A previous entry quickly went through the Kuhaylan al-Krush horses that came out of Arabia. Of these, the stallion Krush (sometimes called Krushan), imported by Lady Anne Blunt to Egyptian stud of Sheykh Obeyd in 1911, is of particular relevance for the Krush al-Baida branch of that strain. This is what the Sheykh Obeyd Studbook, quoted by Rosemary Archer in “The Crabbet Arabian Stud: its History and Influence“, has to say about Krush: A Kehilan el Krush. Grey stallion bred in 1909. Sire: Kehilan el Sueti of the Harb stock. Dam: Grey Kehilet el Krush whose dam was the mare of Ammash el Reja el Duish, known as the ‘white Krush’ famed for her speed. Purchased in the desert in 1911. As far as I know, these three lines are the only Western reference to the ‘white Krush’, “Krush al-Baida” . They are important because they give away the name of the owner of “Krush al-Baida” – a Bedouin warrior of the al-Dawish ruling clan of the Mutayr tribe, the reason for her fame – speed in tribal warfare – and an approximate date. If Krush was foaled in 1909, and “Krush al-Baida” was his granddam, then she would have been alive in the 1880s-1890s. Bedouin oral tradition remembers “Krush al-Baida” as a mare that carried her rider and…
The gorgeous Bint Nafaa was born in Egypt in 1962, and bred by Ahmed Hamza’s Hamdan Stables, yet she does not have the “Straight Egyptian” label. The Pyramid Society, who coined the “definition” of a Straight Egyptian and Egyptian breds, does not accept El Gadaa, Nafaa’s sire, as a Straight Egpytian. El Gadaa was a racehorse, who stood at Hamdan stables for a while and was bred by Miqhim ibn Mahayd, the Shaykh of the Bedouin Fad’aan tribe. Egyptian records have him as being by El Sabaa, also a racehorse, out of a Ma’naghiyah of Ibn Mhayd. Fine. But many questions remain unanswered. Did Miqhim race Arabian horses in Egypt? or did he sell the horse to a racehorse owner? did he own El Gadaa’s sire El Sabaa? where was El Gadaa bred, in Egypt, or in the desert? I know Miqhim ibn Mahayd left Syria sometimes in the 1950s (will get back to you with the exact date) after a series of problems with the Syrian regime, and moved to Saudi Arabia, where he received royal treatment from the King – himself a fellow Anazeh tribesman, who incidentally bred Bint Nafaa’s dam Nafaa, a desertbred Kuhaylah (so marbat) by a ‘Ubayyan al-Suyayfi – a strain that branched off ‘Ubayyan al-Hunaydees. I know Miqhim kept a…
In 1931 Bogdan Zientarski, accompanied by Carl Raswan went to the desert to buy Arabian horses for Prince Roman Sanguszko of the Gumniska stud in Poland. Here’s an account of Zientarski’s encounter with the stallion Koheilan Haifi, near the desert oasis of al-Jauf: “Finally I hear a neigh, they guide the stallions… they lead the bay Kuhailan Haifi. My legs buckled under me, it is just the horse I am looking for. Not large, dry, on splendid legs without any trace of cow hocks. A long neck, a noble head, although not very small, with distended, thin and moveable nostrils; a splendid high carried tail. I feel, the first time in my life, that during the purchase of a horse I am fainting…” Have any of you experience that near-fainting feeling when coming across a unique Arabian horse for the first time? I have. Twice. I should consider myself lucky. I will tell you about these two electrifying encounters.
