Photo of the Day: Best (Besbes x Berthe) from France
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 and her maternal grandsire Irmak (a gorgeous horse of the most classic type, pictured below) were born in Tunisia (at Sidi Thabet and Sidi Bou Hadid, respectively), and her maternal granddam Bassala was born in Algeria (at Tiaret). All three were subsequently imported to the French goverment stud of Pompadour, where they conspired to produce Bucolique and her full sister Best, pictured below. Best’s picture was sent to me by her owner Rose Cambon.
Best, born in 1981, was still alive in 2006, but had stopped breeding. She is pensioned at Jean Cambon’s stud in South-Western France, after having produced a string of race winners in France and the United Arab Emirates, none of them by Asil stallions (I am being polite here: saying that some of these stallions are non-Asil is a euphemism). At the time, Ms. Cambon was open to the idea of trying to breed here again, this time to an Asil stallion.
Both mares trace to the root mare Wadha, a Jilfat Dhawi bought by the French from the Fadaan Bedouin tribe and imported to Algeria in 1875.
‘Best’ son ‘Basilic du Ghazal’ by Dormane is now in Syria at the Gorayeb’s Farm he is a champion sprinter and his stud fee is 1000 usd,it is a shame that Asil Syrian mares are bred to French non-asil stallions for racing purposes.it reminds me when the syrian breeders,in the 50’s stop using bedouin stallions and covered their mares by Iraqi stallions, sometimes doutbul, only to be able to sell their products to the Beirut racetrack,especially fantastic Sbaa mares,daughters of the famous Krush Halba,Sheikh el Arab ,and Gazwane,
I am usually polite, but sometimes I have to say things the way there are: Hisham Ghurayyib and his sons will soon destroy all the Asil breeding in Syria. They need to be stopped.
there is more french stallion in Syria ,the resposible is the breeding policy of the Syrian’s who simply have no breeding policy.But thanks god there still a lot of presrvationist breeders mainly the billionaires :Nizar el Assaad (nothing to do with the president)mohamed Hamsho,Manal el Assad Basil’s sister and wife of Maher the president brother,Naji Chaoui,Omar Ambarji,Mustafa el Jabri,Saeed Agha Yagan.ect.. these people are fanatics for the Syrian Horse,some of them have a product from a foreign stallion but it is only a matter of ”let see what happens if we mate this particular good race mare to a french stallion” and that is all, it is not their breeding policy.As for the Gorayebs ….the best race horse today is a pure syrian belonging to Nizar el Assaad he is in his male line a great great grand son of the famous Krush Halba line who is flourishing in Turkey today.
Turkey worse to be invistigated for Asil horses :The Turkish Gov. who in the 30’s bought the best stallions and mares from Lebanon (krush Halba)Syria and Irak and started a new breeding program with only lately the infusion of some polish or Russian blood ,they have the biggest racing Arabian population in the world 3500,they are using blood typing since the 60’s all of this under the Turkish goverment supervison who owns the main 3 haras them only for breeding Arab horses .
Judith Forbis wrote a lot about Turkish horses .
A visit to the Waho site /the turkish report and to the turkish jockey club http://www.tjk .org is very useful (the site is both in turkish and english)just to see how wellorganize it is ie:you can have a horse career and video.
the TJK generates in 2007 1 billion usd in gambling and gave 100 millions usd. in prize money to Arab racing.the richest Arab race is not in Dubai but in Istambul the malagrizt race with 800.000 usd in prizes.Unfortunately I can’t race in turkey who is so close because their races ,except the few international ones,are reserved only for turkish horses
viva Ataturk
Do you think they still have Asil horses there, especially in the South Eastern area, close to Syria? There are some Bedouin tribes in southern Turkey, mainly the tribe of Jayss. I wonder whether they still breed horses, and if so what kind.
I’m talking about the turkish goverment stud in Kareacabey,Anadolou,Sultansuyu where there are still breeding and selling in auction descendants of horses bought by the turkish mission 1933/1935 inLebanon,Syria and Northern Irak mainly Mossul.Bassil Jedaan saw all the hujjaj while in inspection tour for WAHO and he was amazed ,anyway look on the WAHO site for the Turkish report .He also saw the grave of ‘krush halba’who was bought for 200 gold francs in 1933 in Halba by ther turkish comission and founded a racing dinasty in turkey .In Egypt he has also descendant trough his son ‘Krush’bought in 1936 by Dr Mabrouk from the RAS,in Lebanon his most famed son is Gazwan.It worth enquring the only problem is that few of the Turks speak english.but the quantity of Asil horses must be huge
I read the WAHO report, and found it very interesting. We need to ask insiders in Turkey.
These are 2 names of english speaking Turks that I met at The IFAHR (international federation arab horse racing) Barhan Alper: balper @tjk.org this gentleman was the translator to Cihat Guruz president of the turkish ass.of arab horses owners.
the other is Burak Konuk: burakk@tjk.org lets try all of us sending mails to the attention of Cihat Guruz maybe they will answer us
Good idea..
Bonjour,
1°) Encore une jeune pouliche, Best avait déjà elle-même gagné une course en plat réservée aux pur-sang Arabes sur l’hippodrome de Pompadour (piste sable, circonférence: 2km.Ceci malgré une taille modeste.
Le brigadier-chef Dominique OUVRARD qui l’entraînait pour ce prix, travaillait encore il y a deux ans à la jumenterie de “La Rivière” à proximité d’Arnac-Pompadour (en Corrèze-France).
2°) Merci énormément pour cette présence compétente de votre part. La photo donne envie de caresser Best à travers l’écran pour la remercier d’autant de bons services, avec sa loyauté d’aller vers l’avant, même sous un poids plus important.
Cordialement, avec une reconnaissance pour le bonheur que vous apportez aujourd’hui dans le monde entier.
Dominique – France
May I tranlate? i’m not sure to be clever enough. As I can see how good you understand french language
Cher monsieur,
Merci de votre message, et merci de me lire, huit ans apres avoir ecrit cet article sur Best. Je regrette encore de ne pas avoir fait plus d’effort pour preserver cette lignee a l’epoque ou je vivais encore en France, faute de moyens en ce temps-la.
Hi everybody enthusiastic about Arabian horses!
And merci beaucoup a Edouard Aldahdah
for lettimg me see a photo of the mother of my really beloved horse Bolet de Ghazal, older brother to Basilique who was taken to a Syrian stud.
If he is alive these days, in this horrible war?
The Assads seem to be very good in protecting their friends and belongings though…..
My horse anyway is happily living in Bavaria now, where I took him when we left UAE in 2011. He was in Sheikh Mohammeds racing stable until 2009. Now at the age of nearly 20 he still is in marvellous shape, full of energy, enjoying our hacks in the montagne, friends in the neighbouring paddocks and 24 x 7 good hay !
And he is the most loveable equine personality in the world I know
A bientot Daughterofthewind
(And can anybody pls translate this into Arabic for me?)
Cordiallement
Andrea