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.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
A reader had asked about a photo of Azyya (Kenur x *Aziza by Gamil Manial), the dam of Faziza by Fa-Turf in Germany (the line in the US is extinct). Here is a photo, from the Khamsat archives, courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
I was looking at the current Babson Egyptian Arabian stallions tonight, and I was struck by this younger stallion, bred by Dan Ulm. The 2001 chesntnut Saqlawi Jadran stallion Du Akhir Flame (Ibn Mahrouf x Serra Afina by Serr Rou) is quite something. He is really well built, and I especially like the shoulder, the depth of girth and the withers. I even like the color. He is owned by Kim Cooper of Missouri Virginia.
Carrie Slayton finally found the whereabouts of the oddly named 1994 Saqlawiyat al-Abd (*Wadduda tail female) mare Oupz Running W (Midbar Balladeer x Serbinti by Serhm), who is a niece of Jadiba, and which turns out to be chestnut (the AK online Roster says she is grey). Joe Ferriss had written about both mares a couple years ago in the Khamsat, and Oupz was presumed lost, until Carrie found a trace of her current owner. With this mare now located, the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force has found all the mares on the endangered list that appeared on this blog in october 2011, except two (n. 13 and n. 15).
A great article by Rick Synowski by Michael Bowling and RJ Cadranell — of course, sorry — on “Reconstructing Domow”, that matriach of old American breeding. I never tire of re-re-reading it. I leased two Krush mares with Domow in the pedigree. The usual instruction with this photo: flip your head 30 degrees to the right when looking at it.
This is one of my all time favorite Arabian horse photos. The stallion featured in it, the 1971 chestnut Saqlawi Jadran Ibn Tirf (Sutan x Shillala by Gulson), is one that I would have liked to breed myself. Ibn Tirf was owned by the late Joyce Gregorian of Upand Farm, who wrote this beautiful article about him. Incidentally, my own Jadiba was originally purchased by Joyce as a yearling for breeding to Ibn Tirf, as per Joyce’s own words in the 1989 article: “While my first loyalty is to my Davenport program, Ibn Tirf has had influence on my buying as well as on my breeding. The Saqlawi al-Abd (*Wadduda) filly, Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta), was bought for his future harem; an Al Khamsa filly combining “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt, Davenport and Hamidie Society bloodlines… In strain and pedigree he is a felicitous example of the complementary blend inherent in “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt and Davenport lines, a combination suggested by Carl Raswan both in The Arab and His Horse, and in The Index.” Ibn Tirf and his two daughters, who left no offspring, were the last representatives of this historically very successful Blunt/Davenport cross. Ibn Tirf was 75% Blunt through the Doyle horses, and 25% Davenport through…
Bill Cooke gave Jeanne Craver permission, who gave me permission to use this previously unpublished *King John photo, courtesy the Arabian Horse Trust collections at the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington. He was a Saqlawi Jadran from the marbat of Dari al-Mahmud, Shaykh of Zawba’ Shammar in Abu Ghraib. This was the best marbat of Saqlawi Jadran in Arabia in the 1920s/30s. Please use proper credit (above) when using. The line died out in Al Khamsa with the death of Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, a son of *King John) in 1984. Thanks, Bill and Jeanne.
This weekend I went to see my mare 24 year old mare Jadiba in Pennsylvania. She is due in two weeks. I am praying for a successful delivery, and for a filly. These were the best photos I could get on the downhill lot.
The beautiful Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Jadera (Jadib x Im Gulnar by Nusi) of Doyle/Crabbet breeding is a close relative of my Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta by Jadib), and does look like her in some ways.
Photos by Chris Emmert, taken at the 2007 Al Khamsa Convention in Paso Robles, CA. Polynesia LD, a 1993 bay Saqlawiyah Jidraniyah, is one of the glories of the late Carol Lyons’ “Sharp” program (Al Khamsa Arabians with no Blunt ancestry). As mentioned in the comment thread on his entry, her dam was a granddaughter of Mista-Bin. The gray with her is the Blue Star yearling filly Awasef, a ‘Ubayyan who is tail female to *Muhaira, previously discussed here.