Siglavy Bagdady VI, born in 1949, was the last Asil stallion of 100% old Babolna lines (i.e., no Egyptian Arabian lines in his pedigree). His strain was Kuhaylan Abu ‘Arqub, tracing in tail female to the mare Semrie, imported from the desert by Michael Fadlallah El Heddad. Siglavy Bagdady VI left one Asil son, Wahhabit, a 1977 stallion out of the Kuhaylat al-Krush mare Delicate Air. Delicate Air was bred by Craver Farms and traces to the mare *Werdi, imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. Pity there are so few of these Babolna Asil Arabians. They are of such a different type than anything else we see nowadays. They remind me of the last Lebanese Asil I used to see in my childhood. They also are a genetic treasure: each one of them traces to dozens of horses imported from the desert by the kings of the Austria, not found in any other current Asil bloodlines (except in the one remaning German Weil line). If you want to know more about the remaining Asil Arabians of Babolna, you can check out this post (dated May 2 2007, 10.44 pm) in the online forum Straightegyptians.com. This photo of Siglavy Bagdady VI is from the…
Western Arabian horse breeders are relatively familiar with the Arabian horse strain of Kuhaylan al-Krush (also known as Kuhaylan Krushan) through a variety of sources. A specific branch of this strain, Krush al-Baida (“the white Krush”) will be the subject of the sixth part of the “Strain of the Week” series (which, by the way, is starting to look like a “Strain of the Month” in disguise). For now, I’ll start the discussion with a brief resfresher of the encounters between Arabian horse breeders and the more general Krush family (beyond Krush al-Baida). Feel free to pitch in with feedback in the comments section of this blog post if you noticed that I omitted a reference or more, or visit this site, which also offers an overview (with pictures) of the main Krush lines around the world. The early fame of Kuhaylan al-Krush was certainly associated with the quest of the Egyptian Viceroy Abbas Pasha I for Asil horses from this strain. Several sources (or perhaps one source that was quoted several times, will look that up later) tell us that Abbas’s quest eventually failed, and that Bedouin owners of Krush mares refused to sell them, or give them…
Next on the list for the “Strain of the Week” series is Krush al-Baida. A celebrated strain, Krush al-Baida is only a small branch of the larger Kuhaylan al-Krush (or Kuhaylan Krushan) family. There is a lot to talk about.. Meanwhile, here is a picture of a desert-bred mare from this strain.
The series of articles on the Ma’naghi Hadraji strain – the fourth in the “train of the Week” feature – is not over yet. There is at least one more post I want to write. Yet I feel the urge to talk about something else for a change, so I thought I’d introduce you to the strain of Kuhaylan al-Dunays. Kuhaylan al-Dunays or Kuhaylan Dunaysan is now extinct in Asil Arabians in tail female, and this has been the case for about 30 years. In the late nineteenth century, the strain belonged to the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, and stallions from that strain could be bred from [shubuw]. I don’t know where the Sba’ah got the strain from, and I don’t know who owned it within Sba’ah. All things for future research. Perhaps the most famous representative of this strain was the stallion Padishah, a chestnut Kuhaylan Dunaysan from the marbat owned by the al-Mi’rabi landlords of the northern Lebanon plain of Akkar. The al-Mir’abi were not Bedouins, but landowners of Kurdish descent, yet their stud was held in high esteem by Bedouins and townsfolk alike. The Dunaysan marbat was known as the marbat of “Dunaysat of ‘Uyun al-Ghizlan”, in reference to the village of same…
This is one of my all-time favorite Asil Arabian mares. LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla) is unique for several reasons: 1) she is a great-grand-daughter of the mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare from Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud born in 1925 and imported to the USA in 1931 by Albert W. Harris. You cannot get any closer to the source, and what a source! A Kuhaylah from Ibn Saud! Too bad we don’t know which Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz that is. 2) She is a daughter of the fabulous stallion Plantagenet, an Asil Kuhaylan al-Hayf of the line imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. I am a big fan of the Plantagenet progeny, of which Palisades CF is another representative. Below is a picture of Plantagenet. 3) She doesn’t have any lines to the horses imported to the UK by Lady Anne and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Blunt horses are in the pedigrees of most Arabian horses worldwide. The late Carol Lyons called these horses “Sharp”, by opposition to “Blunt”. 4) Her line was saved from extinction by a person I have enormous respect and admiration for: the late Carol Lyons. Carol had acquired Tarrla (Tarff x Kaluga by Alcazar), Rubic’s dam, in 1979. She was the…
