This afternoon I scanned some photos from a trip to Syria my father and I took in 1995 (almost 30 years ago, yikes!). I am more aware than ever about the need to put old analog records in digital format and online. Starting with Dahess, the handsome Ubayyan Suhayli stallion my father had just traded for a filly from the breeding of Radwan Shabareq. Dahess was a personal favorite of mine. Funny how some horses are just horses, while others touch your soul. This was the last time I was to see him, as he met an untimely death in a freak accident a few months later. To me, he will always remain the epitome of the desert Arabian horse, the real deal. His origins were flawless. His sire Awaad was a Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida from the strain of Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba, a strain that goes back to Ibn Rashid and the Mutayr Bedouins; his dam al-Jazi was sired by the grey Ubayyan Suhayli of ‘Atnan al-Shazi, a Faddagha Shammar Bedouin who had obtained the line from the Sahlan/Suhayli owners of the strain; I recall being told that this horse was sold to the UAE in the early 1980s…
This evening I had a bout of nostalgia for my old horses, so I went looking for pictures of Dahess, the desert-bred stallion my father and I bought from a racing stable in Beirut in 1993. I was 15. One afternoon, as I was just coming back from school, my father told me that he had been contacted by the secretariat of the organization managing the Beirut racetrack about two Arabian stallions that had recently been imported from Qatar, one of them a Syrian horse of desert lines. They were being housed at one of the racing stables on the road to the airport. Both were for sale. I pressed to drive down to the racetrack to see them at once. Half an hour later, we were standing in front of two stallions, an exquisitely balanced grey with a milky white coat, 14.3 hands, and a much taller, loosely built cherry bay. The grey we were told was “Syrian” and the bay “Russian”. Both were a bit thin. My father nudged me from his elbow, and started praising the bay horse, while deliberately turning his back to the grey one. The groom fell for the trick and hinted that the…
I love this photo of the desert-bred Ubayyah Suhayliyah Reem al-Oud in Bedouin gear with Kina Murray riding. It was taken in the North East Syria in 2002. Here’s Kina’s description of this moment: “Attached is me having a gentle walk on an elderly mare on the trip when we went to do the investigation on all the horses that were added to the studbook, in 2002. […] I can’t remember her strain, possibly Obeyah Seheilieh, I rode her when we visited the home of Sheikh Mezer Ojail Abdull Kareem of the Shammar in Al Hassaka, as far as I recall. One of my best memories ever. In fact she had just taken part in an impromptu 5km race across the desert! Here are a couple of quotes from the report I wrote about that trip: “At the home of Sheikh Mezer Ojail Abdull Kareem of the Shammar in Al Hassaka, a slightly longer race across the desert with about 5 mares taking part was arranged for our entertainment, it seemed that this was a regular activity. One of the mares taking part was 22 years old. The ‘finishing line’ appeared to be exactly where our group was standing, and it…
The desert-bred ‘Ubayyah Suhayliyah mare Reem al-‘Ud, bred by the Shammar tribe in northeastern Syria, also known as “the mare of Mattori” from one of her past Bedouin owners, was featured several times on this blog. Here is yet another photo of her in extreme old age, which shows well the black skin around her eyes. Her last owner was Sh. Mayzar al-‘Ajil al-‘Abd al-Karim al-Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba, a descendant of the great Shammar hero ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba known as “Abu Khudah”.
Dahess (Awaad x Al-Jazi by the Ubayyan of ‘Atnan al-Shazi) was a 1987 grey stallion. He was bred by sayyid Muhammad al-Shaykh Salim a Tufayhi, a non-Bedouin from a family of religious notables in Upper Mesopotamia, as so was his dam. He was a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak by strain, tracing to the marbat of ‘Awwad ‘Azzam al-Sahlan, or ‘Ubayyan Suhayli. He was sired by the grey Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Awaad, who hails from the famed marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba, and as such he is a half brother to the black stallion Mokhtar now in France. His dam, al-Jazi, was reportedly one of the prettiest mares in Syria, and eventually came to be owned by the late Basil al-Asad, brother to the current president of the Syrian Arab Republic. Dahess was sold as a youngster to the former Qatari consul in Damascus, the late Yusuf al-Rumaihi, who owned a wonderful collection of beautiful and well-authenticated desert-bred mares (more on this later), as well as the two Egyptian stallions Okaz (Wahag x Nazeemah) and al-Qahir (Ikhnatoon x Marium). When Rumaihi passed away, the horses were dispersed and some of them found their way to Qatar, where they were overlooked and eventually given away. Dahess then…
The first and only desert-bred Syrian stallion we ever owned. More on him later, as I dig up better photos. This one was taken in 1995 at the farm of Mustafa Jabri in Aleppo, where Dahess was standing at stud. My father is teasing him..
