A picture of Monica Respet’s JDA Husaana as a younger mare. Husaana, born in 1999, has one of the nicest old pedigrees on a US Arabian horse, with a rare tail female to *Urfah and plenty of old American blood. Her line was bred by Mrs. Ott and her daughter Jane Ott for three generations. Husaana, was bred by Pam Baker, and has one daughter born in 2004.
Hujaj (plural of hujjah), the Arabic authentication certificates, come in all shapes and forms. Some consist of a few handwritten words scribbled by the breeder or owner on a piece of paper. Some are more elaborate, the work of government officials, with dates, stamps, letterahead, and formal language. Some are the words of barely literate men, some are high literature. Look at this hujjah for the 1945 grey stallion Walid El Seglawi (his photos below), the sire of the mare Jamalah El Jedrani imported to the USA by ARAMCO expatriate Fran Richards. This is my translation of it: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Testimony on the origin of a horseLet it be known that my mare, the Saqlawiyah, was bred to my horse the Saqlawi, and that this horse was born in August 1945 [implied: as a result of the mating]. My mare and my horse are from a deep-rooted origin in the steppe [badiyah] with the tribe of Bani Khalid; and this horse, named Walid, was sold to Mr. Nick Lederle of al-Dhahran. Hasan son of Mansur the Saihati The document is straightforward, but there is more than meets the eye. A few observations on both text and context: First,…
In my book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha: New Discoveries: The 1860 Abbas Pasha Sale List and Other Original Documents (Ansata Publications, 2022), with Kate McLachlan and Moira Walker, I showed how the strain of the Blunt mare Basilisk and hence that of her female descendants, including the Pritzlaff mare Rabanna and her own descendants, is actually Saqlawi Marighi. I made this discovery using two surviving original Arabic sources: the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, and the hujjah (Arabic certificate) of the Blunt mare Meshura, a close relative of Basilisk’s in the female line. The Abbas Pasha Manuscript was translated into English by Gulsun Sherif and beautifully published by Judith Forbis (Ansata Publications, 1993). The Arabic manuscript was then acquired by officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and published in Arabic under its original title Usul al-Khayl al-‘Arabiyah. An image copy of the hujjah of the Blunts’ mare Meshura was originally published in the book of her daughter Lady Wentworth, The Authentic Arabian Horse (1945). I published an English translation of it for the first time on this blog in May 2008 (link here), before publishing a slightly revised translation in my book in 2022. In summary, both primary sources…
This morning Lyman Doyle bred Kinza to Jenny Krieg’s magnificent Bashir Al-Dirri for a 2024 foal. They are from two different branches of the Basilisk female line: Bashir traces to the Peraga branch (*Mirage x Slipper), of which he is the last asil representative, while Kinza traces to the better represented Rabanna (Rasik x Banna) branch. Both stallion and mare blend Crabbet (i.e., Doyle), Babson (i.e., old Egyptian) and Pritzlaff (i.e., new Egyptian lines) seamlessly, so they should be a good match. Of course, Basilisk is from Ibn Dirri’s branch of the Saqlawi Marighi strain, as I have shown in the new book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha”. Below, a recent natural shot of Bashir, from Lyman. He truly is a magnificent horse.
Going through some photos on my smartphone, which has an admittedly nice sample of the horses I like. This is the outstanding Jabinta (Jadib x Bint Malakah by Subani), a 1969 Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd (*Wadduda line) and the maternal granddam of my Jamr Al Arab. As my father would say in Lebanese Arabic, ya haik khail ya bala, which means: “either horses like this or none at all”.
Kate found this “new” photo of the early Crabbet mare Bozra, by Pharaoh out of Basilisk. Both sire and dam were desert-bred, and both of the strain of Saqlawi ibn Dirri — a branch of the Saqlawi Marighi, itself a branch of the Saqlawi Ubayri (not Jadran). This mare would not be out of place in North-Eastern Syria today. The picture comes from Volume 1 of The Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture and Rural Economy, edited by R. Patrick Wright, and published in 1909, says Kate.
The stallion below is the Saqlawi Jadran Benlarich Futhi El Arab (Sidi El Thabi x Johrhemar El Lulwa), tail female to Ghazieh through the Orpen import Nabilah (Enzahi x Zamzam). He was a versatile riding horse, with a show record under saddle, and an endurance career with over 1600km, that included completing the Fauresmith National Ride in 2010, a roughly 200km ride split over three consecutive days, as well as a first place finish in the heavyweight category at the 120km at the Parys Daly Land Rover ride. In addition to his accomplishments as an athlete, owner Eduard von Moltke says that he was a very great gentleman. His pedigree is noteworthy, as his dam, Johrhemar El Lulwa, is the granddaughter of Inzam Saklabilah, who was out of Nabilah by Gordonville Ziyadan; Ziyadan was not just the only son of the Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah mare Barakah, but also the only asil son that her fellow Orpen import Zahir got. It is unusual to see all three Orpen imports this close in an asil pedigree today.
