Sahra: Welcome!

The 26 year old chestnut Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah mare Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir)  just joined the group of old broodmares whose lines I am trying to preserve.

She was bred by Jeanne Craver in 1985, and then went to Charles’ cousin Crista Couch, and then to Kathryn Busch, who sold her to me.

I was about 10 or 12 the first time I came upon a horse of that line. That was before the internet, and before DVDs too. I was going through the Asil Club’s publication Asil Araber II, when, buried in a sea of Egyptian pedigrees, I found the photo of Erika Schiele’s stallion El Beshir (Faaris x Sirrulla by Sirecho), bred by Mrs Ott. The photo was in black and white and it showed a dapple grey horse, and I was  taken by the horse as much as by its unusual strain (recorded as Ma’naqi Hadraji, but it’s actually Sbayli) and pedigree. There was also that famous photo of the Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Lysander at Craver Farms, and I wondered about that unusual (ie, non SE) pedigree too..

She is by Plantagenet, and according to Charles, “more like Plantagenet than Plantagenet himself”. Her dam was by Sir, her grand-dam by Julyan (Julep x Bint Maaroufa), her g. grand-dam, by Sirecho; her g.g.grand-dam by Sultan (Ibn Nafa x *Exochorda); her g.g.g. grand-dam by Antez; her g.g.g.g. grand-dam by the Davenport imported Kuhaylan Tamri stallion *Houran (the only Al Khamsa line he left), etc., etc.

Anyway, some 15 years later, I started learning about Jeanne Craver’s breeding program (other than the larger Davenport breeding program at Craver Farms jointly with Charles), which was centered around El Beshir’s sister Sirrulya, by Julyan. We started discussing a breeding lease of Sirrulya’s grand-daughter Sahra. For some reason I did not follow up until last year, when Sahra’s owner Kathy Busch and I worked together to get Sahra artificially inseminated from Triermain. She conceived, despite some cysts in her uterus, but did not keep the pregnancy.

Now Sahra is back at Craver Farms, where she is to be bred to Triermain (or Monologue), and if that does not work, to do embryo transfer. Ideally, I would like to harvest more than one egg, but I am not sure how the registry handles three foals born on the same year from one mating..

I don’t have good photos of Sahra to show you just now, and she is an old mare, but here’s a link to a photo of her mother’s brother Dakhala Sabiq (Prince Hal x Sirrulya by Julyan) in his prime. I haven’t even seen her yet.

I want to thank both Kathy for letting me have her, and Jeanne for allowing her back among her and Charles’ horses. Sahra is a war mare, and I have the privilege of being ‘owned’ by her.