I recently scanned a number of photos of Syrian Arabian horses that I took in the early 1990s, and I will be sharing them with you over the next days and weeks. It makes sense to begin this series of photos with the 1981 ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous, head sire at the Jabri stud in Aleppo, Syria in the 1980s and much of the 1990s. He is consequently one of the most influential stallion in Syrian pedigrees today. I took these photos in 1992. Mahrous was a masculine and prepotent stallion, who stamped his progeny. All his sons and daughters inherited his balanced, near-faultless conformation and his good disposition. His head was criticized by some for not being a classic Arabian head with a ‘dish’ — Mahrous had a straight profile and a — but you can see from these pictures that it had all the essential characteristics of the head of a true desert-bred Arabian stallion: huge soulful eyes, short pricked ears, huge arched cheekbones, a broad forehead between the eyes, and a clean, delicately arched throat (mithbah). I have already discussed Mahrous’ very well-established pedigree in an earlier entry, to which I refer you (click here).
The ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous was, until his death in the late 1990s, the herd sire at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, Syria. Today his sire line is, along with that of the Damascus stallion Ayid, the most prolific in modern Syrian Arabian horse breeding. If you check Mahrous’ entry in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook, you will find relatively little information about him, in comparison with other major stallions of his generation (e.g, Mobarak, Mashuj, Raad, Marzuq, Mokhtar, all born between 1982 and 1987). I was able to learn more about Mahrus’ background by asking a number of persons, including Mustafa, Radwan Shabariq and the late Abd al-Qadir al-Hammami, as well as others who knew the horse well. Hazaim al-Wair has also conducted a masterful inquiry among the Shammar Bedouins clans of al-Sbeih and al-Ghishm about Mahrous’ sire. Mahrous was born in 1981, in the steppe area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in Northeastern Syria. He was bred by a Bedouin of the Faddaghah clan of the Shammar tribe, a man named Wuhayyid al-Hamad al-Duhayyim. Wuhayyid then sold Mahrous to horse merchant, who sold him to another, before Mustafa bought him as a young stallion in 1983/84. The photo of Mahrous,…
Samura, a chestnut 1895 mare, is a first generation offspring of two desert-bred Arabians imported to Russia by Count Stroganov and Prince Sherbatoff, and was bred by the former at what is now the Tersk Stud. Stroganov’s breeding program was completely wiped out in the events that led to the bolchevik revolution of 1917, and nothing remains of it today. A couple words on the strain of Kuhaylan al-Jalala: it is specific to the Shammar tribe, among which it is now extinct. It is one of the seven (some say eleven) strains which the Shammar took in war from the Sharif (Ruler) of Mecca, when this tribe crushed the Sharif forces in a grueling and epic battle still celebrated by the Shammar in their poems, some two hundred years ago. The other strains taken by the Shammar from the Sharif of Mecca in this battle (actually, a series of battles) are, off the top of my head: Kuhaylan al-Sharif, Obayyan al-Sharif (also known as ‘Ubayyan Suhayli), Kuhaylan al-Dhabi, Kuhaylan al-Jalala, Nkhayshi, Kuhaylan al-Shnaynan, and a seventh I don’t recall now as I am writing from work without my notes. The first two strains are still extant among the Shammar in Syria today,…
