A father-son pairing this time, both Kuhaylan Hayfi. Atticus (Dharanad x Fairy Queen) is 24 in the first image. Attikos (Atticus x Marigold CF) is three (and, I think, in the middle of a trot-canter transition—). See how Attikos is using his LS joint, “sitting down” in the rear to push off? A quick look found this image showing the ideal LS joint as being over the point of the hip, creating a short, strong loin and a long hip (the illustration says “long croup“). Attikos is pretty close to this ideal.
It’s Boxing Day, so you get a bonus Davenport. (Actually, I ran across a series of comparisons between historic and modern Davenports that some Davenport people did in email in 2006, and I’ll try to share the ones I can illustrate.) Sotamm, 1919 brown mare (*Hamrah x *Farha) ADA Recapitulation, 2003 chestnut mare (Memoir UF x Capucine), age 2. When I first saw the Sotamm picture, I was initially shocked by the resemblance, then gratified to realize that we really are doing more than just preserving names in pedigrees.
Per Jenny Krieg’s suggestion, the Iras full sister Thea Isis, and her daughter, the iconic JAL Athena. Now all we need is a good shot of Portent, HB Octavia’s full brother, and we can complete the set. P.S. I’m sorry about the cropping, but I couldn’t quite get the gallery to do what it said it would do. If you click through each image, you can see the whole thing.
This picture is from the Craver photo collection, courtesy of Jeanne Craver. It is another one of my favorite pictures of Arabian stallions of Davenport lines.. Lysander (Sir x Dhalana by Salan), was one of the main stallions at Craver Farms in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ambar reminded me of this 1994 video by Carol Mingst, where some of the Davenport Arabian stallions in the North-West USA appear. You will see the magnificent stallions Kuhaylan Haifi stallion Audobon (Iliad x Audacity) and a paternal grandson of Monsoon, SA Apogee (Ascendant x Copper Hill Rysa by Flight Plan), as well as Al Mujiz Jauhara who is Javera Thadrian’s half brother. There are nice shots of the black Kuhaylan al-Krush Sportin Life (Brimstone x Asallah Al Krush), and the bay Mandarin (Regency CF x Lotus), too. There are some non-asils in the middle of the video.
Bon Vivant CF was bred at Craver Farms by Lysander out of Bonne Fortune by Dharanad. He looks splendid in that picture.
The 1943 mare *Kouhailane (photo above, not flattering) was one of the 14 horses to be imported to the USA by press magnate W.R. Hearst in 1947. She hails from the Lebanese plain of Akkar, north of Tripoli and close to the Syria border. ‘Akkar is the prime horse-breeding area in Lebanon. It is a very fertile agricultural plain, extending from the Mediterranean sea to the highlands of Mt. Lebanon, and bordering Syria. It is within an hour’s access to the Syrian desert by car, and it is was not unusual for ‘Anazah clans and others from smaller Bedouin tribes used to pitch their tents in the plains. Since the end of the XVII century, the feudal landlords of ‘Akkar have been from the Mer’abi family, who were of Kurdish origins (in Arabic). The Mer’abis were split in several rival clans: al-Muhammad, al-‘Uthman, al-‘Abd al-Razzaq, al-As’ad, al-‘Ali, who were farming taxes from the various ‘Akkar districts on behalf of the Ottoman governor of Tripoli, and ultimately, who was the local representative of the Ottoman governor. At times, Mir’abi leaders were able to garner enough strength to become Ottoman govenors of Tripoli themselves. In ‘Akkar, some of the most prestigious marabet were: 1. Kuhaylan al-Dunays, originally from Sba’ah, with the Mer’abis in the…
This mare was mentioned several times on this blog. She is a Kuhaylat al-Wati of the marbat of Hakim al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins in Nort-Eastern Syria. Her sire, dam, grandsire and granddam, and her ancestors beyond that are from the same marbat, and bred by the same family. She was owned by Mustafa Jabri of Aleppo, is the dam of the stallion Kassar, owned by Omar Anbarji. I took this photo in 1990
This photo is from the collection of the late Mary Gharagozlu, through Brigitte Killian. It pictures the Bahraini Kuhaylat al-Mulawlish mare Mlolesh Al-Yatima (Jellabi al-Asil x Mlolesh).
Fancy Flight (Tripoli x Ceres by Aramis) was a full sister to Monsoon. Asil Kuhaylah Hayfiyah bred by Craver Farms, and founder of a family of herself. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
This is a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah at the stud of the late Alaa Din Jabri (Mustafa’s uncle), east of Aleppo. I forgot what her name was, but you can easily find her in the first Volume of the Syrian studbook. Her sire was Mahrous, and her dam one of the two bay Kuhaylah Hayifiyah mares daughters of the Saqlawi Marzakani stallion Ghuzayyil (there were two of these back in 1992 when I took that picture, a younger one and an older one). This mare was very pretty and very strongly built at the same time. Certainly one of the best Mahrous daughters. Alaa Din Jabri bred this line for at least four decades, and before that time the line was with Wawi al-Kharfan of the Fad’aan Bedouins. It is said the line is somehow related to the horses of the last of the leader of the Fad’aan Bedouins to live in Syria: Miqhim Ibn Mhayd. In any case, the strain of Kuhaylan al-Hayfi belongs to the leading Mhayd clan of the Shumaylat section of the Fad’aan Bedouins, as I mentioned earlier on this site, here. This is where the Hayfiyah mare *Reshan came from. She was imported by Homer Davenport to…
A beautiful head shot of the 1980 asil Kuhaylan Haifi stallion Audobon (Iliad x Audacity by Lysander out of Bint Dharebah by Monsoon), bred by Charles Craver and later owned by Carol Lyons and Marge Smith in Oregon.
