Back to work, and to the blog

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Yesterday was a painful first work day after five weeks away from Washington. It’s pouring rain outside, and a quick glance at my office window makes my PC screen – where unread emails are piling up –  a pleasure to stare at.  Oh well… But I am back to blogging, and boy does that feel good.  

My favorite Arabian horse picture

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If I were to chose one picture, I think this one would top them all.. Prince Hal (Tripoli x Dharebah), an Asil Kuhaylan al-Hayf, is just magnificent, with Charles Craver holding the bridle. [August 27 update: Thanks to AAW for this photo]

Summer recess…

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Tomorrow I will be taking my family to Europe for vacation, and I will be back in the USA on August 26th. I will also be going to Yemen from August 6 to 15th, for work. I plan to see horses there too. I took the decision not to blog while on vacation. I don’t … Read more

On Denouste’s dam Djaima

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Looking at Denouste’s dam we can easily understand why he looked this way at 2.This is a powerful mare, look at these shoulders and at her hidquarters, you find a lot of horses with the same head in Syria where it is called ‘arneh‘. It is not a beautiful head but does not mean at all that … Read more

Gloom and doom on French Asil Arabians?

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Some of you have emailed me privately with questions about French and North African Asil Arabians of the past and the present. Thank you for your messages. It is nice to see that there is interest in these horses. I reread the posts I have been writing on French Asil horses to refresh my memory. … Read more

Book: Cities of Salt, by Abdelrahman Munif

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I just finished reading the first volume of “Cities of Salt”, the five-volume masterpiece of the prominent Arab novelist Abdelrahman Munif. I really recommend that you read it, if world literature is your cup of tea.. An English translation exists, by Peter Theroux, and so does a German one. There might be a French one too, published by Sindbad/Actes Sud edition, but I couldn’t find … Read more

Heads up: Krush al-Baida

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Next on the list for the “Strain of the Week” series is Krush al-Baida. A celebrated strain, Krush al-Baida is only a small branch of the larger Kuhaylan al-Krush (or Kuhaylan Krushan) family. There is a lot to talk about.. Meanwhile, here is a picture of a desert-bred mare from this strain.

Photo of the day: Irmak

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Another picture of the magnificent Tunisian Asil stallion Irmak (Aissaoui x Leila by Duc), bred by Anatole Cordonnier in Tunisia in 1959 and exported to France. I posted another picture of Irmak here. Irmak was a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz by strain. Photo courtesy of P. H. Beillard, of the stud of Le Sureau in France.

Clay horse statue: age 4300 years

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Did you know that evidence of the domestication of horses by man dated back to at least 4,300 years ago?  This conclusion was reached by University of Chicago archaelogists following the discovery in 1993 of a clay figurine representing a horse at an excavation site in North Eastern Syria. The site, Tell es-Sweyhat, which is … Read more

LD Rubic, a ruby in the rough

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This is one of my all-time favorite Asil Arabian mares. LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla) is unique for several reasons: 1) she is a great-grand-daughter of the mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare from Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud born in 1925 and imported to the USA in 1931 by Albert W. Harris. You cannot get any closer to … Read more

Book: Nomads of the Nomads: the Al Murrah Bedouin of the Empty Quarter (by Donald P. Cole)

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The Bedouin tribe of Al Murrah has been immortalized by Wilfred Thesiger‘s gripping classic “Arabian Sands” (1959). If you want to have a less romanticized account of the life of this South Arabian Bedouin tribe, then you ought to read this book, by Donald Powell Cole of the American University in Cairo. Yet Cole’s book was written in the early … Read more

Arabian horses from Yemen: remnants of a distant (or perhaps not so distant) past

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I visited Yemen for the time in 2002 – for work. I was a panelist in a conference that brought together government officials, academics, representative of the private sector, and traditional leaders. Among the latter, I recall seeing a man surrounded by a large retinue of armed bodyguards and followers. People stepped aside when he … Read more

How old are Arabian horse strains?

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Arabian horse strains as we know them today (i.e., family names of horses transmitted through the dam) are about 350 years old, and perhaps more, but we don’t how much more, because of the lack of written sources. The earliest mention of Arabian horses strains in Western Literature occurs in one of the several travel accounts of … Read more

A Simple framework for assessing the purity of desert Arabian horses

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In the interest of practicality and of getting things done, I suggest the following simple framework to assess the eligilbility of desert Arabian horses in any future Global Asil Horse Registry (GAHR). It consists of three levels of eligibility in the form of concentric circles [Jane Ott’also had three levels: BLUE STARS, Blue Lists, and Sublists, … Read more

