I confess being terribly late in acquainting myself with some of foundational Arabian horse literature in English. Roger Upton’s “Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia” is one of those books I had not read, save for passages here and there. I am happy I found a searchable version of it online, and I am having fun searching for specific words in it. Below are Upton’s quotes on the “Manakhi” strain (his spelling). On the Ma’naqi strain (page 328-9): Of the Manakhi. The Manakhi appeared to us a favourite strain, for both horses and mares of this family are to be found in most tribes of Badaween; and we thought, with the exception of Keheilet Ajuz, there were more horses and mares among the Anazah, certainly among the Sabaah, of the Manakhi family than any other. Manakhi means Keheilans or Arabian horses descended from the “long-necked one.” Manakhi Hedruj is the chief variety, and although I am not sure, I think it is the parent family, and the others are not collateral, but offshoots from Manakhi Hedruj. I think Hedruj means of majestic appearance: thus Manakhi Hedruj, ” the horses of the long necks of majestic appearance.”* A family in the…
Lyman sent this picture of young Shamsah (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince). She is I think nine months old, and is growing into a very solid young mare.
The last Al Khamsa mare of the Ferida lineage, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, was put down last month. I had given CSA Baroness Lady to Sue Moss in 2023 as a pet companion to one of her horses. She leaves behind a 2015 bay gelding, Haykal Al Arab (registered name Lucero De Santana, why? long story), who now belongs to Sue Moss. I also have four frozen embryos from her, at least one of which I hope is a female so that the line can keep going. Below, Lady and little Haykal.
Another horse from my breeding that went to a friend is the 2020 chestnut Ma’naqi Sbayli colt Shaykh Al Arab (Tamaam x DaughterofthePharaohs), owned by Terry Doyle. Shaykh, who Terry calls “Notch” (because he says he is top notch!) is going to be Terry’s trail riding horse. DeWayne, who owns his dam sent me this fuzzy yet representative photo of him last month.
The little Ma’naqiyah filly seems to be doing well at the Doyle Ranch in Oregon. I named her Shams — the Arabic word for the sun. Because she is a welcome ray of sunshine after a string of colts — three very nice ones but still not helping with keeping this precious strain going. Second because it’s the name of my maternal grandfather’s last wife. Well, her name was Shamsi, a derivative of Shams. According to an Assyrian clay tablet from 715 BC, Shamsi was the name of an ancient queen of “the distant Arabs, dwellers of the desert, who did not know learned men or scribes, who had not brought tribute to any king”. That same table is the first to mention horses as tributes from the Arab Bedouins to the Assyrian king. It’s a very very old name, and a nice name. Hopefully that filly will grow into a nice mare. Photos by DeWayne Brown, the dam’s lucky owner.
After four years of trying, SS Lady Guenevere (“Guen”) gratified me with a filly yesterday, born at the Doyles’ ranch in Oregon. The filly’s sire is Cascade DE, a young Doyle stallion. I have been leasing Guen and her daughter Pippa by Chatham DE from DeWayne Brown in the hope for a filly. She is the first filly following three colts from both mares: Shaykh Al Arab (Tamaam DE x Pippa), Shaman Al Arab (Tamaam DE x Guen) and Sharif Al Arab (Bashir Al Dirri x Pippa). I hope she goes on to produce many fillies from that precious (to me) Ma’naqi Sbayli strain.
Lyman Doyle took nice pictures of my Sharif Al Arab the other day. He is in that ungainly, growthy phase, but he is really promising. He takes more after his sire, Bashir Al Dirri, than his dam, DaughterofthePharaohs [aka “Pippa”].
Lyman Doyle also took this impromptu shot of the two year old colt I used to call Shaykh Al Arab, by Tamaam DE out of DaughterofthePharaohs, and which now belongs to his family. I like the old-fashipned Crabbet look on this horse, and I think he is very promising. I am so happy that horses of this kind are still being produced here and there in 2020.
And this is DaughterofthePharaohs, aka “Pippa”, the other Ma’naqiyah mare I have leased from DeWayne Brown, until she produces a filly for me. Click on the low res photos to enlarge them. All photos by Lyman Doyle.
Lyman Doyle recently gratified me with several nice pictures of the horses I board at his and his parent’s farm in Oregon. Click on the low res photos to enlarge them. Here’s a couple of Shaman Al Arab, my Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion-to-be, by Tamaam DE out of SS Lady Guenevere. He turned two years old this past August. He is really excellently conformed, and I am finding it hard to fault him — my favorite pastime as some of you may know.
