Today Kate found my Holy Graal. Two of my Holy Graals. Ever since I was 12, I have been wanting to see photos of the two fountainhead mares of Algerian Arabian horse breeding, at the Jumenterie of Tiaret: the two mares Olympe and Primevere. Robert Mauvy’s precious gem of a book, “Le Cheval Arabe” has a section on these two mares that left an imprint of the teenager I was. Today, 31 one years later, when I need to take a flight somewhere, the first book I instinctively grab is this one. I never tire of reading it again and again and again. I don’t believe anyone has captured the essence of the Arabian horse the way Mauvy has. Both Olympe and Primere are the grand-daughters of two mares imported from Arabia to Algeria by the French: respectively Wadha, a Jilfat al-Dhawi of the Fad’aan Anazah, and Cherif (b. 1869), a Shuwaymah Sabbah of the Sba’ah Anazah. The French bought both mares at the camps of these of two tribes. Some 150 years later, both lines are still thriving worldwide. Here are the two pictures from the Sport Universel Illustre. Thank you, Kate. You have given shape to a longstanding…
I just fell upon the photo of this superb younger mare of the Jilfan Dhawi strain from the breeding of Fabienne Vesco. Fedaia Beni Sakr is a blend of mostly Egyptian, Tunisian and Algerian bloodlines, with a hint of old French blood. Such a deep girth and nice hindquarter on this mare, on top of pointy ears and the black skin around the eyes.
When growing up in the Middle East, I would always look forward to the prospect of hearing the whinny of stallions in the stables, farms and racetracks, and it was an integral part of the experience of turning stallions loose in paddocks. Seeing this video brought this experience back to mind. It also made me realize how “quiet” and “muted” the stallions I have recently been around are. This superb 2009 stallion, Quamar El Lail (Ratib x Mascara by Larabi out of Saguia by Guercif — sire line Bango, dam line Wadha, strain Jilfan Dhawi), is one of the last four (yes, four) Algerian asil Arabian horses, owned by the Algerian National Stud of Tiaret/Chaouchaoua. His pedigree is a succession of legends often featured on this blog in previous years: Bango, Ghalbane, Safita, Masbout, etc. Quamar el lail pur sang Arabe par Ratib Mascara Posted by Haras National Chaouchaoua on Friday, October 17, 2014 Jean-Claude Rajot, who is very familiar with the asil Arabians of Algeria, tells me the whinnying is characteristic of the bloodlines of Quamar El Leil.
This one is from the Deblaise stud in France, a daughter of the Syrian Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq import Husam Al-Shamal out of their mare B’Oureah (Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak).
Stephan Eberhardt shared with me this photo of his Algerian/Tunisian/Egyptian mare Dachna (Khaiber x Dahna by El Aswad a.k.a Ibn Galal-15), a Shuwaymah Sabbah tracing to the Tiaret mare Cherifa. I am always pleased to see that these asil lines from North Africa have crossed well with Egyptian lines in Europe. The mare has two close crosses to Tunisian lines: her paternal grand-dam is the Jilfat al-Dhawi mare Rissala (Esmet Ali x Chanaan by Souci), whose sire and dam are from Anatole Cordonnier’s breeding in Tunisia but mostly from Algerian lines; and her maternal grand-dam is the beautiful Dar Essalam (Koufi x Djamila by Titan) whose sire is from Tunisian lines from Sidi Thabet and dam from Algerian lines from Tiaret.
Teymur from Germany sent this old photo of the desert berd mare Fazila, a Jilfah by a Ma’naqi Sbayli, imported to Turkey in 1920s.
From Fabienne Vesco in France comes this photo of the Jilfan Dhawi stallion Aftan Beni Sakr (Hortal El Din x Tahiz Beni Sakr by Jahir)
I am off to Morocco this weekend, for about a week, so these two pictures of a stallion partly of Moroccan Arabian lines are fitting. This is Fabienne Vesco’s Djoar Beni Sakr (Jahir x Loubia bint Breek by Breek), a Jilfan Dhawi by strain, as a younger horse, and as a 16 year old stallion. Both his maternal grandparents, Breek and Rihya, came to France from Morocco with Jean Deleau, and trace to combined Egyptian, Tunisian and French lines. The French born stallion Agres (photo below, by Sumeyr x Altise by Abel x Attique by Méat), which was a sire at the Moroccan Royal stables, and traces to a Hamdaniyah Simriyah mares imported from Syria, is well represented in his pedigree.
