentication certificates delivered for desert bred Arabian horses) of Kuhaylan Hayfi horses I have seen trace the horse in the hujja…
The previous discussion concluded (for now) that the strain of Kuhaylan Hayfi has developed sometime between 1850 and 1875. What was it known as before that? and where did it derive its name from? Like many, but not all, Kuhaylan strains, Kuhaylan Hayfi, which by the way is also called Kuhaylan al-Hayf, branched out of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz appears to have been more than a strain — i.e., a family name for Arabian horses related through the dam line. Rather, it seems to have been a generic name for a “pool” of horses not necessarily related to each other, but sharing something else in common, perhaps the same owner (more on that in a subsequent post). Kuhaylan al-Ajuz typically “mutates” into a new strain when it becomes associated with a new owner (e.g., Kuhaylan Khdili), a celebrated mare with a specific characteristic (e.g., Kuhaylan al-Musinn), or an event of some importance. The later case is that of Kuhaylan Hayfi or Kuhaylan al-Hayf. Kuhaylan Hayfi “belongs” to the tribe of the Fad’aan, which means that the mare that founded the strain and became the first Kuhaylah Hayfiyah was a Kuhaylah al-‘Ajuz owned by Fad’ann Bedouins. Al-Hayf in Arabic means the social exclusion resulting from a ban. A rough synonymous term would be the word “ostracism”…
Why am I starting this “Strain of the Week” series with this particular strain? Shameless promotion. Kuhaylan Hayfi just happens to be the strain of my Asil Arabian mare, Wisteria CF, which also gives me an excuse to display her picture. There are other reasons, too: many Asil Arabian horsebreeders are familiar with the strain, as a result of the importation of the desert-bred Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare *Reshan to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. *Reshan went on to become one of the foundation mares of Arabian horse breeding in America, and left hundreds of Asil descendants in this country, most of which belong to the Davenport group, like Wisteria CF. (For those of you who have been living on the moon for the past half-century, the term “Davenport” refers to those Asil Arabians descended exclusively from the desert-bred Asil Arabian horses imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906, and from a few others desert-breds he’d owned prior to this importation). Back to the strain itself, of which *Reshan is only the most famous desert-bred representative. First, how old is it? Youthful as strains go, Kuhaylan Hayfi ‘only’ goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century: the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, which collects Bedouin testimonies about Arabians horses up to ca. 1850, makes no mention of it. …
I may not fully realize what I am getting into. That’s 52 different strains of Arabian horses per year! The good news is that there are enough strains to keep going at this pace for at least three years. The bad news is that I will have to research the lesser known ones, and find pictures of representatives of such strains, many of which have vanished. But then, that’s the fun part in this challenge. Lets see how far this will take me…
I am pleased to introduce my first guest blogger: Robert J. Cadranell II (RJ) is a friend, a dedicated breeder of Arabian horses of Davenport bloodlines, and one of the foremost Arab horse researchers of our generation. RJ was, together with Michael Bowling, the co-editor of the Arabian Visions magazine, during the nineties, and is currently leading the effort behind the Davenport Conservancy. RJ will be blogging about the history of Arabian horses in the West, and one couldn’t think of a better person to do so.
Anyone interested in objective (vs. romanticized) knowledge of Bedouins in the 20th century needs to read this book. The author, Jibrail Jabbur, a Syrian, was born at the turn of the twntieth century in a town on the fringes of the desert, near Palmyra; he studied in Princeton, NJ, and went on to become a Professor of Arabic literature at the American University of Beirut (my alma mater).
When in March of 2007, I called Abdallah ibn ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn on his mobile, I knew I had a date with history. Abdallah, 55, lives in the desert in north-eastern Syria, and is the owner [sahib] of a marbat of the strain of Maanaghi Sbayli known as Maanaghi Abu Sayfayn, after his family. He is the son of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, a Bedouin who reportedly lived to the age of one hundred, and was an authority on Arabian horses. ‘Atiyah was a master breeder, too and you can see for yourselves: he bred the gorgeous mare Sayfia, which is pictured here. The Abu Sayfayn are a clan of the Shumaylat, which is one of the main branches of the Fad’aan tribe. Other closely related Shumaylat clans include Ibn Hubayqan’s, who owns the main marbat of Kuhaylan Hayfi, and Ibn ‘Amayir’s, who owns Kuhaylan al-Musinn (more on these guys later). If you take out the flurry of unfamiliar names of people, places, and horses that clutter the interview and may seem off-putting, you will find this conservation helpful in shedding light on a number of Bedouin practices: inbreeding, stealing horses, exchanging horses from brides, transfers of ownership, and so on. Read the full text of the conversation here, and let me know what you think.
The discussion about the blood marks on the bodies of grey Arabian horses elicited the most reactions this week. Readers shared photos of Asil Arabian horses from different breeding groups (Bahraini, Davenport, Egyptian, “modern” Syrian, and Saudi) with bloodmarks on their shoulders and bellies. These pictures serve as reminders that regardless of the artificial breeding categories in which breeders have sought to put them, these horses are all one. They are all Asil. Thanks to Jenny Lees for this photo of an Asil Kuhaylat al-Kraay at the Royal Studs of Bahrain with the blood mark on her shoulder.. I will be blogging more about such fun topics, showing pictures whenever possible.