Since we were discussing Monsoon, here is his most influential daughter, Bint Dharebah (x Dharebah). The DAHC pedigree database credits her with 7 registered foals and a total of 74 descendants as of the 2006 update. I have heard RJ quoted to the effect that she is the modern echo of *Reshan — perhaps he will expand on that for us. Photos courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
The asil stallion Ghalion-6 is by Ghalion (Morafic x Lubna) out of 25 Amurath-Sahib (Amurath Sahib x 221 Kuhaylan Zaid by Kuhaylan Zaid out of 11 Siglavy Bagdady II). He traces to the mare 60-Adjuze, imported from the Arabian desert by Austro-Hungarian Empire official Fadlalla El Hedad. Adjuze was reportedly bred by the Sba’ah Bedouins, her sire being a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz and her dam a “Schecha”, the transliteration of which is “Shaykhah”. “Shaykhah” is either a mare’s name or a strain’s name, depending on the context in which it occurs. In that case, it is likely to the strain of the mare, the full strain being Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz al-Shaykhah, a lesser-known strain primarily owned by the Sba’ah and Fad’aan Bedouins.
The strain of al-Kray is a branch of Kuhaylan al-Krush and it originates from either the Bedouin tribe of al-‘Ajman or that of Bani Hajar.
This is a raelly unique photo, by Carl Raswan, from the Craver photo collection. It shows the mare Szeikha, a chestnut Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz purchased in the Arabian desert in 1931 by Bogdan Zientarski and Carl Raswan on the behalf of Prince Roman Sanguszko for the Gumniska Stud. She was bred i n 1923 by “Sheikh Farhan bin Haji Barak al Rahman” of the Muntefiq. She was lost during World War II and never found again. She may or may not have been of the strain of Kuhaylat al-Ajuz al-Shaykhah, Kuhaylat al-Shaykhah for short, or Szeikha (Shaykhah) may just be her name. She is the quintessential war mare, and I am a strong advocate of breeding back to this type of Arabian mares – the upright neck aside.
The chestnut stallion Kassar (Mahrous x Dawha by K. al-Wati) was bred by Mustafa al-Jabri and purchased by Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, who sent me the picture below. Kassar’s dam Dawha hails from the ma’ruf (well-known — by the Bedouin community, that is) and mazbut (reliable, authenticated, trusted) marbat of Kuhaylan al-Wati of the sons of Hakim al-Hsayni al-Ghishm of the Shammar, now settled in North-Eastern Syria. Hakim, his sons Mohammed, Ali and Fawaz and his grandsons such as Husayn followed a policy of only breeding their Kuhaylat al-Wati mares to their Kuhaylan al-Wati stallions. They own several branches of the same horses. Kassar in particular is heavily linebred to the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain. Kassars sire Mahrous is a son of a dark grey Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion, also from Hakim’s, and so is his paternal grandsire. Kassar’s paternal grandsire and Kassar’s dam are said to be very closely related. Theirs is a relatively old marbat with the Shammar; The grey stallion “Koheilan”, imported to England in the early 1910s (I think, but maybe it was the 1920s, in any case the horse is pictured in the first pages of Al Khamsa Arabians I, 1983), where he left no progeny, was of that strain. The Kuhaylan…
Jeanne Craver scanned the photo of Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres by Aramis) which some readers have mentioned and which I was so eager to see. She wrote: “I have it as a slide and as a page proof from an Arabian Horse World ad we did years ago. I used the ad page, so there creases in the paper. This actually makes his head look more dished than it was. It was really fairly straight in profile, but very dry and classy. Anita Westfall took the photo, another one of her jewels! She also made the halter.” I don’t know how to put it otherwise, and this is perhaps inappropriate, but he looks … ‘sexy’.
I think this stallion, Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres) is stunning. I am sorry about the poor quality of the picture. He was born at Craver Farms in 1967 and it is a shame he died young [well not so young, says Joe Ferriss, my memory is failing me] and therefore left little progeny.
Finally, a photo of the 24 year old desert-bred Bahraini stallion *Mlolshaan Hager Solomon at his owner Bill Biel in Michigan. Jenny Krieg went up there and took this picture, from which Jeanne Craver removed the tack. Jenny has leased a mare of Saudi Arabian lines from Rodger Vance Davis to breed to him, and Rodger also sent in another mare too. If all goes well, there will be two foals from him next year, and I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed. His blood is rare and precious because he is one of the few stallions out of Bahrain in the West. He is also rare because of his strain: Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish is only present in Bahrain today.