It’s a colt — the third in a row from that Ma’naqi line. This morning Pippa went into labor and quickly delivered a healthy chestnut colt at Terry and Rosemary Doyle’s in Oregon. He is by Bashir Al-Dirri, Jenny Krieg’s excellent horse (below). His name is Sharif Al Arab. Sharif means “distinguished, eminent, illustrious, noble, highborn, high-bred”, and he is all of that by birth. Other than his tail male to Mesaoud, his Ma’naqi tail female to *Haidee and his high percentage of old Blunt blood, he is the last horse — together with his sire — to carry the bloodlines of early Arabian imports *Euphrates and *Al-Mashoor in Al Khamsa, and one of the last ones to carry lines to desert-breds *Leopard, *Mirage, and *Houran. These are quintessentially American lines of Arabian horses.
DeWayne Brown visited the horses at Terry and Rosemary Doyle’s farm in Alfalfa, OR the other day. He sent me these two pictures of my Ma’naqi Sbayli colt Shaykh Al Arab (Tamaam DE x DaughterofthePharaohs by Chatham DE), who is now 15 months old. He has many barn names: Terry calls him Naj, Rosemary calls him Notch, and DeWayne calls him Eddy. I call him Shaykh. I have seldom seen such strong barrel, deep girth and round rib cage on an Arabian yearling, at least not in the USA. My friend Pienaar Du Plessis from South Africa said the same thing. I feel it’s worth to wait to see him grow. He is the first colt in the second picture, the third is his maternal uncle Shaman, who is a couple months younger. Long live the Ma’naqis.
Rosemary Doyle sent me these photos of the younger Ma’naqi colt Shaman (Tamaam DE x SE Lady Guenevere) who looks like a good stallion prospect. He has both style and substance.
I am very impressed with this young lad. And I thought his half-brother and close Ma’naqi Sbayli relative Shaykh was already a winner! Shaman looks more “old Egyptian”, Shaykh more “Crabbet”. Hard to choose between the two. They both speak well for their sire, Tamaam DE, who met an untimely death last year. Photos by Rosemary and Terry Doyle.
This mare was one of the most sought after in Syria. I took this photo in 1992 at the stud of Hisham Ghorayeb in Damascus. Her dam was a Ma’naqiyah Sbaliyah of the marbat of Turki al-Najriss of the ‘Aqaydat Bedouins, a prestigious strain that goes back to the Rasaalin of Sba’ah. Her sire was the Saqlawi Sh’aifi of Diban al-Ka’r. He traced to the horses of Hajjo Ibn Mahel of the Shammar. I recall that Hazaim Alwair and I spent an entire summer in 2005 making phone calls to multiple Bedouins to verify the authenticity of this horse. I have it all written somewhere.
Lyman Doyle sent these photos of this year’s last arrival, another colt and another Ma’naqi Sbayli: Shaman Al Arab (Tamaam DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince) was born two days ago. I am leasing his dam from DeWayne Brown. Shaman, pronounced SHAAH-MAAN, means “the one with a distinctive mark”, shamah. His odd blaze is certainly one. He also takes his name from a handsome Shammar desert-bred stallion in Syria, which I have been coveting for a while. He is the maternal uncle of the young Shaykh Al Arab. I will retain one of the two, not sure which one yet.
CSA Baroness Lady “Lady” is coming back, after four years in the caring ownership of Cathy Fenton in Michigan. Thank you Cathy for letting me have her back. She is perhaps the last living Al Khamsa mare from the strain of Ferida, a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah bred in the Arabian desert and imported by Lady Anne Blunt from Egypt to the UK in 1891. Three other mares from Carol Stone’s Ma’naqi preservation breeding program, CSA Amira Kista (Sharif Zaraq x Takelma Rosanna) a 1997 grey mare; CSA Trilours (Mahtar x Takelma Velours), a 1999 grey mare and CSA Zaraqa (CSA Maneghi Amir x Takelma Velours), an unregistered 2000 grey mare, all died within a few years of each other. There are three other mares of breeding age, from another breeding program. The AK Preservation Task Force is trying to establish whether they are still alive, and if so, to locate them. Tall order..
From Lyman Doyle, who is keeping them at his family farm. It is a bit blurry but it show the nice action Pippa always had. These Ma’naqis…
Daughter of the Pharaohs, aka “Pippa”, the 2015 Ma’anqiyah Sbayliyah filly I leased from DeWayne Brown, is confirmed in foal to Tamaam DE for March 2020. I am very much looking forward to this foal, whatever its gender. Terry and Lyman Doyle brought me the good news.
