The handsome Dahman stallion Ibn Mahrouf, bred by the Babson Farm stood for breeding at the Sheets in the 1980s, when this picture was taken.
This morning Lyman Doyle bred Kinza to Jenny Krieg’s magnificent Bashir Al-Dirri for a 2024 foal. They are from two different branches of the Basilisk female line: Bashir traces to the Peraga branch (*Mirage x Slipper), of which he is the last asil representative, while Kinza traces to the better represented Rabanna (Rasik x Banna) branch. Both stallion and mare blend Crabbet (i.e., Doyle), Babson (i.e., old Egyptian) and Pritzlaff (i.e., new Egyptian lines) seamlessly, so they should be a good match. Of course, Basilisk is from Ibn Dirri’s branch of the Saqlawi Marighi strain, as I have shown in the new book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha”. Below, a recent natural shot of Bashir, from Lyman. He truly is a magnificent horse.
A stunning photo of the 1966 Babson stallion the The Shah (Fabah x Bint Fada by Fa-Serr), exported from the USA to English. The 1978 British National Champion Stallion. Photo: Briery Close, reposted on Facebook by Wilton Burger.
I saw this horse, Daalimaar Al Sharif last year at the Al Khamsa Convention in Fayyetteville, Arkansas, and liked him instantly. He has style, presence and power. I just looked at his pedigree, and was pleasantly surprised at how diverse it was, the Julian/Gulastra, the Hallanny Mistanny, the Sirecho, and a drop of Ibn Halima (just enough) on top of the Serasabba tail female. In general, I am impressed at how Babson and Babson-related breeders in the US have been working with their horses, and how the younger generation of these horses is turning up. one of his young brothers, promising: another brother, WC Sir Habbas Azeer, also out of this mare, well built and equally stylish: and yet another sibling. That mare needs to produce some fillies too!
I so like this photo of the 1985 black Ma’naqi Sbayli mare Suuds Juli Aana (PRI Saqlawi Suud x Julyana ZHS). The muzzle, the jaws, the look in the eye (reminiscent of a mare from Cal Raswan’s pictures of desert horses, don’t remember which one), and again, that overall air of a wild animal. In the second photo, the same mare looks like a tank. A desert background would be mor fitting for these photos.
I was looking at the current Babson Egyptian Arabian stallions tonight, and I was struck by this younger stallion, bred by Dan Ulm. The 2001 chesntnut Saqlawi Jadran stallion Du Akhir Flame (Ibn Mahrouf x Serra Afina by Serr Rou) is quite something. He is really well built, and I especially like the shoulder, the depth of girth and the withers. I even like the color. He is owned by Kim Cooper of Missouri Virginia.
It’s the first time I see this photo of the 1946 Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Ibn Fadl (*Fadl x Turfa). I can’t help but marvel at how great a mare this *Turfa was. Photo from Sporthorse-data.com. It’s heartening to know he was put to good use and sired at least 50 foals.
Don’t you just love the tail carriage on that horse? HR Judaan (Fadaan x Jusera by Julyan) is 50% Julyan (Julep x Bint Maaroufa) and as such carries two close lines to Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare) and a total of 10 lines to Astraled. See how reminiscent that is of his double great grandsire Julep (Gulastra x Aziza).
The Egyptian stallion Fa-Rab (*Fadl x Aana by Fay El Dine), a Dahman bred at the Babson Farm, from Billy Sheet’s photo collection. Not sure who took the photo.
This is another photo from the late Billy Sheet’s collection. It shows the Dahman Shahwan stallion Saafaddan (Faddan x Saaba by Fay El Dine) who was bred at the Babson Farm.
I finally found the reason for my aversion for Babson horse pedigrees (not the horses themselves): it’s got to do with the names. These all look the same to me, and I still have trouble recognizing one horse from another on a pedigree. Try figuring this out: there is a Serrou, a Serr El Rou, an El Serrou, and they are three different horses. There is a a Maarou, a Maar-Ree, a Maar-Rab and they are three different horses. There is a Serrasab, a Serasaab, a Serasabba and they are three different horses. It’s been almost eighty years since the 1932 Babson importation from Egypt, and we’re still stuck with foal names with every single possible combination of the names of some or all the original imports (*Fadl, *Maaroufa, *Bint Serra, *Bint Bint Sabbah, *Bint Saada, and *Bint Bint Durra) and some of their direct offspring. I would not be surprised if one day a horse by the name of Daal-Serr-Fad-Maar-Abbah popped out of a pedigree. Why the torture?
