I recently took part in a discussion on Facebook about the Samhan strain. Mohammed al-Matrooshi of the UAE had posted a photo which Carl Raswan had taken of a Samhat Qumay’ mare of the Ruwalah. Not posting here because I assume Raswan’s photo is copyrighted. Someone asked if the strain was extinct. I then shared a photo of this beautiful Samhat Qumay’ mare, which I had taken in the early 1990s outside Aleppo. She had come from the area of al-Mayadin, in the valley of the Euphrates, to be covered by one of the Jabri stallions. She was not registered. The ‘Aqayat got most of their strains from the Sba’ah. Then, out of the blue, someone from that same area posted a photo of his chestnut mare, and said that she was the grand-daughter of the above mare, and that the strain was alive and well. Then I dug in my own photo archives and found another photo of the same grey mare, one year later, this time with her daughter by my stallion Dahiss, the ‘Ubayyan Sharrak/Suhayli, then with Radwan Shabareq. I need to show it the man from al-Mayadin, to see if he recognizes the filly, who could…