Today Kate found my Holy Graal. Two of my Holy Graals. Ever since I was 12, I have been wanting to see photos of the two fountainhead mares of Algerian Arabian horse breeding, at the Jumenterie of Tiaret: the two mares Olympe and Primevere. Robert Mauvy’s precious gem of a book, “Le Cheval Arabe” has a section on these two mares that left an imprint of the teenager I was. Today, 31 one years later, when I need to take a flight somewhere, the first book I instinctively grab is this one. I never tire of reading it again and again and again. I don’t believe anyone has captured the essence of the Arabian horse the way Mauvy has. Both Olympe and Primere are the grand-daughters of two mares imported from Arabia to Algeria by the French: respectively Wadha, a Jilfat al-Dhawi of the Fad’aan Anazah, and Cherif (b. 1869), a Shuwaymah Sabbah of the Sba’ah Anazah. The French bought both mares at the camps of these of two tribes. Some 150 years later, both lines are still thriving worldwide. Here are the two pictures from the Sport Universel Illustre. Thank you, Kate. You have given shape to a longstanding…
Cherifa is a foundation mare of the breeding program of the French colonial stud of Tiaret, Algeria. From Algeria, the line has spread to France, Poland and elsewhere around the world. Cherifa is particularly well documented. She is entry #1333 in the French Stud Book: bay, born in 1869 in the desert, imported to Algeria around 1875, died in 1878, strain “Chouimi-Sebayé”, acquired from “Farhan ibn Hudaib of the Sbaa Enezah”. The information on her Bedouin owner is significant. French importation records often mangled the spelling of the names of the strain, breeder or tribe. They sometimes gave their imported horses the strain of the sire instead of that of the dam. In this case, the owner was none other than the paramount Shaykh of the Sba’ah tribe, Farhan, son of Ma’jun son of Sallal son of Barjas son of Sahu son of Mu’di son of Hudaib. Lady Anne Blunt met him during her first trip to the desert three years after the French purchased Cherifa. She details her encounter with him in her journals entry for April 5, 1878, and writes that he was 22 or 23 years old (so born ca. 1855). Farhan ibn Hudaib was also photographed…
Severine Vesco and Amelie Blackwell, wearing their treasure hunter hats, found this gem of a mare somewhere in rural Southern France. Lannilis, the mare, is a 20 year old Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah, of Tunisian, Algerian, and old, pure French bloodlines. She had a career as a trail riding horse, and is now being used to produce endurance Arabians and Araloosas. This mare traces to one of the lesser known Algerian (Tiaret) tail females, that of the mare Mzeirib, a 1891 desert-bred Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah from the Shammar. The French imported Mzeirib to Algeria in 1898. The line went to the state stud of Tunisia at some point in the 1920s, then to private hands in France in the 1970s. In France it bred on with crosses to pure Arabian stallions of old Tunisian lines, including some of Robert Mauvy’s breeding. It is the same female line as that of the Tunisian stallion Omran that went to that zoo in Germany. The short back, the deep girth, the high withers, the long hip on this mare are somehow reminiscent of early Crabbet Blunt horses.
An absolutely superb male specimen of a Desert Arabian horse, in Algeria. The legend says “syrian stallion”, yet so far I was not able to match with him with any of the grey stallions the French imported to Algeria from the East. Not Bango, not El Nil, not Sidi Gaber, not Aziz. If you know him, let me know. Photo courtesy of Farid Chaoui, of Algeria.
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.
When growing up in the Middle East, I would always look forward to the prospect of hearing the whinny of stallions in the stables, farms and racetracks, and it was an integral part of the experience of turning stallions loose in paddocks. Seeing this video brought this experience back to mind. It also made me realize how “quiet” and “muted” the stallions I have recently been around are. This superb 2009 stallion, Quamar El Lail (Ratib x Mascara by Larabi out of Saguia by Guercif — sire line Bango, dam line Wadha, strain Jilfan Dhawi), is one of the last four (yes, four) Algerian asil Arabian horses, owned by the Algerian National Stud of Tiaret/Chaouchaoua. His pedigree is a succession of legends often featured on this blog in previous years: Bango, Ghalbane, Safita, Masbout, etc. Quamar el lail pur sang Arabe par Ratib Mascara Posted by Haras National Chaouchaoua on Friday, October 17, 2014 Jean-Claude Rajot, who is very familiar with the asil Arabians of Algeria, tells me the whinnying is characteristic of the bloodlines of Quamar El Leil.
