Remembrances of Obeyran

This tiny head shot proved to be confounding for me when I originally first saw it in Our Dumb Animals, Volume 45 [x]. The article it was attached to, “The Arab Horse,” had been written by Spencer Borden, and I couldn’t for the life of me place who the horse was; nor did Borden deign to identify him for me. Published in April of 1913, it was contained in a large volume, and a little bit of digging found two articles written about this very tiny and grainy photo of an Arabian, who turned out to be *Obeyran. I figured the articles were worth a share, and can be seen below – with an attached photo and transcription of them for those who might not be able to see the photos:

[THAT GRAY ARABIAN

Voorheesville, N. Y., March 22, 1913.

Editor Our Dumb Animals:

The picture of the gray Arabian on the cover of the April issue of Our Dumb Animals brings to my mind a very pretty incident in which he played a prominent part. During the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, l was a newspaper correspondent, and on my ?rst visit to the Bedouin camp, this small gray stallion which, it was then reported, had been sold for $20,000, attracted my attention. I said to a gentleman near me who, although dressed in European fashion, wore a bright red fez, “These are not really Arabian horses, are they?”

“Yes, Madame, they are. “We are not Chicago liars,” was his instant answer, in pure English, with the least possible accent.

I was amused. you may be sure, for he was Mr. Ameen A. Shibley, of Beirut, Syria, who had come over with twenty pure Arabian horses, and several families of Arabs, to represent Bedouin life in the desert. He was a Christian, graduate of the American College at Beirut—a thoroughly cultured gentleman.

After I saw those wonderful horses perform from the excellent vantage-point he obtained for my party, my opinion underwent a change as to the horses. Oh, they were wonderful! wonderful! That show was the most attractive on the whole Midway.

MAGDALENE MERRITT.]

[OBEYRAN

The picture of the beautiful horse,on the front page shows us a splendid specimen of the Arab. That such a noble creature could not have been endowed with immortal youth seems a pity. Here is his story:

In the early spring of 1892 an employee of the Turkish ministry of agriculture received a concession from the Turkish government to take a troop of Bedouin horsemen and horses from the Arabian desert to the World’s Fair, Chicago. A company was formed to carry on this enterprise, and the troop landed in Chicago in the spring of 1893.

The company met with severe reverses and ?nally a number of the horses were sold at auction on January 4, 1894, part of them being purchased by Peter B. Bradley, of Hingham, Massachusetts. Among these was the iron-gray stallion “Obeyran,” of the breed Seglawi-Obeyran, foaled in 1889. This horse died in California last year. The history of his name is as follows:

In the ancient time an Arab by the name of Seglawi owned four very distinguished mares. Some writers maintain that these mares were all full sisters. However, at Seglawi’s death he gave his favorite mare to his favorite brother Jedran, that she should always bear that name. His next favorite mare to his brother Arjebi, the third to his brother Obeyran and the fourth to his slave El-Abd.

F.H.R.]

As an aside, I did eventually find another copy of that photo.

The difference of background makes me think that there was once a much larger, much clearer photo. Has anyone had any luck tracking down the original?