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).
I recently shared with you my plan to propose the mare *Lebnaniah for inclusion in the Roster of Al-Khamsa horses as of 2010. The process is very thorough, usually involving several individuals putting their research skills together. It typically takes several years to complete. As part of this process, I will be sending the Al Khamsa Board original information about *Lebnaniah’s ancestors – information that was not available before. Much of this information is actually included in “Al-Dahdah Index” (don’t laugh), an annotated catalog of noteworthy asil and non-asil horses that were bred in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, the northern Arabian desert, etc) throughout the twentieth century. I have already shared with you the entries on the stallion Shaykh al-Arab and Kayane. The “Al-Dahdah Index” is a living document, which I have been patiently working on for the past twelve years, and I update as often as I can. The information is based on oral and written primary sources from the Middle East — i.e., it is not extracted from books written by Western travelers, horse buyers, and other occasional visitors. I would like to see the “Al-Dahdah Index” published some day, but not before I add a couple thousand more entries. I think I’ll give it another…
… and this is Mazfufah (Haleem x Ma’zufah), who is Matrubah’s full sister. Matrubah was featured in an another post I wrote earlier today. Pure Man, who sent me Mazfufah’s picture, also told me the two mares are almost total look-alikes. Of course, one needs to recognize that Matrubah’s picture was taken by a professional, while her sister’s was taken by an occasional photographer, and shows the mare in an ungroomed condition.
“Pure Man” sent me this beautiful picture of the desert-bred mare Matrubah (Haleem x Ma’zufah), an asil Kuhaylat al-Krush from Saudi Arabia. Matrubah is owned by Prince ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al-Sudayri and graces his new Aziziyah Stud. More on this original branch of the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain in this earlier post here. I know there is not many of you reading this blog who think that a desert bred horse cannot also be beautiful, but those of you who still think so, think again.
Those of you who have looked at the Saudi Arabian Stud Book may have noticed that most of the horses registered in it trace back to a grey horse by the name of Al-Harqan, born in 1947. This horse is the sire of 25 horses in Volume I of the Saudi Stud Book. Pure Man, who by virtue of his knowledge of asil Arabians in Saudi Arabia, is a main contributor to this blog, tells me that Al-Harqan is Kuhaylan Harqan by strain. He also tells me that King Abdel-Aziz Aal Saud (d. 1953) asked a Bedouin from the tribe of Harb by the name of Ibn Fadliyah for a stallion from his famed Harqan horses, and that Ibn Fadliyah gave the king his best stallion: Al-Harqan. Pure Man also tells me that before Al-Harqan, the House of Saud maintained two other stallions of the same strain, but that they don’t appear in modern pedigrees because Saudi authorities did not keep written stud records back then. I think the strain of Kuhaylan Harqan is extinct in the tail female today, but I may be wrong, because there might still be desert horses of this strain in Saudi Arabia which I would not…
This is a rarely seen picture of the very pretty asil Babolna mare 25-Amurath Sahib (Amurah Sahib x 221 Kuhaylan Zaid, by Kuhaylan Zaid), courtesy of Jeanne Craver. The blood of legends like Kuhaylan Zaid, Siglavy Bagdady, Kuhaylan IV, Amurath 1881, Jussuf, Tajar, and Ghadir, to name but a few, flows in the veins of this mare and her living descendents, who are “living history” as far as the Arabian horse (in its asil and non-asil forms) is concerned. I am never tired of repeating that the blood of the descendents of this mare constitutes one of the last hopes for an outcross to the heavily inbred European asil bloodlines.