The Bedouin tribe of Al Murrah has been immortalized by Wilfred Thesiger‘s gripping classic “Arabian Sands” (1959). If you want to have a less romanticized account of the life of this South Arabian Bedouin tribe, then you ought to read this book, by Donald Powell Cole of the American University in Cairo. Yet Cole’s book was written in the early 1970s, and the nomadism it describes is now gone. By the way, Al Murrah was the tribe of Ibn Jallab, founder of the marbat of Kuhaylan Jallabi, now extinct in Asil form (sorry, but can’t help but rubbing it in, in light of mtDNA evidence).. [correction: the Jallabi line still exits in Asil form in Bahrain, of course]
Arabian horse strains as we know them today (i.e., family names of horses transmitted through the dam) are about 350 years old, and perhaps more, but we don’t how much more, because of the lack of written sources. The earliest mention of Arabian horses strains in Western Literature occurs in one of the several travel accounts of France’s Chevalier d’Arvieux (b. 1635 – d. 1702), “Voyage a la Palestine”. Published in Paris in 1717, it was translated into English in 1718 and published in London as “Travels in Arabia the Desart”, sixteen years after d’Arvieux death. Chapter XI, “Of the Arab Horses” has the following mention: “A Marseilles Merchant that liv’d at Rama, was Part’ner so in a Mare with an Arab whose Name was Abrahim Abou Vouasses: This Mare, whose name was Touysse, besides her Beauty, her Youngness, and her Price of Twelve hundred Crowns, was of that first noble Race. That Merchant had her whole Genealogy, with her Descent both of the Sire’s and Mother’s side, up to Five hundred Years of antiquity, all from public Records…” “Touysse”, the colloquial form of Tuwayssah, is clearly the earliest mention of any strain in Western literature. “That first noble race” refers to the “Kehhilan”, (or Kuhaylan…
The mention of Nomah, the pretty grey Kuhaylat al-Mizher from Syria, in an ealier entry leads me to show you another picture of a mare from the same strain. I do not recall the name of this fleebitten mare (it starts with S…), but I took the picture at the farm of Hisham Ghurayyib in Damascus some 15 years ago. Click on the picture to enlarge it (that’s how it works now).
Here’s a headshot of the pretty desert-bred mare Nomah, a Kuhaylat al-Mizher (some say Kuhaylat Ibn Mizher) from the Bedouin tribe of Tai, in North-Eastern Syria. Nomah, which was owned by B. Jadaan, was one of the most photographed Syrian mares, but this is one of her earlier photos. I have heard several people say that Kuhaylan Ibn Mizher is only a branch of Kuhaylan al-Krush, owned by a man by that name. Still, I am left wondering why anyone would change the name of such a prestigious strain as Kuhaylan al-Krush into something else. Perhaps mtDNA analysis could help elucidate this question.
The entries on the French Asil Arabian horses continue to generate a lot of interest. To some, the photos of classic specimen of Arabians horses were like an eye opener, shedding light on Asil breeding in a country that has imported hundreds of desert bred stallions and mares from Arabian, and set up large-scale breeding ventures that go on in three other countries (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco). Some of the comments I received go a step further, and ask practical questions, for example about what can be done to save the remnants of these horses, before it is too late. Here is a lead: While I was still based in France, I tried to lease one of the last Asil mares, Bucolique (Besbes x Berthe by Irmak), a gorgeous 1981 bay mare of the Jilfan Dhawi strain, and the dam of many racehorse champions, with the aim of breeding her to Rubi de la Mouline (Ilamane x Hamma by Raoui), a 1983 chestnut stallion of the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz strain . Her owner, Jean-Marie Baldy, of the Haras du Cayrou in the Cantal area of central France, was willing to lease her, and the owners of Rubi de la Mouline were also willing to…