I have been trying to go back in time as far as possible with the pedigrees of modern Syrian Arabian horses, looking for male ancestors as early as the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a difficult task, because the registration of Syrian foundation horses (the first wave in Volume 1, and the second wave in Volume 7) is based on oral testimonies, which seldom go beyond three or four generations, whether in horses or in humans. How many of us can readily remember the name of our paternal great-grandmother? A horse that keeps coming back in the back of the pedigrees of Syrian Arabians is the Dahman Amer of Sa’ud al-‘Ajarrash. In the back of the pedigree of this mare born in 1971, for example, where his owner’s name is misspelt and his strain is misrepresented. The mare’s hujjah shows the right strain and owner for this stallion, her great-grandfather, which was likely active in the 1940s. The same stallion appears as the sire of the Egyptian RAS desert-bred stallion El Nasser. Below a photo of this really fine mare in extreme old age (around 32). She was a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the strain of Ibn ‘Amoud. I took this photo…
Khalid Rakhlani runs a beautiful page on Facebook, called Arabian Horses in Syria. It features numerous photos of Arabian horses of 100% Syrian stock, registered in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook. This morning’s photo of the stallion Barazan caught my eye. He represents a type of desert horse that is rapidly disappearing: small, yet well built, with this wild animal quality to him. His sire Odeilan, a seal brown Ubayyan Suhayli, was very small, but this was from malnutrition. Barazan is jet black without white markings, in the pure tradition of old Saqlawi Marzaqani stallions. In the 1950s, the Maraziq Bedouins who have owned the strain since the 1850s stood a famous stallion called the “Black Marzaqani”, who sired the famous race winner Mawj al-Athir (who was also his brother, the black Marzaqani having bred his own dam as a young colt). Later in the 1970s, the daughter and wife and mother of Tai leaders, Anud al-Nayif also stood a black Saqlawi Marzaqani stallion — the “horse of al-‘Anud”. Below, an early photo of his maternal grand-dam Tairah when she was still in the Syrian desert, with her Bedouin owner Sabah Munawikh al-Uthman of the al-Luhaib clan of the Shammar.…
The excerpt below comes from Eduard Löffler’s 1860 book, Die österreichische Pferde-Ankaufs-Mission, which is a firsthand account of the 1856-7 expedition helmed by Colonel Rudolf von Brudermann to the desert to buy horses for the state studs. The expedition, by this point, had already acquired a number of horses, including Aghil Aga, who still has a presence in Al Khamsa horses. They had met with the Wuld Ali, who were camping in the Hauran, to the south of the Tell al-Hara, “only 17 or 18 hours of riding from Damascus”. Löffler says the sheikh was Mohamed El Duchi (Mohammed Dukhi ibn Smeyr in Lady Anne Blunt’s Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, and Mohammed ed Douhi in Roger Upton’s Travels in the Arabian Desert), who happened to be in Damascus at the same time as the Austrians, negotiating with the governor over camels for a caravan of pilgrims travelling to Mecca in May. Colonel von Brudermann made arrangements via the Austrian consul Pfaeffinger to journey with the sheikh back to the Wuld Ali, where they might see their horses. Löffler remarks that the horses of the Wuld Ali were “edle, schöne, prachtvolle Thiere, die entzückten und jeden Pferdefreund enthusiasmirt haben würden”…
This beautiful photo of the Saqlawi Al-‘Abd stallion Jadaan (Abbeian x Amran) in older age standing by the memorial dedicated to early Hollyoowd star Rudolph Valentino was posted by Andrea Kaiser on Facebook and relayed by the Davenport Arabian Horse Conversancy. Jadaan is represented in a small number of Arabian horses of Davenport lines, especially those from the Krushan strain Fun fact: the term “latin lover” was apparently first coined for Valentino
Ghazal Al Layel and Louna are maternal half sisters, out of the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Ghazal Al Banat. Louna/Loonah is the 1993 daughter of the Hamdani ibn Ghorab stallion Mobarak, featured previously on this blog. The younger half-sister, Ghazal Al Layel, is the 1995 daughter of the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Shaddad, who has also featured on the blog before. Their dam, Ghazal Al Banat, is a daughter of the ‘Ubayyan Sharrak stallion Mashuj, whom Edouard has written about here. Photos were purchased from In The Focus.
This is Jamr again, in stills. I want to see similarities with the Blunt horses in this 1922 video by British Pathe. Again, I wish the neck was a tad longer; and if he had three more inches to him. Part of it was due to poor nutrition because he was weaned at three months old;
Marwah had these magical soulful eyes and long eyelashes. She was small, but built like a tank. Both photos from Marwa’s owner Basil Jadaan. The strain belongs to Hasan ibn Amud who led the Amud clan of the Northern Shammar, but traces to the Jadraniyat mares of the Frijah clan of the Ruwalah. The Frijah were the fountainhead of the Saqlawi Jadran strain.