This mare is one of my all-time favorites. I had featured her earlier on this blog, here. Her name is Reem al-Oud [see correction below, actually this is Reem’s daughter Bint al-Oud], she is a Ubayyah Suhayliyah (a branch of the Sharrakiyah) from the tribe of Shammar in Syria. She is currently owned by Shaykh Mayzar al-Ajeel al-Abd al-Karim al-Jarba. Shaykh Mayzar is a direct descendant of the famous Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba, who led a bloody rebellion against the Ottoman Turks. The Turks quelled the rebellion, hung ‘Abd al-Karim on a bridge in Mossul, Iraq, in 1874. They put his half-brother Farhan in charge of the Shammar in North Arabia. ‘Abd al-Karim’s mother, Amsheh al-Husayn (a daughter of Husayn al-Assaf, the Shaykh of Tayy) then fled North Arabia with her younger son, Faris, and sought refuge with Ibn Rashid, the ruler of Hail in Central Arabia, and the leader of the Shammar there. Years later, Lady Anne Blunt met both Amsheh and Faris. Faris became Wilfrid Blunt’s “blood brother”. Back to Reem al-Oud. She is from the marbat of Maskawi al-Ju’aydan al-Shammari, whose clan, al-Ju’aydan, breeds some of the best Ubayyan Suhayli horses among the Shammar. Maskawi’s father Madfaa…
Recently I became aware of the existence of a young bay stallion of desert-bred stock that was bred in France, where he is now standing at stud. The name of this young stallion is Menjad Maram al-Baida, and his strain is Saqlawi Jadran (photo below, from his owners website). Menjad was bred by Mrs. Chantal Chekroun, and sired by the black stallion Mokhtar out of the bay mare Hijab. Both Mokhtar and Hijab were owned by Basil Jadaan in Damascus, Syria, then by Mrs. J. Menning to whom Basil gave them, and are now owned by Mrs. Chekroun. Mrs. Chekroun sold Menjad to Sophie and Dominique Balthasar of the Haras de la Lizonne, and still retains a full sister. A sketchy pedigree of Menjad looks like this: Awaad (S. Shaifi x Mumtazah) Mokhtar …
This is Reem al-Oud, a desert bred Ubayyah Suhayliyah of the horses of Mayzar al-Ajil al-Abdul Karim al-Jarba of Shammar, and the number one on my top ten list of best Asil mares ever bred. A diamond in the rough.
I took this photo of the Asil stallion Khalid (Mahrous x Khalidah) in Aleppo, Syria in the mid-1990s, at the farm of Mustapha al-Jabri. Khalid is a half-brother to the stallion Basil, the subject of an previous post by Joe Ferriss. Both Khalid’s sire and dam are desert breds. Notice the excellent legs and the strong sinews on this horse. Khalid’s dam, Khalidah, is a Saglawiyah Jadraniyah from the horses of Hulu al-Hulu, the leader (Shaykh) of the ‘Adwan Bedouin tribe, and traces to the glorious marbat (tribal stud) of Ibn ‘Amud of the Shammar tribe. His sire is a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli (a branch of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak), also from the Shammar. According to Mahrus ibn Haddal, who was Shaykh of the al-‘Amarat tribe in the 1920s, Ibn ‘Amud obtained his original mare in a ghazu (tribal raid) against the al-Frijah section of the Ruwalah tribe. Ibn Haddal’s testimony is given in Khairi al-‘Azzawi’s great book on the tribes of Iraq (in Arabic). Other accounts I have gathered from recent conversations with Bedouins have the Saglawiyah Jadraniyah of the marbat of Ibn ‘Amud (or Saglawiyat ‘Ibn ‘Amud for short) trace to the ‘Anazah tribe in general, of which the Ruwalah is a part of. To me Khalid is the quintessential Asil stallion: powerful but graceful, strong but…
Basil, the masculine grey stallion pictured in Joe’s entry below was one of the first acquisitions Syrian Government Stud as it began operating in the mid 1990s. Basil, born in 1985 at the stud of Mustapha al-Jabri in Aleppo, was not Bedouin-bred, but both his sire and dam were. He was by Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli from the Shammar, then Mustapha’s head stallion, out of Hallah, a chestnut Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah also from the Shammar. Basil’s dam Hallah, pictured below at al-Jabri’s farm in 1996, was arguably the best of Mustapha’s herd, which consisted of 100-plus mares; Mustapha owned her dam and her sister as well. Basil joined his sire as a herd stallion for Mustpaha before he was gifted to the Government. Abdul-Qadir Hammami, a veteran horse-merchant and one of the sharpest experts on desert horses I have come to meet, picked Hallah, her dam and her sister for Mustapha’s stud. Next week’s “Strain of the Week” series will be about Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. It will discuss Hallah’s family, among other families belonging to this ancient strain.