Qumayrah, 1991 Shuwaymah Sabbah from the horses of al-Jarbah

One advantage of these weekends on lockdown is that I could catch up on conversations I have been delaying to have. The reach that social media allows for is just incredible, triangulating information from photos and audio records almost in real time. I received many requests for scanned photos of Syrian horses from my archives. The requests in turn prompt conversations that lead to a lot more information.

One such query was prompted by a Syrian breeder from the Jazirah who had read the entry on the Shuwaymah mare of the Jarbah, registered as al-Jawzaa in the Syrian studbook. He was inquiring about specific descendants. Radwan Shabareq had most of these, from an older grey daughter of al-Jawzaa, Dallah. These were lost during the Syrian civil war, except for the stallion Mahboub Halab and a mare now in France. The second round of registrations in the Syrian Studbook has, however added a previously unregistered younger bay daughter of al-Jawzaa named Waddaahah and Waddaahah’s black daughter. They were bred by Nawaf son of Turki son of Mashaal Pasha al-Jarba. This black mare, Qumayrah, has existing offspring. She is a ray of hope for this storied Shuwayman strain.

I had seen Qumayrah in 1999 in Salamiyah, a town on the border of the Syrian desert, east of Hama. My father and I had gone with the late Fawaz al-Rajab to purchase her, after several people had vouched for her authenticity. She was not registered yet, so was likely not as expensive as good registered mares. These were then selling for upwards of 20,000 USD. I remember a smaller black mare, very sweet, with good Arab type. We liked her, but I don’t remember why we did not buy her. I think my father wanted to keep looking for a registered mare at a reasonable price.

Here are two photos I took of her, with Fawaz al-Rajab holding the halter. Fawaz was a “dallal”, meaning horse “finder” and broker and trader from Homs. He is a scion of the Dandashi family of Tall Kalakh. He was also an encyclopedic source of information on the horses in Central Syria. My mother’s brother, Michel Yazigi introduced my father to Fawaz back in 1977 or 78. We visited Fawaz each time we were in Homs. I have fond memories of evenings at Fawaz’s house, a traditional “dar” of black volcanic stones in the heart of the old city of Homs, of which nothing remains but rubble.

Here is another picture of Qumayrah with her then owner, the man from Salamiyah. I did not take this one.

The sire of Qumayrah was a son of the bay Krush mare Ghallaiah (see recent blog entry), from Rakan al-Jarba, her dam was a bay daughter of the horse of Karmo, a Saqlawi Marzakani from the Marazeek, and her grand dam was al-Jawzaa. Karmo’s horse was registered in the first studbook , but he died before a blood sample could be taken, so there was no way to verify his later progeny.