Basil Jadaan’s gorgeous foundation mare Marwah, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the marbat of Ibn ‘Amud from the Shammar, pictured here with the late Najm al-Himmayri. Najm’s day job was “horseman”, or “horse expert”. Marwah was the dam of Hijab (by Ward al-Mayel), exported to France and the maternal grandam of the French-bred Syrian stallion Menjad Maram Al Baida (by Mokhtar). Najm, together with a few others like Abd al-Qadir Hammami (from Aleppo), ‘Uqlah al-Hanshul (from Deyr), Fawwaz al-Rajab (from Homs), Rashid ‘Issa (from Hama), Shakir al-Salluh (from al-Mayadin), was a fountain of knowledge. He knew all the stories and the all the horses and all the strains. I never met him, but Basil knew him well.
Seven years after this post, it’s time to say goodbye to Ginger (DA Ginger Moon, photo below). She went to Bev Davison, who had been keeping her for me for some time. Bev now has quite a collection of horses with high percentage Abbas Pasha blood from the dam lines of both Gulida and Rabanna, where Ginger will fit in nicely. She also has Ginger’s younger full sister, DA Moon Dancer, who at 21 is yet to produce a foal . It was very rewarding to have owned Ginger. She is a grand mare, with style, power, distinction, a long slender neck, deep jowls, soulful eyes, and an unmatchable shoulder-withers complex. She has produced several good foals over the past years, in addition to those she’s had for her breeder Sheila Harmon, who sold her to me. Ginger came to me with a 2014 black colt by Sheila’s good Babson stallion Serr Serabaar; I gave the colt to Chris Yost who’s been training him for endurance racing. He has grown into a fiery black stallion (video here). Chris also owns the colt’s full sister, DA Ebony Moon. Together they finished the Tevis Cup in 2013 (photo below). I then…
The hujjah published by Rousseau, in 1813, in Fundgruben des Orients, vol. 3, was printed by the journal both in Arabic, and translated into French. I reproduce both versions here below. “Au nom de Dieu, clément et miséricordieux, de qui nous attendons, toute assistance et secours.” “Le prophète dit: mon peuple ne se réunira jamais pour affirmer l’erreur.” “Voici l’objet de cet écrit authentique: Nous soussignés déclarons devant le Dieu suprême, certifions et attestons, en jurant par notre sort, notre fortune et nos ceintures, que la jument baie marquée d’une étoile blanche au front, et dont un pied de l’arrière-main, et un de l’avant sont blancs, descend d’aïeux nobles, tant du côté maternel que du côté paternel, par trois filiations directes et consécutives; qu’elle est véritablement née d’une cavale seglaaouié d’Al-Cazran du Nedjed, et d’un étalon de la race de choueyman Elisebbah, et qu’elle reunit les qualités de ces jumens dont parle le Prophète, lorsqu’il dit: leurs seins sont des trésors et leurs dos des sièges d’honneur. “Appuyés du témoignage de nos predecesseurs, nous attestons, sur notre sort et notre fortune, que la jument en question est d’une origine noble et qu’elle est aussi pure que le lait; qu’elle est renommée par sa légèreté et sa…
The works of the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817) were published after his death, by the African Association. The book in which this hujjah is found, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, was the last of his books to be published, in 1831. The subject of the hujjah is a Saqlawi colt, out of a famous white Saqlawiyah, sired by a bay Kuhaylan stallion. “GOD. “Enoch. “In the name of the most merciful God, the Lord of all creatures, peace and prayers be with our Lord Mohammed and his family and his followers until the day of judgment; and peace be with all those who read this writing, and understand its meaning. “The present deed relates to the grayish brown colt, with four white feet and a white mark on the forehead, of the true breed of Sakláwye, called Obeyán, whose skin is as bright and unsullied as milk, resembling those horses of which the Prophet said, ‘True riches are a noble and pure breed of horses;’ and of which God said, ‘The war horses, those which rushed on the enemy with full blowing nostrils,—those which plunge into the battle early in the morning.’ And God spoke the truth in his incomparable…