Two photos of the Tiaret bred mare Malika, a Jilfat al-Dhawi, b. 1949, by Masbout d.b., out of Themis, by Bango d.b., out of Abaka by Ghazi d.b. The grand-dam of the stallion Jahir discussed below.
Fabienne Vesco, a French preservation breeder in Eastern France, breeds horses of combined Tunisian, Moroccan, Algerian and Egyptian lines, of the Jilfan Dhawi and Shuayman Sabbah strains. Below is her pretty mare Akhesa Beni Sakr, by the Tunisian stallion Hadhr El Basher (Chedi x Loubna by Oramin0) out of her mare Akaba Beni Sakr (Jahir x Loubia Bint Breek by Breek), a Jilfat al-Dhawi that blends Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Egyptian lines. The foal in the photo was by Fabienne’s Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Hortal El Din (SEA Asal x Thallame by Breek).
The 1975 Jilfan Jarjari stallion Samarquand (Arras x Avalin by Karoun) was bred by the late Majid Khan Bakhtiar, and later owned by his wife the late Mary Gharagozlou.
Marie Arthur sent me these four lovely pictures of her asil Kuhaylat al-Krush filly: IV Milady Qiana Krushah by IV Sir Nekey out of IV Shtika Al Krush. This one will be a true beauty. I can’t wait to see her grow.
Adrien Deblaise sent me this picture of his new filly: Bismilah Bint, a Jilfat al-Dhawi by the Syrian import Hussam al-Shimal out of his mare B’Oureah Marine (Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak).
Ezzina (Chaabane x Wilaya by Ragheb), proudly owned by Walid Maazaoui, is one of the last asil mares in Tunisia. Ten years ago, Tunisia was still one of the last reservoirs of asil blood in the “East”, but that is quickly changing, and today there are only a few dozen asil mares and stallions left. The country has traditionally bred Arabians for the racetrack, and it continues to have a very dynamic racing scene. When I was there last, in 2006, I took some pictures of the unbelievable stallion Akermi (Dynamite III x Ichara by Koraish) at the government stud of Sidi Thabet. 46 starts, 40 wins, 5 seconds, 1 third, can you believe it? Several of Akermi’s stablemates were “Arabian” stallions imported from France, all of dubious racing bloodlines. They’re just about as much “Arabian” as I am Chinese. The groom who was walking me through the stables told me that there was a lot of enthusiasm among Tunisian breeders about these French horses, and that most breeders were using them. There is a growing market for these French-Tunisian crosses in the Gulf countries too, and prices are on the rise. Today, nobody, save a few purists and oldtimes, cares about preserving the Tunisian asil Arabian anymore. Walid…
I “stole” this picture from the Internet, but it’s for a good cause. This is Jehol Sahraoui (Ouaffar x Kalthoumia by Sabour), for a long time the head sire at Mrs. Gisela Bergmann’s stud in Ghardimaou in western Tunisia. Mrs. Bergmann has bred precious ‘old’ Tunisian lines for some thirty years, and Jehol Sahraoui, born in 1978, is representative of these lines. He hails from a very rare sire line in Tunisian/Algerian breeding, that of El Managhi, imported from Hama (Central Syria) by the French to their Algerian Stud of Tiaret in 1924. His dam line, that of Dolma-Batche, is even rarer, and I don’t think it survives away from Mrs. Bergmann’s small breeding program (to be checked). Note that the Jilfan (no marbat recorded) line of Dolma-Batche, chesntut, born in 1869, imported to Sidi-Thabet in Tunisia in 1876, is a different line from the Jilfan Dhawi line to which was imported from the Syrian desert to Tiaret in Algeria in 1875. A number of good horses trace to Dolma-Batche, including the beautiful Sumeyr, who was featured on this blog before. Jehol is now represented by his son Tchad (b. in 1986 out of Binsar, by Koraich out of Hadia).…
Recently, Ambar Diaz started posting photos of some of this blog’s authors and regular contributors mounted on asil Arabian horses, as a way to put names on faces. Here is a photo that reader Predrag Joksimovic sent me of himself, mounted on Mahiba (Shams El Arabi x Mansoura), a very deserty little mare. Mahiba’s sire Shams El Arabi (Farouk x Bint El Arabi by El Araby) is of Egyptian bloodlines, her dam’s sire El Aswad (Ibn Galal x 10 Hosna) is also Egyptian, but her grand-dam Malaga (Madani x Berriane by Titan) was bred in Tunisia from predominantly Algerian bloodlines (and some old French through Mossoul). Malaga traces to several desert-bred imports featured on this blog, such as Bango, El Managhi, Ghazi, and others. She was a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, and so is Mahiba. She was exported to Germany in the 1960s. Egyptian and Algerian/Tunisian lines tend to blend very well with each other, further empasizing the added value of “combined source” breeding.
