This entry is a follow up on an earlier entry on the Egyptian stallion Ibn Ghalabawi, sire of the 1971 mare Azeema out of Naglaa 1963 (Azeema’s photo is below, thanks Timur Hasanoglu for sharing it with me), which was exported to Germany. While implicitly included in the Pyramid Society’s definition of a Straight Egyptian Arabian, Ibn Ghalabawi is explicitely left out of the Asil Club’s otherwise wholesale embrace of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization’s Studbook. He shares that distinction with two other stallions, Sharkasi, and Registan (Skowronek x Riz). In 1978, WAHO accepted Ibn Ghalabawi’s daughter Azeema as purebred, based on the testimony of Sayed Marei of Al Badeia Arabians. That testimony identifies Ibn Ghalabawi as by Ghalabawi out of the mare “Bint Nabras”, by Nabras out of “Bint Soniour”. Soniour is only identified as a “desert-bred horse”. Assuming that pedigree information is correct, further research is needed on the following four horses before the credentials of Ibn Ghalabawi can be bolstered: the three stallions “Ghalabawi”, “Nabras”, “Soniour” and the great-granddam in the tail female, about which nothing is known. “Ghalabawi” is said to be by Balance x Bint Magboura by Ibn Rabdan, and to be bred by the RAS. I…
Jackson Hensley, of Bedouin Arabians Farm, in New Mexico, just sent me pictures of the latest addition to his stud; Sabella Al Krush, an asil Kuhaylat al-Krush filly, tracing in tail female to the mare *Werdi imported from Syria to USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. *Werdi hails from the Krush marbat of the Fad’aan Bedouins. As an aside, the famous stallion Krush Halba, the foundation sire for the Turkish Arabian horse breeding program, hailed from the same Fad’aan marbat as *Werdi. Krush Halba was one of the most prepotent sires of racehorses of his time. He was active in the northern Lebanese town of Halba in the 1920s and 30s, and was purchased in 1933 by a Turkish Government Commission and exported to Turkey where he was known as Baba Kurus. Check out his hujjah here (scroll down to Appendix B). One of Krush Halba’s sons, the grey stallion Kroush (actually a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq by strain) was bought from the Beirut racetrack in 1936 by Dr. Mabrouk of the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS), and was used by the RAS for breeding . Kroush appears in the Egyptian “RAS History” studbook (EAO Vol 1) on page 48. He had three registered offspring in Egypt: the stallion Tamie (1937) out of Nagiya; the mare Bushra…
Another nice article by Joe Ferriss in the Arabian Essence online magazine, on the desert-bred stallion El Deree and his get.. Joe’s articles, always insightful and often filled with old pictures I have never seen before, are the only thing I read in this magazine. To me, everything else is glossy pictures of poor four-legged creatures forced to adopt artificial pauses, with shaved ears and make-up on their nostrils and their eyes. But the most appalling sight is no doubt that of these poor little foals with shaved heads and faces. For heaven’s sake, these are Arabian horses, not sheep! Not sure if this is the right time to start another war — I feel I have been provocative enough here — but I happen to have to lot to say about El Deree and his origins. Maybe another time.
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 Nasr, referred to him as “the prestigious imported horse Nasr” in one of his books. MIchael Bowling tells me that the Egyptian Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) used a desert bred racehorse by the name of Nasr as a stallion in the 1920s, and that this horse was subsequently exported to Tunisia. He also tells me this horse is the reason why the other more famous *Nasr (Rabdan El Azrak x Bint Yemama) was renamed “Manial”, when he was raced by Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik before being exported to the USA. If so, then it seems like the chestnut horse in the picture is the “Nasr, a racehorse” of one of the early EAO studbooks. He left many descendents in Tunisia, and in France, of which Mauvy’s Moulouki is one. Moulouki’s maternal granddam Arabelle is a granddaughter of this Nasr. [Jan 23rd update: He is also…
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…
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…