Jean-Claude Rajot, who has lately been a frequent visitor of Syria (more on these visits later, including from Jean-Claude himself), sent me these photos of a couple horses in the stud of Hussain al-Ghishm in North Eastern Syria. Both horses are of the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain. The al-Ghishm, a family of ranking shaykhs of the Shammar, have been famously breeding desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Wati for at least five human generations. Their horses are asil and are held in high repute across the desert. I have been meaning to keep these photos for a full entry on the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain, as part of the “Strain of the Week” series, on which I am way behind, but they have been sitting in my hard drive for some time now, and thought, hey, the pictures speak for themselves anyway.. The older stallion is al-Ghishm’s main breeding stallion. I think his name is Amer Hakem but I am not sure. I especially like the younger colt. Of course, even though both horses are in very good health, you shouldn’t compare their condition to that of horses grazing in Europe or America’s lush pastures. PS – this is the best blood in the Syrian desert.…
Louis Bauduin just sent me this older photo of the masculine stallion Jazour, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, by Saadi out of Izarra. Jazour was bred in France by Robert Mauvy, and reflects a blend of Tunisian and Algerian breeding. Too bad Izarra, bred by Admiral Cordonnier at Sidi Bou Hadid in Tunisia, never left a female line. A young Louis is holding the bridle.. Jazour is the sire of Kerak, bred in the Netherlands, by the late Dr. Foppe Klynstra, a friend of Mauvy’s out of the striking desert-bred mare Nijmeh, herself from the Majali Bedouins of Jordan. Both Nijmeh and Kerak are pictured in Klynstra’s beautiful book “Nobility of the Desert“. More on Nijmeh later.
This is a famous photo. The masculine stallion pictured is a Hamdani from the Bahrain Royal Stud, by al-Jallabi al-Mashoosh al-Thani (Specked Jellabi II) and out of “the Hamdaniyah of Fatis”. Fatis was the old “Master of the Horses” (stud manager) who was in charge of the stud from 1942 to 1974, according to this website that also has a picture of Old Fatis.
I have written a lot about the Kuhaylan Krush strain recently, more particularly on the branch of that strain that has been associated with the Dawish leaders of the Mutayr tribe. The mares Dafina (to the UK in 1926) and probably El Kahila (to Egypt in 1927) are both representatives of this branch, and so are the three Blunt imports to Sheykh Obeyd: the mares Aida, and Jauza and the stallion Krush. Below are two modern day representatives of that famed strain. The two mares Sharidah and Ma’yufah were bred at the stud of Prince Turki Ibn Fahd Ibn Muhammad Aal Saud in Najd, Saudi Arabia, then exported to the Nujaifi stud in Mosul, Iraq. PS — I wonder what an mtDNA test would show, if samples from these two mares were compared to the Dafina and El Kahila lines, or to some of the Krush Al-Baida horses with the Shammar Bedouins in Syria. The latter are known to trace to the “white Krush” of Ammash Raja al-Dawish of Mutayr, through a mare that had gone to Ibn Rashid. Read more about the Krush of Shammar in Syria here.
This document recently appeared on one of the discussion threads below. For those of you who know the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its English edition, this is just the first page in one of the original Arabic editions.. This is a quick and dirty translation (writing from work, gotta go home soon), without the Quran verses in the reversed triangle: “Warning/advice about breeding/mating horses; I say, about stallions to be mated; the first to be mated (yushabbi) is Duhayman Shahwan from the strain (rasan) of Kunayhir, and Duhaym al-Najib; the second is Kuhaylan al-Mimrah; then al-Saqlawi al-Jadrani and it is from three branches, the dearest of which is the strain of al-Simniyyat, then the strain of al-Sudaniyat, then the strain of al-Abd; followed by the strain of al-Saqlawi al-Ubayri and al-Marighi, which are the same strain; and following that, Hadban al-Nzahi which consists of six strains: the first (ie, the best) is Hadbat al-Munsariqah; the second is Hadbat Mushaytib; the third is Hadbat Jawlan; the fourth is Hadbat al-Fard; the fifth is Hadbat al-Mahdi; the sixth is Habdat al-Bardawil which is not to be mated; following that is Kuhaylan al-Tamri; and after that, Shuwayman al-Sabbah; and after that, Hamdani Simri al-Khalis; and…
Three desert-bred stallions from Najd, a Kuhaylan (called Namar), a Hamdani (called Robban), and a Ubayyan (called Hardane) are featured in this recent Youtube video. I wonder what marbat of Kuhaylan Namar is from.