Unconventional thoughts about a Global Asil Horse Registry

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The idea of an international registry for Asil Arabian horses has been gaining momentum over the last few years, not only within Western Asil breeeders’ circles, but among Arab breeders as well.  Such a registry is long past due and would be the purists’ answer to WAHO. Several Western organizations have come close to establishing such a … Read more

The stallions of Ibn ‘Ufaytan

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[This is the third in a series of four posts on the Ma’anaghi Hadraji marbat of Ibn ‘Ufaytan. Click here and here to access the first and second posts.] We reached the village of Ibn ‘Ufaytan [update July 17 2008: the village is Buthat al-Taqch] in the early afternoon, after having taken a dirt road that … Read more

New milestone

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This evening witnessed the visit of the 2000th reader of this blog, while the number of total hits was reaching 30,000 over five months. I am encouraged by these results, as they show there is some interest in what is ultimately a tiny niche within Arabian horsebreeding. As this blog continues its journey, I will be … Read more

Photo of the day: La Tisa

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A lot of “Photos of the Day” these days.. it is easier to keep a quasi daily writing routine when posting a photo with a short comment, as opposed to posting in the “Strain of the Week” series, which requires me to access research material, old and new..  Don’t take this as a sign of laziness however, it is just that work … Read more

Technical note

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By now, five months into the life of this blog, there has been enough material for a first-time user to get confused.  So if you are looking for information on a particular topic, just click the link to the topic of interest to you on the first right-hand column under “Themes”, or click on a specific keyword under … Read more

Photo of the day: Nomah, a Kuhaylat al-Mizher

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Here’s a headshot of the pretty desert-bred mare Nomah, a Kuhaylat al-Mizher (some say Kuhaylat Ibn Mizher) from the Bedouin tribe of Tai, in North-Eastern Syria. Nomah, which was owned by B. Jadaan, was one of the most photographed Syrian mares, but this is one of her earlier photos.  I have heard several people say that Kuhaylan Ibn Mizher … Read more

Photo of the Day: Best (Besbes x Berthe) from France

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Several recent blog entries have mentioned the Arabian mare Bucolique (Besbes x Berthe by Irmak). Bucolique is arguably one of the few remaining Asil mares of French bloodlines still in breedable age. She was born in 1982, so that window of opportunity is closing fast. Bucolique is not quite representative of “Old French” bloodlines: both her sire Besbes … Read more

Georges P.Tabet ”Chebou” and ”Non Chebou”

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Georges Philippe Tabet, was the Finance minister of Lebanon under the French Mandate (1920-1943).He owned ‘’Al Mushrefeh’’ a big estate near Homs in Syria where he use to breed Arab horses for more than 20 years. Moreover he was member of the ‘’Arab Horse Society ‘’ his name appearing in Vol I of the AHS … Read more

What is a hujjah?

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The following piece appeared in Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008) as a box, and is reproduced here to answer this important question. “Certificates of origin (singular hujjah, plural hujjaj) of horses written in the Arab world follow a clear and uniform pattern that seldom varies. The first part of these certificates is always a religious … Read more

What if we had known a few months earlier…

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Arabesque Azieze (photo below) is at the center of the biggest “what if” story I have recently been involved in. This stallion was born in Australia in 1978 and was later sold to New Zealand. He was by the Egyptian stallion Hansan (El Hilal x Hamamaa), a stallion of Egyptian bloodlines. Nothing to write home … Read more

Hats off

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to Monika Savier from (from Italy), Karsten Scherling (from Germany) and Mahmud Abbas (from Syria) who created the WAHO 2007 Conference Syria website.  One could spend hours watching the thousand photos and videos. Thank you.  

Where have the Bedouin gone?

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I am tying to get hold of the journal article of same name. “Where have the Bedouin gone” was published by anthtropologist Donald Powell Cole of the American University in Cairo in Anthropological Quarterly – Volume 76, Number 2, Spring 2003, pp. 235-267 Here’s the article’s abstract, as written by  the staff of Project Muse: “The … Read more

Sleepless in Doha…

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Tonight I landed in Doha, Qatar, for a work-related conference. I will be confined in the city’s overwhelmingly luxurious Sheraton hotel for the next three days, while you ride, train feed and enjoy your horses. Thank God they have wireless internet in the conference room. I will be blogging about Asil Arabians in my little corner. If I am … Read more

Flickr

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I just opened a Flickr account, and I put on it photos of Asil Arabian horses that I got from the web. I will be putting more photos I took myself as we go. Click here for a slideshow. Place on your cursor on the horse’s photo if you want to know his name. There … Read more