This morning, Lyman Doyle sent me several videos of Pippa, which he had taken in the summer of 2018. Pippa (her registered name Daughter of the Pharaohs) is a three year old Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, by Lyman’s stallion Chatham DE out of SS Lady Guenevere, by SS Dark Prince), who belongs to DeWayne Brown. I leased her from DeWayne last year, boarded her at Lyman’s in Alfafla, OR, and attempted several breedings to Lyman’s stallions Kashgar, Tamaam, and Buckner. We will be trying again this year. The lineage traces to the Sba’ah Bedouins of North Arabia, as it should for this precious and highly prized strain.
I had never seen this photo of the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Bango, bred by the Shammar in 1923, and imported to Algeria by the French government in 1928, from an Egyptian racetrack. The photo was taken from an article on the Algeria stud of Tiaret, which appeared in the magazine Le Sport Universel Illustre N1375 of 1929/07/06. Although French studs did not favor grey horses at the time, Bango left behind 142 offspring in both Algeria and Tunisia, including the stallions Sumeyr, Beyrouth, Titan, Caleh, and the mares Tosca, Salome, Palmyre, El Balaska, Gafsa, Themis, Diyyena, and others that stamped Northern African studs with their quality.
This mare is the daughter of the mare featured in the entry below. Same breeder, a Bedouin of the Fad’aan. I had written about her breeding in the early times of this blog, here.
It’s time for little Haykal Al Arab, born two months ago — on August 11, 12.30 am — to make his online debut. He was born three weeks early, so I waited till he grew stronger before showing pictures. He is by Monologue CF out of CSA Baroness Lady (Sab El Dine x Takelma Rosanna). He is an example of a rare cross of a Davenport stallion over a mostly Straight Egyptian dam (three crosses to Alaa El Din) with the addition of the code-red, rarest of the rare Ferida tail female of the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain. I like him VERY much, and I now somewhat regret letting go of his sire Monologue CF before seeing what Monologue would produce. I think little Haykal takes a lot after his sire: the strong, long, flat croup, the very broad forehead, the long neck, the huge eyes surrounded with black skin, and above all, the delicately tipped ears. His dam has the black skin and the long croup too. His back looks like it would be shorter than his sire’s, and closer to his dam’s, whose back is so short she almost does not have one. He does credit to both his dam and…
The fifth horse I have bred since coming to the USA fifteen years ago was born August 11, a bay Ma’naqi Sbayli by Monologue CF out of CSA Baroness Lady. A Davenport and Egyptian cross with a tail female to Lady Anne Blunt’s Ferida. He was born three weeks early. At first his mother refused to nurse him and he was too weak to stand on his own, but thanks to the heroic efforts of Sue Moss, who held him up and fed him every two hours for thirty six hours, he survived, and has since caught up, and is now doing very well. His name will be Haykal Al Arab. In old Arabic Haykal means strong and tall, and that’s what I want him to become, after being born weak and small. Sixth century AD poet-king (and king of poets) Imru’l Qays composed this famous verse about his stallion: wa-qad aghtadi wa-al-tayru fi wukanatiha bi-munjaridin qayyada al-awabidi haykal-i I set off in the [early] morning, when the birds are [still] in their nests, on a strong and tall short-haired [horse] [whose speed is such that] it makes [fast moving] wild animals [seem] shackled and motionless In Arabic, Haykal also means temple, as in a strong and…
If you happen to take good care of your horses, or you if you know that you will take of your first horse, and are interested in starting a new preservation breeding program centered around the esteemed Arabian horse strain of Ma’naqi Sbayli, please contact me: ealdahdah@hotmail.com I have a mare from that strain, 10 months pregnant, and she and/or her foal would be available to the right home to start such a program. Below is a noted in Arabic penned by one of Homer Davenport’s Arab guests during his 1906 trip to North Arabia to buy desert-bred Arabian horses. Part of it — the second paragraph — reads: “There is no better and more authentic strain to be found among the Arabs [Bedouins] than that of the Ma’naqi Sbayli which Mr. Davenport purchased. The Ma’naqi is from the Arab [Bedouins] of Gomussah, from the tribe of the Sba’ah ‘Anazah, and he is from the best strain in their possession; the name of his owner is al-Sbayli.”