As I get ready to post the second entry on Kuhaylan al-Wati, after weeks and week of delay, you can read the previous entry as a refresher..
I am back on the map, and slowly emerging from processing a couple hundred emails that have piled up in my inbox during my absence. I am looking forward to the new Khamsat issue, with a focus on the WAHO 2007 conference in Syria. Hazaim al-Wair and I have an article in there on Arabian horse strains represented in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook, in which you will see some of the pictures you’ve already seen and liked on this blog, and some which you haven’t seen yet, like the one below. This is Hallah, a Kuhaylah Khallawiyah bred by the tribe of Tay in North eastern Syria in 1983, and owned by Mustapha al-Jabri, who sold her to one of the Gulf countries (I think Kuwait) in the mid-nineties (not sure of the exact date, either). Enjoy the picture which I took in 1993, and more on the strain and the mare later..
According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century, a Bedouin warrior by the name of Rashid ibn Jarshan, from the tribe of al-Buqum, owned a branch of the strain of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz that was known as Kuhaylat Ibn Jarshan, after his name. His marbat was famous, and one of his mares was even the subject of a Bedouin ode. Ibn Jarshan sold one of his Kuhaylat mares, a grey by the name of al-Shuhaybah, to another Bedouin, Sarhan al-‘Abd of the tribe of al-‘Ajman. The strain of Kuhaylan Ibn Jarshan seems to have prospered at al-‘Abd, because al-Shuhaybah produced a grey daughter for him (by a Saqlawi), and that daughter in turn produced a grey daughter (also by a Saqlawi). Al-‘Abd leased the latter, the grand-daughter of Ibn Jarshan’s Kuhaylah, to a third Bedouin, Ibn Jallab of the tribe of Aal Murrah. She stayed at Ibn Jallab for six years without producing any foals, so al-‘Abd took her back by force, and sold her to Ibn Khalifah of Bahrain for a ton of money, plus camels, falcons, clothes, a slave (!) and a sizeable bunch of dates, a sale that effectively turned him (al-‘Abd) into a precursor of today’s Gulf millionnaires.. Her short and unproductive stay at…
I don’t know where to start from.. the story of Kuhaylan al-Wati is so long and so rich, and begins way before the strain acquired its current name.. It also encompasses a number of other related, albeit better known strains. While I mull this over, let me leave you with this picture of Falat, a Kuhaylat al-Wati (by a Ma’naghi Hadraji from Ibn Ufaytan) from the sons of Hakem Hsaini al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins. This family is the owner of the strain.. Falat was later sold to Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo, Syria.
As a follow up to the previous post on the quizz mare, Binni II (*Shams x *Munirah), here is a picture of her dam *Munirah, a Kuhaylat ‘Afayr bred by the Saud royal stables, imported in 1962 from Saudi Arabia to the USA by Richard and Laura Cavedo. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Craver. Thanks Jeanne!
