Photo of the Day: Hamdani Ibn Bahri, 2001 asil Hamdani Simri stallion in Canada
Below is a photo of Hamdani Ibn Bahri (Bahri x Qaisumeh by Qaisum who is Bahri’s full brother), a 2001 asil Hamdani Simri stallion from the breeding of Lee Oellerich in British Columbia, Canada. He has six lines to the stallion *Taamri, DB and carries 50% Taamri blood and three lines to *Rudann, DB and thee lines to *Halwaaji, DB.
*Taamri, Rudann, and *Halwaaji were all imported to the USA in 1960 by Sam Roach from the Saud Royal Stud of al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia. The hujjah (certificate of authenticity) of *Taamri was featured here.
That is a very close bred pedigree!
All the better for outcrossing to essentially unrelated domestically bred american waho arabians. Close perusal of what for discussions sake we’ll call ” american arabs” shows that basically a majority of them have Davenport-Kellog/ Crabbet foundations with subsequent top crossing to Polish stallions. Of course there may be some difference in the details like a smattering of Spanish arabs, or old eygyptian, with the occasional outcross to a horse like Mirage.
( lady wentworths loss was our gain)But breeding to a horse like Hamdani Ibn Bahri who is closely bred to unrelated horses for at least 6 or more generations should provide a powerful outcross that would generate hybrid vigor. This of course presumes that the outcross stallion has acceptable confirmation and disposition. A lot of american thourobred breeders do something similar with outcrossing sprinter lines from the U.S. with distance horses from England and Europe- the goal being to get a speedy horse who can carry his speed beyond 7/8ths of a mile to the classic U.S. distance of a mile and one quarter. The theory is that it should work for us here too in adding leg bone, quieter more stable disposition, and athletic confirmation.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
Interesting pedigree. It is possible that the repeated stallion Taamri may not be related genetically to the two mares Rudann and Halwaaji and even though the mares are of the same strain we do not know if they are related to each other. If that were the case then the basis of the close breeding is from animals not related to each other as opposed to some other close breeding programs where the starting animals were already related to each other.
Whether Rudann,Halwaaji and Taamri are related or not it is still a very, very tight pedigree. I wholeheartedly agree with everything Bruce has said, except I would go further than ‘acceptable’… conformation and temperament are paramount, they are what the horse is, the stallion would need to be better than the mares, not just be an outcross for the sake of it,though in principle I think that what you have outlined Bruce is the way forward for the WAHO horses, well that and performance testing :).
Lisa, to look at it from a Bedouin point of view it could be said that the mares should be better than the stallion and that the stallion’s dam should be a superior mare. Either way, I agree with you and Bruce. These straight desert bred horses whether Saudi, Bahraini Davenport, Syrian or any combination of these are really about the only maintained out-cross to ALL other Arabian bloodlines. They have NO Blunt, or Egyptian or Polish blood which is so predominant throughout the vast majority of WAHO recognized bloodlines.
Now if you really want a study in close breeding look up the pedigree of horses like Carver DE AHA#580366, a fine stallion and a fine sire. Also look up the pedigree of his daughter Kerry DE AHA#633039 who was recently exported to the UAE. Please extend these pedigrees for more than eight generations and you will be amazed.
Joe, I don’t disagree with you, the mares are equally important, more so with regard to what a foal learns as well as inherits. However, today, usually, a stallion will have far more progeny than a mare and therefore has the potential to have a bigger impact. I have seen far to many horrendous results of people spending too much time looking at pedigrees and not enough at the horses in front of them, this is the reason that I wanted to underline Bruce’s point about the individual merit of the stallion. I absolutely 100% support the use of desert bred blood in the terms that Bruce outlined as an outcross/backcross, but the term ‘desert bred’ doesn’t quite mean all it did 200 or 2,000 years ago. While the blood, and traditions of the Bedouin remain, we cannot pretend that today’s desert bred horses are subjected to the immense rigours, hardship and war, the extreme selection pressures, that the Arabian horses of the past were. The furnace that forged the breed that we love and admire has cooled. It is for this reason that I believe that hard testing of Arab horses is essential today, desert bred or not.
There are plenty of breeds of horses and dogs which sadly illustrate how quickly a breed can lose it’s essence when it’s original raison d’etre has passed, even when the blood is pure.
As for close breeding I have seen excellent and appalling results from it using good lines of horses. I fully understand the genetic advantages and disadvantages. I must admit that while most of my opinions are based on my training and experience, in this case it is just a personal view, it just gives me an uneasy feeling, it could easily be argued/proved that I am wrong, it’s just how I feel! sorry 🙂
Amazed and delighted. Charles says sometimes he wonders if the inbreeding is not necessary to hold the type. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but these tightly focused lines offer us a real look at the genetics of the asil horse.
Well, … I would not, ever, like to breed a horse so closely, but I WOULD use such a horse, if I liked him, as an outcross…!
I think my position on this is weak to say the least, I will say no more!
🙂