A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
I scanned this archive photo of a famous event among Syrian horse breeders, the Latakia race of 1993, which I attended with my father. Arabians from all over the country and neighboring ones flocked to this national event, the first of its kind on such a scale. This is a photo of the finish line of the … Read more
There is a very nice Facebook page about the Beirut racetrack at its beginnings, when it was called “Hippodrome des Pins”. It’s full of historical pictures. Here is one of my favorites, which came with the following caption: “The first race meeting was held on 06.10.1921 at the Hippodrome: the meeting consisted of 4 races, … Read more
Based on the racing records of some specific horse lines in the Middle East, and on the identity of horses from these lines imported to the USA, here is a list of US Arabian horse lines that would be expected to do well in the competitive racing and endurance realms, in addition to the *Hadba … Read more
Last week I was talking with a Syrian friend from Aleppo over the phone. Conversations always start with updates on the security situation there, and end with what they were supposed to start with — horse talk. I was telling him about the recent concerted preservation effort that is underway in the USA, to conserve … Read more
As part of the working group on the horses of the Tahawi, which Edouard mentioned in a recent post, I wanted to share with you brand new information about the Egyptian stallion Gamal El Din. The information was obtained when Yehia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi, Mohammad Saoud al-Tahawi, and myself, recently recorded a one hour video with … Read more
I took this photo of the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz Chahata (Hosni xHamida by Soufyan) at the stallion depot of the Tunisian government stud of Sidi Thabet in 2006. He was a great race horse, and I thought he was exceptionally well built, while at the same time displaying good Arab type. I wonder what’s with the … Read more
Starting in the 1950s, so-called “Iraqi Arabians” swept across the Middle East race tracks of Lebanon, and, to a lesser extent, of Egypt and the Sudan. Until then, the overwhelming majority of the racehorses involved in the racing industry of these countries were asil desert-breds from the Northern and Central Arabian deserts. The Iraqi Arabians were … Read more
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 … Read more
[November 1 2010, update from Edouard: The last two otherwise Al Khamsa eligible descendents of *Bint Rajwa have died. There is no point proposing *Bint Rajwa for inclusion in the Al Khamsa Roster] I want to submit a proposal to include the mare *Rajwa and the stallion Karawane in the Al Khamsa Roster before this coming November. … Read more
My research project about Syrian horse-racer Ahmad Ibish is progressing well, but I am not ready to share the results on this blog yet. Ibish, of Damascus, Syria, was on the top of my list of influential urban Middle Eastern horsemen of the twentieth century, along with Henri Pharaon of Beirut, Lebanon, Iskandar Qassis of … Read more
This pretty and deserty 17 year old Hamdaniyah mare of Davenport breeding, Artemisia CF (MV Reflection x Artema by Tripoli) “recently completed 70 miles at the El Paso-Las Cruces endurance ride in Texas in fine form and loved every minute of it, and made the list for Top Twenty Limited Distance Endurance Mileage Horses of … Read more
A few days ago a friend asked me if I knew whether anything about the Egyptian stallion Ibn Ghalabawi and I said I didn’t. Then I consulted his pedigree on allbreedpedigree.com. Granted, this is by no means a reliable source (anybody can enter, remove or edit whatever the want), but in this case I suspect … Read more
Ghuzayyil was a famous desert-bred horses from Syria, whose bloodlines are present today in a number of modern pedigrees from Syria, including that of the stallion Hussam al-Shimal now in France. This is his entry in the Aldahdah Index: GHUZAYYIL: a grey desert-bred stallion, born c. 1952; [no picture available] Strain: Saqlawi Nijm al-Subh, of … Read more
Ghaddar is another desert-bred race-horse mentioned in the newspaper clipping below. He was racing at the same time as Mawj al-Athir. The Aldahdah Index happens to have an entry on him as well, with all of the information coming from old horse merchant Abd al-Qadir Hammami. GHADDAR: a gray desert-bred asil stallion; Strain: Hamdani Simri … Read more
If you follow this blog regularly, then you must have already heard about the chestnut desert-bred stallion Mawj al-Athir: he is in the pedigree of the bay stallion from Syria, Hussam al-Shimal, now in France. He is also the sire of the pretty mare below, whose photo you have already seen before. Joe Achcar also … Read more