يقول حماد الجدوع الجزعة سمعتُ من أبي يقول الصگلاوية الجدرانية التي عندنا بالأصل لآل غبين شيوخ الفدعان من اعنزا وقدا أهدوا فرس الى ابن اختهم ضاري ابن محمود شيخ زوبع من شمر في ثورة العشرين في العراق جَلى ابن محمود الى الجزيرة السورية لأنّه كان احد القادة للثورة وجلبَ معه مجموعة من الخيل ضمنها الصكلاوية الجدرانية فباع هذه الصكلاوية لمحمد الدندح شيخ الجوالة من طي من خلال سائس الخيل اسمه سرحان فارسل معه الفرس وحجتها وكانت الفرس لاقح وذُكر في الحجة اسم الحصان الذي تشبت منه الفرس وهو دهمان عامر من خيل ضاري ابن محمود وبعد عِدّة أشهر ولدتْ الفرس مهرة اشترى جدوع الجزعة نصف هذه المهرة ب 125 نيرة رشادية وجمل ( جمل بيت ) سمّاها جدوع فرحة جدوع عندما كبرت هذه المهرة ( فرحة جدوع ) شبّاها من حصان عبو الحميّد من رسن صكلاوي جدراني اسمه فرحان ايضاً وصل للحميّد من ضاري ابن محمود ثم افلت فرحة جدوع بمهرة شقراء ثم شبّاها من نفس الحصان فرحان وبعد شهور قليلة حان موعد الفكك جعل محمد الدندح المهرة وفوقها 20 نيرة كوم (( حُصّة )) والفرس كوم (( الحصة الثانية )) فاختار جدوع الجزعة الفرس ودفع 20 نيرة لمحمد الدندح (( هذه طريقة للمشاركة في الفرس عند الفكك المالك يكوّم…
El Salil Paloma is a 2009 Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah from the Nabilah tail female line, in South Africa, out of the mare Induba Wasifa, by the Kuhaylan al-Mimrah stallion Skarabee Picasso. Nabilah (Enzahi x Zamzam) was one of the two Egyptian mares imported in 1945 from the Royal Agricultural Society by Claude Orpen, along with the well-known Mimrahiyah Barakah. After arriving in South Africa, Nabilah was sent to Namibia, where she produced her daughter Inzam Saklabilah by the stallion Gordonville Ziyadan. All Nabilah’s descendants today trace to this one registered daughter. In addition to her status as one of the rare Nabilah line mares, El Salil Paloma is precious in South African asil breeding, as she is also one of the few Nabilah tail female descendants without Hanan or Tifla. To date she has produced two asil foals, a colt by El Salil Benjamin and a filly by Kromar Xoyatan, but the filly sadly died last month. Paloma herself nearly did not make it to adulthood, as her owner and breeder Fallon Thiele writes: When Paloma was a 3month old filly she was caught in a snare, it severed her back tendon on her right hind leg. We nearly put her…
Saadey (below) was a Sa’dah al-Tuqan, foaled in Arabia in 1892, and purchased from Abdallah el-Khamud by Prince Shcherbatov in 1900. At the state stud at Derkul, Saadey was covered by the imported stallion Sem-Khan (purchased in Cairo), but did not produce a foal. In 1902 she gave birth to a filly, Elvira, by the Kuhaylan Swayti stallion El-Kader. Seglawiey (below) was another desertbred mare at Derkul. Foaled in 1894, she was out of a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Sbeyni from the Fad’aan, and sired by a Kuhaylan Abu Junub. She, like Saadey, was imported to Russia by Prince Shcherbatov for the state stud at Derkul in 1900. In 1902, Seglawiey produced a chestnut filly, Nadide, by the Crabbet-bred stallion Naaman. Photos from the History of Russia in Photographs.
صور نادرة للفرس طيرة صقلاوية نجمة الصبح (مرزكانية) من خيل المرازيك البريك من شمر طيرة ابوها كحيلان الواطي الازرق الحديدي حصان ذياب السبيه توليد فواز الحاكم الغشم ابو امها عبيان السحيلي الازرق الكبير حصان الشيخ عبد العزيز المسلط ابو جدتها المرزكاني من رسنها من تصويري سنة ١٩٩٢ في مزرعة باسل جدعان ابو فارس بالصبورة اما الفرس التي وراها فهي جليله القدر الدعجانية طيره ام الفحل طاحوس من حصان كرمو الخابورصقلاوي مرزكاني
The Saqlawi Jadran Jawlan Al Kheir, by the Ubayyan Suhayli Taj Al Kheir out of Bushra Al Kheir a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, at Basil Jadaan’s studfarm outside Damascus.
وقد سمعت القصة نفسها عن لسان تاجر الخيل والخبيرالحلبي عبد القادر الحمامي رحمه الله سنة ١٩٩٣
A stunning photo of the 1966 Babson stallion the The Shah (Fabah x Bint Fada by Fa-Serr), exported from the USA to English. The 1978 British National Champion Stallion. Photo: Briery Close, reposted on Facebook by Wilton Burger.
Yaqut is another gorgeous Saqlawiyat Ibn ‘Amud from the breeding of Basil Jadaan, by Shaddad (Marzuq x Aseelah) out of Karawiyah (Odeilan x Marwah). She is a maternal grand-daughter of Marwah and the dam of Basil’s stallion Shadeed. Sadly, this maternal line was lost due to the war in Syria and is now only represented through Shadeed. Yaqut’s sire Shaddad, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, was bred by Kamal Abd al-Khaliq in Aleppo, and his lines blended very well with Basil’s mares. Below, her son Shadeed against the backdrop of Palmyra’s ruins
Lyman Doyle sent me these scanned photos of grand mare Jabinta (Jadib x Bint Malakah by Subani), a 1969 Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd tracing to Homer Davenport’s *Wadduda. She has my Jadiba (by Dib) at her side. Jadiba and Jabinta are the kind of mares that should have produced ten foals not one, and certainly not by the same stallion. As my father would say: “Ya hayk faras ya bala!“, or “Either a mare like that, or none at all!”