Here’s a photo of three sons of the influential mare Domow (registered as *Abu Zeyd x *Wadduda, but may well have been *Astraled x *Wadduda), all three important early American Arabian horse sire. Check out their names: Mahomet, Abu-Selim, and Ahamed. What a change in the culture between then and now: now the big names are Versace, Armani, and other haute couture references. It signals a shift in the marketing and perception of the Arabian horse: from an animal connected with its original Arab environment and simple Bedouin culture, to a global luxury consumption good. Yikes.
This 1948 Hanad son, out of Chairmain (Abu-Selim x Aatika by Tabab) is in the pedigree of two of the mares I am trying to preserve today: the full sisters Bint al-Barra and Cinnabar Myst. Mainad traces to *Urfah in the tail female and has two lines to the desert-bred import *Azra, a Saqlawi Ubayri from the Fad’aan Bedouins.
This stallion is still going at 31 years old. A direct son of mare Sahanad (Abu Hanad x Sahabet by Tanatra), a Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd tracing to the desert-bred *Wadduda, and sired by the Egyptian sire Khemahr Moniet (Khemahr x Khe Miss Moniet by Ibn Moniet El Nefous), he is a foundation sire for the Sahanad Preservation Group that was built around that mare. Photo from the Howard photo collection, with Robin Howard handling the stallion.
While digging through old pictures, I came across this headshot of the asil Saqlawi stallion al-Abjar, which I took in the mid 1990s, at the studfarm of the late Hajj Amin Yakan near al-Bab, not far from Aleppo. He was a tall stallion of tremedous style, carriage and presence. My father is the man in the picture. I have already written about al-Abjar here. He was a Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Zubayni, from the marbat of al-Dali’ (like his relative *Mirage), later in the marbat of the Mudariss family. There is still a thin tail female line running through his sister, in Damascus.
The two Saqlawiyat Jadraniyat full sisters Haraka and Bint Hamida (Kenur x *H.H. Mohamed Ali’s Hamida) have founded a dynasty of their own in the USA. Their dam Hamida (Nasr x Mahroussa) was bred by Prince Mohamed Ali and was a half sister of *Zarife, *Fadl, and *Maaroufa; their sire Kenur (*Sunshine x *Tairah) was the offspring of two Albert Harris’ Saudi imports to the USA. Both photos are from the archives of Billy Sheets, but I have seen them before in a Khamsat magazine issue too.
Last weekend I went to Pennsylvania to see Jadiba, and I stopped at Monica Respet’s farm. Monica and some of her friends are specializing in breeding a small and increasingly rare group of horses who are tail female to *Urfah, a Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd imported from Arabia by Homer Davenport in 1906. One of these mares is JDA Husaana (Salil Ibn Iliad x Saafadda CHF by Fiddlesticks), photo below, a 1999 chestnut mare who was bred by Pam Baker. Just like the Davenports or the Doyles, or like my own Jadiba and Sahra, JDA Husaana is Early American Foundation, meaning that she traces 100% to the horses listed in AHR Volume V, registration numbers 1-2924. These are basically the Arabian horses found in the USA by and before 1944. Lots of very, very old American Arabian horse blood flows in her veins. In addition to her two “Davenport” grandsires, she carries the blood of three stallions bred by Jane Ott and her mother, who launched the first large-scale asil preservation effort in the USA: Joramir (Sirecho x Fad Roufa), Dahrecho (Sirecho x Dahma Al Zarka), and Zarlan (Mistlany x Zarieha), as well as the Ott mare Blue List (Saafaddan x Zarieha by…
This old photo of the 1937 black Saqlawi Jadran stallion Hallany Mistanny (Zarife x Roda) is from Billy Sheet’s photo archives. I am not sure it’s been published before. Hallany Mistanny sired his first asil foal in his twenties, and along with his Travelers Rest (General Dickinson’s stud) mate Sirecho (Nasr x Exochorda) was a cornerstone of the preservation renaissance which Jane Ott led in the 1950s.
Terry Doyle kindly shared with me this unique photo of Dr. Joseph Doyle’s foundation mare and 100% Old Crabbet broodmare Gulida (Gulastra x Valida), along with Richard Pritzlaff’s Rabanna (Rasik x Banna) which was taken by Carl Raswan at their farm in Iowa in the 1950s. Rabanna was there for a breeding to Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare). This is probably one of the most precious photos featured on this blog. I cropped the photo to zoom in on the two mares. The larger photo has a view of the pasture and of some of Gulida’s offspring.
