I have writtten about the Ubayyan strain specific of Ibn Jalawi several times before, mainly here, here and here. It is the strain of my mare Madinas Miracle, and my stallion AAS Nelyo, which trace back to the Ubayyah mare *Mahraa, a gift from Saud Ibn Jalawi, governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to Esther Ames, an ARAMCO woman doctor. Recently, Kate pointed me to a quote about the Ubayyan strain of Ibn Jalawi in the 1949 book of H.R.P. Dickson, “The Arab of the Desert: A glimpse into Badawin life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia”. Dickson, who was the British political representative in Kuwait, reportedly began collecting material for his book in 1929 and finished research for it in 1936. He wrote: Every Shaikh of standing is supposed to always keep his rabat, i.e. a mare or mares from which he breeds a certain particular strain. He gets name and prestige by doing this. […] I will only mention one more instance, and that is the ’Ubaiyan strain of the late ’Abdullah bin Jiluwi, the Governor of Hasa. He was a great horse fancier like all the family of the Al Sa’ud, and had many famous mares in…
The account of the visit of Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian RAS to Prince Saud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi (or Jluwi), Governor of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in 1936 can also be used to shed some light on the desert-bred stallion *Munifan. The same reasoning used in the recent blog entry about *Al Hamdaniah also applies to *Munifan. *Munifan was also born in 1940, four years after Mabrouk’s visit. He was gifted to George O’Brien by Ibn Jalawi, and imported in 1947 to the USA by O’Brien. His Saudi export document indicates that he was by an ‘Ubayyan out of a Kuhaylah. His sire could be any of the five Ubayyan horses Dr. Mabrouk saw on his visit two Ibn Jalawi: a 7 year old bay stallion, an 11 year old dark bay stallion, a 7 year old chestnut stallion himself sired by a chestnut ‘Ubayyan stallion, and two bay colts, both sired by a bay ‘Ubayyan, likely the first one on this list, who appears to have been the head sire. Dr Mabrouk’s list of the mares he saw at Ibn Jalawi includes several mares of strains typically classified as branches of the generic Kuhaylan strain.…
One of the earliest desert-bred Arabian horses to come to the USA from the Kindgom of Saudi Arabia was the mare *Al Hamdaniah. This grey mare with her conspicuous blood mark on the shoulder, was the subject of this blog’s first entry, some fourteen years ago. Born in 1940, by an ‘Ubayyan stallion out of a Hamdaniyah mare, she was bred by Prince Sa’ud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi, an early governor of Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, who gifted her to Admiral R.L. Connolly, who imported her to the USA. This morning I was thinking that her 1940 date of birth was significant. Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the Egyptian RAS had visited the stud of Sa’ud Ibn Jalawi in 1936, a mere four years before the birth of *Al Hamdaniah. He would have seen her dam at Ibn Jalawi’s stud. The account of the visit of Dr. Mabrouk includes a list of the stallions, colts and mares he saw, some eighty horses in all. It yields some clues about the pedigree of *Al Hamdaniah: Of the three ‘Ubayyan stallions and two ‘Ubayyan colts he saw, none were grey. Because a grey horse like *Al Hamdaniah must have at least one…
In his 1936 book “A Journey to Arabia”, Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of Egypt’s Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) has this to say of the horses of Prince Sa’ud Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi, the governor of the al-Hasa province of the new kingdom of Saudi Arabia: “In the Prince’s stables, near his private palace, I saw about 80 horses. These I believe are the most pedigreed in Arabian owing to their concentration in a limited spot and the consequent exclusion of any outside blood.” Dr. Mabrouk lists two mares of the ‘Ubayyan strain: 8. Ebeya El-Safra, grey, 8 y., fine bones and short neck. 9. Ebeya El-Hamra, bay, 10 y., big eyes but progeny with small eyes, spavin [sic], off hind, faint star and marking off hind coronet, very fine. He also lists two ‘Ubayyan stallions and two ‘Ubayyan colts: 1. Ebeyan, bay, 7 y., 140 cent, both fore off hind white, faint race 2. Ebeyan, dark-bay, 11 y. white coronet, near fore, off hind, week [sic] hocks. 3. Two colts, bay, ex Ebeya El-Safra, by Ebeyan El-Ahmar, four whites, blaze, like sire. [sons of number 8] The markings on stallion 1 appear to correspond to this picture in Dr. Mabrouk’s book,…