Each of the eleven chapters of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its Arabic version starts with a table. The table lists the titles of the accounts on every marbat and the page number where the account begins. Sometimes the title includes information not present in the body of the account. There are six sections under the general title “Chapter Three on the Saqlawiyaat”. Section One is on the Saqlawi Simni, section Two is on the Saqlawi Sudani, and so on. The last section, “Section Six on stand-alone Saqlawiyaat” is where the author of the Manuscript grouped those Saqlawiyaat not falling under the previous five sections. This sixth section includes the following title entry: “Accounts of the parti-coloured (rabshah) Najmat al-Subh, the mare of Hussayn al-‘Awwadi, page 129“. Here is my translation of the account on page 129: Accounts of the parti-coloured (rabshah) Saqlawiyah, the mare of Hussayn al-‘Awwadi of al-Ghubayn, her sire is al-Mahyubi. Saddah ibn Jadran informed that: “This mare belonged to a Ruwalah man [who was] in al-Jazirah, beholden (qasir) to Farhan al-Jarba. The Ghubayn [clan] had unhorsed him [in a raid] and taken her. She is Saqlawiyah of al-Njaymaat. Her dam had passed to the Ruwalah from…
I finally managed to make sense of the short section in the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript that deals with the genealogies of the Sudaniyaat mares — from the strain of Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Sudan. This section consists of about eighteen lines of a testimony by Dabbi Ibn Shtaywi and Nimr Ibn Sudan of the Gmassah, on pages 86 and 87 of the Arabic edition. The English translation is confusing by the translators’ own admission, because of a couple missing words at the end of the testimony. I would like to propose the following genealogy, based on my translation of the Arabic text: Dabbi Ibn Shtaywi and Nimr Ibn Sudan and the elders of the Gmassah reported that: A mare of the Saqlawiyaat of Ibn Jadran [Mare 1] was left by him with Bani Husayn on the year water was being sold. From them, she [Mare 1] passed to Saliim the son of the paternal cousin of Dabbi Ibn Shtaywi by way of purchase. She [Mare 1] was bred to the Saqlawi Jadran horse of al-Bahim which passed to Saud and produced a chestnut mare [Mare 2], which ‘Ali ibn Sudan purchased. The daughter of al-Bahim [Mare…
What follows is an account of the origin of the Saqlawi strain from the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, and my analysis of it. It ties together two distinct series of entries on this blog: a series on dating the beginning of Arabian horse strains, and a series on the history of the medieval tribal emirate of the Tai in Northern Arabia, under Muhanna ibn ‘Issa Aal Fadl (d. 1335 CE) and his descendants from the Aal Fadl clan of the Tai tribe (genealogy below). This account of the Saqlawiyaat needs to be handled with care, because of how it weaves together myth and reality. Careful analysis can however yield useful information, including a tentative dating for the origin of the strain. First, my translation of the account from Arabic, then my notes and analysis: A gathering was held in the presence of the prince (amir) of al-Mawali ‘Arif Bek, from the descendants of Ibn al-Zarbah, […], in the presence of Hammad al-‘Abitah, aged one hundred and twenty years — a caretaker in the household of the descendants of Ibn al-Zarbah, and in the presence of all the Mawali, old and young. Hammad al-‘Abitah and ‘Arif Bek were queried at the gathering:…
One consequence of my re-discovering George Tabet’s booklet after a twenty year hiatus is that it allowed me to solve a couple of puzzles related to Arabian horses imported to the USA. One of these relates to the 1947 W.R. Hearst desert-bred import *Rajwa and her son the stallion *El Abiad, who was imported by to the USA by F.E. Mars. Rajwa recorded strain is Saqlawi “Ejrifi”. *El Abiad’s is a variant: “Ejrefi”. I had not heard of this marbat of Saqlawi Ejrifi or Ejrefi. I long thought it was a spelling mistake. Tabet’s bilingual list of Arabian horse strains finally resolved that puzzle. Under the Saqlawiyaat to be mated, it had this: Saqlawi al-‘Ajrafi/’Ujrufi/’Ejrefi, goes back to Saqlawi al-‘Abd [in the French version: with Turki Ibn Najriss of the ‘Aqaydat] Here it was, as a branch of the Saqlawi strain, with the exact same spelling as for *Rajwa and *El Abiad, with additional information on the strain and its breeder. Tabet’s booklet was written in 1937, ten years before the Hearst importation. Tabet’s reference to the Shaykh of the ‘Aqaydat, Turki al-Najriss as the breeder of this strain also provides a clue about *Rajwa’s breeder, given how rare that strain…
‘Azzah was one of my father’s favorite mares at Mustafa Jabri’s. She was a daughter of the Hamdani Ibn Ghurab al-Aawar and of Nadia, a desert bred Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah tracing to the marbat of Muhammad al-Dahdah of the Jawwalah clan of Tai and to Dari al-Mahmud of the Zawba’ Shammar before that. That strain originally goes back to the ‘Anazah. I took this photo of hers in the mid-1990s. Despite being the daughter of two registered horses, and the full sister of Mustafa’s other senior stallion Ihsan (photo below), Azzah was somehow missed by the first wave of registrations of the late 1980s, and was only registered in the second wave in 2001. By the way, it took me ten years before I realized that Ihsan was a son of Al-Aawar.