French equine librarian, collector and breeder, Philippe Deblaise just published the book “Tiaret, le reve Algerien” that will add tremendous value to the literature on Arabian horses, by pulling together the knowledge available about the glorious breeding program of the Arabian horse Stud of Tiaret, in Algeria. This stud was founded by the French in the 1870s, when France was the colonial power in Algeria, and relied exclusively on stallions and mares imported from desert-bred Arabians from Arabia. This stud is unique in the world as no stallion born outside desert Arabian was ever used at stud until Algerian independence in the 1960s. Click on the flyer (in French) to enlarge it.
This one is from the Deblaise stud in France, a daughter of the Syrian Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq import Husam Al-Shamal out of their mare B’Oureah (Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak).
This is the transcription of a conversation with Jean-Claude Rajot, in 2013, whom I had asked what master breeders Robert Mauvy and Anatole Cordonnier thought of Denouste: Here is what Jean Claude had to say: “Robert avait fait des recherches et Cordonnier aussi. Ils en ont parle une seule fois devant moi. Le point faible dans le pedigree: Aissa, par Bou Maza et Kebira. Le cure avait perdu les papiers. Cordonnier avait le meme entraineur de courses que Denouste.” Les juments favorites de Mauvy: Guelmouna par El Nil, Fadd’a, Iaqouta, Izarra. Il avait fait saillir Fadd’a par Asfour mais elle n’avait pas pris.
Stephan Eberhardt shared with me this photo of his Algerian/Tunisian/Egyptian mare Dachna (Khaiber x Dahna by El Aswad a.k.a Ibn Galal-15), a Shuwaymah Sabbah tracing to the Tiaret mare Cherifa. I am always pleased to see that these asil lines from North Africa have crossed well with Egyptian lines in Europe. The mare has two close crosses to Tunisian lines: her paternal grand-dam is the Jilfat al-Dhawi mare Rissala (Esmet Ali x Chanaan by Souci), whose sire and dam are from Anatole Cordonnier’s breeding in Tunisia but mostly from Algerian lines; and her maternal grand-dam is the beautiful Dar Essalam (Koufi x Djamila by Titan) whose sire is from Tunisian lines from Sidi Thabet and dam from Algerian lines from Tiaret.
French breeder and researcher Philippe Deblaise has a new book coming out: “Tiaret: le Reve Algerien”, which chronicles the story of the prestigious government stud of Tiaret in then French-colonized Algeria. The website of the French Union Pour la Sauvegarde du Cheval Arabe Oriental (USCAR) publishes excerpts of it (here). Here is a wonderful photo album of what Tiaret looked like from the first part of the XXth century until today, including 129 photos of the Tiaret stud. Below are a couple photos. Tiaret
As mentioned in an earlier post last year, a small number of horses still trace to the very old Mukhallad strain including this 2001 chestnut stallion whose extraordinary pedigree is heavily line-bred to asil Algerian,Tunisian and old French lines of the highest caliber. Here is a nice shot of him which I had not seen before. His owner is standing at stud in the south west of France. The photo shows a very correct stallion of good “old” Arab type, reminiscent of several old Algerian stallions from Tiaret (e.g., the photo of Scorpion by Baleck in the small Mauvy book), of some Davenport stallions (e.g., Deluvian CF, Regatta CF) and Syrian desert bred stallions (the sons of Mahrous in particular), with a short back, a high and well defined dry wither, a large eye, deep jaws, short prickled ears, a small level and round croup and a thick tail set high. This is my kind of stallion. Below is a run-down of the male ancestors of Djelid in the maternal line (sire, sire of dam, sire of grand-dam, etc) so you could appreciate where he is coming from. Djelid is a son of the wonderful 1975 asil Jilfan Dhawi stallion Jahir…
I am off to Morocco this weekend, for about a week, so these two pictures of a stallion partly of Moroccan Arabian lines are fitting. This is Fabienne Vesco’s Djoar Beni Sakr (Jahir x Loubia bint Breek by Breek), a Jilfan Dhawi by strain, as a younger horse, and as a 16 year old stallion. Both his maternal grandparents, Breek and Rihya, came to France from Morocco with Jean Deleau, and trace to combined Egyptian, Tunisian and French lines. The French born stallion Agres (photo below, by Sumeyr x Altise by Abel x Attique by Méat), which was a sire at the Moroccan Royal stables, and traces to a Hamdaniyah Simriyah mares imported from Syria, is well represented in his pedigree.