I was sorry to hear about the passing of Majd, the bay Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion whose picture i recently posted. While visiting the Al Basel government stud in Syria, Majd’s sire was introduced. He is an imposing grey of good size, and his name is Basil [Mahrous x Halah]. He is of the Kuhaylan Mimrah strain and is bred by Mustapha Al Jabri. He is a horse of great quality and has a wonderful nobility which reminds me of that sense of quiet, confident, but strong diginity akin to a great war horse. The Blue Star stallion Muhairon (Sirecho x *Muhaira) was very much like this. [askterisks are used to denote imported to North America.] I wish I had more photos of Basil but the one here is descriptive of his quality which shows great proportions, leg quality and wonderfully shaped ears, a true Bedu charger to be proud of. -Joe Ferriss
The ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous was, until his death in the late 1990s, the herd sire at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, Syria. Today his sire line is, along with that of the Damascus stallion Ayid, the most prolific in modern Syrian Arabian horse breeding. If you check Mahrous’ entry in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook, you will find relatively little information about him, in comparison with other major stallions of his generation (e.g, Mobarak, Mashuj, Raad, Marzuq, Mokhtar, all born between 1982 and 1987). I was able to learn more about Mahrus’ background by asking a number of persons, including Mustafa, Radwan Shabariq and the late Abd al-Qadir al-Hammami, as well as others who knew the horse well. Hazaim al-Wair has also conducted a masterful inquiry among the Shammar Bedouins clans of al-Sbeih and al-Ghishm about Mahrous’ sire. Mahrous was born in 1981, in the steppe area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in Northeastern Syria. He was bred by a Bedouin of the Faddaghah clan of the Shammar tribe, a man named Wuhayyid al-Hamad al-Duhayyim. Wuhayyid then sold Mahrous to horse merchant, who sold him to another, before Mustafa bought him as a young stallion in 1983/84. The photo of Mahrous,…
This photo of the stallion Rock (Ragie x El Charsaa by Gezeier) with proud owner Shaykh Sulayman ibn Abd al-Hamid ibn ‘Ulaywa al-Tahawi was taken from the Tahawi family website. I am so grateful to Bernd Radtke for among other things, his sharing with me the pedigree of Rock’s daughter Bombolle (Rock x Maskerade), which has allowed to reconstitute Rock’s pedigree. Rock’s strain is Kuhaylan al-Kharass, and his tail female traces to the Kuhalyan al-Kharas marbat of the Sba’ah Bedouins. Kuhaylan al-Kharas is a flagship strain of the Sba’ah, and is the strain of the Blunt import Proximo, among other well known Arabians of Lebanon and Syria. Rock’s pedigree is heavily linebred to the two strains of Dahman ‘Amer (from the marbat of Jarallah Ibn Tuwayrish) and ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (from the marbat of Abu Jreyss).
The 1988 grey Hamdani al-‘Ifri stallion *Ta’an (Awaad x al-Efrieh by a Kuhaylan al-Wati) was born in the Jazirah area of North-Eastern Syria. His breeder, Mis’ir al-Hamad is a member of one of the small Arab nomadic tribes that settled in this area in the XXth century. I first saw *Ta’an in 1990 as a yearling, at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud outside of Aleppo. I took pictures which I will scan and share with you. I then saw him again in 1991 and 1992. In 1993, Mustafa gifted *Ta’an to Gerald and Debra Dirks who took him to the USA, then to Jordan in 1996. At that time, the Arab Horse Association studbook did not recognize the Syrian Studbook, so *Ta’an never got registered, even though Al Khamsa, Inc accepted him on the basis of his being a Bedouin-bred horse from Syria. The two pictures below were taken at the Dirks’ farm, and are courtesy of Marie Arthur. *Ta’an’s sire was Awaad, a grey Kuhaylan al-Krush bred by ‘Iyadah Talab al-Khalaf, of the Shammar Bedouins, from the prestigious Krush al-Baida marbat of Mayzar al-Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar. Awaad sired many good mares and stallions in Syria, among them the…
This is Ibn El Iat (El Iat x Marecho by Ibn Sirecho) a 1992 Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion owned by Elta Cook Ozier in Illinois. His pedigree is special because it consists of three horses only: *Fadl, Sirecho and *Turfa. There used to be many horses with that pedigree pattern a couple decades ago. Ibn El Iat is and his full sister MD Bint Marecho are the only two left, and both are 31.2% *Turfa. While I am not a fan of percentages, I tend to feel that the more *Turfa in a horse of these lines, the better the horse. Photo from Jeanne Craver.