A grey desert-bred asil stallion. Strain: Saqlawi Jadran, from the marbat of ‘Abd al-Hamid (a.k.a. Hamid) al-Talal al-‘Assaf of the leading family of the Tai tribe, who got the strain from Ibn ‘Amud of Shammar (according to Hamid himself). From the strain that came to Ibn ‘Amud from al-Frijah of al-Ruwalah. Sire: Saqlawi Jadran of Hamid al-Talal of Tai, from the marbat of ibn ‘Amud of Shammar. Dam: a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Hamid al-Talal of Tai, from the marbat of ibn ‘Amud of Shammar. This grey horse was standing at stud with the Shaykh of Tai Farhan al-Nayif al-‘Assaf. His nephew Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Nayif, the current Shaykh of Tai, borrowed him for a while. It is unclear whether he was bred by the Nayif clan of the al-‘Assaf ruling family of Tai or by their cousins the Talal clan. It does not really matter. Hamid al-Talal said that this horse was a Saqlawi Jadran of the marbat of ibn ‘Amud from his horses. According to Hamid al-Talal, his Saqlawis came directly from Hasan Ibn ‘Amud of Shammar in 1928 (verify the date). According to Mahruth ibn Haddal, the ruling Shaykh of the ‘Amarat and paramount Shaykh of the ‘Anazah,…
For much of the 2000s, the chestnut Saqlawi Sh’aifi stallion Mash-hur Shammar was herd sire in the desert stud of the paramount Shaykh of the Northern Shammar, Dham Ahmad al-Dham al-Jarba. I never saw him in real life but the three photos below provide a good idea of what a desert-bred stallion looks like well into the XXIst century. I am especially taken by the resemblance with wild desert creatures, bird, gazelle or fox. The eye sockets, the jowls, the lower lip and the long nostrils stand out. The story of his line is fascinating. Sometime in the 1980s, a tribal dispute broke out between the ‘abid, descendants of the slaves of the Jarba shaykhs of the Shammar, and a Shammari man of the Bsaylan clan, during which a mare of the Bsaylan was shot and killed. The Jarba shaykhs stepped in to resolve the dispute, as they are legally responsible for the actions of their ‘abid in Bedouin tribal law. One of the shaykhs offered to give a mare to the Bsaylan clan as compensation for the one they had lost. He sent one of his men to Khleif ibn Bisra, to buy a three year old mare from…
Bev sent these videos of little Kinza. Shes moves well, like her dam. She is getting closer to what I am looking for in an Arabian horse.
This has to be the best horse news of the summer. Bev just wrote from Idaho to share the news that DA Ginger Moon (“Ginger”) delivered a healthy filly foal several hours ago, a week or even two before her due date. Four white socks and a winding blaze. Very long ears, fine muzzle. I am elated. Bev’s Subanet Jabbar SDA is the sire. This is his first foal. I am still looking for a name that starts with “K” (cf. her ancestors Kumoniet, Kumence, and Kualoha).
I finally found a couple good photos of Marwah, the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Amud. The top photo was taken at the entrance of Basil Jadaan’s old farm. Marwah was sired by the grey Hadban Enzahi of Fazaa al-Hadi al-Jarba, the son of the old bay Hadban Enzahi of Fazaa. Both Hadbans stood in Garhok in North Eastern Syria, and were widely used by the neighboring Arabs. She was small, but otherwise impossible to fault. Her croup and hindquarters were among the best I have ever seen in desert-bred Arabian horses. NOTE: Please, if you feel the urge to share on social media, link to the entire blog article, but don’t download and share as if the photo were yours. I don’t want Facebook to own these photos or others.
I spent the morning digging through old photos, which also bring back stories. I like this photo so much. It features a Tai Bedouin horse breeder, Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Sulayman al-Rhayyil, putting one of his toddler sons on his Saqlawiyah mares near Al-Qamishli, North Eastern Syria. The photo belongs to the sons, now grown men in their thirties and fourties. I believe it is from the early 1980s. The mare is a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah from the breedeing of al-Rhayyil. He or his father obtained what would have been the granddam of this mare in 1952 from the family of the Shaykh of the Tai, Abd al-Hamid (a.k.a Hamid) al-Talal al-‘Abd al-Rahman. The latter got the line from the family of the owner of the marbat, Hasan al-‘Amud, the Shaykh of the ‘Amud section of the Northern Shammar. According to ‘Abbas al-Azzawi (in his encyclopedic book “The Tribes of Iraq”, in Arabic), who quotes the Shaykh of the ‘Amarat Bedouins Mahruth ibn Haddhal, the ‘Amud had obtained the prized original mare in war from the Frijah section of the Ruwalah. This piece of information makes this line one of the most authenticated Saqlawi lines in the desert, because the Frijah are the…
An asil Saqlawiyah, daughter of Mach’al (and hence paternal sister of the stallion Achhal, the sire of the tree mares in the previous entries), from an old strain of the Dandashis (perhaps the Saqlawi Ibn Zubaynah strain tracing to Umm al-Tubul), photographed by my father in Tal Kalakh, Syria, in the late 1970s. She was exported to Qatar during the Lebanese civil war. Many of the best asil Lebanese mares were sent to the Gulf countries, where they were wasted.
