A quick snapshot of little Bassma from two weeks ago. She is unfolding slowly. I will be back in the USA in July and will take good pictures. I just love the combination of bloodlines this filly brings. A Saudi tail female to *Nufoud with a cross to *Turfa in the bottom, a female line to *Wadduda on her sire’s side, plenty of Davenport blood all over (11/16), and a dose of Doyle lines (3.5/16) for good measure. So proud to have been able to continue this wonderful *Nufoud line, walking in the footsteps of the late Carol Lyons.
This fascinating article (in Arabic) reveals that King Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud, upon founding the Kingdom of Najd, Hijaz and its dependencies (which in 1932 became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) entrusted the responsibility of representing his Kingdom before other Arab countries to members of the Agheylat corporation (see below about them). This makes a lot of sense since the Agheylat had developed deep commercial ties with many of these countries, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, where they maintained trading offices. Sheykh Fawzan al-Sabiq, the King’s first ambassador to Egypt (in 1926), appears as the most famous of these early Agheylat diplomats, according to the article. His brother Abd al-Aziz was indeed a horse merchant established in Egypt. Other early Saudi diplomats from the Agheylat include Mansur al-Rumayh, Hamoud al-Barrak, al-Rabdi and al-‘Usaymi. The most pleasant surprise, and one that will enable us to shed further light on the history of several desert-bred Arabians imported to the USA, is the inclusion of the name of Muhammad Eid al-Rawwaf among these diplomats hailing from Agheylat families. He appears as the governor of Jeddah in the 1930s, before being appointed as the Saudi representative to Baghdad. He belonged to an influential family of Agheylat from Buraydah.…
The blind Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Jadah Kerasun, one of the last four remaining tail females to the Saud Royal Stud import *Samirah seems to finally have found a permanent home with Marge Smith of Oregon. Pamela Klein agreed to haul the mare from the Midwest to the Northwest at a discount rate, and Carrie Slayton single-handedly fundraised to raise the money for the shipping expenses, through facebook and on this website. This constitutes one of the nicest examples of the Al Khamsa preservation minded groups coming together to take collective action.
Jeanne Craver sent me this photo of the black Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Jadah Sharuuq (Lifes Capade LD x Belladonna CHF by Audobon), a Sharp (no Blunt/Crabbet blood) stallion bred by Randall and Mary Sue Harris of Peoria, IL, from lines from Carol Lyons. This rare and precious stallion is just five generations removed from the 1925 desert bred Saudi mare *Nufoud, in the dam line. He combines in my opinion, the best of American asil Arabian bloodlines: the Davenports, the Saudi Arabian imports of Albert Harris, the blood of *Turfa up close, and the Egyptian lines of H.H. Prince Mohammed Ali (*Fadl and *HH … Hamida). Jeanne had already sent me a photo of his beautiful dam Belladonna CHF — click here.
What follows are pictures of horses from a little known and much underlooked asil line in the USA, that of the Saud Royal Stud’s Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare *Samirah, through her daughter Koweyt by Alcazar, Koweyt’s daughter Konight by Kaniht (all from Albert Harris’ breeding) and Konight’s 1963 daughter Ameera Moda by Fa-Turf (so lots of desert horses upclose). Two pictures of Konight are below. All the pictures are from Carrie Slayton, a long time breeder of this line, to whom the credit goes for saving it from extinction. I had written about this branch of the *Samirah line back in 2009 (click here) but did not learn of its current status until Carrie contacted me recently, and we started a conversation about these horses, which led her to send me these pictures. Carrie leased two daughters of Ameera Moda (Fa-Turf x Konight by Kaniht) from the original breeders — the Bancrofts — and bred them to asil stallions over the years. One such daughter is Sha Bint Ameera (below) by the Hamdani Simri stallion Fa Charlamar, of old Davenport/Babson/Saud lines. From the photos, Sha Bint Ameera looks like a mare of old desert type, the like of which you…