Mustafa al-Jabri is a longtime Syrian breeder of desert Arabian horses from Aleppo, Syria, and a beloved family friend. Mustafa’s stud near Aleppo, which has up to 100 mares and two dozen stallions, is one of the most highly regarded studs in Syria. Over the past decades, Mustafa spent extensive amounts of time with Bedouins and those familiar with them, and collected a large compendium of stories, some in verse, some in prose about Arabian horse strains, Bedouin feats and deeds, and the relationship of Bedouins with their horses. Mustafa’s family is now working on putting these stories in writing in Arabic, for education and awareness raising purposes. Below is one of these story from Mustafa, which I translated from the original Arabic, and which Mustafa and his family graciously agreed to share: One day Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba the Shaykh of the Shammar tribe went hunting with one of the men from his tribe, a Bedouin known as Wati al-Ghishm (as an aside: Wati means lowly and vile, and it was a Bedouin habit to give their children rough or negatively connotated first names to draw the evil eye away from them ; they would keep positively connotated first names to…
This mare, Cataree (Mandarin CF x Minaret CF by Heir Apparent), is a Kuhaylat al-Krush of Davenport bloodlines, tracing to the mare *Werdi imported by Homer Davenport from Syria in 1906. She was presented at the 2007 Al Khamsa Convention in California. Photo by Christine Emmert.
It’s all in the title. Mokhtar is the black desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion bred by the Shammar, and has been a recent fixture on this blog.. His owner Chantal Chekroun says that professionally frozen semen will be available for him this coming September, to respond to international demand. The horse is turning 24 next year, so the clock is ticking.. Soon, with Bedouins becoming sedentary and more integrated in the global economy, the notion of a desert-bred horse born under a tent will itself come to and end. Below is a photo of one of Mokhtar’s sons in France, the stallion Quarzai, who recently earned third place at a 90 miles endurance race.
Jackson Hensley, of Bedouin Arabians Farm, in New Mexico, just sent me pictures of the latest addition to his stud; Sabella Al Krush, an asil Kuhaylat al-Krush filly, tracing in tail female to the mare *Werdi imported from Syria to USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. *Werdi hails from the Krush marbat of the Fad’aan Bedouins. As an aside, the famous stallion Krush Halba, the foundation sire for the Turkish Arabian horse breeding program, hailed from the same Fad’aan marbat as *Werdi. Krush Halba was one of the most prepotent sires of racehorses of his time. He was active in the northern Lebanese town of Halba in the 1920s and 30s, and was purchased in 1933 by a Turkish Government Commission and exported to Turkey where he was known as Baba Kurus. Check out his hujjah here (scroll down to Appendix B). One of Krush Halba’s sons, the grey stallion Kroush (actually a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq by strain) was bought from the Beirut racetrack in 1936 by Dr. Mabrouk of the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS), and was used by the RAS for breeding . Kroush appears in the Egyptian “RAS History” studbook (EAO Vol 1) on page 48. He had three registered offspring in Egypt: the stallion Tamie (1937) out of Nagiya; the mare Bushra…
Now if there is one Arabian mare that needs no introduction, it’s *Turfa. Ever since her importation by Henri Babson to the USA in 1941, almost seventy years ago, this pretty Kuhaylah mare has continued to embody the ideal desert-bred Arabian mare. Her famous picture trotting in the snow-covered paddocks of the Babson Farm (below) was a constant source of fascination for me, as I was growing up. In the 1980s, asil Arabians tracing to *Turfa were a major building block of Al Khamsa, and a quick glance at one of the ads which breeders of *Turfa-bred horses placed in books like Al Khamsa Arabians (1983) suffices to convince one of the popularity of this bloodline back then. *Turfa-bred horses were athletic, had good disposition and looked like classic Arabian horses of the first order. The *Turfa blood was to be found mainly — but not exclusively — in combination with Babson Egyptian bloodlines, horses tracing to Babson lines with the addition of the stallion Sirecho (Nasr x Exochorda by Aiglon), and in many combinations within the BLUE STAR group of horses. Stallions looked especially attractive: Fa-Turf, Ibn Fadl, Dhahran (photo below, note the resemblance with his grand-dam above, he…
This magnificent Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion (Tripoli x Asara by Kasar), bred by Charles Craver in 1962 must have been the kind of horse a tribe would plan a ghazu to take away from another tribe. I wish I was around when that stallion was alive.