The magnificent grey stallion pictured below was bred was Robert Mauvy in 1969 near Tours, in France. Mauvy also bred his sire Amri (Saadi x Zarifa) and Amri’s dam Zarifa (Matuvu x Iaqouta). He sold Amri to Idaho in the USA as a three year old, but not before he used him on a couple of his best mares (I actually sometimes wonder if Amri left anything out there). Moulouki‘s dam Izarra, a beautiful grey mare, was a gift to Mauvy from Admiral A. Cordonnier, who certainly maintained the best private Arabian stud in North Africa, near Bizerte in Tunisia. Izarra (by David x Arabelle by Beyrouth) was bred by Cordonnier and so was her dam Arabelle. Their tail female was to Samaria, a grey Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare born in 1882 imported to Pompadour by Mr. de Ganay in 1887. Ganay bought Samaria for 8,000 Francs (an enormous amount!) from Khalid Bey al-As’ad of Taybeh, a village now located in Southern Lebanon. The al-A’sad were until the 1970s the overlords of South Lebanon and the most powerful family among this area’s Shi’a population. The older al-A’sad lords were known to maintain a small stud of Arabians that they’d usually acquire…
I know there were Al Khamsa eligible tail-female descendants of Dajania after Nadirat, although they might not yet be in the Al Khamsa database. One is Nadirat’s 1946 daughter Aalastra, by Gulastra. And of course there was Nadirat’s famous 1935 daughter Aarah, by Ghadaf. Nefisa is one of the most interesting of all the Crabbet broodmares, with her 21 live foals. Nine of these were fillies. Although Narghileh and Nasra were the two retained for breeding at Crabbet, and probably two of her best, the other fillies are worth a look too. Nefisa’s first filly was Nahla 1889 (by Ashgar). The Blunts actually planned to retain her for breeding, but she died in the fall of her three-year-old year from overeating acorns in Crabbet Park. Nefisa’s next filly was Nejiba 1892 (by Azrek). From her picture, this was a really dandy grey Azrek daughter. She did produce four foals at Crabbet, all colts. One died, one was sold to India, one to Scotland, and one was given to a nephew of Lady Anne’s who lived in Greece. Nejiba herself was given away at age 11 to the son of a longtime friend of Wilfrid Blunt’s. Nefisa’s next filly was Narghileh 1895,…
It seems almost impossible to believe that this line has been lost to asil breeding in the tail female. Where have all the Kuhaylan Da’jani gone? Dajania‘s was the second-most important line in Crabbet breeding, which is one of the preeminent components of today’s mainstream Arabian horse breeding. True, there has never been as many mares from the Dajania tail female as there has been from the Rodania line at any given point in time, but that makes this line’s contribution to the breed all the more spectacular. Dajania’s daughter Nefisa (x Hadban) produced 21 foals at Crabbet. Of the mares, Narguileh (x Mesaoud) and Nasra (x Daoud) were the most prepotent. A look at Al Khamsa’s online Roster allows one to trace the evolution of Nefisa’s Al Khamsa eligible progeny over the first half of the twentieth century. The record is impressive, but but most of the contribution to asil breeding is through males: Nadir, Narkise, *Nasik, Rustnar, Najib, *Nafia, Nusi, Adonis, etc. The last Dajania Al-Khamsa eligible tail female descendent is Nadirat (Rizvan x Nusara), born in 1927, when most of us were not born yet.. That said, Al Khamsa doesn’t accept Nureddin II (by Rijm x Narguileh,…
Recently I became aware of the existence of a young bay stallion of desert-bred stock that was bred in France, where he is now standing at stud. The name of this young stallion is Menjad Maram al-Baida, and his strain is Saqlawi Jadran (photo below, from his owners website). Menjad was bred by Mrs. Chantal Chekroun, and sired by the black stallion Mokhtar out of the bay mare Hijab. Both Mokhtar and Hijab were owned by Basil Jadaan in Damascus, Syria, then by Mrs. J. Menning to whom Basil gave them, and are now owned by Mrs. Chekroun. Mrs. Chekroun sold Menjad to Sophie and Dominique Balthasar of the Haras de la Lizonne, and still retains a full sister. A sketchy pedigree of Menjad looks like this: Awaad (S. Shaifi x Mumtazah) Mokhtar …
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…