Adrien Deblaise breeds Arabian horses of Tunisian, Moroccan and Algerian bloodlines in Western France. His father Philippe was a bookseller that specialized in equine literature. Philippe’s inventory contained one of the largest collections in France books on horses in general and Arabians in particular. Below are pictures of two of Adrien’s mares: B’Oureah Marine (by Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak), and Qhejala (by Fawzan x Jelala II by Abouhif). B’Oureah is shown here competing for a 60 mile endurance race (which she won). She is a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, tracing to the mare Wadha imported by the French government from the Fad’aan tribe in 1875. Qhejala traces to Cherifa, a Shuwaymat Sabbah imported by the French from the Sba’ah tribe in 1869. Note the resemblance between Qhejala (who is 75% Egyptian) and the Babson (a group of asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines) broodmatron Fada (Faddan x Aaroufa by Fay El Dine). Fada’s rare photo below is from the late Billy Sheets’ photo collection.
A previous entry (here) on the strain of Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida mentioned the mare Dafina, a 1921 Kuhaylat al-Krush, sent by King Abd al-‘Aziz Aal Saud to Lady Wentworth of the UK in 1927, through Mr Gilbert Clayton, the British Representative in what was not yet called the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dafina was apparently bred by the Mutayr tribe, and sired by a Kuhaylan al-Krush from the same marbat. An asil line tracing to Dafina in the tail female survived until at least the mid 1950s, when the last asil mare was bred: this was the oddly-named and heavily inbred Foum Tattoene (by Flame of Reynall x Yaronda by Flame of Reynall), born in 1954. Had it survived, this precious line would have also safeguarded rare lines to the Blunt desert imports Jilfa (a Jilfat Sattam al-Bulad from the Shammar), Ashgar (a Saqlawi Ubayri from the Shammar), and Meshura (a Saqlawiyat ibn Derri from the Anazah). Below is another picture of the regal Dafina, from an old article on the Krush strain, (fraught with faulty assumptions, by the way, including the wrong assumption that the Lebanon-bred Krush Halba is the Blunt Sheykh Obeyd desert stallion Krush):
Sandra Uhlig’s mare Djoumanah El Nil, from Germany, has an interesting pedigree: Egyptian bloodlines on top, and a Jiflan Dhawi tail female from Tunisia through the mare Malaga and her dam Berriane. Berriane was bred in Algeria and imported to Tunisia by Admiral Cordonnier for his Sidi Bou Hadid stud). Note the line to the stallion Barr in her pedigree, through his grandson Koraich. More about Barr later. Jenny Lee’s weanling Amr, from the UK, has a different yet equally interesting pedigree. His sire is the Egyptian stallion Goudah (Gad Allah x Ramiah), and his dam Jenny’s Bahraini mare Shuwaimeh Bint Warda.
Louis Bauduin sent me this picture of the stallion Ya’sub in old age. Ya’sub (Shawani x Belkis by Irmak), now deceased, was bred by Jean-Claude Rajot, and owned by James Legros. He combines two of the best Tiaret (the famous French government horsebreeding stud in Algeria) bloodlines: the Shuawyman Sabbah line to Cherifia (b. 1869, bred by the Sba’ah tribe, imported to Tiaret) through his sire Shawani (Saadi x Zarifa); and the Jiflan Dhawi line to Wadha (bred by the Fad’aan tribe, imported to Tiaret in 1875( through his dam Belkis (Imark x Belle de Jour by Iricho).