Two photos of the Tiaret bred mare Malika, a Jilfat al-Dhawi, b. 1949, by Masbout d.b., out of Themis, by Bango d.b., out of Abaka by Ghazi d.b. The grand-dam of the stallion Jahir discussed below.
Now look at his progeny. This one one is a colt (and he oozes true desert type and conformation), Shuwayman Fahad, out of a mare by a Syrian sire (the Krush Mokhtar), and from an good French dam line, also from the Shuwayman strain (Cherifa tail female).
I am writing in response to Edouard’s article on Esmet Ali. I have photos of him as a foal at his mother’s side, as well as documents about his debut at the Tunisian racetrack of Kasr Said. I can garantee you this is the same horse as the later Esmet Ali. All you have to do is take a look at his rather uncommon blaze, the shape of his leg stockings, and his relatively plainer head, which he already had from early on, etc. All the archives I am attaching below were graciously given to me by his breeder and one-time owner Mrs. Chantal De Moussac, who was at the time (mid to late 1950s) the “right arm” of Admiral Cordonnier. Esmet Ali was Cordonnier’s pride. This lady, Mrs. De Moussac was the owner of Esmet Ali’s dam Ambria (by Nasr, Original Arab), which she had bought from Tunisia’s government stud of Sidi Thabet as a foal; of Ambria’s daughter Arabelle, and of Salome (by Bango, Original Arab), bought from Algeria’s government stud of Tiaret as a foal. She had to leave Tunisia well before Admiral Cordonnier, so she gave him her mares. Mrs. De Moussac has witnessed the birth…
Bien que je suive très attentivement et très régulièrement les articles de ce blog merveilleux , je me rends compte avoir laissé passer de nombreuses occasions d’apporter commentaires et précisions. Je m’empresse donc de réparer cette négligence en ce début d’année 2010. Tout d’abord , je m’étonne de la perplexité qu’a suscité la petite maxime : ” Le cheval de pur-sang Arabe (asil) est le cheval de l’homme, le cheval de course est le cheval du diable “. Robert Mauvy citait très souvent cette phrase; il la tenait , comme je l’ai dit, des Rouallah . Jamais je ne me permettrais de parler au nom de ceux-ci- seul Pure Man me paraît habilité à le faire ici- mais dans l’esprit de Robert l’enseignement en était très clair: L’emploi des chevaux asils et, pire encore, leur selection par les courses plates à l’européenne est un non sens tel qu’il confine à la monstruosité… C’est dévoyer la race voire avilir le cheval . Je suis en mesure d’apporter commentaires et exemples , d’ailleurs connus de tous, par la suite. Si ces épreuves sous poids ultra-léger, sur de très courtes distances et sur le velours du “turf”sont celles du pur-sang anglais , il n’en est…
I “stole” this picture from the Internet, but it’s for a good cause. This is Jehol Sahraoui (Ouaffar x Kalthoumia by Sabour), for a long time the head sire at Mrs. Gisela Bergmann’s stud in Ghardimaou in western Tunisia. Mrs. Bergmann has bred precious ‘old’ Tunisian lines for some thirty years, and Jehol Sahraoui, born in 1978, is representative of these lines. He hails from a very rare sire line in Tunisian/Algerian breeding, that of El Managhi, imported from Hama (Central Syria) by the French to their Algerian Stud of Tiaret in 1924. His dam line, that of Dolma-Batche, is even rarer, and I don’t think it survives away from Mrs. Bergmann’s small breeding program (to be checked). Note that the Jilfan (no marbat recorded) line of Dolma-Batche, chesntut, born in 1869, imported to Sidi-Thabet in Tunisia in 1876, is a different line from the Jilfan Dhawi line to which was imported from the Syrian desert to Tiaret in Algeria in 1875. A number of good horses trace to Dolma-Batche, including the beautiful Sumeyr, who was featured on this blog before. Jehol is now represented by his son Tchad (b. in 1986 out of Binsar, by Koraich out of Hadia).…