Much of Arabian horse breeding program in the West follows patterns based on the exclusion or inclusion of specific horses or groups of horses: within the Babson Egyptians, for example you have the non-*Maaroufa, which is a sub-group that excludes lines to this mare. The Babson Egyptians are themselves an artificial sub-group of Egyptians Arabians, tracing in all lines from the horses imported by Henry Babson. Here’s what I mean by artificial: had Mr. Babson imported another mare than *Bint Bint Sabbah, the descendants of this other mare would have been labeled as Babson Egyptians, and the otherwise eligible descendants of *Bint Bint Sabbah would not. Within the Davenports Arabians, you have the non-Fasal, all without lines to this mare, even though the ancestors of Fasal (*Hamrah x Amran by *Deyr *Wadduda), are present in the pedigree of all non-Fasal Davenports. These groups and sub-groups have their own logic, and are usually meant to preserve different phenotypes. The Sharp breeding program is one of those rare artificial Western-created breeding groups that I think are worth breeding in isolation and preserving, when the bigger picture of Arabian horse breeding is taken into consideration. The Sharps are basically Al Khamsa Arabian horses…
I have mentioned the 1982 “war mare” LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla by Tarff) a number of times on this blog. She is the kind of mare I wish I had owned or bred. She is a great-grand-daughter of the desert bred mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from the Saud royal studs. *Nufoud was imported to the USA by Albert Harris in 1932 through Amin Rihani. At that time, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was still the Sultanate of Najd and Hijaz. She is also a great-grand-daughter of another Saudi royal mare, *Turfa. LD Rubic was bred by the late Carol Lyons out of the last Al Khamsa mare of that strain, Tarrla. Carol saved that line and many others from extinction. Rubic left two sons and five daughters: of the sons, Salil Ibn Iliad produced a number of asil mares here and there. He is getting older. The other son AB Razeel, is younger but has not had progeny as far as I know. The five daughters of the LD Rubic are: MSF Rubie, Bint Rubic CHF, MSF Shamis, AB Dafiinah, and Belladonna CHF. MSF Rubie is a problem breeder, and has not had a foal in a long…
Jadah Samirah (photo below), owned by Stephanie Theinert who sent me these two pictures, is a special, precious mare in many respects. This 1993 grey mare is one of the very last survivors of the Sheet’s Arabian Stud Farms (ASF) breeding program, which in the 1990s was one of the largest asil preservation programs in the USA, with a focus on rare lines. She is by the wonderful ASF Hercules (ASF David x ASF Kera by Julyan), out of ASF Ubeidiya (ASF Ezra x ASF Euodia by ASF David). She carries some of the last lines ever to a number of original desert-bred Arabian imports to the UK and the USA, like Lord Russel’s *Mameluke (GSB), Captain Gaisford’s *Nedjran, Major Upton’s Kesia (GSB), and Homer Davenport’s *El Bulad and *Farha. She also carries some of the last lines so great American bred horses of the past, which are no longer to be found in other asil Arabian lines, like: Gharis, Medina, Komet, Mershid, Niht and Larkspur. Jadah Samirah is truly a time capsule of Amercican Arabian breeding of the first part of the XXth century. Jadah Samirah is also one of the four last representatives of the *Samirah line. *Samirah…
This masculine 1991 bay stallion is a son of the timeless LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla by Tarff), a favorite of mine. His great-great-grand-dam is the desert-bred mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz (no marbat recorded) bred by the Saud Royal Studs in Arabia and imported in 1931 to the USA by Albert W. Harris. Salil is only four generations removed from the bygone era when horses were still used a war machines in the Arabian desert, and that’s as close as one can get to a time capsule today. While I have seen better photos of him, this one shows his excellent shoulder, short back, and well set next. This is how horses looked like in the Arabian desert. They did not look like these oiled, shampooed, made up china dolll mutant creatures that are hitting the world’s show circuits. Salil is owned by Lesley Detweiler of Mountain Spring Farm in Pennsylvania, and is now standing at stud at Pam Baker in South Carolina.
