After a long delay I am happy to announce that www.skowronek.io is now public. 95% of the key documents prior to 1921 along with full translations are available for all to view. More analysis of the documents will follow this year roughly following this post. Once this is complete I will move forward to the story post 1921.
It’s easy to get lost following any 200 year history and the Skowronek saga is no different. The storyline breaks into two periods of time: the history before his 1921 registration in Weatherby’s GSB and then the commentary post 1921. Each part will be examined sequentially. Each post will include links to English translations of the relevant documents along with links to the original sources in Russian, Polish, German and French. Each translation includes editor’s notes, footnotes clearly explaining any controversial translations and cross references to other documents. Articles will be available later this summer on www.skowronek.io, the FaceBook page Skowronek – A Partbred Arabian Horse, and this blog. List of Articles Cast of characters prior to 1921 Early primary sources (1799-1876)This includes a fully translated Slawuta Stud report from 1799, along with historical commentary on the Sanguszko family’s breeding operation from two brothers, Wladyslaw Sanguszko (1839 and 1850) and Roman Sanguszko Sr. (1876). These sources are often referenced by later authors. The Blunts, the Potockis and the Sanguszkos (1882-1895)The Blunt’s relationship with the Potockis began in 1882 with a meeting in Egypt. The story follows this relationship through Lady Anne’s journals and Wilfred’s letters from 1882 to 1895, including…
There are many ways to judge a horse. Some of the more common considerations include conformation, size, temperament, athletic ability and genetic “potency.” These are normal criteria for evaluating all breeds of horses. However, within the Arabian breed, another criterion takes precedence over all others: pure blood. A pure or asil Arabian horse is defined by its exclusive origin among the Bedouin tribes of Desert Arabia, the creators of the Arabian breed. Bedouins accepted a horse as pure if they had reliable information on its strain, sub-strain and Bedouin breeder. Conversely, Bedouins removed horses from the breed for two distinct reasons: mixed blood and unknown origin. Mixed blood. Bedouins used the term hajin to generally describe any horse that contained non-Arabian blood mixed with Arabian blood. Horses of mixed blood are by definition not pure. Any descendant of a mixed blood horse is also of mixed blood so the status of hajin is not reversible. A hajin horse does not have a strain connecting it to the community of Arabian horses. How do we know a horse has mixed blood? The most obvious way, but not the only way, is that the owner of a horse identifies non-Arabian blood…
Skowronek’s widespread presence in the pedigrees of horses registered as Arabians is arguably the raison d’etre for a number of different preservation initiatives including Al Khamsa, the Asil Club, the Pyramid Society and probably even this blog. Since I was a boy, I had heard about Skowronek and thought his non-Arabian ancestry was common knowledge since the 1940s when my grandfather first learned about it. Attending the 2017 WAHO conference made me realize I was mistaken. Below are a number of viewpoints from people I either personally interacted with or overheard during my trip: Two Arabs friends, from different Middle Eastern countries, who wanted to know what I thought about the whole Skowronek issue. Is he really not Asil? A prominent British breeder who had this to say to me when I mentioned Skowronek and his non-Arabian ancestors: “Oh that’s not proven now is it? It’s just unsubstantiated rumor.” A European breeder conversing at a dinner table: “Oh the DNA shows the Asil horses are all part breds too, so who cares?” A European and an Australian shouting in a bus: “All the evidence has been published on Skowronek over 50 years ago. He has non-Arabian blood in his pedigree”…
Ziba (Dancing Magic x Shazla by Shazda out of Darthula out of Saladin II) was one of my father’s favorites. A 1980 mare from the ‘marbat’ of Lord and Lady Moyne, and tracing to the desert bred Kuhaylat al-Krush Dafina, a gift from Ibn Saoud to Judith Wentworth, Ziba had no less than ten lines to Skowronek, and this, along with her Krush tail female to Dafina, is exactly the reason why my father bought her from Said Khair’s stud in Jordan and imported her to Lebanon, together with her son Sharif by a show horse of European lines. At the time, my father was a big fan of the Crabbet breeding program (and he still is in some ways), both under Lady Anne and then under her daughter Judith, and we did not know anything about Skowronek’s pedigree. We believed that Skowronek was the best thing that ever happened to Crabbet Stud, and Judith Wentworth certainly did a good job leading her readers to this conclusion. When we learned more about Skowronek, we sold Ziba to some local politician and she eventually found her way to Syria. Her non-asil status aside, Ziba had glorious tail carriage and movement, and was a…
This 1997 article by Michael Bowling and R.J. Cadranell mentions the Babolna-bred mare 125 Ghalion (b. 1975), which has only one distant cross to the English Thoroughbred mare 30-Maria, her tail female ancestor (scroll down to the middle of the article for the question about 30-Maria). RJ and Michael calculated that after 125 years and 12 generations of breeding to Arabian stallions, 125 Ghalion was left with 0.024% English Thoroughbred blood. 125 Ghalion is not registered as an Arabian mare. That’s probably because her cross to 30-Maria is in the tail female, which Arabian horse breeders pay particular attention to. (What’s her strain? “Kuhaylan Maria”). Now someone please tell me why Skowronek, with his 9 non-Arabian crosses, would be considered an Arabian horse.
I love the website allbreedpedigree.com . It’s one of those wikis that let you do whatever you want. Readers’ comments on the last entry I posted just put me in a subversive mood, so I went and changed the race of the mare Polka from “Arabian” to “Thoroughbred”. For those who are not aware of the facts, the stallion Skowronek has multiple lines to the English Thoroughbred mare Polka, and so does everyone of his descendents. One of these several genealogical paths is as follows: Skowronek –> his dam Jaskolka –> her sire Rymnik –> his sire Kortez –> his dam Gonta –> her dam Helada –> her sire Szumka III –> his sire Szumka II –> his dam Polka, an English Thoroughbred. This makes Szumka II an Anglo-Arab (even if he is not registered as such), and someone needs to change that in allbreedpedigree too (I hope I am not starting a war). Now comes the million dollar question: if you cross the descendents of an Anglo-Arab like Szumka II to Arabians for several generations, do they become Arabian horses or will they always and forever be Anglo-Arabs? [okay, partbreds]. To be sure, this question is worth much more than a million dollars, if the prices of…