Back to El Nasser. An earlier post identified his sire, “Douhaymane El Ajarrache”, as a Dahman (or Duhayman) ‘Amer from the al-‘Ajarrash family of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. “Douhayman El Ajarrache” was actively breeding in 1937, when El Nasser’s dam was bred to him to produce El Nasser in May 1938. Last year – and here is the fresh information I promised – I stumbled on the hujjah (certificate of authenticity) of a desert-bred mare tracing to a stallion that could be “Douhaymane El Ajarrache”. The mare is now dead but she has descendants alive today in Syria, in the very area El Nasser was born, the Upper Jazirah. Here is the full translation of this mare’s hujjah: “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, I, the undersigned, ‘Ali al-Blaybil son of Husayn, from the village of Qartaba born in 1915, from the tribal section of al-Yassar, from the the tribe of Tai, testify by God Most High, that the grey mare which I sold to Mr. Nawaf al-Sulayman al-‘Abd al-Rahman in 1950, is from my horses, called Jilfat Stam al-Bulad; the sire of her dam is the horse of Sa’ud al-‘Ajarrash, a chestnut Dahman ‘Amer, and I did that breeding myself. And Gost is bears witness to what I say. Testifier: Ali Husayn al-Balybil, ID #: […], owner of…
The starting point of any serious discussion on El Nasser should be a short statement in Judith Forbis’ “Authentic Arabian Bloodstock”, p. 137, where she cites a letter from Henri Pharaon, the one-time owner of El Nasser. “Pharaon wrote to me on October 6th, 1970 that El Nasser was born on May 1938, that he had purchased the horse from Cheikh Ahmad Taha, that it was bred by the Gheiheich (Ajarash, El Ajarrache) of Upper Syria, the Jezirah region, and that his sire was Douhayman El Ajarrache of the Tibour tribe.” I saw the letter Pharaon wrote to Forbis, in French. I also saw a copy of the horse’s Lebanese racing papers, which match the information in Pharaon’s letter. Save a few small transcription errors (Tibour is Jibour, for example), and one incorrect analogy (Gheiheich and El Ajarrache are two different entities), all the names in the letter are those of well known and identifiable tribes, clans, and individuals. In September 1997, I asked a 90 year old horse merchant, ‘Abdl al-Qadir Hammami what he knew about all these names. Click here for his answer, which one of several inputs that helped clear El Nasser as an Asil Arabian horse. Hammami did not recall Douhayman El Ajarrache, the sire of El Nasser, but identified the strain of the horse as being Dahman (female…
I took this pricture in 1996, on a horse trip outside Aleppo. These kids lived in the stables, among the horses their father cared for. What struck me is how the colt seemed to be one them, following them everywhere, and wanting to partake in their games. The colt is a Kuhaylan al-Krush, whose dam, a pretty black mare I had come to buy, was bred by Atallah al-Nassar al-Jarbah of the Shammar tribe. His sire was a Kuhaylan al-Sharif of the horses of Ibrahim al-Dawwas al-Saadi. The mare had come in foal from Iraq, which was then under a UN embargo, and people were selling their horses and other assets to feed their families. Both strains are signature Shammar strains, and very dear to their breeders. The owner did not want to sell the mare at the price we were offering (5,000 USD, a huge sum for a non-WAHO-registered horse). Maybe it was for the better, I thought. They would have hated to see their little friend go.
A headshot of the same Ma’naghiyah Hadrajiyah mare, whose name now escapes me. Her sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush from Shammar, from the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarbah. That marbat is known to trace to the “white Krush” of the Mutayr tribe. Kuhaylan al-Krush will be featured next in “the Strain of the Week” series.
He reminds of a mythological creature, with flowing lines, and a graceful way of carrying himself. The best blood of North Africa flows in this horse’s veins… Rubi de la Mouline (Ilamane x Hamma) is a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, tracing to the desert-bred mare Samaria, imported to France in 1887 by M. De Ganay, then exported to Tunisia, where her line bred on.