From Rehan Ud Din Baber on Facebook: “Here is a story about how “Azrek” was acquired by “Zeyd” — the Bedouin horse master of Lord Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (Zeyd was from the Muteyr tribe in Nejd). Zeyd says: “I will tell you how I bought the Seglawi [this was the stallion ‘Azrek’]. I did not, of course, tell them the truth, that I was the servant of the Bey (Lord Blunt). There is no shame in this. It is policy (siasa). I am a master of policy. I made a deceit. I said to them that I was of the Agheylat, looking for horses for India, horses from the north and tall ones, for those are the horses that bring most price in India. What did I want with the pure bred? I wanted to make money. And so I went to the Sebaa. I alighted at Ibn ed Derri’s tent, as it were by accident. But I made a mistake. It was not the tent of Mishlab Ibn ed Derri, but of his brother Fulan (the name Fulan is used as we say So-and-So). There are four brothers. Fulan and Fulan and Fulan and Mishlab. Mishlab was the owner of…
Saqlaawy Al Faisal 1275, grey stallion, born 2002, by Kuheilaan Aafas Falaah 916 out of Saqlawieh Schmooc 1033
This time it was hard to grab good shots of my young stallion Jamr, who kept prancing. His hindquarter is shaping into true old Crabbet style, and each time I see him he looks different. He is 43.5% old Crabbet lines, his dam was double that percentage.
DA Ginger Moon (“Ginger”, by DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI by Monietor RSI), my 1998 Saqlawiyah of Ibn Dirri is looking increasingly good and has stopped loosing weight and even started gaining some. The last shot is from February 2016, with Chris Yost, who owns Ginger’s 2014 yearling colt El Moubarak BLY.
I am digging into older pictures of Jadiba and reminiscing about how grand a broodmare she is. Too bad I came across her in her later days and that she only produced one foal. By the way, there is something special and attractive about the shape, thickness and setting of the tail in these horses of predominantly Blunt bloodlines. The thickness of the muscle around the tail was a feature the Bedouins of Arabian held in high esteem in their horses. See close up below.
Hassan Bey (Ghawi x Ghazil by Abu Zeyd) a full brother to Gulida’s dam.
He is a slow grower, but has already made a lot of progress. I believe this horse will show his full potential once he’s reached the age of 7 or 8. Jamr is the son of Jadiba daughter of Jabinta daughter of Bint Malakah daughter of Malakah daughter of Zoe daughter of Serije daughter of Sedjur daughter of Aared daughter of *Wadduda.
Jamr will be three years old very soon. He is coming along, but still needs more time, at least two more years to show his full potential. He’s always had nice ears, tipped inwards and slightly backwards at the top, that deep jowl keeps getting deeper, and the eye is showing better. Jamr al Arab is by Vice Regent CF out of Jadiba. He is a Saqlawi al-Abd tracing to *Wadduda, the war mare of Hakim (“Hatchim” in Bedouin dialect) Ibn Mhayd, the leader of the Northern ‘Anazah in 1906 (Nuri Ibn Sha’lan was the head of the southern ‘Anazah then). So far he looks a lot like his maternal grandsire Dib, overall. There is a bit of the Regency CF too.
This is my DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI by Monietor), a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, tail female to Rabanna carrying a high percentage of horses from the lines of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sharif. Her body is still too thin to take a full conformation shot. She was in foal to the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, but did not keep the pregnancy. Next time I will bring one of my old Bedouin halters. I never think of these things beforehand.
I could not get decent pictures of Jamr (Vice Regent CF x Jadiba), who is not three years old yet, and is going through a growth spurt — a real teen-ager. I was taken aback at first (my eye got used to the Egyptians) but then I took a second look and thought he was promising and had a lot of the right things in the right place. He still needs at least three years before I showing his true promise. What I could already see was that Vice Regent’s Davenport blood shortened the longer back of Jadiba and did not affect the deep girth. It turned Jadiba’s rectangle into a square. The legs are good. The head I could not tell yet (he had a few teeth coming out), I could already see his sire and dam’s big jowls, but it looks like he will be taking a lot after his dam’s sire, Dib.
In my opinion, the 1984 Saqlawiyah mare Tohama (Akhtal x Ibdaa by Ikhnatoon x Ibtisam by Nazeer x Mouna by Sid Abouhom) was one of the nicest mares at the EAO in the 1980s. Photo by Judi Parks.
This is Kalthoom (Farazdac x Nahed by Sid Abouhom x Zaafarana by Balance), tail female to Ghazieh through Radia, a mare born in 1974 at the EAO. Talk about a racing pedigree, and an athletic conformation that reflects it. Not a flattering photo, as she sticks her tongue out, but what a mare! I specifically love the black skin from the eyes all the way down to the muzzle. It is a mark of asalah/authenticity, for the Bedouins at least.
I am happy to report that Chris and Kara Yost of Bar Lazy Y Ranch are the new owners of my DA Ginger Moon’s young black colt by Serr Serabaar. The colt, who will be named “Twin Turbo” will be entered in endurance racing, and you will hopefully see him competing in the Tevis Cup in the coming years. Chris is a three times Tevis Cup finisher with three different horses, including on the colt’s full sister, DA Ebony Moon. By the way, his dam DA Ginger Moon is in foal to Mlolshaan Hager Solomon for a mid 2015 colt.