This is the latest mare to join my herd, along with her 15 year-old daughter who is also black (not that it matters). Juans Aana (El Reata Juan x Suuds Juli Aana by PRI Saqlawi Suud) is a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, going back in tail female to Haidee imported by Major Roger Upton from the Gomussah Bedouin tribe of North Arabia in 1874. The mare is 25 years old, so don’t mind the sway back at her venerable age. That’s how the Gulastra sire line horses age, including the great Gulastra himself. A great-great-grand-daughter of Gulastra in the sire line with three additional crosses to him in the pedigree (and also to *Aziza, *Roda, *Zarife, *Fadl, etc). Her eyes are huge, and I love the prominent facial bones, the sloping shoulders, the clear legs and the long neck. I have high hopes to get this mare in foal to one of my stallions before it is too late.
CSA Baroness Lady “Lady” (Sar El Dine x Takelma Rosanna by Prince Charmming) is a 1999 mare from the rare Ma’naqi Sbayli line tracing to Ferida of Lady Anne Blunt. She is 10 months in foal to Monologue CF. She is for sale to a good home, if you know someone.
This filly is the best news of the foaling season in the US so far. A young Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah (yay!), by a Doyle (100% old Blunt) stallion out of a mare with seven crosses to Julep (Gulastra x *Aziza). She is the result of the first cross of a stallion from the Julep-Gulastra-Astraled tail male to Mesaoud to a mare from the Ghadaf-Ribal-Seyal tail male to Mesaoud ever, and the first cross between two different tail males to Mesaoud in at least 90 years. Think of it, the Doyle horses were never bred to the Julep horses. I like this filly, and I like her dam SS Lady Guenevere too, especially that purple chestnut color. The tail female is from Jane Ott, back to Haidee, imported by Major Roger Upton from Arabia, from the Gmassah Bedouins of Sulayman ibn Mirshid to be precise. That’s the wellspring of Ma’naqi Sbayli. The famous *Haleb was from there, too.
I so like this photo of the 1985 black Ma’naqi Sbayli mare Suuds Juli Aana (PRI Saqlawi Suud x Julyana ZHS). The muzzle, the jaws, the look in the eye (reminiscent of a mare from Cal Raswan’s pictures of desert horses, don’t remember which one), and again, that overall air of a wild animal. In the second photo, the same mare looks like a tank. A desert background would be mor fitting for these photos.
That’s a recent shot Darlene Summers took of my CSA Baroness Lady (Sab El Dine x Takelma Rosanna by Prince Charmming), a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah of overwhelmingly Egyptian lines, with 6 generations of Egyptian sires on top of the old Crabbet female line. She is in foal to Monologue CF, a stallion of Davenport lines, due in August 2015. She is one of six asil younger (17 years old and less) mares of that Ma’naqi Sbaili line in existence in North America. Her sister and a maternal cousin of hers are with Jacquie Glasscoe Choate in Texas, and three other mares, all daughters and grand-daughters of this mare, can be last traced to Janice Park’s South Springs (SS) program, which line-breeds to El Reata Juan (Julyan X Mist Aana by Hallany Mistanny), and produces mostly blacks. She will need to go to a good preservation home, to make space for the new foals coming in the summer. If you know someone who is interested, let me know.
Taken at Sue Moss in Pennsylvania, shortly after she arrived there. This mare is top crossed with 6 generation of Straight Egyptian sires on a Crabbet tail female of Milanne/Ferida. I believe she is in foal to Monologue CF.
Hopefully, on Sunday the Ma’naqiyah mare I recently acquired, CSA Baroness Lady will be bred to MSF Hamdani Simri (Faydin x IMF Badia Nafila by PRI Gamil Halim) of Lesley Detweiler, a stallion of very similar pedigree. It is a preservation breeding. Both have highly unusual (within Al Khamsa) Blunt/Crabbet tail females, the mare to Ferida (Ma’naqi Sbaili of the Shammar) and the stallion to Sobha (Hamdani Simri of APS). Both are sired by stallions bred at the Babson Farm. Both are heavily top-crossed with new Egyptian blood (mainly Ansata with lots of Nazeer), and both have tiny amounts of Early American blood (Davenport, Hamidie, Huntington, and Nedjran) at the back of the tail female through Tizzy for the stallion and Milanne for the mare. MSF Hamdani Simri struck me when I saw him at the 2011 AK Convention in PA in 2011. The large truly Arabian eye, the nostrils made of velvet, the long and arched neck, the curved mithbah, the nice shoulder, and the high tail setting impressed me. Back then I thought I wanted to see a stronger, broader croup and hindquarter (Doyle style) and a broader chest, but that’s okay and the mare has plenty of both. Also, what style he had, what…
CSA Baroness Lady, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, joined the Al-Dahdah herd yesterday from her breeder Carol Stone. Oh, how I love this strain, and could write pages and pages of non-stop praise for it. This is the tail female of Milanne, Ferseyn, Farana, Amber Satin, and other American greats, back to *Ferida of Lady Anne Blunt. She will be bred this year to a stallion to be determined.
The Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force is just done with the re-homing of two mares from the rare and precious Ma’naqi Sbayli strain tracing to Lady Anne Blunt’s desert bred import Ferida: the 1997 CSA Amira Kista (Sharif Zaraq x Takelma Rosanna by Prince Charmming), and the 2000 CSA Zaraqa (CSA Maneghi Amir x Takelma Velours by Prince Charmming), which is not registered, but a full sister of this horse. I am happy these mares are getting a second chance at leaving offspring, after the good work Carol Stone has done with this strain over the past twenty five years. Yesterday, Carol shared pictures of their two dams which I post here: Takelma Rosanna is the chestnut, and Takelma Velours is the grey, and their common maternal grandsire, the Egyptian stallion Prince Charmming (Ibn Alaa Eldin x Egyptian Charm by Shamruk), which I found to be impressive.
Back in 2005, when we had just met, Hazaim al-Wair and I used to exchange horse photos on a quasi daily basis. One day he sent me this and two other photos of the stallions maintained by the Syrian Government’s Ministry of Agriculture in 1958. This photo shows the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Sultan.
I have written time and again that this horse was one of my all time favorites, judging from pictures only. I own a daughter of his full blood-sister, Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir), and I am trying to breed her through ET. I hope something good will come out.
A handsome horse of old Blunt lines, the 1929 Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Farana (Nasik x Farasin by Rasim) stood at the Kellogg Ranch in California. He was a popular sire, but is barely represented in modern asil breeding today. I know Rebecca Quick has a line to him through the 1944 Kuhaylat Rodan mare Suebe (Feyd by Farana, x Gisela by Akil x Shemseh by Nasik x Rifla by Rasim), who was double Nasik. There is also a line to him through Milanne (Feyd x Kishta by Akil). The line still goes in tail female, through Milanne who also goes back to Ferida, but I feel it’s lost its type as a result of being diluted in an ocean of Egyptian blood. I feel that the Blunts could have made a better use of this Ma’naqi Sbayli line to Ferida while the line was still at Crabbet and before to migrated to the US. If I am not mistaken, the first stallion from this line at Crabbet was Faris (Nureddin II x Fejr).
Kathy Busch and Crista Couch kindly took a day trip to see the stallion Rahim Regency WAF (Regency CF x Dakhala Sahra) near Kansas City, MO, of which here is a video (click on rahim). Sired by Regency CF (Ibn Alamein x Bint Antan by El Alamein) and looking very much like his sire, Rahim is the son (and otherwise the only offspring — so far) of my new acquisition, the 26 year old Ma’naqiyah Sbailiyah Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir). He is some 88% Davenport, with a tail female to Miss Ott’s Sirrula, all the way back to Major Upton’s Naomi. His owner Joseph Walters, has been breeding him to Polish mares, and was not aware of his Al Khamsa, asil status.
I am posting a month-old photo of the young desert-bred stallion Nimr Shabareq at four years old so that readers can see how the horse has evolved over time. The second photo was taken when he was three, and the third one, when he was two. Hopefully, him, his owner and I will live a long life so I can keep posting photos of him every year to show you how he matures. Click on each photo to enlarge it.
The 26 year old chestnut Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah mare Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir) just joined the group of old broodmares whose lines I am trying to preserve. She was bred by Jeanne Craver in 1985, and then went to Charles’ cousin Crista Couch, and then to Kathryn Busch, who sold her to me. I was about 10 or 12 the first time I came upon a horse of that line. That was before the internet, and before DVDs too. I was going through the Asil Club’s publication Asil Araber II, when, buried in a sea of Egyptian pedigrees, I found the photo of Erika Schiele’s stallion El Beshir (Faaris x Sirrulla by Sirecho), bred by Mrs Ott. The photo was in black and white and it showed a dapple grey horse, and I was taken by the horse as much as by its unusual strain (recorded as Ma’naqi Hadraji, but it’s actually Sbayli) and pedigree. There was also that famous photo of the Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Lysander at Craver Farms, and I wondered about that unusual (ie, non SE) pedigree too.. She is by Plantagenet, and according to Charles, “more like Plantagenet than Plantagenet himself”. Her dam was…
French preservation breeder Adrien Deblaise sent me this recent picture of the young Syrian asil stallion Nimr Shabareq (Zaarour Al-Barary x Yamhad by Al-Aawar), a Ma’naqi Sbayli of the marbat of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, bred by Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo. He is now in France covering mares at Louis Bauduin’s. See how much he’s changed from the last time he was featured here.