Algeria was a French colony from 1830 to 1848, and an integral part of France from 1848 till its indepedence in 1962, following one of the bloodliest colonial wars. The conquest of Algeria by France was extremely long and arduous, and could only completed by 1900, when the latest of the Tuareg chiefs (ethnic Berbers, not Arabs) surrendered to French troops. Horses were a major factor in the conquest and stabilization of Algeria. In 1877, the French Ministry of War (the equivalent of a Department of Defense), established a breeding stud near the town of Tiaret, in the mountains of central Algeria. The objective of the “Jumenterie de Tiaret”, which later became the “Haras de Tiaret-Chaouchaoua“, was to produce Arabian stallions, which were sent to local stallion depots, where they were used on Barb mares. The result was a sturdy Arab-Barb cavalry horse. Hundreds of Arabian stallions and dozens of mares were imported to Tiaret (and its equivalent in neighboring Tunisia, Sidi-Thabet) from the deserts of Arabia and the racetracks of Egypt and Lebanon. Depending on the expertise of the horse-buying commission and its budget, imports ranged from the outstanding to the mediocre. Overall, Algeria received much better quality desert-bred imports than Tunisia or even France. Outstanding genitors included: Bango, a grey Ma’anaghi…
This is one of my favorite old pictures. The horse pictured is Dahman, a dark chestnut stallion bred by the Shammar Bedouin tribe in 1905, and sold to a French horse-buying commission led by Inspecteur Quinchez in 1909. Dahman was a herd sire for the Shammar prior to his importation to France. He was by a stallion of the Dahman strain out of a mare from the Rabdan strain. Al-Rabdah is one of the many families of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, but somehow the Kuhaylan part is frequently dropped from the strain’s name, and the horses are simply referred to as Rabdan (fem. Rabdah). Dahman stood at the French government stood of Pompadour until he was 25, and sired some of the best Arabians of his day. Unfortunately, there are no Asil horses tracing to Dahman left today. [Correction, Jan. 06th, 2009: well, maybe there are]
I found a picture of a Kubaylat Ibn Jlaidan to show you, as well as a writtten certificate of origin (hujjah, plural hujaj). The picture, taken in the mid 198os, does not do justice to the mare, and I hesitated a bit before posting it: it shows a chestnut desert-bred mare in rather poor condition, against a background of miserable mudhouses. These were built in the second half of the twentieth century by impoverished Shammar Bedouins who had finally abandoned their black tents and camel herds, and settled in a relatively barren area of North Eastern Syria (known as the Upper Jazireh), not far from the Iraqi and Turkish borders. Many Shammar clans paid a heavy price for clinging to their nomadic lifestyle till the very end: the more fertile lands had already been grabbed by earlier settlers. The picture also shows the concrete houses which Bedouins started building as of the 1980s, to replace the older mudhouses. Barely an improvement. The mare herself is well built, with a deep girth, high withers, a round hindquarter, a well-sloped shoulder, a nicely set tail, and a pretty head. Her neck is thick though, a defect typical of many of the desert-horses of the twentieth century. The man holding her…
The Kuhaylan Jallabi strain as an extant female line in Egyptian bloodlines will forever be something of a curiosity. Modern evidence of MtDNA work on this line combined with interpreting Lady Anne Blunt’s notations should make people feel comfortable in choosing the Saqlawi Jidran strain for this line though it is not officially recorded as such. To be fair to Judi Forbis, in her 2003 book Authentic Arabian Bloodstock II, in the section on Kuhaylan Jellabi, she gives a five page presentation of most of the known information over time on this strain including citing Prince Mohamed Ali, Travelers Rest, Abbas Pasha Manuscript etc. She implies that people need to make their own choice on this. She chose to follow the name of traditional record as certified on the pedigrees of the imports. The Pyramid Society also footnotes this in their reference handbook pedigrees. How that traditional record became certified as Kuhaylan Jellabi is a mystery but it must have its origins somewhere yet to be discovered. Judi does make the point that no matter what the strain, the authenticity of the line is without question. When I first heard of the MtDNA, it was no surprise to me having…
Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is the third strain featured in the “Strain of the Week” series. You will almost certainly not find a representative of this strain outside of Arabia today. A few of you may have heard of it in the context of their trips to Syria. The strain is emblematic of the Shammar tribe, as opposed to the two other strains featured previously, Kuhaylan al-Hayf and Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, both of which were owned by the ‘Anazah group. Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is very simply, Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz of the marbat of Ibn Jlaidan, a Bedouin from the Hdibah clan of the Shammar. Many Shammar Bedouins still refer to the strain as Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Some time in 2006, my friend Hazaim and I spoke to ‘Abdallah Ibn Jlaidan over the phone, as part of our project to collect as much information as possible strainght from Bedouin sources. ‘Abdallah told us that his “fifth grandfather” (i.e., the grandfather of his grandfather) Muhammad al-Jlaidan once visited the Sharif of Mecca, and that the latter gave him a Kuhayla al-‘Ajuz mare as a gift. He could not tell us the exact day when this occured, but said that it was more than a hundred years ago…
I find it baffling that some Arabian horse breeders here in the US still believe that the strain of Kuhaylan Jellabi is carried on in Egyptian Arabian horse breeding. Ten years have elapsed since Michael Bowling’s ground-breaking article on the Arabian mare Bint Yemama and her descendants at the stud of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik in Egypt, yet most breeders of Asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines still refer to the stallions *Fadl, *Nasr, *Adhem, among others, and the mares *Maaroufa, Mahroussa, Negma and their tail-female descendants as Kuhaylan Jellabi. I refrained from using the pedigree website www.allbreedpedigree.com to link to the pedigrees of the horses mentioned above, because it erroneously has them tracing back to the desert-bred mare Jellabiet Feysul, owned by Abbas Pascha, and otherwise a Kuhaylah Jallabiyah true and true. Even respected Arabian horse breeders and researchers such as Judi Forbis show these horses as Kuhaylan Jallabi (I prefer to write Jallabi with an ”a”, but I aslo want this entry to be found by those using the more common form “Jellabi” in their search engines). Michael Bowling shows that the mare Bint Yemama (Saklawi I x Yemama) of Prince Mohammed Ali is actually the maternal half-sister of the famous Mesaoud, the Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Sudan bought by Lady Anne Blunt from Ali Pasha Sharif. …
After Kuhaylan al-Hayf and Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, next week’s “Strain of the Week” series will feature Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan, a personal favorite of mine. Stay tuned.
As with many Arabian horse strains, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah takes its name from its owner. The Kuhaylat al-Maryum mare that came from the tribe of al-Dhafeer to tribe of the Sba’ah became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah, or Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah, after the Sba’ah Bedouin who owned her. The strain bred on at al-Mimrah’s, and was passed to his sons and grandsons. Of these, Subaylah al-Mimrah was the most well known for breeding it. Al-Mimrah (the people) is one of the many closely-related families that compose the larger Muwayni’ clan (click here for a genealogical table of this clan). The Muwayni’ is the leading clan of the Bayayi’ah section of the ‘Abdah tribe — itself one of the two branches of the Sba’ah tribe. The clan even assumed the leadership of the entire ‘Abdah, until a date in the 1880s when an armed incident with an Ottoman tax-collecting detachment resulted in its downfall and replacement by another rival clan. Still, the Muwayni’ enjoy special respect within the Sba’ah tribe and the general ‘Anazah, partly because of their past status, and partly because of their famous copper seal, one of ‘Anazah’s oldest. Around the time the Abbas Pasha Manuscript was compiled, the Shaykh of the Muwayni’ and head of the Sba’ah ‘Abdah was Nahar Ibn Muwayni’, whose close cousin was Za’aazi’ al-Mimrah. Za’aazi’ al-Mimrah was a fierce warrior who owned a…