I found some of my notes on the subject of the now extinct strain of Kuhaylan al-Jalala. Victor Muller, a French army intelligence officer who had overall responsibility over the Syrian desert area at the time of the French Mandate on this country authored an authoritative book on the Bedouins of Syria. In one chapter, he wrote that the initial marbat of Kuhaylat al-Jalala among the Shammar was with Ibn Dayes of the Khrissah clan, but that it had recently become extinct with Ibn Dayes. He also wrote that he knew of a Kuhayla al-Jalala mare with the Jayss tribe, the traditional enemies of the Shammar, whose pastures are by the Turkish border with Syria. He also added in what looks like an update to the previous information that the last Kuhaylat al-Jalala mare, owned jointly by Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba (leader of the Northern Shammar in Muller’s time) and by the Qa’it clan (a clan of Shammar warriors) had died recently. He also adds that the number of ancient strains taken by the Shammar in that famous battle with the Sharif of Mecca were five, and cites all the strains I cited except Kuhaylat al-Dhabi. That said, I heard al-Dhabi…
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…
[Edouard’s note: the story below was sent to me to Pure Man in Arabic, and is posted here under his name. Translation mine. It was first published a year ago, almost day for day and is being republished now] These horses, al-Musinnat [plural form of Kuhaylat al-Musinn or al-Musinnah] are very ancient. They are from the horses of ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Faysal ibn Turki Aal Saud, the brother of King ‘Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud. Prince Abd Allah, the brother of the king, had kept his horses in a private, separate farm. Upon his death, the horses went to his son, Prince Abd al-Rahman, and then to his grandson, Prince Faysal. And Prince Faysal is now aged. Then the horses went to Prince Turki Ibn Fahd Ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Faysal ibn Turki, who is now preserving what remains from the asil horses, per God’s will. Some of the Musinnat horses of Prince Abdallah, the brother of King Abd al-Aziz, participated in the Hedjaz campaign [i.e., the takover of the Hedjaz region from the Sharif of Mecca by the army of Ibn Saud in 1924]. Two men from Ibn Saud’s army fought particularly well in some episodes of this campaign:…
Recently, I have been re-reading a lot of the old articles RJ wrote for Arabian Visions magazine, to refresh my memory as I start working on an Al Khamsa project on rare lines (more on this later). One of my favorite RJ articles is “The Blunts and Crabbet Stud: An Abbreviated History and Description of the Breeding Program“, from the time Crabbet Stud was founded in 1878 to Lady Anne Blunt death in 1917, including the dam lines that were represented at Crabbet across 40 years of breeding: In 1917, “the desert mares still represented at Crabbet at the end of Lady Anne’s life were Basilisk, Jerboa, Dajania, Queen of Sheba, Meshura, Rodania, and Ferida. However, the Jerboa line had died out in tail-female.” So, six of the Blunt’s desert damlines were still represented in 1917. Also, “of the Ali Pasha mares, the 1917 catalog details that […] the blood of the families of Sobha, Bint Helwa, Bint Nura, Makbula and her daughter Kasida, ran strong in the herd, with all but the latter having provided sires to the stud.” Four damlines from the Ali Pasha Sharif mares were still there in 1917, for a total of ten damlines. It would be…
So the farrier came at his appointed time. With the farrier came the farrier’s apprentice. With the apprentice came her 2yo daughter, Jesse. Now, Jesse has spent a lot of time around horses, and obviously adores them, but she’s still two and needs to be reminded to approach them from the front, not the back. (A photograph that I missed taking: Jesse, in the hay feeder which is a repurposed water trough almost as tall as she is, squealing with delight as Recap ignored the old hay she was being offered in favor of wiggling her upper lip in Jesse’s hair.) And she was pretty good for a while, but there were four mares to trim and Jesse was gaining speed, so we put her on top of Petit Point. Petit Point was perfectly agreeable about balancing the child while her front feet were being done, but Jesse’s wiggling was picking up again, and she was slowly working her way back, until she was nearly sitting on Petit Point’s loins. The farrier’s apprentice asked for a back foot, and Petit Point — refused. She apparently calculated that the child was going to pitch off her back if she didn’t stay…
This very old mare is a Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah from the Middle Euphrates valley in Syria, near the small town of al-Mayadin. This area general is home to the tribe of al-Aqaydat (Ageydat), a wealthy and powerful semi-nomadic tribe of cultivators and small herders whose Shaykhs obtained a number of really good desert-bred mares in the first part of the twentieth century, sometimes through ghazu (raids) and sometimes through purchase and gifts. They bred these mares well, and protected them by using only asil stallions, and hence came to own reputalbe marabet. Today some of the prettiest and typiest Syrian horses came from these Ageyday marabet. One of the most well known Aqaydat marabet is that of Kuhaylat al-Trayfiyyah, which is an old strain the history of which I don’t know well. All I know is that it might – just might – derive its name from Matarifah clan of the ‘Anazah tribe. The strain is mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, in connection with events that took place in Eastern Arabia, either in Bahrain, Qatar or the al-Ihsaa region of Saudi Arabia. The Kuhaylah Trayfiyyah is the photo was not registered in the WAHO Syrian Studbook and I don’t know the reason. Perhaps…
Pure Man tells me there is one more horse to be added to the list of desert-bred stallions born in Arabia Deserta, and now in Europe or the USA. This is Jellaby Bin Ambara, a bay 1989 stallion, bred in Bahrain by H.H. Shaykh Muhammad Bin Salman Aal Khalifa, the uncle of the present King of Bahrain. Jellaby Bin Ambara (M62) is by Saidan Lazaz (M29), out of Jellabieh Anbara (M28), and was exported to Austria in 1991. He is AAS*823 in the Austrian Studbook. Not sure he is still alive.
