A blog on desert arabian horses, past, present and future
صورة أنشرها لأول مرة للفرس هلة كحيلة خلاوية وهي مواليد 1983 تعتبر هذه الفرس من أعتق خيل سوريا وأفضلها تراكيبًا هلة فرس الشيخ محمد الفرحان المحمد العبد الرحمن الطائي وآلت منه الى المرحوم مصطفى الجابري (أبو إحسان) كبير مربيي حلب وتباركت عند أبو إحسان ثم باعها على أحمد الفهيم من دولة الإمارات حوالي عام 1994 … Read more
I have been trying to go back in time as far as possible with the pedigrees of modern Syrian Arabian horses, looking for male ancestors as early as the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a difficult task, because the registration of Syrian foundation horses (the first wave in Volume 1, and the second wave in Volume … Read more
اقول ويلفظها البعض التخيرة بالتاء
.وأضيف الكحيلة الشكيلية هي وكحيلة العشيّر رسن واحد
يقول حماد الجدوع الجزعة سمعتُ من أبي يقول الصگلاوية الجدرانية التي عندنا بالأصل لآل غبين شيوخ الفدعان من اعنزا وقدا أهدوا فرس الى ابن اختهم ضاري ابن محمود شيخ زوبع من شمر في ثورة العشرين في العراق جَلى ابن محمود الى الجزيرة السورية لأنّه كان احد القادة للثورة وجلبَ معه مجموعة من الخيل ضمنها الصكلاوية … Read more
حدثنا محمد معصوم العاقوب من شيوخ حرب طي قال الربدا كحيلة عجوز والربداء من أسماء النعامة وتميّزت بهذا الاسم لأنها طَرحتْ ذَكر النعام والنعامة معروفة بسرعته في عام 1810-1815 للميلاد غزتْ قبيلة اعنزا باشات الاكراد مرتين في منطقة قورانشار شمالي بلدة رأس العين السورية في المرّة الأولى استطاع الباشا صد اعنزا وكان اسمه عَبْدي الكَلَشْ … Read more
‘Azzah was one of my father’s favorite mares at Mustafa Jabri’s. She was a daughter of the Hamdani Ibn Ghurab al-Aawar and of Nadia, a desert bred Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah tracing to the marbat of Muhammad al-Dahdah of the Jawwalah clan of Tai and to Dari al-Mahmud of the Zawba’ Shammar before that. That strain originally … Read more
A grey desert-bred asil stallion. Strain: Saqlawi Jadran, from the marbat of ‘Abd al-Hamid (a.k.a. Hamid) al-Talal al-‘Assaf of the leading family of the Tai tribe, who got the strain from Ibn ‘Amud of Shammar (according to Hamid himself). From the strain that came to Ibn ‘Amud from al-Frijah of al-Ruwalah. Sire: Saqlawi Jadran of … Read more
Another set of old photos I just scanned today features the Syrian desert bred mare Ghallaieh at the farm of Radwan Shabareq north of Aleppo, near the town of ‘Azaz. She was old and lame (you can see the broken front leg) and rather plain in the head, but what a grand and powerful mare … Read more
This Rabdan stallion’s name is Jurnass. He is the most noteworthy Syrian stallion of the last couple years. His current owner is Dham al-Ahmad al-Daham al-Hadi al-Farhan al-Jarba, Sheikh of the Shammar. A few years ago, some Syrian Bedouins started started mating Rabdan stallions from Tai marbats, probably because they are so handsome. It was … Read more
I spent the morning digging through old photos, which also bring back stories. I like this photo so much. It features a Tai Bedouin horse breeder, Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Sulayman al-Rhayyil, putting one of his toddler sons on his Saqlawiyah mares near Al-Qamishli, North Eastern Syria. The photo belongs to the sons, now grown men in … Read more
This mare, Al-Shumuss, was at the stud of Mustafa al-Jabri in Aleppo in the 1990s, and her dam was at Radwan Shabareq’s. She was a Kuhaylat al-Krush, by a Hamdani Simri who was himself by the black Saqlawi Marzaqani stallion of al-Anoud, Princess of Tai; the mare’s dam was by the same black Saqlawi Marzaqani. … Read more
Ameenah was the foundation mare for all the Kuhaylan al-Mimrah horses currently in Syria. They all trace to her in the tail female. She was bred by the Tai Bedouins, from a marbat that had belonged to the Shammar, and which traced all the back to the Muwayni’ clan of the Sba’ah Bedouins, who own … Read more
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, … Read more
Amoori (Al-Aawar x Ghallaieh, by the black Saqlawi Marzakani, the “horse of Al-‘Anud”) is a full brother to Amshet Shammar, pictured below. He was bred by Radwan Shabareq in Aleppo, from a mare bred by Rakan al-Jarba of the Shammar Bedouins, from a line originating from the Tai leaders, in turn originating from the Fad’aan … Read more
