Dahman ‘Amer stallion, Dachman, at Derkul, Russia

This horse was purchased in Syria by Prince Shcherbatov. State Derkulskiy farm. Both parents belonged to Dagkhman Umm-Amr strain. Bay stallion, imported; height 2 arshins 1 3/8 inches. Born in Arabia in 1895 at Bedouin Jeral Ibn-Tuerish from Gomussa tribe (from Sebaa Anaze). The latter sold it to Aga-ed-Diun, mufti of Hama. Purchased for Department of State Horse Breeding personally by Prince A.G. Shcherbatov in 1990 from Aga-ed-Din in the town of Hama. Stud Book of Arabian horses with their pedigrees present in Russia

Prince Shcherbatov’s desertbred stallions

Prince Alexander Grigorievich Shcherbatov was one of the Russian aristocratic horse breeders, who established an Arabian stud in the late nineteenth century. Together with his brother-in-law, Count Sergei Aleksandrovich Stroganov, Prince Shcherbatov, inspired by the Blunts, journeyed to Syria in 1888, in order to purchase Bedouin Arabian horses. They succeeded in buying horses from the Anazah and the Shammar, and in 1900 made a second trip to Syria. Neither Shcherbatov nor Stroganov’s studs survived the upheaval of the Russian Revolution, though part of the Tersk stud is situated on Stroganov’s farm. El-Kader (above), a Kuhaylan Swayti stallion from the Ruwalah, by a Ma’naqi ibn-Sbayli. Born in Arabia in 1882 at Bedouin Mis’ar Ibn-Moadjil of Ashadjaa tribe (from Roal Anaze). The said Bedouin sold the horse to Ahmet Pasha Shaaman in Damascus where it served as a sire for Roala tribe. Sire of Manegi Ibn-Sbeiyel strain. Purchased by Prince A.G. Shcherbatov in person in Damascus and brought to Russia in 1888. Stud Book of Arabian horses with their pedigrees present in Russia Faris (above), an Ubayyan Sharrak stallion from the Shammar, by a Kuhaylan Ras-el-Fedawi. From Abeyan Sherrak strain, from Gkhenedish family (of Selga Shommar). Pebble grey stallion, imported, height 2…

Interested in starting your own preservation program?

If you happen to take good care of your horses, or you if you know that you will take of your first horse, and are interested in starting a new preservation breeding program centered around the esteemed Arabian horse strain of Ma’naqi Sbayli, please contact me: ealdahdah@hotmail.com I have a mare from that strain, 10 months pregnant, and she and/or her foal would be available to the right home to start such a program. Below is a noted in Arabic penned by one of Homer Davenport’s Arab guests during his 1906 trip to North Arabia to buy desert-bred Arabian horses. Part of it — the second paragraph — reads: “There is no better and more authentic strain to be found among the Arabs [Bedouins] than that of the Ma’naqi Sbayli which Mr. Davenport purchased. The Ma’naqi is from the Arab [Bedouins] of Gomussah, from the tribe of the Sba’ah ‘Anazah, and he is from the best strain in their possession; the name of his owner is al-Sbayli.”      

Barely Surving Lines: Kesia I, Kesia II, Mameluke

In 1874 and again in 1875, Captain Roger Upton traveled to the Syrian desert and purchased a number of Arabian horses from the Bedouin tribe of Sba’ah, which he imported to Great Britain. One of the mares he bought for a Mr. Sandeman, was the Ma’naghiyah Sbailiyah Haidee. Another was the mare Kesia (I), which he bough for a certain Mr. Henry Chaplin. Kesia (I) was a Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah, sired by a Kuhaylan Nawwaq, bred by the Qumusah section of the Saba’ah Bedouin tribe, which owns the marbat. The head of the Qumusah, Shaykh Sulayman Ibn Mirshid put his seal on the mare’s hujjah, which makes this mare very precious. Kesia (I) came to Great Britain in foal to a desert-bred Saqlawi al-‘Abd stallion, and produced a filly Kesia (II). The dam and the filly are two of the few mares of the Nawwaq strain to have been imported to a Western country – another one is *Malouma. The tail female of Kesia II no longer exists in asil breeding anywhere. However, her great-grandson Segario (Nimr x Shabaka, out of Kesia II) is still represented in asil pedigrees in the USA, where his dam was imported from Great Britian by Colonel Spencer Borden. Today, the blood of Kesia survives in…

Shaykh al-‘Arab, forgotten king of a lost kingdom

The dark chestnut stallion Shaykh al-‘Arab is one of the foundation stallions of the (now defunct) Lebanese Asil Arabian horse breeding. Born in the desert somewhere between Hims and Palmyra, he was bred by Rakan ibn Mirshid, Shaykh of the Gomussah section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe in the 1930s, then sold to Beirut for racing.  His sire was a desert-bred Ma’naghi Sbayli, the stallion of ‘Awdah al-Mis’ir of Sba’ah, and his dam a ‘Ubayyat al-Usayli’, one of the best marabit (pl. of marbat, i.e., desert stud) of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah tribe. [Other equally good marabit of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak with the Sba’ah tribe ainclude ‘Ubayyan ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan ibn Thamdan, and ‘Ubayyan ibn ‘Alyan, the latter being the strain of the Blunt import Queen of Sheba, then owned by Beteyen Ibn Mirshid, Rakan’s ancestor.]   In Beirut, the horse was successfully raced by Henri Pharaon under the name of Shaykh al-‘Arab (a reference to his prestigious breeder), and then given to the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture as a breeding stallion.  Shaykh al-‘Arab’s sons and daughters became good race horses, so much so that veteran Syrian racehorse owner Ali al-Barazi recalled attending race in Beirut where the top…