At last I get to see a picture of Bossa Nova (Iricho x Bassala by Masbout), thanks to Adrien Deblaise who sent me this one today. Bossa Nova, of the Jilfan Dhawi strain that traces to the mare Wadha from the Fad’aan tribe, was bred by the French government stud of Pompadour, by Iricho, an asil imported from Anatole Cordonnier’s breeding in Tunisia, out of Bassala, an asil imported from the Tiaret government stud in Algeria. Bossa Nova, together with the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare Ablette (photo below, by Sumeyr x Attique by Meat), was deemed the “best”, “purest”, and “most classic” mare in Pompadour” by master-breeder Robert Mauvy. Now I see why.
Yesterday evening, I threw away my 2000 Arabian Horse Datasource CD-ROM, and bought a new one year online membership. The geek in me was so excited. Now guess what is the first studbook I looked up in search for lost and forgotten asil Arabians? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Bahrain? Iraq? the USA? France? No. I looked up Algeria first. I guess that’s where my heart really lies. This is where France sent its best desert-bred imports and its best horsemen. This is where, in my opinion, some of the most authentic, true-to-type Arabians were bred. Every mare at the the West-Algerian stud of Tiaret was a gem. Of course, following their country’s independence , the Algerians went ahead and imported “Arabians” from Spain, the UK and elsewhere, effectively putting an end to some 100 years of asil breeding. I wanted to see what remained of the Tiaret breeding, which up to the 1980s was centered on the two magnificent stallions Larabi (Fil x Ledmia by Ghalbane) and Guercif (Ghalbane x Gaila by Bang0). The news is not good, but there may be two or three mares of breedable age still alive, with progeny in 2000. I feel like jumping in an…
Another desert-bred imported to Algeria in the XIXth century is Ben Chicao. I don’t know his strain or his breeder. He is represented in modern pedigrees through his daughter Addresse (x Pervenche), to whom the stallion Madani (Souci x Sissana by Mossoul) has a line in the middle of the pedigree. He was otherwise rarely used. Is that a good Arabian horse conformation wise, judging from the photo? What do you think?
Recently, Ambar Diaz started posting photos of some of this blog’s authors and regular contributors mounted on asil Arabian horses, as a way to put names on faces. Here is a photo that reader Predrag Joksimovic sent me of himself, mounted on Mahiba (Shams El Arabi x Mansoura), a very deserty little mare. Mahiba’s sire Shams El Arabi (Farouk x Bint El Arabi by El Araby) is of Egyptian bloodlines, her dam’s sire El Aswad (Ibn Galal x 10 Hosna) is also Egyptian, but her grand-dam Malaga (Madani x Berriane by Titan) was bred in Tunisia from predominantly Algerian bloodlines (and some old French through Mossoul). Malaga traces to several desert-bred imports featured on this blog, such as Bango, El Managhi, Ghazi, and others. She was a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, and so is Mahiba. She was exported to Germany in the 1960s. Egyptian and Algerian/Tunisian lines tend to blend very well with each other, further empasizing the added value of “combined source” breeding.