Tracing El Sbaa’s strain

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A previous post listed the strain of the desert-bred Asil Arabian stallion El Sbaa as Ma’naghi. That’s the strain France’s premier purist Arabian horse breeder Robert Mauvy attributed to him in one of his books. A manuscript note, found in El Sbaa’s file in the archives at the government’s Pompadour stud, and cited by Nicole … Read more

Duhayman al-Ajarrash: the hujjah

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After an unfortunate technical problem with uploading pictures that lasted over one week, this blog is back at work.  Apologies for this glitch. Last week, I provided the translation of the hujjah (authenticity certificate) of a desert-bred mare that mentions the stallion Duhayman al-Ajarrash. The mare traces to the horse through her maternal great-granddam. Duhayman al-Ajarrash … Read more

Photo of the day: desert bred Jilfa Stam al-Bulad mare

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The mare in this picture is desert bred, from the strain of Jilfan Stam al-Bulad. Her breeder is an old Bedouin from the al-Yassar section of the tribe of Tay. The picture is frm the early 2000s, and I think that mare is still breeding today.  She is of interest because she traces to a stallion of the Dahman … Read more

Khalil Sarkis and The Hamidie Society

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It was by chance that I learned from my late mother that the “Khalil Sarkis” of the “Hamidie” Society was her maternal grandfather, when one day she told me: “If you like horses you must know that my grand father lost a fortune in horses”. “Gambling” I asked? and she told me that he had lost … Read more

What’s in a hujjah?

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A hujjah (plural hujaj) is usually a certificate of authenticity for Arabian horses.  But it can be much more than that.  Some hujaj offer a detailed snapshot of the lifestyle and mindset of its authors. The hujjah of the Blunt desert import Meshura is a case in point. Take a look at its translation, here. It will be … Read more

What can we do about the last French Asil horses?

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The entries on the French Asil Arabian horses continue to generate a lot of interest.  To some, the photos of classic specimen of Arabians horses were like an eye opener, shedding light on Asil breeding in a country that has imported hundreds of desert bred stallions and mares from Arabian, and set up large-scale breeding ventures that go … Read more

Thank you

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I thank you for welcoming me to Edouard’s blog, I’m 65 married with 3 step-sons, I raced arabians in Beirut without knowing that they were part breds, I owned Arabians in Brazil, without knowing that they were part-breds. I also raced Thouroughbreds in Sao Paulo, Brazil and was partner in a horse who won the … Read more

El Nasser: the new information

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Back to El Nasser. An earlier post identified his sire, “Douhaymane El Ajarrache”, as a Dahman (or Duhayman) ‘Amer from the al-‘Ajarrash family of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. “Douhayman El Ajarrache” was actively breeding in 1937, when El Nasser’s dam was bred to him to produce El Nasser in May 1938. Last year – and here is the fresh information … Read more

Fourth guest blogger: Joe Achcar

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One purpose of this blog is to bridge the gap between arabian horse breeders in the East (the cradle of the breed) and the West (its area of expansion). After introducing Joe Ferriss, RJ Cadranell and Charles Craver (who has yet to send me his contribution), all Asil Arabian horse figures from the West, now … Read more

El Nasser: what we already know

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The starting point of any serious discussion on El Nasser should be a short statement in Judith Forbis’ “Authentic Arabian Bloodstock”, p. 137, where she cites a letter from Henri Pharaon, the one-time owner of El Nasser.   “Pharaon wrote to me on October 6th, 1970 that El Nasser was born on May 1938, that he had purchased the horse from … Read more

Coming soon: new information on El Nasser

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I feel I have been maintaining a fairly uncontroversial blog – so far. But it did not escape me that the only times I broached slightly contentious topics (the issue of an international registry for Asil horses, and the piece on the myth of Kuhaylan Jallabi in Egyptian breeding), readers’ interested was sparked, comments reached the … Read more

Hadrajiyah headshot

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A headshot of the same Ma’naghiyah Hadrajiyah mare, whose name now escapes me. Her sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush from Shammar, from the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarbah. That marbat is known to trace to the “white Krush” of the Mutayr tribe.  Kuhaylan al-Krush will be featured next in “the Strain of the  Week” … Read more

Hakem, the young stallion of Ibn Ufaytan

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It was already two in the afternoon when our van stopped at the house of Faddan Ibn ‘Ufaytan, the owner of the marbat of Ma’naghi Hadraji I had heard so much about.   We had spent the entire morning looking at the horses of the Sherabiyin, in the villages of Tall al-‘Arab al-Gharbi and Tall al-‘Arab al-Sharqi, formerly Kurdish villages … Read more

More on Rubi de la Mouline

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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 … Read more

Ibn Ufaytan

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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 … Read more

The last of the Mohicans

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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 … Read more

The lost Asil Arabians of Algeria

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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 … Read more