This is the third feature on the series on uncommon strains, and it features the strain of Kuhaylan ibn Mizhir. Kuhaylan ibn Mizhir is a little known strain in the West. It is specific to Syria and to parts of Iraq that are adjacent to the Syrian border. The strain belongs to the Bedouin tribe … Read more
Kuhaylan Khallawi (often misspelt Halawi) is a strain of Arabian horses little-known in the West. It is mentioned in Lady Anne Blunt’s list of strains derived from the Kuhaylan family, and in Carl Raswan’s list. The only other place it is mentioned is in Roger Upton’s writings, where his desert-bred import Yataghan (sire of the … Read more
This hujjah comes from the Tahawi tribe website and is very interesting, because of the place of origin of the horse: unlike most of the Tahawi hujaj I saw, this one comes from the Upper Mesopotamia area (al-Jazirah) while the others came from Western Syria. I hope the horse referenced in this hujjah document left some … Read more
The 1988 grey Hamdani al-‘Ifri stallion *Ta’an (Awaad x al-Efrieh by a Kuhaylan al-Wati) was born in the Jazirah area of North-Eastern Syria. His breeder, Mis’ir al-Hamad is a member of one of the small Arab nomadic tribes that settled in this area in the XXth century. I first saw *Ta’an in 1990 as a … Read more
Click on the YouTube link below to listen to a story and poem (in Arabic) about ‘Arar ibn Shahwan, the original owner (ra’i) of the marbat of Dahman Shahwan. The audio was prepared by Sa’d al-Hafi al-‘Utaybi. ‘Arar is the from the very noble and ancient Dhayaghim clan of the Abidah section of the Qahtan … Read more
I am back on the map, and slowly emerging from processing a couple hundred emails that have piled up in my inbox during my absence. I am looking forward to the new Khamsat issue, with a focus on the WAHO 2007 conference in Syria. Hazaim al-Wair and I have an article in there on Arabian horse … Read more
Kuhaylan al-Mimrah: so where were we? In the last post about this strain, we had left it in the hands of the Muwayni’ section of the Sba’ah tribe, to which the Mimrah clan belongs. Today, the noble section of Al-Muwayni’ is split between Syria and Saudi Arabia but no longer owns horses from this famous … Read more
Since the last couple posts have been about mares of the Shuwayman Sabbah strain bred by the Shammar, here is a quote from Lady Anne Blunt‘s “Bedouin tribes of the Euphrates” (p. 235) that had a lasting impression on me: “Faris’s own mare is a tall bay, Shuéymeh Sbàh, with a powerful shoulder, great girth, … Read more
Following the recent entry on the pretty black mare Shams al-Ghurub, and to Joe Ferriss recalling that he saw her dam Hakayah in 1996 in Syria, I am posting a picture of Hakayah that I took back in 1989. Hakayah was then with Ahmad (Abu Tahir) al-Ghalioun, who had leased her from her owner, the Shaykh of the … Read more
Shams al-Ghurub is a black-bay mare from Syria, born in 1987. Her strain is Shuwayman Sabbah. She was bred by the Shaykh of the Bedouin tribe of Tai, Mohammad al-‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Nayif near al-Qamishli in North Eastern Syria, from a strain that originally belonged to the Shaykhs of Shammar, the al-Jarba. The leading families of the … Read more
Here’s a headshot of the pretty desert-bred mare Nomah, a Kuhaylat al-Mizher (some say Kuhaylat Ibn Mizher) from the Bedouin tribe of Tai, in North-Eastern Syria. Nomah, which was owned by B. Jadaan, was one of the most photographed Syrian mares, but this is one of her earlier photos. I have heard several people say that Kuhaylan Ibn Mizher … Read more
Back to El Nasser. An earlier post identified his sire, “Douhaymane El Ajarrache”, as a Dahman (or Duhayman) ‘Amer from the al-‘Ajarrash family of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. “Douhayman El Ajarrache” was actively breeding in 1937, when El Nasser’s dam was bred to him to produce El Nasser in May 1938. Last year – and here is the fresh information … Read more
I just wanted to follow up with a few photos of some horses I mentioned in my previous comments on this blog that were of the Maanagi strain. These three I saw on my trip in 1996 through Jordan, Syria, and the Gulf region. I have other photos of representatives of this strain on that … Read more