The beautiful chestnut mare Bint Turfara (Sirecho x Turfara by *Fadl), a Kuhaylah, is pictured below. By the way, and just to set the record straight, the strain of “‘Ubayyan al-Hurmah” , which Carl Raswan ascribes to *Turfa (and her sire) simply does not exist. There are about four dozens different strains of ‘Ubayyan, which I will list on this blog some day, and none of these is “Ubayyan al-Hurmah” (H-U-R-M-A-H). There is, however, a ‘Ubayyan strain known as “Ubayyat al-Hamrah” (H-A-M-R-A-H), the ‘red’ or ‘bay’ Ubayyat. This was the strain of *Turfa’s sire, according to her Arab Horse Society Stud Book Vol. 6 (1944) entry. Note the different orders of the letters M and R in the two words (H-U-R-M-A-H) and (H-A-M-R-A-H), and the different vowels A and U. These two words are not the same. There is also a town in Saudi Arabia by the name of al-Khurmah (K-H-U-R-M-A-H), where one of the studs of the House of Saud was located. *Turfa came from that stud, and her Arab Horse Society Stud Book Vol. 6 (1944) entry mentions her as a Kuhaylah, from this Saud stud located in al-Khurmah, an oasis between the Hijaz and Najd regions. No “substrain” is assigned to her, and we’ll just have to live with…
Now if there is one Arabian mare that needs no introduction, it’s *Turfa. Ever since her importation by Henri Babson to the USA in 1941, almost seventy years ago, this pretty Kuhaylah mare has continued to embody the ideal desert-bred Arabian mare. Her famous picture trotting in the snow-covered paddocks of the Babson Farm (below) was a constant source of fascination for me, as I was growing up. In the 1980s, asil Arabians tracing to *Turfa were a major building block of Al Khamsa, and a quick glance at one of the ads which breeders of *Turfa-bred horses placed in books like Al Khamsa Arabians (1983) suffices to convince one of the popularity of this bloodline back then. *Turfa-bred horses were athletic, had good disposition and looked like classic Arabian horses of the first order. The *Turfa blood was to be found mainly — but not exclusively — in combination with Babson Egyptian bloodlines, horses tracing to Babson lines with the addition of the stallion Sirecho (Nasr x Exochorda by Aiglon), and in many combinations within the BLUE STAR group of horses. Stallions looked especially attractive: Fa-Turf, Ibn Fadl, Dhahran (photo below, note the resemblance with his grand-dam above, he…
This morning I woke up to find these two pictures of horses from snowed-in France in my inbox.. the first one is from Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians, and features her new acquisition Bint Fay Amy (Mahrouf x Fay Amy by Ibn Fa-Serr), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah born in 1995 at the Babson Farm. The second features the stallion Hussam al-Shimal (Raad x Rouba Al-Shimal by Al Abjar), a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq bred in Syria at the Yakan Stud near Aleppo, Syria, and now on lease from Al Fadi Stud of Damascus, Syria, to Arnault Decroix in Normandy. By the way, Hussam’s ears are a direct legacy of his maternal grandfather, the old stallion Al-Abjar, a Saqlawi Jadran of the marbat of Ibn Zubayni, who was famous for this pricked ears, and whose dam Malakah was featured here. If you have more pictures of horses under the snow from Europe or the USA, feel free to send them to me.
Adrien Deblaise breeds Arabian horses of Tunisian, Moroccan and Algerian bloodlines in Western France. His father Philippe was a bookseller that specialized in equine literature. Philippe’s inventory contained one of the largest collections in France books on horses in general and Arabians in particular. Below are pictures of two of Adrien’s mares: B’Oureah Marine (by Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak), and Qhejala (by Fawzan x Jelala II by Abouhif). B’Oureah is shown here competing for a 60 mile endurance race (which she won). She is a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, tracing to the mare Wadha imported by the French government from the Fad’aan tribe in 1875. Qhejala traces to Cherifa, a Shuwaymat Sabbah imported by the French from the Sba’ah tribe in 1869. Note the resemblance between Qhejala (who is 75% Egyptian) and the Babson (a group of asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines) broodmatron Fada (Faddan x Aaroufa by Fay El Dine). Fada’s rare photo below is from the late Billy Sheets’ photo collection.