This is Hart Asheera (Rafeer x Nisrs Asha by Ansata El Nisr), a 1986 Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd bred by Sheila Hart, and owned by Megan Detweiler, who is the lady in the picture. Click on the picture to enlarge it. This lovely mare is a cousin of my Jadiba, as both their great-grand-dams come from Fred Glass’s old breeding program which was centered around the mare Serije (Letan x Sedjur by *Hamrah). There is a relatively large group of Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd horses who trace to *Wadduda through Sahanad (Abu Hanad x Sahabet by Tanatra x Jadur by Jadaan x Sedjur by *Hamrah) via Jadur, but Hart Asheera and Jadiba are the only two left tracing to the other branch through Jadur’s sister Serije. Asheera is Megan’s favorite riding mare, and I wish she could leave her with a last foal, a filly this time (she had two colts who were gelded).
I also saw many nice horses at the Al Khamsa Convention. One of my favorites was the 24 year old mare Ebonys Doyle LHF (Ebony Nefous RSI x Larkin DE by Greggan), bred by Vincent Melzac, from two of his favorite horses, and now owned by Lesley Detweiler. She traces twice to the grand Rabanna (Rasik x Banna by Nasr), and her dam is a Doyle mare of 100% old Crabbet breeding. In my opinion, and regardless of the petty politics of what is “Straight Egyptian” and what isn’t, the more Rabanna blood in a horse, the better the horse. Also, Carl Raswan and Richard Pritzlaff did not save Rabanna in the 1950s, so that we waste her blood away in 2010. We cannot pay continuous lip service to their legacy, and do nothing about it in practice. Not sure how many horses with Rabanna blood remain today (someone needs to do a headcount), but something really needs to do something about that. And by the way, I don’t believe that the head of an Arabian horse needs to be more “extreme” than that. Anything beyond that becomes distortion.
Last week, Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta by Jadib), the Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd mare I recently purchased (photo below), was checked in foal to the bay Hamdani stallion Vice-Regent CF (Regency X Violetta by Salutation), photo also below by Randy Abler. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a normal pregnancy. If all goes well, inshallah, there will be a foal around the 4th of July next year, with crosses to the grand Hanad through his four sons Tripoli, Sanad, Ibn Hanad and Ameer Ali. I am so grateful to Monica Respet and Linda Uhrich for helping me secure Jadiba, and to Randy Abler and Gail Wells for facilitating the breed to Vice-Regent.
Bay Saqlawiyah Ubayriyah bred by the Yusuf al-Du’bu of the Tai Bedouins, obtained by Hasan and ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Nassif of Tal Bisah, then gifted to Salim and Edouard Al-Dahdah, then given by them to Ahmad Ghalioun of Hims. Sire: the dark bay Ma’naqi Hadraji of Dhahir al-Ufaytan (asil); dam of a celebrated endurance winning mare, Wudyan; not registered in WAHO, and not 100% sure if asil. Should have been more diligent and taken the time to inquire further about her; but there were so many asil horses in Syria back in the early 1990s that trying to trace the origins of a non-registered mare was not always deemed worth the effort. Big mistake in this case. PS: I am at my father’s in Lebanon, scanning old pictures and posting some.
Yesterday, I went up to Pennsylvania to see the mare I recently bought. This time Jadiba looked much better than the first time I saw her (thanks in part to the great care Sue Moss, the lady in the photos, is giving her), and I was pleased with her overall. I thought she had some nice features I had overlooked last time: a deep jowl, a fine muzzle, a tail set high, and well let out, a strong girth, a round croup and a well sloped shoulder. Her back is shorter — although still long in my opinion — and her ears longer than I had initially thought, too. I still think her eyes are set a little too high, and I also noticed that her forehead was narrow: her face is rectangular instead of triangular when seen from the front. Anyway, I will let you judge from these photos I took. There is a definite Crabbet air to her (obviously, since she is about 90% Crabbet/Doyle) and the influences of Rijm (Mahruss x Rose of Sharon), who is Ribal’s maternal grandsire, and Gulastra (Astraled x Gulnare) were some of the easy ones to spot. She also has some nice…
Following yesterday’s last blog, Jeanne Craver sent me these rare pictures of the 1949 Saqlawi al-‘Abd (back to *Urfah) mare Shasinada (Hanad x Shasi by Asil) and her 1942 dam Shasi (Asil x Sherah by *Hamrah), courtesy of Nyla Eshelman. Both mother and daughter are of the old Bedouin type that was prevalent in the USA in the 1930s and 1940s but has all but disappeared in modern Arabian breeding. Note the resemblance between Shasinada and the 1993 Davenport mare WDA Hyapatia Lee (Bon Jour CF X Sarsaparilla by Dharanad) that was recently posted on the Davenport Arabian Horse Conservancy website (and below).