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, … Read more
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 … Read more
This is another picture of the beautiful Hearst stallion *Mounwer (b.1942), the subject of a recent entry. The picture is from the website of Ariena Arabians, and is courtesy of Nyla Eshelman. *Mounwer’s handwritten pedigree by his Lebanese breeder George Khamis indicates that he was sired by the stallion Kayane, out of the chestnut mare Bint … Read more
These four rare photos of Mohalhil are courtesy of the late Billy Sheets. No idea where he got them from. Mohalhil was a grey Ma’naghi Sbayli bred by the Shammar tribe in 1922 and imported to Egypt in 1925, by Fawzan al-Sabik, who raced him there before presenting him Charles Crane in 1929. Crane imported him … Read more
Nasr, the chestnut [January 23rd: Sporthorse-data lists hims as “brown”, and the French studbook as “bay”] horse pictured below was a desert-bred stallion that was imported to the Tunisian stud of Sidi Thabet in the 1920s. He was imported from Egypt, where he’d had a good career as a racehorse. French masterbreeder Robert Mauvy, who knew … Read more
In my opinion, *Abeyah was the best mare of the Davenport importation, and perhaps one of the best mares to come out of Arabia. She was certainly the best authenticated one. Look at my translation of her hujjah (also published in Al Khamsa Arabians III): I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which … Read more
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 … Read more
The blog entry “Amer: a Saudi race stallion” and the ensuing online conversation has generated a heated debate, with potentially explosive consequences for many involved. To summarize using politically correct language: the stallion Amer, currently owned by Umm Qarn farms of Qatar, is an extremely controversial horse, owned by extremely powerful people. He has dozens … Read more
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 … Read more
On paper, this stallion looks okay. I mean he has the pedigree of an Arabian horse. But he is not. He is an Anglo-Arab in disguise. Ba-Toustem (Djerba Oua x Bacchantara, at least that’s what his papers say) was born in France, at a time when Arabians raced in the same same races as Anglo-Arabs … Read more
In 1947, American billionnaire and press magnate W.R. Hearst (of Hearst Castle fame) sent a party of several people, including his stud manager Preston Dyer, and the photographer J. Williamson, all around the Middle East in search of Arabian horses for his San Simeon stud. They toured Egypt, Arabia, Syria and ended up buying 14 horses … Read more
Dynamite II is a desert-bred stallion imported to Tunisia by the French in 1920. He is recorded to be by a Hamdani out a mare by the name of Tayyara. I should have more information in my archives (including on his strain) but need to look it up. Meanwhile, here is the picture. The sireline … Read more
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 … Read more
Believe it or not, this extremely pretty and typey mare is an Asil Arabian from Tunisia. Hadia, a Kuhaylah al-‘Ajuz, by Kefil out of Rafiaa, by Bango) was bred at Sidi Thabet in 1958, and is the dam of many successful racehorses. She is one of the few greys Sidi Thabet retained for breeding. She … Read more
Madani (by Souci x Sissana by Mossoul) was one of Tunisia’s best Arabian racehorses in the 1950s. This old photo was originally published here. Madani is among others the sire of the stallion Inchallah, exported to France in the late 1950s. He also has progeny in Germany.
[This is the third in a series of four posts on the Ma’anaghi Hadraji marbat of Ibn ‘Ufaytan. Click here and here to access the first and second posts.] We reached the village of Ibn ‘Ufaytan [update July 17 2008: the village is Buthat al-Taqch] in the early afternoon, after having taken a dirt road that … Read more
A previous post listed the strain of the desert-bred Asil Arabian stallion El Sbaa as Ma’naghi. That’s the strain France’s premier purist Arabian horse breeder Robert Mauvy attributed to him in one of his books. A manuscript note, found in El Sbaa’s file in the archives at the government’s Pompadour stud, and cited by Nicole … Read more
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 … Read more
It was already two in the afternoon when our van stopped at the house of Faddan Ibn ‘Ufaytan, the owner of the marbat of Ma’naghi Hadraji I had heard so much about. We had spent the entire morning looking at the horses of the Sherabiyin, in the villages of Tall al-‘Arab al-Gharbi and Tall al-‘Arab al-Sharqi, formerly Kurdish villages … Read more
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 … Read more
.. 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 … Read more