A previous entry had discussed how the young children of Shammar Shaykh (and prominent Syrian politician) Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba lost the ownership of their father’s prestigious marbat of Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida strain upon the latter’s death (late 1960s? early 1970s?), and how the man Mayzar had entrusted with his assets took the horses for himself. That man was a Bedouin from the Faddaghah section of the Shammar tribe, by the name of ‘Iyadah al-Talab al-Khalaf, and was also known as al-Qartah. Al-Qartah bred Mayzar’s horses until the mid-1980s, continuing the practice of close inbreeding that Mayzar (and perhaps Mayzar’s father and grandfather before him) had been practising before. The grey Mumtazah was Iyadah al-Qartah’s main broodmare. Both her parents were bred by Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarbah, and all four grandparents were from the same Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida strain. It’s not clear whether Mumtazah was bred by ‘Iyadah al-Qartah, or whether she was taken by him from Mayzar’s estate as a foal. An impressive mare with a crested neck not unlike the Godolphin Arabian (see my picture of her in old age, below), Mumtazah produced the bay mare Doumah, also by a Kuhaylan al-Krush (maybe a full brother), and the grey…
Another 25 Amurath Sahib tail female, and Asil foundation mare at Laszlo Kiraly, is 205 Farag II (Farag II x 226 Ibn Galal I). 205 Farag II is a grand-daughter of 25 Amurath Sahib through this mare’s son Farag II, and a great-grand-daughter through this mare’s daughter 3 Siglavy Bagdady VI, which adds the precious blood of Siglavy Bagdady VI (b. 1949), who was recently featured on this blog… What a bonanza of great horses in one pedigree, so close: Kuhailan Zaid (featured here), Kuhailan Haifi, Amurath Sahib, Kuhailan Haifi I (here), Siglavy Bagdady II, Koheilan IV (here), etc. Photo courtesy of the mare’s owner, Laszlo Kiraly, who is certainly one lucky man.
This picture of 225 Scheherezade (Ibn Galal III x 220 Ibn Galal I)is courtesy of her owner Laszlo Kiraly of Hungary. 225 Scheherezade has two crosses to the Babolna mare 25 Amurath-Sahib (Amurath Sahib x 221 Kuhailan Zaid), including one in the tail female. As such she traces to the desert bred 60 Adjuze imported by M. F. el Haddad to Babolna. More on 60 Adjuze in a next post. The Asil Club recognizes 25 Amurath Sahib (and hence 225 Scheherezade) as Asil, and by next year Al Khamsa will vote on whether to include 25 Amurath Sahib in its Roster too. The mare unanimously passed a preliminary vote this year. 225 Scheherezade, you truly are a princess of the Arabian Nights.
Even the otherwise ultra-standardized pedigrees of Egyptian Arabians can yield a surprise or two. That of the mare Bint Nafaa and her descendents, with their cross to El Gadaa, a horse bred by Fad’aan Bedouin leader Miqhim ibn Mahayd, and later raced in Egypt and used by Hamdan stables, is a case in point. The stallion Ghandour (ca. 1930) is another. Ghandour was reportedly sired by Merzug, a good racehorse owned by Mahmoud al-Itribi at one point, out of Lady Anne Blunt’s Jazia (Sahab x Jauza), a Kuhaylat al-Krush. Jauza is one of my all-time favorite Asil mares judging from the one picture I have seen of her. Ghandour was also raced by Itribi Pasha before being used by the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) of Egypt as a stallion. The RAS History book has him as “an imported Arab and very good racer, owned by the late Mahmoud Pasha El Itribi”. A quick search on Itribi Pasha on the net yielded meager results: a list of Egyptian Pashas mentions him as a notable from the Daqahliya farming area by the Nile delta, who was granted the title of Pasha in 1919. I recall seeing a photo of him somewhere. That said, Ghandour was the sire…