This is a photo of Jadiba’s dam, Jabinta (Jadib x Bint Malakah by Subani), also courtesy of Jeanne Craver. As you can see, she has none of her daughter’s conformational defects: longer neck (or is it picture?), shorter back, longer ears. I like this mare better than I do her daughter.
You may be wondering what’s with the recent flareup of blog entries on *Wadduda and some of the Doyle horses… Well, there’s a reason. As of this morning, I am the proud owner (I still can’t believe it actually) of Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta, by Jadib) a 23 year old chestnut Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd tracing in tail female to *Wadduda. A dream come true. I haven’t been excited like this in years, and it’s all the more remarkable given the troubling turn things are taking all over the Middle East these days (Salih of Yemen is out, by the way, so that’s one more tyrant down). As a youngster, Jadiba was among the horses on Joyce Gregorian Hamsphire’s Upland Farm, then went missing for several years, before re-surfacing in the ownership of Annette Pattishall in Pennsylvania, who had not been breeding her. That’s where she was “rediscovered” a couple years ago by Monica Respet. Monica played a major role in facilitating the purchase of Jadiba and I will be eternally grateful to her for making it happen, and for her friendship. I am also grateful to Joe Ferriss, whose Khamsat article about Jadiba’s granddam Bint Malakah and other critically endangered lines…
Karsten Scherling took this photo of the 1990 Saqlawi Jadran stallion Huntington Doyle (Dib x Gulida Nadjia by Bragadoon Fa Raad) at the 60 year celebration of the Doyle breeding program in Oregon in 2009. Huntington Doyle is the senior stallion at Doyle Arabians, and has the highest percentage of Abbas Pasha blood in any stallion alive today (64%), including at least 232 crosses to the Blunt’s Mesaoud, whose color he may have also inherited (unless it’s Rodania’s). Lyman Doyle in the picture.
Does anyone know where the three mares: Kali Ma Eee (Cerulean CF x Sha Bint Ameera), 1987, bay; Sha Princess (Kamil Ibn Sahanad x Shaa Bint Ameera), 1986 bay; and Bint Bint Moda (Kamil Ibn Sahanad x Sha Ghazya), 1986 bay, are, if they still are alive? All three tail female *Samirah, from the horses of King Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud.
“You go to the stables and … look into the box and see the war mare of Sheik Hashem Bey with spear scars adorning her neck and sides and prayers to Allah from different tribes hanging from silken cords around her neck. She is small, chestnut in color, bone like flint, slender, high carried tail, wide bulging jibba (forehead), and full, prominent eyes. Davenport tells you that never since she was first saddled was that saddle removed until she passed into foreign hands and that she stood ready day and night for the Sheik to leap to her back and ride into battle, on wild foray, or in swift flight. The slave boy carresses her; her peculiar wrinkled nostrils and delicate muzzle quiver and move like a fawn’s. You do not see the straw under her feet nor the boards of the stable behind her, but the hot desert, the flowing robes of the Bedouins and the tents of those who worship Allah spread out on the sands before you.” George Ford Morris, in Bit & Spur, 4/15/1907, excerpted from the Annotated Quest.
I have now officially become infatuated with the desert-bred mare *Wadduda. I am reading and re-reading everything I can find about the mare and her famous descendants (Hanad, Antez, Jadaan, Caravan, Dhareb, Bint Sahara, Bint Sedjur, etc) squinting at fuzzy old photographs, and obsessively making notecards like I used to do when I was ten years old. The pedigree geek in me in back big time, and I am loving it. Below is a photo of the 2003 asil Kuhaylan Haifi stallion Twickenham (Regency x Kiddleywink by Regency) (look at that smart friendly face and these short prickled ears). Twickenham is one of three stallions still pensioned at Craver Farms, along with his sire (and grandsire) Regency, now aged 30, and the grey Triermain. While not a tail female descendant, Twickenham carries the highest percentage of *Wadduda blood in asil breeding: 19.5%, on par with his sire.