One more picture of old desert-bred stallions from Algeria, from Adrien Deblaise. This is Salamie. I don’t know his strain, nor his breeder. His name suggests an origin around the steppe area east of Hama, in Central Syria, where the town of Salamie lies, and which is a grazing ground for the Sba’ah, Mawali, Hadideen Bedouin tribes. The French imported well over a hundred stallions and mares to their studs in Algeria. Not all of these were equally good. Some were outstanding, like Ghazi. Some were average, like Salamie here. He does have a short back, deep girth, strong legs, a nice hindquarter, and a well placed neck. That said, his eyes are placed too high and his head is somewhat plain. The French, who were seeking stallions to produce cavalry horses (typically Arab-Barb crosses) to police their Algerian possessions, couldn’t care less about a good head, although they sometimes imported pretty typey individuals such as Aziz, featured earlier. Salamie left some progeny at the French government stud of Tiaret, in Algeria. Most notable is his daughter Kabla, out of the Aziz daughter El Kaira. Kabla is the dam of the stallion Bouq (by the desert-bred Hellal), really influential in early Tunisian…
The series on desert-bred Arabian imports to North Africa continues thanks to breeder and blog reader A. Deblaise. This is Aziz, one of the earliest desert-breds imported to Algeria by the French. I know nothing about his strain or his original breeder. All I know is that he is present in the back of the pedigrees of some really good Tunisian and Algerian horses, like the pretty Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare Hadia (Kefil x Rafiaa by Bango) from Tunisia, pictured below. Hadia has three lines to Aziz, though his three daughters El Keira, Fakhera, and Gueddima.
Today French horse-breeder Adrien Deblaise made my day. He sent me a set of very rare, old pictures of desert-bred Arabians imported to France, Tunisia and Algeria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some time ago, I started a series of blog entries featuring photos of some these outstanding and so little known desert-breds (Dahman, El Sbaa, Nibeh, Burgas, Taleb, Niazi, El Managhi, etc), but I ran out of original photos to share. I am happy I now have a few more pictures to resume this series. Merci Adrien! This is Ghazi. Chestnut; desert-bred; born in 1901; recorded sire: “Arkoubi”, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz; recorded dam: “Zarifa”, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz; raced successfully in Egypt; imported by the French government to Algeria (then a part of France) in 1909; head sire at the Tiaret stud for many years. Robert Mauvy, who knew him well, said of him: “Alezan dore, trois balzanes et liste, et dont presque toutes les juments nees a Tiaret descendent. Couvrant beaucoup de terrain avec de tres grandes lignes, il brillait par l’elegance de ces gestes et de ses allures … Ce fut, en outre, un excellent performer.” By 1954, on the eve of the bloody (more than a million dead) Algerian eight…
Adrien Deblaise breeds Arabian horses of Tunisian, Moroccan and Algerian bloodlines in Western France. His father Philippe was a bookseller that specialized in equine literature. Philippe’s inventory contained one of the largest collections in France books on horses in general and Arabians in particular. Below are pictures of two of Adrien’s mares: B’Oureah Marine (by Ourki x Bismilah by Irmak), and Qhejala (by Fawzan x Jelala II by Abouhif). B’Oureah is shown here competing for a 60 mile endurance race (which she won). She is a Jilfat Dhawi by strain, tracing to the mare Wadha imported by the French government from the Fad’aan tribe in 1875. Qhejala traces to Cherifa, a Shuwaymat Sabbah imported by the French from the Sba’ah tribe in 1869. Note the resemblance between Qhejala (who is 75% Egyptian) and the Babson (a group of asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines) broodmatron Fada (Faddan x Aaroufa by Fay El Dine). Fada’s rare photo below is from the late Billy Sheets’ photo collection.