As I put the final touches of the fourth and last entry of the feature on the Krush al-Baida strain, take a second look at the three previous entries on this precious strain, here, here, and here. Also, check out this account of a conversation about Krush al-Baida with Shaykh Faysal ibn Sattam ibn Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. By the way, the Royal Stud of the Kingdom of Bahrain still retains a line from the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain, from the same branch as Krush al-Baida, “the White Krush”. Here is an exerpt from the Krush page of the Royal Stud’s website, followed by a picture of a Bahraini representative of this strain: “It is said by some that the original Krushieh mare came from the Muteyr tribe – and by others that the original came from the Al Rasheed, Amirs of Hail from 1835-1924. Yet everyone agrees that the strain has been in Bahrain since the 1850’s. This old family of Krush is perpetuated through the tail female line, and is predominantly of bay colour.” Note that the Krush al-Baida horses of the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar tribe in Syria are from the very same fountainhead – that…
I first saw Mubarak in 1989 when an old truck disembarked a batch of three horses at the farm of Hisham Ghurayyib in Damascus, Syria. I was told that the truck had just come from the desert area of al-Jazirah, “Upper Mesopotomia”. It was my first encounter with Arabian horses born and raised in the desert. I was 11. My father was breeding Asil Arabians back then and I was familiar with the first generation offspring of desertbred horses, or horses born on the fringes of the desert, but I had never seen the “real thing”. My very first reaction was one of disappointment. Not only were the three horses – a black Kuhaylat al-‘Armush mare, a fleebitten Kuhaylat ibn Mizhir mare, and a chestnut Hamdani Ibn Ghurab stallion – tiny, they were worn out, and extremely thin. They feet were badly damaged, and the hooves were so overgrown that the poor horses could badly walk. Were these the “horses of the desert” (khayl sahraa)? My father had given me his Nikon and asked me to take photos of all the horses, while he was checking them out and asking about their origins. I took a rapid photo shot of the…
I am no “expert” on Polish Arabians (and I have a lot of trouble with the concept of “expert” in general anyway), so don’t expect these posts will tell you anything many of you don’t know already. I am writing them for the record only. As a reminder to reader that there was a blessed time when some Arabian horses from Poland – this great horsemanship country – were Asil. Then there was a time when only, or two, or perhaps three Polish Arabians were Asil. That was in the 1960s and 1970s, not such a long time ago. When Arwila, Rozka, Lassa and a few others were alive. Now that time is gone. This new series of posts will feature the last Asil mare from each desert-bred line imported to Poland or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lets start with Arwila (Amurath Sahib x Wilga, photo above from Skorkowski’s book, I think), a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz tracing to the desert bred Gazella, imported by Count Juliusz Dzieduszycki in 1845. Her pedigree is one of the 24 extended pedigrees originally compiled by Ursula Guttmann in her 1968 book Arwila was born in 1947 and exported to England in 1965. She did not leave any Asil progeny. The…
Kuhaylan al-Mimrah: so where were we? In the last post about this strain, we had left it in the hands of the Muwayni’ section of the Sba’ah tribe, to which the Mimrah clan belongs. Today, the noble section of Al-Muwayni’ is split between Syria and Saudi Arabia but no longer owns horses from this famous strain. Sometime during the twentieth century (not sure when, but earlier rather than later), a branch of this strain passed to the al-Mazhur clan of the Shammar tribe, and then, about fifty years ago to the Jawwalah section of the Tai tribe, among which it could still be found until very recently. Below are photos of two fine specimen of the Kuahylan al-Mimrah of the Jawwalah marbat. The one above is a picture of Aminah (Hayfi Juhayyim x Kuhaylat al-Mimrah, by the grand Saqlawi ‘Ibbo, more on all these great old timers later), the founder of a prominent dynasty at Mustapha al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, Syria. The second is Za’rur al-Barari, a grandson of Aminah, and a stallion at Radwane Shabariq’s stud, also in Aleppo. Za’rur is the younger brother of the stallion Basil, which Joe Ferriss recently wrote about, here and here. Za’rur has been…