*Samirah is a Hamdaniyah Simriyah from the stud of the House of Saud in Najd, which was imported to the USA by Albert Harris in 1921. She has a very thin line that was the focus of a number of courageous, almost desperate preservation efforts over the last fourty years. The result is that the tail female line still goes on, albeit barely. A first line tracing back to *Samirah through her daughter Koweyt was discussed earlier, here. The second line to *Samirah is through her other daughter Kerasun, by the desert-bred stallion *Sunshine. *Sunshine was also from the Saud studs, and was imported in utero to USA in 1931 by Albert Harris, along with his dam *Nufoud, *Samirah, and two other mares. Kerasun in turn had two daughters, both bred by Albert Harris: Kaleta (by Alcazar) and Karamia (by Kulun, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz stallion from really old bloodlines tracing to *Nedjme). Through Kaleta runs a very thin line high in desert bred blood straight from Najd and the Syrian desert, with the arrows indicating a mother-to-daughter link: Kaleta –> her daughter Faleta (by Ibn Fadl, another Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz and a son of the desert, his dam being *Turfa) –> Faleta’s…
A friend who is around fifty years old just told me that he used to ride the grey mare who is the grand-dam of the chestnut Abu Junub colt when he was young, and that his grand-father had bought the original Kuhaylat Umm Junub mare from the Bedouins on the basis that she was asil, and on the basis of her hujjah which he said contained the seals of tribal Bedouin shaykhs. He said they had bought the original mare from Ibn Rakhis of Shammar who was settled in Rafha to the north of Hafr al-Batin. He also told me that they will look for her hujjah and if they find it, they will give me a copy. So fifty years ago, the tail female of the few Abu Junub horses now in Saudi Arabia were were with Ibn Rakhis from Shammar.
I have always felt considerable sadness whenever an Arabian horse strain dies out. With it, part of the rich and colorful history of this breed vanishes forever. I can’t really say why, but to me it feels just like losing the last copy of a rare manuscript. Most of the best-known and most important Arabian strains are still represented today in asil form, and we are lucky to have them. A number of really significant ones were lost in Arabia Deserta over the last fifty years. These include Kuhaylan Tamri (known to US breeders as the strain of the Davenport import *Houran), Kuhaylan al-Kharas (the strain of the Blunt import Proximo), Kuhaylan Harqan (the strain of the grandsire of the Ali Pasha Sherif stallion Mesaoud) and Kuhaylan Om Soura. Until last week, I thought Kuhaylan Abu Junub was one of these. Kuhaylan Abu Junub is a strain I have always been interested in. There are some indications it is somehow ‘related to’, in a way I am not yet in a position to explain fully, to Ma’naqi, Jilfan, and Frayjan, all of which are ultimately Kuhaylan branches as well. It is on the list of Abbas Pasha’s ten favorite strains,…
ADA Intuition (“Poppy”) is the 2005 chestnut daughter of Atticus and Capucine, a straight Davenport Kuhaylah Hafiyah. This is her third ride after a year in pasture after just three months of under saddle work, so she is quite green still, but well behaved through an arena with jumps (and a neighboring goat pen, and 3 braying miniature donkeys, and let’s not forget the flocks of brightly colored bicyclists whipping down the road past the arena!) If you get tired of watching her balance herself in the arena, skip to about 6:20 and watch her stroll across the little stream and head up into the hills… If you want more, here she is on the longe line, a scant hour after getting off the trailer:
One more picture of Omar Anbarji’s now deceased desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Ra’ad, this time by a professional photographer. I think this is the fourth picture of him I post. I would like to familiarize readers with the foundation stock of the Syrian Arabians, because I feel they will become more and more significant in the future. You have already seen pictures of some of the most influential Syrian Arabian stallions, many of which are personal favorites: Ra’ad, a Kuhaylan al-Musinn; al-Aa’war, a Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mubarak, another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mokhtar, a Kuhaylan al-Krush; Marzuq, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, etc. Look them up in the search function of this blog on the right hand column, and you will see the relevant entry with their photos. Ra’ad was bred by Jamal al-Turki al-‘Ilyu of the Saw’an clan, which is the leading clan of the settled, part peasant, part sheep-herding tribe of al-Sabkhah, on the banks of the middle Euphrates. Jamal’s family also bred Ra’ad dam Nawal al-Kheil, and her grand-dam as well. The Sabkhah, who occupy the area of same name (click here to see it on Google Map) are themselves part of the larger peasant confederation of the Bu Sha’ban.…
Busy at work these days, so little time to write in-depth pieces, yet I itch to write something, which means lots of Photos of the Day! This is Elegance (by Triermain x Enchante CF by Zacharia) owned by Darlene Summers of Maryland. She is Kuhaylah Hayfiyah tracing to the horses imported from Arabia Deserta by Homer Davenport in 1906. Photo Christine Emmert.
Here’s Charles Craver on the very masculine Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Tybalt (Tripoli x Asara by Kasar) doing a piaffe.. Photo by Judith Franklin, through Jeanne Craver
Above is a distant photo of another son of the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Raad. This is Hussam al-Shimal, a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq stallion from the marbat of Sa’ed Ameen Yakan, in al-Bad, north of Aleppo. Hussam is going to be sent to France where he will stand at stud with Arnault Decroix. I am no fan of the show-ring. I firmly believe that an asil Arabian horse was not born to be paraded around like a puppet, and that among all asil Arabians, the Syrian asil horses deserve this ridiculous treatment the least (these were war and endurance machines, remember), but I thought it was worth noting that Hussam, this son of a desert-bred, was twice Syria’s National Reserve Champion.
Note again the huge expressive eye, the big jowl, the tipped ears, and the small muzzle. All that in a desert-bred stallion. I will dig his hujja out and translate it for you.