Last week, I wrote about the quest of Robert Mauy’s friends, Jean-Claude Rajot and Louis Bauduin of France, to regenerate the bloodlines of their Arabian horses with the importation of stallions from the Arabian desert, or North Africa. Jean-Claude and Louis’ quest first took them to Tunisian and Algeria in the late 1980s. They saw many horses at the government studs of Tiaret (Algeria) and Sidi Thabet (Tunisia, where Louis took the photo of the mare below), as well as with private breeders. They also took many photos. However, the horses they liked were either too old or not for sale. In the 1990s and 200s, as Syria was slowly opening up to the western world, Jean-Claude and Louis undertook several trips to the Syrian desert, the first of which took place with Jens Sannek and Bernd Loewenherz. A great book by Sannek and Loewenherz resulted from this memorable trip. in 2008, Jean-Claude and Louis visited several marabet (Bedouin studs) of the Shammar Bedouins, including Ibn Jlaidan’s (Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, a Najd marbat), Ibn Ghurab’s (Hamdani Simri), Ibn ‘Ufaytan (Ma’naghi Hadraji), and al-Ghishm (Kuhaylan al-Wati); with an eye towards learning about the desert horse in its natural milieu, and perhaps buying a young stallion or…
Sandra Uhlig’s mare Djoumanah El Nil, from Germany, has an interesting pedigree: Egyptian bloodlines on top, and a Jiflan Dhawi tail female from Tunisia through the mare Malaga and her dam Berriane. Berriane was bred in Algeria and imported to Tunisia by Admiral Cordonnier for his Sidi Bou Hadid stud). Note the line to the stallion Barr in her pedigree, through his grandson Koraich. More about Barr later. Jenny Lee’s weanling Amr, from the UK, has a different yet equally interesting pedigree. His sire is the Egyptian stallion Goudah (Gad Allah x Ramiah), and his dam Jenny’s Bahraini mare Shuwaimeh Bint Warda.
The magnificent grey stallion pictured below was bred was Robert Mauvy in 1969 near Tours, in France. Mauvy also bred his sire Amri (Saadi x Zarifa) and Amri’s dam Zarifa (Matuvu x Iaqouta). He sold Amri to Idaho in the USA as a three year old, but not before he used him on a couple of his best mares (I actually sometimes wonder if Amri left anything out there). Moulouki‘s dam Izarra, a beautiful grey mare, was a gift to Mauvy from Admiral A. Cordonnier, who certainly maintained the best private Arabian stud in North Africa, near Bizerte in Tunisia. Izarra (by David x Arabelle by Beyrouth) was bred by Cordonnier and so was her dam Arabelle. Their tail female was to Samaria, a grey Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare born in 1882 imported to Pompadour by Mr. de Ganay in 1887. Ganay bought Samaria for 8,000 Francs (an enormous amount!) from Khalid Bey al-As’ad of Taybeh, a village now located in Southern Lebanon. The al-A’sad were until the 1970s the overlords of South Lebanon and the most powerful family among this area’s Shi’a population. The older al-A’sad lords were known to maintain a small stud of Arabians that they’d usually acquire…
Another photo courtesy of Jean-Claude Rajot is of the stallion El Obayan, a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, which the Veterinary Dr. Bardot bought in 1923 from the city of Hama in Syria, for the stud of Tiaret in Algeria. El Obayan was in the stall next to El Managhi, who was featured earlier. In Algeria, El Obayan sired the Jilfat Dhawi mare Baraka, who in turn sired the mare Gafsa by Bango. Gafsa was owned by master breeder A. Cordonnier of the Sidi Bou Hadid stud in Tunisia, and was the dam of the Cordonnier stallion Inchallah, exported to France, where he stood at the government stud of Pau. I need to scan a picture of Inchallah and share it with you.
