Saad II, Kuhaylan al-Khdili in Syria

I don’t know if this stallion of excellent lines is still alive or not, but a reader asked about him. He was bred by Radwan Shabareq in Aleppo, and given to the late Mustafa al-Jabri who used him at stud. I knew him as a newborn, as a colt and as a stallion.

His mother bellonged to an old Bedouin, ‘Aboud al-‘Ali al-‘Amoud of al-Uqaydat, who was extremely attached to her, and held her in the highest esteem. He refused to part with her at any cost, despite many offers. He refused to breed her, because he did not think that any stallion he knew was worthy of her in purity or othewise.

Yusuf al-Rumaihi, the late Qatari consul in Syria (we are in the mid-1980s), a collector of desert-bred horses and an avid learner and fine connoisseur of desert lines, wanted her at any price, but the old Bedouin would not sell. The mare was getting up in age. He did agree to lease her, and the mare went to Damascus where she was bred to the Egyptian stallion Okaz (Wahag x Nazeemah). She foaled a filly which the Qatari consul retained. After this, the old Bedouin nagged so much that the Qatari consul returned her to him. By the time she reached old age, the old Bedouin agreed to lease her again to Radwan Shabareq after seeing his stallion Al-Aawar and conceding that he was worthy of her. She was bred to him, produced Saad II (al-Thani). The old Bedouin remained a frequent visitor of the mare at Radwan’s in Aleppo. I don’t know whether he took the mare back to die at his place.

Here is a picture I took of Saad II in 1999.