Blog reader and friend Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, Syria, sent me the following picture of his foundation stallion Raad, a desert-bred (yes) asil Kuhaylan al-Musinn, born in 1982, and now deceased. Raad was bred by Jamal Turki al-Saw’an, out the mare Nawal al-Kheil, and traces back to the famous marbat of Ibn ‘Amayir of the Fad’aan Bedouin tribe. Back in the early 1980s, Omar’s father, civil engineer Munir Anbarji, was working on projects in the Syrian desert. He purchased this young Kuhaylan al-Musinn colt to use on his desert-bred mares. The handful of Aleppo horse breeders who cared about asil arabians at the time knew that this colt, Raad, was of mazbut (authenticated) origin.
In 1952, Charles Craver acquired the asil Crabbet mare *Ringlet (by Astralis x Rudeyna by Daoud), around the same time two other giants, Dr. Joseph L. Doyle, and Richard Pritzlaff were acquiring the asil mares Gulida (by Gulastra x Valida by Ghawi) and Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr), respectively, which they bred to the stallion Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare by Rodan). Ghadaf, Gulida, Rabanna and Ringlet, all pictured below, are unique in that they carried the highest concentration of Abbas Pasha (Viceroy of Egypt, ca. 1850, and Arabian-horse-freak-in-chief) bloodlines available in the USA at the time. Gulida and Ringlet were entirely of old Crabbet stock, and so was Rabanna with the addition of the line to *Nasr (Rabdan x Bint Yemama), who of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq’s breeding in Egypt, but out of a sister to Crabbet’s Mesaoud (Aziz x Yemameh). Gulida and Rabanna bred on, Ringlet didn’t. She is now lost to asil breeding. Thank God for what still remains of these glorious old Crabbet bloodlines.
Teymur Abdelaziz of Germany sent me this photo of the 1993 grey mare Chira (Saymoon x Cylia by Madkour I), a great-great-grand daughter of Nafaa, the desert-bred Kuhaylah mare gifted by Ibn Saud to the king of Egypt in the 1940s. Chira is unique in the sense is that she is the last mare to trace to Nafaa through Nafaa’s daughter Bint Nafaa (by El Gadaa) and as such, the last mare to carry El Gadaa’s blood. Read more about Bint Nafaa and her sire El Gadaa here. I am glad to know Teymur is working on preserving this precious line, which is so close to some of the choicest desert bloodlines. Best of luck with that, Teymur.
I have read and re-read this article by Michael Bowling time and again.. and always learn something new. The article is about the early stages of Arabian horse breeding in Australia, and focuses on early Crabbet bloodlines. I am always struck by this photo of the magnificent Rafyk (by Azrek x Rose of Sharon by Hadban), a small stallion of 14 3/4 hands that looks like a 16 hands horse. Wow, what a horse! Why the heck were the Blunts parting with horses like this one?
In an earlier post, I had written about an asil Kuhaylan Rodan line that seems to have miraculously survived in South Africa. This was the line of Rosina, tracing to Lady Anne Blunt’s Rodania through the latter’s daughter Rosemary. There is another asil line tracing to Rosemary that also survives in the USA. I stumbled upon it while browsing through the Al Khamsa Roster. This is the line of Rayim (Abu Zeyd x Roshana), a 1927 bay mare bred by W.R. Brown. Just follow this breath-taking genealogy of Crabbet mares from the “R” line: Rodania –> Rosemary, 1886, by Jeroboam –> Rabla, 1899, by Mesaoud –> Rokhama, 1906, by Astraled –> *Rokhsa, 1915, by Nasik –> Roshana, 1920, by *Berk –> Rayim, 1927, by Abu Zeyd. At this point the line is bred to old American bloodlines, as Rayim produces Amirat by Arafat (Ameer Ali x Serije, a Saqlawi al-Abd tracing to *Wadduda) in 1947. Amirat in turn produced Nuqat, by Nasir, a son of Rayim, hence doubling the Rosemary line. Nuqat is bred to Abu-Talib, another Kuhaylan Rodan son of Rayim, to produce the 1960 mare Salsalet (3 close crosses to Rayim). Salsalet is bred to the Egyptian stallion Saba…
Some time last year, this blog featured the precious asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah line to the mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat) which has been flourishing in South Africa. The series of postings on Baraka and her descendents attracted a lot of attention from South Africa and Namibia, and is by far the most popular thread on this blog. Now is the time to feature another asil line that has survived in South Africa, and which carries crosses to desert-bred lines that are extinct almost everywhere else around the globe. That’s the line of the mare Rosina (Saoud x Ruth II by Bendigo), a 1950 Kuhaylat al-Rodan exported by H. V. Musgrave Clark to South Africa in 1953. The line is a tail female to Rodania, an 1869 desert-bred Kuhaylat Rodan imported by Lady Anne Blunt in 1881, and one of the most influential mares in Arabian (and asil) horse breeding. What’s so special about this line, will you ask? Kuhaylan al-Rodan asil horses are all over the place. Well, first of all, the absolute majority of Rodania tail female horses are within what is known as “Straight Egyptian” breeding, a sub-set of asil breeding which has branched out into a category – and…
Carol Mingst took this beautiful photo of Zachary CF (Zacharia x Recherche by Prince Hal), an asil Kuhaylan Hayfi at Diane Lyons’ open barn in Dallas, Oregon last week. I had seen Zachary back in 2003, but don’t recall that he was nearly as beautiful as in this picture. It makes me want to own him. Thanks to Carol for sharing this photo.
