I looked up the mentions of the Bedouin tribe of Bani Sakhr in the Journals of Lady Anne Blunt. There are five of them, ranked below in chronological order. [Saw at the Tahawis] One bay Abeyan el Khudr from a tribe near the Bani Sakkhr beyond the Hauran… [A Shaykh of the Samaritans told us] that the Beni Sakkhr etc tribes were owners of remarkably good strains… It was Khuddr again, this time with a bay horse to sell, he calls it Abeyan from the Beni Sokkhr (a tribe whose horses I have not heard much good of) and this was a heavy going horse, not worth the looking at. On Monday, the mare […] was bought through Webb for 30 pounds. She is described as good, not first rate but with some style. There is a really fine certificate of parentage which describes her as a ‘Hamdanieh Samirieh”of the Beni Sokkr — a tribe whose name does not inspire me with confidence but they are said to have some thoroughbreds. I distrust as a rule any horse or mare said to be from the Beni Sokkhr but Major Huseyn says that the Ibn Faiz have got a mazbut strain…
Darlene Summers and I are the proud new co-owners of the 2001 bay stallion Monologue CF (Riposte CF x Soliloquy CF by Regency CF), a Hamdani Simri tracing to *Galfia from the Bani Sakhr Bedouins. Monologue came as a generous gift from Pamela Klein (who maintains one of the largest and best herds of Davenport Arabians in the US today) to Darlene, who then kindly agreed to share him with me. He is now standing at stud at Craver Farms in Winchester, IL, and is available to Al Khamsa mares. Darlene and I plan to freeze his semen to make it available to future generations of asil breeders.
A few days ago, I began a thread on the early story of strain of Kuhaylan Abu ‘Arqub, as it was mentioned in the ‘Abbas Pasha Manuscript. The information is reconciled from two slightly different sources: first, my notes from the English translation of the Manuscript (a copy of the book is in my father’s library in Beirut); second, from the book “Usul al-Khayl” by Hamad al-Jasir, which contains excerpts of the original Manuscript in Arabic (and a xeroxed copy of which was given to me by my friend Hazaim Alwair). The story of Kuhaylan Abu ‘Arqub involves central Arabian tribes such as the Qahtan, the Bani Khalid and the Mutayr, as well as the House of Saud, who were major breeders of the strain in the 1850s. The Manuscript’s account of the strain stops around this time. There are conflicting accounts of what happened to the strain after that, but what is clear is that the strain reappears in areas of the desert further to the north, with the “northern” tribes of the Bani Sakhr in today’s Jordan and the Hadideen in today’s central Syria. More recently, and according to author Khalid Bakr Kamal in his book “the Arab Horses”…
The very feminine Chablis CF (Sir Marchen x Sauterne by Tripoli), a Hamdaniyah Simriyah of Davenport bloodlines bred by Craver Farms in 1981. The strain goes back in tail female to the Bani Sakhr Bedouins, through the mare Schilla.
Here’s an interesting and well-referenced analysis on the social transformations of Bedouin society in Jordan spanning 150 years from the middle of the XIXth society until today, from Rami Zurayk’a blog Land and People. Rami teaches at the Faculty of Agriculture of the American University of Beirut (my alma mater).
This magnificent white stallion is not a show horse but a desert bred stallion that took part in a halter competition organized in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His name is Ruzayq, and he was sired by Haleem, a Hamdani. Ruzayq stands at the Saudi government stud in Dirab. He traces to Saqlawi mares bred by the Bani Sakhr tribe (now settled in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia). The Shaykhs of this tribe, Aal Fayiz, were famous for their Saqlawis. Thanks Pure Man for forwarding this beautiful photo. What a horse. What a HORSE.
… and this is Ruzayq (Haleem x Zahria), one of the Suwayti [May 16th correction by Edouard: Ruzayq is not Suwayti but a Saqlawi originally tracing to the horses of the tribe of Bani Sakhr] stallions at the government stud in Dirab. Those of you who have been following this blog over the recent weeks are already familiar with Haleem the Hamdani stallion in the video. For an additional picture of the stallion Ruzayq, click here, and scroll down.
In 1909, a French government commission led by Inspector Quinchez bought 24 desert-bred stallions from the Egyptian racetrack of Sidi Gaber in Alexandria. Of these, 17 went to Algeria (then a part of France), and the remaining 7 were distributed in government studs across mainland France. The seven were: Dahman, Meenak, Farid, Aslani, Hamdany El Samry, Latif and Maarouf. The magnificent Dahman, to which this blog paid a tribute some time ago, was no doubt the star of this importation. Dahman’s hujja – which I will translate for you soon – tells us that he was bred by the Shammar tribe, from a Dahman sire and a Rabda dam. He stood at Pompadour for twenty-some years, leaving behind many pretty Asil mares like Ninon (picture below), Melinite, Musotte, and Noble Reine, and some excellent stallions, one of which, Minos (x Melisse) was sent to the King of Morocco. Today Minos appears in many modern Moroccan pedigrees. If Dahman was the most striking, Aslani was the French breeders’ favorite. He originally came from the tribe of Bani Sakhr, by a Ubayyan and a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz. Quinchez had to pay the hefty sum of 8,000 Francs to snatch him away from Alexandrian trainer and racehorse owner Michaelides – the same individual who…