Check these two articles (Part 1 and Part 2) out. I hope to see Joe in Redmond, OR, next week. He’s traveling by bus with some indians as we speak.
Just felt like posting this photo of the stallion Dhahran (Sirecho x Turfara) when he was at the Sheets’ Arabian Stud Farms (ASF). The photo is from the collection of pictures the late Billy Sheets gave me. Dhahran’s tail female goes back to the mare *Turfa, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from the horses of the House of Saud, stationed at their stud in al-Khurmah, and gifted to the King of England, who then sent her to Canada during WWII, where she was bought by Henri Babson of Chicago. An absolute favorite of mine, *Turfa is a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, sired by a Ubayyan al-Hamrah, as per her registration information in the Arab Horse Society Studbook of the UK, Volume VI [Correction: as per the letter sent by Brigadier Gen. Anderson, then Secretary General of the UK’s Arab Horse Society, to Henry Babson]. Everything else that has been said about her strain being ‘Ubayyan is completely unsubstantiated, as I will try to shoe in a next entry. The blood of *Turfa is just so precious. I really feel that the more *Turfa in a horse, the better the horse, as the fine specimen pictured below show. Both are 25% *Turfa.
It seems almost impossible to believe that this line has been lost to asil breeding in the tail female. Where have all the Kuhaylan Da’jani gone? Dajania‘s was the second-most important line in Crabbet breeding, which is one of the preeminent components of today’s mainstream Arabian horse breeding. True, there has never been as many mares from the Dajania tail female as there has been from the Rodania line at any given point in time, but that makes this line’s contribution to the breed all the more spectacular. Dajania’s daughter Nefisa (x Hadban) produced 21 foals at Crabbet. Of the mares, Narguileh (x Mesaoud) and Nasra (x Daoud) were the most prepotent. A look at Al Khamsa’s online Roster allows one to trace the evolution of Nefisa’s Al Khamsa eligible progeny over the first half of the twentieth century. The record is impressive, but but most of the contribution to asil breeding is through males: Nadir, Narkise, *Nasik, Rustnar, Najib, *Nafia, Nusi, Adonis, etc. The last Dajania Al-Khamsa eligible tail female descendent is Nadirat (Rizvan x Nusara), born in 1927, when most of us were not born yet.. That said, Al Khamsa doesn’t accept Nureddin II (by Rijm x Narguileh,…
A rare picture of the magnificent black Asil stallion Fabo (Fabah x Misimma by Fa Serr). Fabo, a 1962 Saqlawi Jadran, and the head sire at the late Walter Schimanski’s Masada Arabians. Photo from the collection of the late William J. Sheets (Billy). Check out another gorgeous picture of Fabo here.
The Kuhaylan Jallabi strain as an extant female line in Egyptian bloodlines will forever be something of a curiosity. Modern evidence of MtDNA work on this line combined with interpreting Lady Anne Blunt’s notations should make people feel comfortable in choosing the Saqlawi Jidran strain for this line though it is not officially recorded as such. To be fair to Judi Forbis, in her 2003 book Authentic Arabian Bloodstock II, in the section on Kuhaylan Jellabi, she gives a five page presentation of most of the known information over time on this strain including citing Prince Mohamed Ali, Travelers Rest, Abbas Pasha Manuscript etc. She implies that people need to make their own choice on this. She chose to follow the name of traditional record as certified on the pedigrees of the imports. The Pyramid Society also footnotes this in their reference handbook pedigrees. How that traditional record became certified as Kuhaylan Jellabi is a mystery but it must have its origins somewhere yet to be discovered. Judi does make the point that no matter what the strain, the authenticity of the line is without question. When I first heard of the MtDNA, it was no surprise to me having…