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…
Nimr Shabareq (photo below, by Zaarour al-Barary out of Yamhad by al-A’war) is one of the desert bred stallions that were recently imported to France. He is now standing at stud with Louis Bauduin, who took this picture and gave it to Arnault Decroix, who sent it to me (Merci, Arnault). This is not your usual Arabian horse. This is a horse from hell. This is fire made horse. Both Jean-Claude Rajot and Arnault Decroix told me about their first encounter with this horse in 2008, when he was just a weanling at the stud of his breeder Radwan Shabareq: three grooms were needed to handle him as he was being shown to the stunned visitors. This is probably why Radwan called him Nimr — tiger. He hails from one of the most prestigious desert bloodlines: the Ma’naqi Sbayli marbat of Shawwakh al-Bu-Rasan, Shaykh of the Wuldah tribes of the Euphrates valley. Shawwakh had obtained the line from his neighbor and friend ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, a Fad’aan Bedouin who owns the strain now. ‘Atiyah’s great-grandfather had stolen the original mare from the Sba’ah (click here to read how), the fountain-spring of the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain. The clan of al-Bu-Rasan is…
Robin Weeks is spoiling me with photos of horses she owned, which happen to be horses I like a lot, and I am on a roll. Here’s a couple of pictures of the Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah mare Soiree (Sir x Sirrulya by Julyan) in old age. She was bred by Jeanne Craver, and later owned by Robin Weeks. A favorite mare of mine, as you can tell from the several blog entries about this family. By now I think it’s time I shared with you the news that I am working with Kathy Busch of Kansas City, MO, on leasing a 25 year old chestnut daughter of Soiree which she owns. Her name is Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir), she was also bred by Jeanne Craver, and she is all I am thinking about these days. She’s been treated at the vet clinic recently for a minor uterus infection, and she’ll be ready to be bred over the next couple weeks via artificial insemination. I am still looking for the right stallion for her, with ‘right’ in this case including ‘ready to collect from and ship’ in addition to the other meaning it has for me. By the way,…
If you haven’t already done so, check out the overview article by the late Carol Lyons, on “Drissula, One of a Kind”. Born in 1941, Drissula (Sultan x Ydrissa by Antez) is the only asil progenitor for the Ma’naghi Sbayli line of *Haidee, who was bred by the Sba’ah Bedouins and was imported to the UK in 1874. I already mentioned my soft spot for this strain. Some thirty five years ago, when my father asked the late Moussa de Freije, one of the foremost Lebanese authorities on Arabian horses, about why he held a particular M’anaqiyah Sbayliyah mare in such high esteem, the response of the French-educated Mr. de Freije was: “She is a Bourbon-Parma”, in reference to one of Europe’s most noble and blue-blooded dynasties. While all Ma’naqi Sbayli horses eventually go back to one marbat (Bedouin stud), that of Ibn Sbayyil of the ‘Ajlan clan from the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, who acquired the orginal Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah and, in time, gave her his name, not all Ma’naqi Sbaili marabet which subsequently branched out of his marbat were held in equal esteem. Even within the same tribe, levels of prestige and reputation associated with each marbat varied over time, and the fortunes of each marbat…
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 Aleppo, Syria, and a few others. However, I can say a couple things about the horses he was associated with, at different times. I could find four of these, all stallions. The first, and perhaps most famous here in the US, was Aiglon. Aiglon was a Saqlawi Jadran imported by Ibish to Egypt for racing, around 1920, according to the export document for his daughter, *Exochorda, attested to by Dr. Branch, the Director of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt. *Exochorda, named after the ship that brought her to the USA, is of course best known as the dam of Sirecho. The second was El Sbaa. El Sbaa, a chestnut, was bought from Ahmad Ibish by a French government mission led by Madron and Denis at the Cairo Heliopolis racetrack in 1925, and sent to the French Stud of Pompadour where he was used as…
This pretty little girl, born on May 5th, at Royal Blue Arabians in New Jersey, is the latest addition to Terri Somers’ asil Ma’naqi program. She is by RB Bellagio out of CSA Jerusha (Mahtar x Dan El-Hosanna by RG Joshua, a mare of predominantly Egyptian lines, except for the Ma’naqi tail female to Drissula). This new filly, yet to be named, already has an older full sister, GTS Al Mas Hura.