In 1931, Chicago businessman Albert Harris imported four desert-bred mares from Arabian ruler Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud through the Lebanese poet Amin Rihani. The mares were obtained through Mohammad Abd al-Ra’uf, Consult of the Sultanate of Najd and Hijaz in Beirut (this Sultanate would take the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the following year, in 1932). Thee of the four left asil descendants here in the USA, and two of these have tail female descendants: *Nufoud and *Samirah. *Nufoud’s descendants, which include some of my favorite horses here in the USA (that is, LD Rubic and Belladonna CHF) were featured in an entry sometime last year. We’ll talk about *Samirah’s here. Two of her daughters left asil progeny: Koweyt by Alcazar, and Kerasun by *Sunshine, the latter being *Nufoud’s son, imported to the USA in utero. The mare Koweyt produced a daughter, Konight, by the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion Kaniht (Katar x Niht). Kaniht in turn produced the mare Amira Moda, by a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz from another line: Fa-Turf (*Fadl x *Turfa). According to the Al Khamsa Roster, there are only three asil mares left from this branch of the *Samirah’s family, all in their mid-twenties and none…
The desert-bred Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare *Reshan, imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906 has two surviving asil tail females, and we are lucky to have them both. The first is through her grand-daughter Antarah (Antez x Hasiker, by Hamrah x *Reshan), and that line bred on thanks to the efforts of Charles and Jeanne Craver. Several horses regularly featured on this blog, such as Sir, Brimstone, Prince Hal, Pirouette and my own Wisteria are all from this line. These horses and others, known as the “Kuhaylan Haifi Davenports”, now form a cohesive group, exclusively tracing to the horses imported by Homer Davenport from the Syrian desert, and from the horses sent by the Ottoman Hamidie Society from Syria to the Chicago World Fair of 1893. This group has about 100-150 live mares of breeding age in the USA [confirmation, correction anyone], so it’s fairly safe. The other tail female to *Reshan, through another grand-daughter, Medina (Fartak x Hasiker, by Hamrah x *Reshan) is barely surviving today. The line mainly survives through Dihkenna (Gharis x Komet by *Sunshine), a bay mare foaled in 1946. This mare’s pedigree is a perfect illustration of what later came to called “Early American Foundation” Arabian horses, or as the late Billy Sheets…
Think of this new “Lost asil tail females” series as an obituary section in a newspaper.. I know there is no point in grieving over what is lost, but it’s a good reminder of how lucky we are to have what we still have. The series starts with *Nedjme, just because “she was given the position of the first registration in the stud book of the Arabian Horse Club of America, […] an indication of the regard in which she was held by Arabian horse breeders in this country of her day” (Craver and Craver, Horses of the White City). *Nedjme was one of the horses the Ottoman Hamidie Society exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. She is registered as a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz by a Saqlawi Jadran. However, evidence from a letter J.R. Dolbony (who was involved with the Hamidie Society, perhaps as an performer in the Ottoman exhibition) to Homer Davenport, mentions that her dam was of the Sa’dat al-Tuqan strain, from the Wuld Ali Bedouins and her sire of the Nkhayshi strain, from the Hssinah tribe, which is certainly more interesting. Whatever the case, *Nedjme was the pick of the Hamidie Society horses, and fetched the highest price when the…
This is one of my all-time favorite Asil Arabian mares. LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla) is unique for several reasons: 1) she is a great-grand-daughter of the mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare from Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud born in 1925 and imported to the USA in 1931 by Albert W. Harris. You cannot get any closer to the source, and what a source! A Kuhaylah from Ibn Saud! Too bad we don’t know which Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz that is. 2) She is a daughter of the fabulous stallion Plantagenet, an Asil Kuhaylan al-Hayf of the line imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. I am a big fan of the Plantagenet progeny, of which Palisades CF is another representative. Below is a picture of Plantagenet. 3) She doesn’t have any lines to the horses imported to the UK by Lady Anne and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Blunt horses are in the pedigrees of most Arabian horses worldwide. The late Carol Lyons called these horses “Sharp”, by opposition to “Blunt”. 4) Her line was saved from extinction by a person I have enormous respect and admiration for: the late Carol Lyons. Carol had acquired Tarrla (Tarff x Kaluga by Alcazar), Rubic’s dam, in 1979. She was the…