It was a hot and humid summer afternoon in Marseille, France, where I was living at the time, and a rather less hot, albeit equally humid afternoon in Bristol, UK, where my friend (and fellow horse enthusiast) Hazaim still lives. We were in the midst of one of these heated phone conversations about the origin of a particular strain of Arabian horses, with little hope of converging any time soon, when Hazaim said: “Lets just ask the Bedouin who owns the strain!” “How?” “Well, just like we’re doing here: over the phone!” So we started calling our friends and contacts in Syria, many Bedouins themselves, and we asked them to give us the contacts of the Bedouins horsebreeders they knew. It often took days, even weeks, before these friends came back to us with the number we wanted. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get hold of them directly on a cell phone number; sometimes the number was that of the only household that had a land line in the village, and we had to wait until whomever answered the phone went and fetched the Bedouins we wanted to speak to; and sometimes, we were just informed that their neighbor or relative had packed his tent and taken his flock some place else, and that we had to call back in the…
A nice article by Gudrun Waiditschka about the 2007 WAHO Conference in Syria, with lots of pictures of desert Arabian horses. I was invited to make a keynote presentation about strains at the conference, but had to drop out at the last minute. This is the first time I regret not attending a WAHO conference. My friend Hazaim al-Wair, who prepared the presentation with me, confronted the crowds on his own, and did a superb job by all accounts. Hazaim you need to turn your laptop on, and start blogging..
The longer – and more oblique – answer is that it depends. On what? On personal preference, taste, sentimental attachement, etc. Some Bedouins fancy a particular strain because it was owned by their father or their grandfather; others because horses from this strain ahve achieved fame in combat, and made the name of the tribe rise above its neighbors’; others might favor one strain over another because it is rare.. Personally, I confess having a soft spot for two strains: Kuhaylan al-Wati and Kuhaylan al-Sharif, none of which are represented in Western Asil Arabian breeding. I like them because of their glorious histories and because their origins go a long, long way back.
The short answer is yes. Because strains are just family names given by the Bedouins to Arabian horses that are related through the dam line, there is no reason why one name should be “superior” or “inferior” to another (Is Smith better than Doe, or than Al-Dahdah?) It all boils down to the quality of the individual horse. Some horses are just better than others (I will defer the discussion of what my opinion of a “better” Arabian horse is), and if bred well, these horses may in turn produce better horses, and so on. Other individuals are less good, and if bred poorly, will end up producing inferior horses as well. If these individuals are females that in turn produce females so that the strains can be carried forward, then yes, the result in the very long run is one strain becoming better than the other. In essence, strains improve as a result of sound breeding over long periods of time, and degenerate otherwise. Nevertheless, all strains are all created equal. Lady Anne Blunt, who came as close in understanding Bedouin Arabian horse breeding as any other Westerner ever did, wrote that her stud manager, a Mutayr Bedouin by the name of Mutlaq al-Battal, never ceased to remind her than “All (strains) are…
This question was one of several that were asked to a virtual panel of American, German and Arab breeders and students of Arabian horses, to be featured in Al-Khamsa‘s flaghship publication, Al Khamsa Arabians III. You will no doubt have guessed that the question elicited as many different answers as there were ‘experts’. This was my answer to the question: “Strains are typically a collection of names (Kuhaylan, Saqlawi, Ubayyan, Dahman, etc.) that constitute the Bedouins’ way of identifying a horse and tracing its provenance. This would help them determine whether a horse is an Asil Arabian or not. Strains function very much like family names for human beings. The only difference is that Arabian horses’ family names (i.e., strains) are invariably transmitted through the dam, while in most societies human beings family names are transmitted through the father.”
Let me share with you this picture of one of my all-time favorite desert-bred Arabian mares. *Al-Hamdaniah, the bloody-shouldered mare, was a present from the governor of the oil-rich al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia to Admiral Richard Lansing Connolly, who brought her to the USA in 1947. Superstitious Bedouins believed that the large reddish spots on some horses’ shoulders were the blood of slain warriors, and considered that these horses brought bad luck to their owners. Others, on the contrary, valued these marks as a sign of purity and good breeding. Take a look at similar markings on the body of the mare Helwah, a Maanaghiyah Sbailiyah born in the Syrian desert in the early 1970s.
A few people come to mind each time I am about to embark on a horse-related endeavor such as this blog. These are the people without whom true Arabian horse breeding – and our understanding of it – would not be what it is today. Some of these people I had the honor to meet and get to know well, others I simply heard of or read about. Robert Mauvy of France is one of them. His enduring contribution to the breed will be featured prominently on this blog. Charles Craver in the United States is another. His and his wife Jeanne’s Craver Farms continue to produce one crop of authentic, desert-like Asil Arabians after another, and his breeding philosophy is an inspiration for many breeders here in the USA. The dedicated Bedouins individuals who handed us these magnificent creatures from time immemorial are yet others whose legacy I reflect upon as I write these lines. The next few entries on this blog will seek to highlight the contribution of some of these Bedouin individuals, and put it on par with that of the great ‘masters’ of Europe and America.