I am a big fan of the breeding program of Terri Somers at Royal Blue Arabians in New Jersey. Terri is the owner of the striking grey Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion RB Bellagio (photo below, in harness, by Arabi Fadh Onyx x Sirrunade by Faaryan), and has been breeding classic and athletic horses of this Ma’naghi Sbayli strain for some years now (check out her story here). Her horses trace all the way back to Haidee, the Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah mare of Sulayman Ibn Mirshid, the leader of the Bedouin tribe of Qumusah – no less. Haidee was bought by Major R. Upton and taken to the UK in 1874; her daughter Naomi was then exported to the USA in 1887 where the line bred on. The young stallion [okay, Terri tells me he is a gelding not a stallion. Tood bad] pictured below is one of the most promising yet bred by Terri. His name is GTS Hawa El Adhar (RB Bellagio x SS Fajulya by PRI Saqlawi Suud) and his pedigree is a tapestry weaving together several 1960s American Arabian breeding programs the likes of Jane Ott’s, Charles Krausnick’s and Joseph Zoran (note the four crosses to Julyan and hence Gulastra, and the multiple crosses…
Recently, I have been re-reading a lot of the old articles RJ wrote for Arabian Visions magazine, to refresh my memory as I start working on an Al Khamsa project on rare lines (more on this later). One of my favorite RJ articles is “The Blunts and Crabbet Stud: An Abbreviated History and Description of the Breeding Program“, from the time Crabbet Stud was founded in 1878 to Lady Anne Blunt death in 1917, including the dam lines that were represented at Crabbet across 40 years of breeding: In 1917, “the desert mares still represented at Crabbet at the end of Lady Anne’s life were Basilisk, Jerboa, Dajania, Queen of Sheba, Meshura, Rodania, and Ferida. However, the Jerboa line had died out in tail-female.” So, six of the Blunt’s desert damlines were still represented in 1917. Also, “of the Ali Pasha mares, the 1917 catalog details that […] the blood of the families of Sobha, Bint Helwa, Bint Nura, Makbula and her daughter Kasida, ran strong in the herd, with all but the latter having provided sires to the stud.” Four damlines from the Ali Pasha Sharif mares were still there in 1917, for a total of ten damlines. It would be…
These have been quite busy days for me, and I have not been able to write as often as I wanted to. That said, I wanted to quick highlight the fact that two new proposals to add new horses to the Al Khamsa Roster have been sent to the Al Khamsa Board of Directors. The first was sent by Joe Ferriss, and concerns the three Tahawi (an Egyptian peasant tribe of Arab stock) mares that are the foudation of Egypt’s Hamdan Stables: Fulla (a Shuwaymah Sabbah), Futna (a Kuhaylah Khallawiyah), and Bint Barakat (a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah). The second proposal (click here if you interested in reading it) was submitted by yours truly and concerns the mare *Lebnaniah, a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah imported by W.R. Hearst to the USA in 1947. The AK Board is currently discussing both proposals.
Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the Syrian desert, and as such was the main marketplace for the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, which was famed for its many marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan al-Usayli’, Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan which by the way is Queen of Sheba’s marbat, ‘Ubayyan Ibn Thamdan,’Ubayyan Ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan Labdah, etc). The Saffaf family were in close business contact with the Sba’ah Bedouins, from whom they obtained a number of desert-bred mares. One of these mares was Tahirah’s maternal grand-dam, a chestnut ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, bred by Ku’ayran al-Amsa’, a Bedouin of the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah tribe. She was by a famous Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion, then the herd sire for the Rasalin section. Tahirah’s sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush, also from the Saffaf family, who owned a Krush marbat as well. Her dam’s sire was a Hamdani Simri, also from Hama. Tahirah has many of the features…
Jeanne Craver sent me this photo a few days ago, in reference to the discussion on this entry.
This beautiful mare with big, black, femine eyes is Kokhle, the daughter of two desert-bred horses imported from the Syrian desert to the USA in 1906. Her sire, Hamrah is a Saqlawi al-‘Abd, and her dam, Farha, is a Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah. I know I sound like a broken record, but who said Ma’naghis did not look like classical Arabian horses? Unfortunately, Kokhle’s tail female no longer survives in asil Arabian horse breeding, but she does have a line in modern pedigrees through her son Kokhleson (by Ashmar), whose son Ralk (x Halloul) sired Ibn Ralf and Bint Ralf.