One never stops learning. A read of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript section of the Saqlawi al-‘Abd strain teaches you that the strain is actually a branch of Saqlawi Jadran: It turns out that a man from the Shammar tribe was once taken prisoner by an Ibn Sha’lan (the leading clan of the Ruwalah tribe). The Shammari gave up his Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah to the Sha’lan man in exchange for his freedom. Later the Sha’lan man was somehow involved in the murder of a fellow tribesman (from the clan of al-Mani’ of the Qa’aqi’ah of the Ruwalah) and had to surrender the Saqlawiyah to this man’s family as blood money. The family’s caretaker was a slave (‘Abd in Arabic) who once rode the mare in battle against the Bani Sakhr tribe, and was unhorsed from her. From there the strain spread to the tribes, including back to the Ruwalah. In that specific case, the Bedouin traditional judges decided that the right to claim any mare of that strain under trover — that’s a Bedouin practice allowing the strain’s first owner within a certain tribe to claim any horse from that strain that enters the tribe — remained with the family of the deceased Ruwalah…
These were Barghi Ibn Dirri’s own words, in my translation of the certificate of his mare Meshura, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Dirri, who was bought by Lady Anne Blunt, and who was Pharaoh’s sister, Azrek’s maternal aunt, and a close relative of Basilisk’s: “I declare that I took part in a raid with a group of fourty five horsemen from the Fid’an, their military commander being Mashi [illegible name likely al-Sahim] al-Khrisi, and the raid was on […] al-‘Issa from Ahl al-Shamal and with them Bani Sakhr […] and I was riding this Saglawia and she outraced all of them by far and I took the camels [away] and brought them back [to the camp] and the remaining horses [two illegible words, likely ‘stayed behind’] / then my son […] took part in a raid on her, with the Fid’an al-Wuld, and the Saba’ah, and he [two illegible words] / on Ibn Sha’lan and he killed [illegible first name, likely Mahbus] son of Kunay’ir ibn Sha’lan, and the horses [taking part in the raid] were more than five hundred on that day, and Jad’aan Ibn Mahayd was present and she outraced all the horses, and my son took camels [away] and…
In the same vein as the new information pertaining to the hujjah of the mare *Jedah, I thought I’d try my luck and look up the Bedouin owner of the Davenport import *Azra in the same table of Fad’aan clan. And it worked. *Azra is a Saqlawi Ubayri from the marbat of Muharib al-Kharraz of the Makathirah section of the Fad’aan (a section similar in level to the ‘Aqaqirah). A search for the Makathirah section yielded the following: “The fourth section of the Khrisah [a large sub-tribe of the Fad’aan] is al-Makathirah, and their elder/leader is al-Mad-hun […] and their way cry is “the horse rider of al-Balha is a Kathiri” [Kathiri is singular, Makathirah is plural of the same]; and their ancestor is Sulayman also known as the Elderly (al-‘Awd) and they are the most numerous of the Khrisah sections; and Sheykh Saleh al-Mad-hun indicated that Sulayman has six offspring, and they are (i) Qutn; (ii) […] and from Qutn come Saqr and Muhammad, and from Saqr come Rabih and […]; and from Rabih come Shafe’ and Nafe’ and Falah al-Muqafe’ and they are known as al-Kharareez [plural of al-Kharraz], and the meaning of al-Kharz is the stabbing with…
I recently acquired DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI), a 1998 Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, from Sheila Harmon of Destiny Arabians, Idaho. She is tail female to the Blunts’ desert-bred mare Basilisk through Rabanna, and has lots of Blunt/Ali Pasha Sharif blood throughout the pedigree. Photos below, taken by Sheila in 2009. I have long been a fan of these highly authenticated Blunt and Ali Pasha Sharif lines, which, a hundred and fifty years after their importation from the Arabian Desert to Europe then the US, continue to produce high quality horses from time to time, close to the original Arabian type. These lines also do very well in endurance (cf. Bint Gulida and Linda Tellington Jones, see photo), and are being increasingly recognized and celebrated in this field. Her pedigree is composed of three lines to Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by *Nasr, 75% Crabbet/SO), three lines to Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to the Doyle foundation mare Gulida (Gulastra x Valida, 100% Crabbet/SO), three to *Rashad (Nazeer x Yashmak II who was out of the Crabbet mare Bint Rissala, almost 50% Crabbet/SO), and three to *Bint Moniet El Nefous (Nazeer x Moniet El Nefous, low percentage Crabbet/SO), as well as one line to…
This one was bred by and belongs to Jenny Krieg and is a reward for the efforts of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force. Her sire is Tamaam DE, a Doyle/Straight Crabbet stallion belonging to Rosemary Doyle and the dam is the wonderful, old-style, classy, grand and stylish Sarita Bint Raj, who in addition to her good looks, is our last asil link to *Euphrates, *Al-Mashoor, one of the last ones to *Mirage, as well as being tail female Basilisk through Slipper. By the way, Jenny Krieg has a nick for carefully and expertly choosing stallions to match her mares, and these matings always result in exceptional individuals. Photo credit to Terry Doyle.