Reader Chantal Chekroun of France just sent me these recent photos of her desert-bred stallion Mokhtar (Awaad x Doumah), a 1987 black Kuhaylan al-Krush from the Shammar tribe in north-eastern Syria. This venerable horse has been regularly featured on this website, and for good reason. He is the epitomy of asil. Mokhtar is a Kuhaylan al-Krush, tracing to the marbat of the Sheykh Mayzar Abdul al-Muhsin al-Jarba, Shaykh of the Northern Shammar. This precious marbat goes back to the ‘white Krush’ of the leading Dawish clan of the Mutayr Bedouins, who are the most famous custodians of the strain. Mokhtar was bred by Ayadah al-Khalaf, known as al-Qartah, who took control of the marbat from Mayzar’s family, and bred the Krush horses to each other for two or three generations. Syrian breeder Basil Jadaan of Damascus acquired Mokhtar as a yearling in the late 1980s, and later bought his sire Awaad and his double grand-dam Mumtazah both in extreme old age. Mukhtar was a leading sire at Jadaan Arabians for several years, producing a number of influential sons and daughters such as Al-Qaherah, a black Shuwaymat Sabbah mare and the founder of a dynasty at Basil’s; Hayel, a black Saqlawi…
I have written a lot about the Kuhaylan Krush strain recently, more particularly on the branch of that strain that has been associated with the Dawish leaders of the Mutayr tribe. The mares Dafina (to the UK in 1926) and probably El Kahila (to Egypt in 1927) are both representatives of this branch, and so are the three Blunt imports to Sheykh Obeyd: the mares Aida, and Jauza and the stallion Krush. Below are two modern day representatives of that famed strain. The two mares Sharidah and Ma’yufah were bred at the stud of Prince Turki Ibn Fahd Ibn Muhammad Aal Saud in Najd, Saudi Arabia, then exported to the Nujaifi stud in Mosul, Iraq. PS — I wonder what an mtDNA test would show, if samples from these two mares were compared to the Dafina and El Kahila lines, or to some of the Krush Al-Baida horses with the Shammar Bedouins in Syria. The latter are known to trace to the “white Krush” of Ammash Raja al-Dawish of Mutayr, through a mare that had gone to Ibn Rashid. Read more about the Krush of Shammar in Syria here.
As I put the final touches of the fourth and last entry of the feature on the Krush al-Baida strain, take a second look at the three previous entries on this precious strain, here, here, and here. Also, check out this account of a conversation about Krush al-Baida with Shaykh Faysal ibn Sattam ibn Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. By the way, the Royal Stud of the Kingdom of Bahrain still retains a line from the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain, from the same branch as Krush al-Baida, “the White Krush”. Here is an exerpt from the Krush page of the Royal Stud’s website, followed by a picture of a Bahraini representative of this strain: “It is said by some that the original Krushieh mare came from the Muteyr tribe – and by others that the original came from the Al Rasheed, Amirs of Hail from 1835-1924. Yet everyone agrees that the strain has been in Bahrain since the 1850’s. This old family of Krush is perpetuated through the tail female line, and is predominantly of bay colour.” Note that the Krush al-Baida horses of the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar tribe in Syria are from the very same fountainhead – that…