He was by Prince Hal x Sirrulya. Photo from Jeanne Craver
Some time last year, this blog featured the precious asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah line to the mare Baraka (Ibn Manial x Gamalat) which has been flourishing in South Africa. The series of postings on Baraka and her descendents attracted a lot of attention from South Africa and Namibia, and is by far the most popular thread on this blog. Now is the time to feature another asil line that has survived in South Africa, and which carries crosses to desert-bred lines that are extinct almost everywhere else around the globe. That’s the line of the mare Rosina (Saoud x Ruth II by Bendigo), a 1950 Kuhaylat al-Rodan exported by H. V. Musgrave Clark to South Africa in 1953. The line is a tail female to Rodania, an 1869 desert-bred Kuhaylat Rodan imported by Lady Anne Blunt in 1881, and one of the most influential mares in Arabian (and asil) horse breeding. What’s so special about this line, will you ask? Kuhaylan al-Rodan asil horses are all over the place. Well, first of all, the absolute majority of Rodania tail female horses are within what is known as “Straight Egyptian” breeding, a sub-set of asil breeding which has branched out into a category – and…
Since I am back talking about Ma’naghi Sbayli stallions (see yesterday’s short post on RB Bellagio), I thought I’d bring up a picture of the stallion Dakhala Sabiq (Prince Hal x Sirrulya by Julyan), a 1975 stallion bred by Jeanne Hussong, when she was just about to become Jeanne Craver. A coouple of years ago, I was seriously considering to buy a daughter of Sabiq’s sister Soiree (Sir x Sirrulya): Dakhala Sahra is a lovely 1985 chestnut mare by Plantagentet out of Soiree, and is owned by Crista Couch. Perhaps I should have made a move. Dakhla Sabiq and RB Bellagio who was featured below, are closely related, since their respective dams Sirrulya and Sirrunade are sisters, both out of Jane Ott’s broodmatron Sirrulla (Sirecho x Drissula). Unfortunately, Sabiq never had the opportunity to be used as a stallion I have always had a soft spot for Ma’anaghi Sbayli stallions. It dates back to the time I read a story by Ali al-Barazi, an old-time Syrian horse breeder, about one of the last ghazus (Bedouin raids), in the early 1940s. That was just before the French, who were ruling over Syria at the time, put an end to all raiding activity and imposed peace…
One of my favorite stallions on the US East Coast is RB Bellagio (Arabi Fad Onyx x Sirrunade by Faaryan), an asil Ma’naghii Sbayli tracing to the desert-bred mare Haidee, bred by the Sba’ah tribe and imported to the UK in 1874. His maternal grand-dam is Miss Jane Ott’s famous Sirrulla (Sirecho x Drissula by Sultan). The back of his pedigree is really interesting which one of the very few crosses to the stallion Sultan (Ibn Nafa x Exochorda, and hence Sirecho’s half brother), another cross to Antez, and plenty of linebreeding and inbreeding to Haidee. RB Bellagio is owned by Terri Somers of New Jersey, who also owns a number of Ma’naghi mares that trace to Haidee, but also to the Blunt’s Ferida, another desert bred from the Shammar tribe. Terri has a nice website that has all sorts of information about RB Bellagio and his harm of Ma’naghiyat. By the way, don’t you think there is a similarity with the picture of the desert-bred stallion *Mirage, below?
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 to the USA, where Mohalhil still has a very thin line. Notice the striking physical resemblance between Mohalhil and another stallion that was featured on this blog, Bango. But the similarities in their backgrounds is even more striking. Like Mohalhil Bango was a grey, desert-bred Ma’naghi Sbayli; like him he was bred by the Shammar tribe, at around the same time (Bango in 1923 and Mohalhil in 1922); like him he raced in Egypt.
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 on her face has a blaze and on her two back legs has a stocking, [i.e.] she has two stockings on her hindlegs, that she is ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, [that she] is to be mated in the dark night, [that she] is purer than milk, and we only witness to what we know and do not keep [information] about the unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [Faris al-Jarba’s seal] A hujjah couldn’t get any better than this. Concise, to the point, and written and sealed by the supreme leader of the preeminent Bedouin horse-breeding tribe of Arabia Deserta: the Shammar al-Jazirah. In comparison, how many horses otherwise known to have been berd by the Aal Saud have Ibn Saud’s own seal on their hujjah? How many other imported mares have Faris al-Jarba’s seal? [I know of only another one: the…