This is the well balanced and very correct stallion Saqlawi Jadran stallion Jadib (Ghadaf x Gulida by Gulastra), bred in 1954 by Ellen Doyle, with young Barbara Baird up. He carries ten close crosses to the Blunt’s Mesaoud (through his sons Seyal, Harb, Astraled, Abu Zeyd and Daoud, and his daughter Risala), and it shows.
Almost ten years after I became acquainted with the horses descending from the 1906 importation of Homer Davenport, one of the many things that still astonish me about them is the relatively large number of the grandsons and great-grandsons of *Wadduda (one of the stars of the importation, with *Haleb and *Urfah) who rose to prominence by becoming major breeding stallions at a time when the Arabian horse population in the USA was very small. Here is a list of grandsons: — Antez (out of Wadduda’s daughter Moliah); — his half-brother Dhareb; — their half-brother Mustakim (Oriental x Moliah). — Jadaan (out of her daughter Amran); … and great-grandsons: — Akil (out of *Wadduda’s grand-daughter Sedjur); — Hanad (out of her grand-daughter Sankirah); — Kasar (out of her grand-daughter Fasal); — his half-brother Salan; — their half brother Caravan. Wow. Below is the grear sire Caravan (Ribal x Fasal by Hamrah), at 32.
I have never seen these two pictures of the Saqlawi al-‘Abd stallion Tripoli (Hanad x Poka by *Hamrah), the foundation sire of the modern Davenport program. Both are from the Davenport Arabian Horse Conservancy website.
The Tahawi website maintained by Mohammed al-Tahawy is a wonderful resource of original testimonies about the horses that this Bedouin clan bred throughout the XXth century. A few months ago, English translations of some of the hujaj (Arabic certification documents) of some of the foundation horses acquired by the Tahawi were featured on this website, as part of the collective effort of getting the three Tahawi mares of Egypt’s Hamdan stables accepted in the roster of Al Khamsa, Inc, the North American preservation organization. Here is a translation of another one of these original documents; this one is not a hujjah but rather a letter written to a member of the Tahawi tribe: To our beloved brother Faysal Abu Abdallah [al-Tahawi] may God protect him, Greetings and salutations, and longings to see your beautiful face, and after that, I would like to congratulate you on the advent of this holy month [of Ramadan], may God make you witness its advent again in health and well-being. You had asked us about the lineage of the colt, and in accordance to your demand, we are writing to you about the lineage of his dam and her ancestors, and that of his sire and his ancestors. The dam of the horse is al-Dahmah…
The 1919 grey desert-bred stallion *Mirage (photo below, with owner Roger Selby) is a legend in American Arabian horse breeding. This Saqlawi Jadran stallion was born in the desert, and selected as a mount of the newly installed King of Iraq, Faysal I, before he was sold to a European ambassador and ending up in Lady Wentworth’s hands by 1923. You can read more about this in a good article by Michael Bowling, here. He was her dream grey horse, but the British registration authorities would not let her register him, so he sold him to Roger Selby of Ohio in the USA in 1930. Here *Mirage had a brilliant career at stud, and his is now one of the most successful sire line in the USA (that of Bey Shah, Huckleberry Bey, and Barbary, among others). *Mirage’s strain is recorded as “Seglawi Jedran of Dalia” which is better transliterated as “Saqlawi Jadran of al-Dali’ “. Recently, while looking at some documents pertaining to the Syrian Saqlawi Jadran stallion al-Abjar (photo below, from Raed Yakan, thank you Raed), which was owned the Yakan family of Aleppo, and which I saw at their stud in the early 1990s, I came across his breeder’s description of al-Abjar’s strain as…
This photograph, found in the WR Brown Collection (owned by AHOF), is labeled *Urfah, and has the left fore and two white hind feet as described in the studbook. *Urfah is wound around and through the straight Davenports through her son *Hamrah and her daughter Sheria. Says the DAHC pedigree site (which is a bit behind the times): “Total descendants: 1437.” “As we departed the mare was a picture. She walked with the grace of a well-bred woman; her tail would gracefully sway from side to side, her ears were ever in motion, and her eyes sparkled. The very sight of her rested us from the long day’s ride of the day before and then she broke into a gallop and her swinging tassels were soon lost sight of as she disappeared on the horizon.” —Homer Davenport, My Quest of the Arab Horse
