Photo of the Day: Ghazi, desert-bred, imported by the French to Algeria

Today French horse-breeder Adrien Deblaise made my day.

He sent me a set of very rare, old pictures of desert-bred Arabians imported to France, Tunisia and Algeria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some time ago, I started a series of blog entries featuring photos of some these outstanding and so little known desert-breds (Dahman, El Sbaa, Nibeh, Burgas, Taleb, Niazi, El Managhi, etc), but I ran out of original photos to share. I am happy I now have a few more pictures to resume this series. Merci Adrien!

This is Ghazi. Chestnut; desert-bred; born in 1901; recorded sire: “Arkoubi”, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz; recorded dam: “Zarifa”, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz; raced successfully in Egypt; imported by the French government to Algeria (then a part of France) in 1909; head sire at the Tiaret stud for many years. Robert Mauvy, who knew him well, said of him:

“Alezan dore, trois balzanes et liste, et dont presque toutes les juments nees a Tiaret descendent. Couvrant beaucoup de terrain avec de tres grandes lignes, il brillait par l’elegance de ces gestes et de ses allures … Ce fut, en outre, un excellent performer.”

By 1954, on the eve of the bloody (more than a million dead) Algerian eight year war of independence from France, it was difficult to find a mare at Tiaret that did not trace to Ghazi. Today his blood can be found in Tunisia, Morocco and France.

To look at pictures of other horses featured in this series, go to this blog’s middle column, under “Themes”, and click on “France”. A new page will open, scroll down, and look for the relevant blog entries.