I finally got to meet Carol Monkhouse at the Al Khamsa Convention in Oregon. Carol was visiting from the UK, with her husband Terry Lee. She has a couple mares, Maloof Habiba (Maloof Habibi x Maloof Sahara by Subani) and Maloof Hadiya (Parnell x Devlin), and their offspring, which she keeps at the Doyle ranch, in Alfalfa, Oregon. I had corresponded with Carol some fifteen years ago, after a mutual friend, Tzviah Idan, had introduced us to each other, at at time all three of us happened to be looking at remaining old Blunt lines (i.e., no Skowronek, who is so ubiquitous as to have his own Wikipedia page) around the world. I was delighted to finally meet her in person. We had identified the 1978 asil stallion Arabesque Azieze (Hansan x Orilla by Oran) in New Zealand (last asil Wadnan al-Khursan stallion in the West, also last asil line to Oran); some asil descendants of the 1950 mare Rozina (Saoud x Ruth II by Bendigo) in South Africa, by the asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah stallion Gordonville Ziyadan (more on this precious line later, it is still there); the two asil Courthouse Hamdani Simri full sisters Sappho and Sceptre (Bleinheim X Selima by Bahram, more on those twi later as…
In a recent comment, Joe Ferriss talked about beautiful Arabian horse ears, as exemplified by the asil stallions’ Brimstone’s short, prickled ears. So Jeanne Craver sent me this photo of Brimstone. A picture worth a thousand words. Aside from the ears, Jeanne tells me that Brimstone, the sire of the black Sportin Life in the video below, had a straight profile too, and that he had a floating trot like nothing else Charles and her had ever seen (and they have seen a lot).
All you need to know about this horse is in the photo’s legend. Nice horse. Line extinct like all the horses of the Strognaov/Sherbatov importation of 1888.
Clothilde Nollet of Maarena Arabians in France, just sent me this link to the website of a young Syrian lady, Dr. Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, who moved to Spain and brought with her an asil mare from Syria, Karboujah (Sa’d x Roudeinah by Mas’huj), and her grey asil son Najm Ya’rob, by the stallion Fawwaz (Ayid x Sit al-Kull). Dr. al-Abrash also has other horses at her Abrash Krush stud near Madrid. While I have never seen this stallion or his dam, I have very vivid memories of their sires, grandsires, and grand-dams: the stallions Ayid, Fawwaz, Mas’huj, Mahrous, Sa’d, and the mares Jamrah, and Sitt al-Kull populate my teenage memories, when my father and I used to drive from Lebanon to Syria and visit the studfarms of Syrian horse-breeders. The stallion Najm Yarob is interesting pedigree-wise, because he trace to two completely different branches of the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain. His sire, Fawwaz, comes from an old-established marbat of Kuhaylan al-Krush in the city of Hama in central Syria. This marbat traces a branch of the Krush horse family originating from the Fad’an Bedouin tribe, and know as Krush al-Sane’. The mare *Werdi, a Kuhaylat al-Krush mare imported by Homer Davenport to the…
In the entry below, I wrote about how I liked arabian mares that have long eyelashes, which magnifies the human-like expression many of these mares have anyway. Below is a picture of of such mare. Bint Mawj al-Athir was an asil (heck, she is the mother of all asil) Kuhaylat al-Nawwaq (that’s the right spelling, other spellings include Nowag, Nuwwag, Nawag, Nawaq, etc), or Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah, from Lebanon. I never saw that mare in person, but my father, who took this picture of her in the 1970s when she was in her late twenties and in very poor condition, holds her and her particular lineage in the highest regard. I will no doubt come back to Bint Mawj al-Athir to introduce you to her pedigree, which by the way contains the blood of many horses now represented in the USA. For now, I just wanted you to look at the expression in the eyes of this beautiful, classic, regal Arabian mare. If you have more pictures of arabian mares with long eyelashes and a “human eye”, feel free to send them to me.
Jeanne Craver just sent me this headshot of my Wisteria CF (by Triermain x HB Wadduda by Mariner), which Charles Craver took a couple days ago at Craver Farms. They made my day. There is something unique about the eyes of every Arabian horse. Sometimes it’s the shape. Or the size. The darkness. The bulge. The sparkle. The white in the eyes. Some horses have all these features. Others only some of them. In Wisteria’s case, it’s the long, long eyelashes that make her look almost human. I’ve always had a soft spot for Arabian mares with long eyelashes. Maybe it’s because I like Arabic poetry. Arabic poetry, mainly that of the pre-Islamic kind, is replete with descriptions of the eyes in general, and of eyelashes in particular. It can be women eyes (often), camels’ eyes (even more often), or horses’ eyes (somewhat less often).