“It’s been a long December, and there’s reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last.” — Counting Crows, “A Long December” Saqlawi al-’Abd Tripoli, a cornerstone of the straight Davenports as they exist today (images in the left column), and his Kuhaylan Hayfi grandson Memoir UF, called Rory by those who loved him (images in the right column). Do click through that last shot of Rory, he’s all there and very admirable to boot. Tripoli is serving as a lesson horse in his under-saddle photo, with Tom Neese up; Rory as a show horse, though I don’t know the rider’s name or the photographer. Thanks to Aida Schreiber for taking the conformation shots of Rory, and for bringing Rababe CF and Neroli CF to him in his old age, producing his two sons Firewater SF and Damascus SF respectively. (You saw his daughter, ADA Recapitulation, earlier in the series.) One last thought for the year to come, from the TB Friends (a Thoroughbred rescue) sort-of blog: Another of my favorite comments from 2010. A family in Davis greeted an older thoroughbred mare from the Wilton feed lot. A young boy, 9 or 10, walked up to…
For today, the 1904 Saqlawi al ‘Abd stallion *Hamrah, of whom much has been said previously, and his century-later echo, the 2004 Hamdani Simri stallion Eldar HD, bred by Michael Bowling. In 2003, I wrote of the 22 year old Palisades CF, “I want a magic wand so I can have another twenty years with this horse.” Replied Michael, “I guess that’s what we breed them for.”
Another beautiful asil stallion of the same generation as El Iat is Greggan (Ibn Gulida x Gharida by Bidaj), a Saqlawi Jadran who traces entirely (as in 100%) to the Crabbet Stud lines of Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt. The Doyle breeding program, which celebrate its sixty years in 2009, is based on the three foundation horses Ghadaf, Gulida and Nusi, is the only Arabian horse breeding program in the world to descend from old Crabbet (i.e., no Skowronek, no Dargree) lines only. The Doyle Arabians are a true time capsule.
The desert-bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion Ihsan (Hamdani Simri x Nadya, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah) was the second stallion at the Jabri stud in the 1990s. He was mainly used as an outcross to Mahrous daughters. What I liked about him was his large expressive eye, his huge half-moon cheekbone, his nice croup, as well as his good tail carriage. I took this photo in 1990. Ihsan traces all the way back to the famous Saqlawi Jadran marbat of Dari al-Mahmoud, the leader of the Zawba’ Shammar of Iraq, and a hero of the Iraqi resistance to the British in the 1920s. There are only three Saqlawi Jadran marbat among the Shammar today, and they will be the subject of an entry to come. The 1922 stallion *King John, who raced in Egypt, and was later imported to the USA, was also a Saqlawi Jadran from Dari al-Mahmoud’s marbat, according to his hujjah (featured in the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians II, 1993). A thin asil line to *King John survived in the USA until the 1980s, through his great-grandson Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, who was by *King John), but it was eventually lost. *King John (photo below)…
[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. I have already written about *Rajwa here. She was a grey desert-bred mare of the Saqlawi “Ejrifi” (not a recognizable marbat, probably a spelling mistake) mare imported by W.R. Hearst in 1947, along with her daughter *Bint Rajwa. Her son *El Abiad was also imported to the USA at a later time. Both by the Lebanese-bred asil stallion Karawane (Ghazwane x a Ma’naqiyah). *Bint Rajwa had a daughter in the USA, Gulastra Raajiah by Gulastra. That daughter in turn had a son, Sheik Hallany by Hallany Mistanny (Zarife x Roda by Mansour). There are two horses potentially alive who closely trace to *Bint Rajwa, although not in the tail female: a 1988 mare, TCR Hallany Idol (by Sheikh Hallany x TCR Kassandra 1979, who was by Kazmeen Ibn Shiko out TCR Saantanny, also by Sheikh Hallany, so two crosses to *Bint Rajwa there); and a…