Another photo courtesy of Jean-Claude Rajot is of the stallion El Obayan, a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, which the Veterinary Dr. Bardot bought in 1923 from the city of Hama in Syria, for the stud of Tiaret in Algeria. El Obayan was in the stall next to El Managhi, who was featured earlier. In Algeria, El Obayan sired the Jilfat Dhawi mare Baraka, who in turn sired the mare Gafsa by Bango. Gafsa was owned by master breeder A. Cordonnier of the Sidi Bou Hadid stud in Tunisia, and was the dam of the Cordonnier stallion Inchallah, exported to France, where he stood at the government stud of Pau. I need to scan a picture of Inchallah and share it with you.
Jean-Claude Rajot just sent me this rare photo of the important desert bred stallion El Managhi, bought in 1923 in Hama (central Syria) by veterinary Dr. Bardot for the Algerian stud of Tiaret. The stallion Bango, bought in Alexandria was part of the same importation. There is another picture of him in F. Klynstra’s book “Nobility of the desert”. Note that according to R. Mauvy, there is no indication that his strain was Ma’naghi, as his name may suggest. Most Tunisian Arabians now include his blood yet El Managhi’s most important product was perhaps the Asil Jilfat Dhawi mare Saponnaire, dam of Bassala which was acquired by the Pompadour stud in France. Here is an incomplete list of El Managhi’s progeny.
(See the comments section below for a translation of this blog entry to English) A l’origine, en tant qu’améliorateurs des races locales, essentiellement en vue de fournir des produits pour le service de la guerre. La base de nombreux élevages a été les animaux pris dans les combats contre l’Empire Ottoman. Il en est résulté dans de nombreux pays une jumenterie plus ou moins pure que l’on a tenté de conserver par l’achat d’étalons importés d’Orient. La Hongrie avec la race Shagya a été éminemment honnête. La France, avec deux variétés régionales, le Tarbais et le cheval du Limousin a eu la même démarche. A partir de Napoléon III, le pays a cherché à se constituer une jumenterie pure (Asil) afin de pouvoir disposer de reproducteurs pour améliorer la race Barbe en Afrique du nord et perfectionner l’Anglo-arabe naissant. Les établissements les plus remarquables ont été Tiaret en Algérie, Sidi Thabet en Tunisie et Pompadour en France. C’est à partir de cette époque que l’on s’est rendu compte de la différence de qualité entre les produits de la métropole et ceux des deux autres établissements (dégénérescence rapide sous l’influence des sols et du climat). Entre les deux guerres et surtout…
WARNING: DON’T READ ON UNLESS YOU ARE A PEDIGREE FREAK OR INTEND TO BECOME ONE. Of the Arabian horses bred in the three North African countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, the latter is the only one that did not develop its own “brand” of Arabians. Rather, Morocco relied on importations from its two North African neighbors as well as France and Egypt. Lets look at the pedigree of a typical modern Moroccan-bred Arabian horse: Fata, a chestnut stallion of the Jilfan Dhawi strain imported in utero from Morocco to France in 1976. Fata’s dam Tobiha was actually sold by the Moroccan Government stud of Meknes to French breeder jean Deleau, the founder of Haras de la Lizonne, in Western France. Fata is by El Sud El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), an Asil stallion born in Egypt and gifted to the King Mohamed V of Morocco (a full brother to SF Ibn Nazeer, by the way). Fata’s dam Tobiha is by Burhan (Morafic x Mona by Sid Abouhoum x Moniet el Nefous), another Egyptian Asil, and also a present from Egypt to the Moroccan King. Fata’s maternal granddam, Mousson is by Murols, a stallion bred at the French stud of Pompadour and imported from France…
Some of you have emailed me privately with questions about French and North African Asil Arabians of the past and the present. Thank you for your messages. It is nice to see that there is interest in these horses. I reread the posts I have been writing on French Asil horses to refresh my memory. Most are “gloom and doom”, with words like “lost” and “last” all over the entries’ titles. The sad reality is that this grim assessment is true, and that French Asil are on the brink of extinction, despite the enormous number of desert horses imported to France and to its former North African possessions over the last two centuries. Arabian horse in France were – and are still – bred by two categories of breeders: the Government and private breeders. Since Napoleon’s time and until WWII, the French government has been importing and maintaining desert Arabian stallions in stallion depots across the country, as well as a small herd of broodmares in the stud of Pompadour. Arabian stallions and, to a lesser extent Arabian mares, were bred to English Thoroughbreds to produce Anglo-Arabs, a breed France is credited for creating and developing. A small nucleus of…
