Solomon, a Courthouse Hamdani Simri
The photo below comes from James Fleming’s 1992 booklet, The Courthouse Arabian Stud of Bill Musgrave Clark, published by Alexander Heriot.
Solomon was the first foal of his dam. In 1952, he was exported to Italy along with his half-brother Sennacherib, by Joseph. Neither horse left offspring at the Courthouse Stud.
Solomon’s sire Atesh was a chestnut Ma’naqi Sbayli, bred by the Gomussa Sba’ah, while his dam, Somra II, was by Fedaan, a grey Saqlawi Jadran, bred by Ibn Zubaynah of the Fed’aan. Atesh was imported to England circa 1922 and bought by Bill Musgrave Clark by 1925, while Fedaan was imported in 1926 and acquired by Clark the following year.
Somra II’s dam was the Blunt-bred Safarjal, a brown mare by Berk out of the Daoud daughter Somra. Safarjal was Lady Wentworth’s peace offering to Clark, after she roused his ire by using an agent, claiming to be acting on behalf of a group of Americans, to buy Skowronek from him. She came to the Clarks carrying Sainfoin (by Rasim), who would go on to be a successful show horse in hand and under saddle, as well as a winning racehorse. In the tail female, Safarjal goes back to the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Sobha, bought by Lady Anne Blunt from Mahmud Bey in Cairo.
Solomon is simply gorgeous!!!!
Didn’t know Wentworth had it in her to offer peace offerings.
Isn’t he just? Would love to know whether he and his brother had any offspring in Italy.
Have you ever seen a coupling that perfect? Huh? which is why I’m muddling over a cmk arab side anglo..
The CMK horses tend to be very well put together, I think. The Courthouses seem, in the photos I have seen, to have had pretty decent hind ends on the whole.
Atesh and Fedaan were both accepted by Al Khamsa in the 1986-87 Carol Schulz proposal for specific foundation ancestors of horses not yet in North America but if imported would be eligible.
My understanding is that the last asil horses with Fedaan died a few years back; Atesh and Clark’s other stallion Nimr have asil descendants in South Africa and Namibia through the mare Rosina. The Fedaan son Boaz (ex Betina, making him a half-brother to Bahram) was also exported to South Africa, but unfortunately he did not sire any purebred Arabian foals, only partbred foals, rather like El Moez; I wish I knew why these two stallions were overlooked.
He reminds me of a combo of three particular stallions all at once; *Morafic, *Muson, and Hamdani (the 1938 stallion who sired *Muhaira). I can a little of each in different facets of Solomon despite only one having a known distant relation.
Even with a ‘non-perfect photo’ being taken at an odd angle, it is clearly evident to see he was handsome & quite nicely put together. What a shame he wasn’t used at Courthouse.
Relatively few of Clark’s horses had breeding opportunities at Courthouse, alas. In the early years, it seems he was too busy riding them; he also apparently did not believe in using his stallions for breeding before the age of ten or so.