According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah was one of the favorite strains of Abbas Pasha, the man who ruled Egypt from 1848 to 1854. The Manuscript contains an interesting account of the history of the strain. Unfortunately, it assumes a good deal of prior knowledge of Arabian medieval history, without which the story’s full significance cannot be grasped. Here is a summary of the account in the Manuscript: the strain is one of the most ancient Kuhaylan strains. Its history can be traced back to the time of a certain ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim, “from the ancient tribe of Aal Mughirah”. The Kuhaylah of ‘Ijl was lost to the Qahtan tribe during a raid, and a mare tracing to this Kuhaylah was taken from Qahtan by al-Maryum, a Bedouin of the Suwayt ruling clan of the al-Dhafeer tribe. It became known as Kuhaylat al-Maryum after his name. The strain then went from al-Maryum to al-Mimrah, a Bedouin of the Saba’ah tribe, and there it became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah. This may look like your standard story of Bedouin horses constantly changing hands, and changing strains in the process, but it isn’t. The mention of ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim is very…
The “Strain of the Week” series continues this week with the second strain featured: Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. Modern breeders and pedigree students, especially those familiar with Asil Arabian bloodlines from Egypt will remember Kuhaylan al-Mimrah as the strain of several of the older Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) horses: the stallions Mansour and Mabrouk Manial, present in almost every pedigree of Asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines, are both from this strain, and so are their respective maternal half-brothers, Ibn Samhan and Hadban. Mansour and Ibn Samhan trace to Donia, a bay desert-bred Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah bred by Ibn Muwayni’ of the Saba’ah Bedouin tribe, and imported to Egypt in 1880. Mabrouk Manial and Hadban trace to Freiha, another bay desert-bred Kuhalyah Mimrahiyah bred by Ibn Huraymis of the Fad’aan tribe and imported to Egypt around the same time. The line to Donia has died out a long time ago, but a thin Asil line to Freiha survives in South Africa, through the famous Barakah, which the RAS sold to this country in 1945. Other than its rarity and prestigious origin, this line is of interest because it brings in the blood of the Asil stallion Tuwaisaan, a present of the ruler of Bahrain…
.. is Naziha, an Asil Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from Tunisia. That this small North African country is home to such classic specimen of Asil Arabians as Naziha may come as a surprise to some, yet Tunisia harbors one of the best collections of Asil Arabians anywhere. Most Tunisian Asils trace to desert-bred horses imported from Arabia by the French. The French? France occupied Tunisia in 1881, but kept the local ruling family in place. The ruling family owned a small stud of Arabian horses in the town of Sidi-Thabet, to the southwest of the capital city of Tunis, which the French overtook and expanded. The stud of Sidi Thabet specialized in breeding Asil Arabians using original desert stock imported from the Arabian desert. The resulting Tunisian Asils were either raced or bred to Barbs to produce an Arab-Barb cross that was highly appreciated by the French cavalry units stationed in North Africa. When the French finally withdrew in 1956, the newly independent Tunisian goverment took over Arabian horse breeding at Sidi-Thabet, following the French’s footsteps, but many fine horses went to France with the returning European settlers. More horses went to France in the 1960s, and 1970s. Naziha was one of those. She was raced in Tunisia before being exported to France. I took this photo of her at the farm of her owner Pierre-Henri Beillard, in 1995.…
I just wanted to quickly add to the wonderful blogs on the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain. I learned much by reading them. I just wanted to add that I found it comforting when I visited Syria in 1996 that the Kuyahlan Hayfi strain that came from there via *Reshan is still very much alive. When we were visiting the newly built Al Basel government stud, they introduced a number of their stallions of various strains. One handsome young bay stallion was of the Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion. I got a snap shot of him. It is fairly descriptive and I wanted to share it here. It is not a very sharp image because he was quite far away in a very large paddock and we did not have the opportunity to get in the arena close up. So I set my camera to the max telephoto and offer the image here in web resolution. The sire of this colt was the senior stallion at the time, a handsome grey named Basil. I do not recall getting to see the dam but perhaps someone who sees this blog and is familiar with the breeding at the stud can tell us more about this…