Several recent blog entries have mentioned the Arabian mare Bucolique (Besbes x Berthe by Irmak). Bucolique is arguably one of the few remaining Asil mares of French bloodlines still in breedable age. She was born in 1982, so that window of opportunity is closing fast. Bucolique is not quite representative of “Old French” bloodlines: both her sire Besbes and her maternal grandsire Irmak (a gorgeous horse of the most classic type, pictured below) were born in Tunisia (at Sidi Thabet and Sidi Bou Hadid, respectively), and her maternal granddam Bassala was born in Algeria (at Tiaret). All three were subsequently imported to the French goverment stud of Pompadour, where they conspired to produce Bucolique and her full sister Best, pictured below. Best’s picture was sent to me by her owner Rose Cambon. Best, born in 1981, was still alive in 2006, but had stopped breeding. She is pensioned at Jean Cambon’s stud in South-Western France, after having produced a string of race winners in France and the United Arab Emirates, none of them by Asil stallions (I am being polite here: saying that some of these stallions are non-Asil is a euphemism). At the time, Ms. Cambon was open to the idea of trying to breed here again, this time…
The mare in this picture is desert bred, from the strain of Jilfan Stam al-Bulad. Her breeder is an old Bedouin from the al-Yassar section of the tribe of Tay. The picture is frm the early 2000s, and I think that mare is still breeding today. She is of interest because she traces to a stallion of the Dahman ‘Amer strain, which was owned by Saud al-Ajarrache, a Bedouin of the Shammar tribe, in the 1940s. The information on that stallion matches that available for the stallion “Douhayman al-Ajarrache”, which the record of the Beirut racetrack list as the sire of the racehorse El Nasser, imported to Egypt in 1943, and later used by the Egyptian Agricultural Organization (EAO) as a breeding stallion.
The entries on the French Asil Arabian horses continue to generate a lot of interest. To some, the photos of classic specimen of Arabians horses were like an eye opener, shedding light on Asil breeding in a country that has imported hundreds of desert bred stallions and mares from Arabian, and set up large-scale breeding ventures that go on in three other countries (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco). Some of the comments I received go a step further, and ask practical questions, for example about what can be done to save the remnants of these horses, before it is too late. Here is a lead: While I was still based in France, I tried to lease one of the last Asil mares, Bucolique (Besbes x Berthe by Irmak), a gorgeous 1981 bay mare of the Jilfan Dhawi strain, and the dam of many racehorse champions, with the aim of breeding her to Rubi de la Mouline (Ilamane x Hamma by Raoui), a 1983 chestnut stallion of the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz strain . Her owner, Jean-Marie Baldy, of the Haras du Cayrou in the Cantal area of central France, was willing to lease her, and the owners of Rubi de la Mouline were also willing to…
Back to El Nasser. An earlier post identified his sire, “Douhaymane El Ajarrache”, as a Dahman (or Duhayman) ‘Amer from the al-‘Ajarrash family of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. “Douhayman El Ajarrache” was actively breeding in 1937, when El Nasser’s dam was bred to him to produce El Nasser in May 1938. Last year – and here is the fresh information I promised – I stumbled on the hujjah (certificate of authenticity) of a desert-bred mare tracing to a stallion that could be “Douhaymane El Ajarrache”. The mare is now dead but she has descendants alive today in Syria, in the very area El Nasser was born, the Upper Jazirah. Here is the full translation of this mare’s hujjah: “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, I, the undersigned, ‘Ali al-Blaybil son of Husayn, from the village of Qartaba born in 1915, from the tribal section of al-Yassar, from the the tribe of Tai, testify by God Most High, that the grey mare which I sold to Mr. Nawaf al-Sulayman al-‘Abd al-Rahman in 1950, is from my horses, called Jilfat Stam al-Bulad; the sire of her dam is the horse of Sa’ud al-‘Ajarrash, a chestnut Dahman ‘Amer, and I did that breeding myself. And Gost is bears witness to what I say. Testifier: Ali Husayn al-Balybil, ID #: […], owner of…