In 1909, a French government commission led by Inspector Quinchez bought 24 desert-bred stallions from the Egyptian racetrack of Sidi Gaber in Alexandria. Of these, 17 went to Algeria (then a part of France), and the remaining 7 were distributed in government studs across mainland France. The seven were: Dahman, Meenak, Farid, Aslani, Hamdany El Samry, Latif and Maarouf. The magnificent Dahman, to which this blog paid a tribute some time ago, was no doubt the star of this importation. Dahman’s hujja – which I will translate for you soon – tells us that he was bred by the Shammar tribe, from a Dahman sire and a Rabda dam. He stood at Pompadour for twenty-some years, leaving behind many pretty Asil mares like Ninon (picture below), Melinite, Musotte, and Noble Reine, and some excellent stallions, one of which, Minos (x Melisse) was sent to the King of Morocco. Today Minos appears in many modern Moroccan pedigrees. If Dahman was the most striking, Aslani was the French breeders’ favorite. He originally came from the tribe of Bani Sakhr, by a Ubayyan and a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz. Quinchez had to pay the hefty sum of 8,000 Francs to snatch him away from Alexandrian trainer and racehorse owner Michaelides – the same individual who…
I can’t help keep showing pictures of the Kuhaylat al-Mimrah mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat). Here is a photo with her daughter, Sahibi Bint Baraka, by the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisaan (Jellabi al-Marshoosh x a Tuwayssah). Below is Sahibi Bint Baraka as a grown-up mare. Both photos courtesy of Calvyn Badenhorst of South Africa.
Yesterday night Jeanne Craver wrote to me about Wisteria (my Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare, by Triermain out of HB Wadduda), which is in the care of the Cravers: “It looks as though Wisteria had a false pregnancy. She got big (as you saw in the photo), made an udder and came to milk. None of these were as evident as you would ideally like to see. Then the udder went down and she got smaller, and that appears to be that. The odd thing is that Femina did the same thing at the same time. She was due a week later than Wisteria.” Bummer. But you know what, it happens. I don’t mind waiting one more year, because I know the output will be worth the wait. Wisteria will be put back to Javera Thadrian (Thane x HB Diandra) for a fall 2009 baby. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, here is a picture of Javera Thadrian I took in 2002. I am told he still looks as great.
As a follow up to an earlier post on the Asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah strain that breeds on in South Africa, this is a rare picture of the lovely Barakah (Ibn Manial x Gamalat), the mare through which the strain survives in Asil form. Photo courtesy of Albert Kaffka of the Al-Yatun Asil Stud in South Africa. By the way, if you are interested in the horses that were exported from Egypt to South Africa in the 1940s – of which Barakah was one – and their Asil descendents there, read this article, courtesy of Eugene Geyser, the President of the Asil Club of South Africa. Barakah was bred to the Asil stallion Tuwaisaan, an import from Bahrain, to produce Sahibi Bint Barakah, of which you can find a picture here (scroll down).
One day in 2006, my friend Hazaim al-Wair and I, intrigued by the addition of “al-Baida” to the strain of many (not all) Kuhaylan al-Krush horses in the Syrian studbook, made a number of phone calls to inquire about the owner of the marbat of Krush al-Baida. All the roads led to one Shaykh of Shammar by the name of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. Mayzar was a prominent and respected member of the Syrian parliament in the 1940s, where he was known to defend the interests and the causes of all Bedouin tribes, at a time when the lifestyle and economic conditions of the Bedouins were changing rapidly. Mayzar and his son Antar al-Mayzar were associated with nearly every one of the older horses from the Krush al-Baida strain that we could find in Volume I of the Syrian Studbook. We thought we’d start locating Mayzar’s descendants, and eventually located and telephoned a grandson of his, Faysal (ibn Sattam ibn Mayzar ibn ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba). Faysal told us that his branch of the family owned two separate marabit (pl. of marbat) of Kuhaylan al-Krush: an older marbat from the time of al-Sharif Barakat (a ruler of Mecca back in the sixteenth century A.D., at the time all Shammar was still in Najd), and a second, more recent marbat, straight from the al-Dawish head clan of the…