Early mentions of Kuhaylan Hafi by Western travelers to the desert link it to two Fad’aan clans (large families): al-Mahayd and al-Hubayqan. Lady Anne Blunt mentions that the strain acquired a certain reputation when Turki Ibn Jad’aan al-Mahayd, the head of the Fad’aan tribe, was killed in a raid against the Ruwalah tribe, who captured his war mare, a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah. Turki was slain by Khalaf al-Adhn al-Sha’laan after he fell on the ground, his mare having stumbled on a jerboa – a desert rodent – hole. The Fad’aan felt that the Ruwalah had violated the rules of desert warfare, and a long feud between the two tribes ensued. Bedouin accounts of the story say that the mare was not captured, but that she made it back to the Fad’aan camp, where Turki’s fellow tribesmen ragingly hamstrung her for letting their leader down (yikes!). I don’t know the exact date of this event, altghough I suspect it took place in the 1890s. The clan of al-Mahayd, which is the ruling clan of the Fad’aan, is generally acknowledged as the “owner” of the marbat of Kuhaylan Hayfi. Most hujaj (authentication certificates delivered for desert bred Arabian horses) of Kuhaylan Hayfi horses I have seen trace the horse in the hujja…
The previous discussion concluded (for now) that the strain of Kuhaylan Hayfi has developed sometime between 1850 and 1875. What was it known as before that? and where did it derive its name from? Like many, but not all, Kuhaylan strains, Kuhaylan Hayfi, which by the way is also called Kuhaylan al-Hayf, branched out of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz appears to have been more than a strain — i.e., a family name for Arabian horses related through the dam line. Rather, it seems to have been a generic name for a “pool” of horses not necessarily related to each other, but sharing something else in common, perhaps the same owner (more on that in a subsequent post). Kuhaylan al-Ajuz typically “mutates” into a new strain when it becomes associated with a new owner (e.g., Kuhaylan Khdili), a celebrated mare with a specific characteristic (e.g., Kuhaylan al-Musinn), or an event of some importance. The later case is that of Kuhaylan Hayfi or Kuhaylan al-Hayf. Kuhaylan Hayfi “belongs” to the tribe of the Fad’aan, which means that the mare that founded the strain and became the first Kuhaylah Hayfiyah was a Kuhaylah al-‘Ajuz owned by Fad’ann Bedouins. Al-Hayf in Arabic means the social exclusion resulting from a ban. A rough synonymous term would be the word “ostracism”…
Why am I starting this “Strain of the Week” series with this particular strain? Shameless promotion. Kuhaylan Hayfi just happens to be the strain of my Asil Arabian mare, Wisteria CF, which also gives me an excuse to display her picture. There are other reasons, too: many Asil Arabian horsebreeders are familiar with the strain, as a result of the importation of the desert-bred Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare *Reshan to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. *Reshan went on to become one of the foundation mares of Arabian horse breeding in America, and left hundreds of Asil descendants in this country, most of which belong to the Davenport group, like Wisteria CF. (For those of you who have been living on the moon for the past half-century, the term “Davenport” refers to those Asil Arabians descended exclusively from the desert-bred Asil Arabian horses imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906, and from a few others desert-breds he’d owned prior to this importation). Back to the strain itself, of which *Reshan is only the most famous desert-bred representative. First, how old is it? Youthful as strains go, Kuhaylan Hayfi ‘only’ goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century: the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, which collects Bedouin testimonies about Arabians horses up to ca. 1850, makes no mention of it. …
The short answer is yes. Because strains are just family names given by the Bedouins to Arabian horses that are related through the dam line, there is no reason why one name should be “superior” or “inferior” to another (Is Smith better than Doe, or than Al-Dahdah?) It all boils down to the quality of the individual horse. Some horses are just better than others (I will defer the discussion of what my opinion of a “better” Arabian horse is), and if bred well, these horses may in turn produce better horses, and so on. Other individuals are less good, and if bred poorly, will end up producing inferior horses as well. If these individuals are females that in turn produce females so that the strains can be carried forward, then yes, the result in the very long run is one strain becoming better than the other. In essence, strains improve as a result of sound breeding over long periods of time, and degenerate otherwise. Nevertheless, all strains are all created equal. Lady Anne Blunt, who came as close in understanding Bedouin Arabian horse breeding as any other Westerner ever did, wrote that her stud manager, a Mutayr Bedouin by the name of Mutlaq al-Battal, never ceased to remind her than “All (strains) are…