Jean-Claude Rajot just sent me this rare photo of the important desert bred stallion El Managhi, bought in 1923 in Hama (central Syria) by veterinary Dr. Bardot for the Algerian stud of Tiaret. The stallion Bango, bought in Alexandria was part of the same importation. There is another picture of him in F. Klynstra’s book “Nobility of the desert”. Note that according to R. Mauvy, there is no indication that his strain was Ma’naghi, as his name may suggest. Most Tunisian Arabians now include his blood yet El Managhi’s most important product was perhaps the Asil Jilfat Dhawi mare Saponnaire, dam of Bassala which was acquired by the Pompadour stud in France. Here is an incomplete list of El Managhi’s progeny.
(See the comments section below for a translation of this blog entry to English) A l’origine, en tant qu’améliorateurs des races locales, essentiellement en vue de fournir des produits pour le service de la guerre. La base de nombreux élevages a été les animaux pris dans les combats contre l’Empire Ottoman. Il en est résulté dans de nombreux pays une jumenterie plus ou moins pure que l’on a tenté de conserver par l’achat d’étalons importés d’Orient. La Hongrie avec la race Shagya a été éminemment honnête. La France, avec deux variétés régionales, le Tarbais et le cheval du Limousin a eu la même démarche. A partir de Napoléon III, le pays a cherché à se constituer une jumenterie pure (Asil) afin de pouvoir disposer de reproducteurs pour améliorer la race Barbe en Afrique du nord et perfectionner l’Anglo-arabe naissant. Les établissements les plus remarquables ont été Tiaret en Algérie, Sidi Thabet en Tunisie et Pompadour en France. C’est à partir de cette époque que l’on s’est rendu compte de la différence de qualité entre les produits de la métropole et ceux des deux autres établissements (dégénérescence rapide sous l’influence des sols et du climat). Entre les deux guerres et surtout…
WARNING: DON’T READ ON UNLESS YOU ARE A PEDIGREE FREAK OR INTEND TO BECOME ONE. Of the Arabian horses bred in the three North African countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, the latter is the only one that did not develop its own “brand” of Arabians. Rather, Morocco relied on importations from its two North African neighbors as well as France and Egypt. Lets look at the pedigree of a typical modern Moroccan-bred Arabian horse: Fata, a chestnut stallion of the Jilfan Dhawi strain imported in utero from Morocco to France in 1976. Fata’s dam Tobiha was actually sold by the Moroccan Government stud of Meknes to French breeder jean Deleau, the founder of Haras de la Lizonne, in Western France. Fata is by El Sud El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), an Asil stallion born in Egypt and gifted to the King Mohamed V of Morocco (a full brother to SF Ibn Nazeer, by the way). Fata’s dam Tobiha is by Burhan (Morafic x Mona by Sid Abouhoum x Moniet el Nefous), another Egyptian Asil, and also a present from Egypt to the Moroccan King. Fata’s maternal granddam, Mousson is by Murols, a stallion bred at the French stud of Pompadour and imported from France…
Algeria was a French colony from 1830 to 1848, and an integral part of France from 1848 till its indepedence in 1962, following one of the bloodliest colonial wars. The conquest of Algeria by France was extremely long and arduous, and could only completed by 1900, when the latest of the Tuareg chiefs (ethnic Berbers, not Arabs) surrendered to French troops. Horses were a major factor in the conquest and stabilization of Algeria. In 1877, the French Ministry of War (the equivalent of a Department of Defense), established a breeding stud near the town of Tiaret, in the mountains of central Algeria. The objective of the “Jumenterie de Tiaret”, which later became the “Haras de Tiaret-Chaouchaoua“, was to produce Arabian stallions, which were sent to local stallion depots, where they were used on Barb mares. The result was a sturdy Arab-Barb cavalry horse. Hundreds of Arabian stallions and dozens of mares were imported to Tiaret (and its equivalent in neighboring Tunisia, Sidi-Thabet) from the deserts of Arabia and the racetracks of Egypt and Lebanon. Depending on the expertise of the horse-buying commission and its budget, imports ranged from the outstanding to the mediocre. Overall, Algeria received much better quality desert-bred imports than Tunisia or even France. Outstanding genitors included: Bango, a grey Ma’anaghi…
The presence of a French mare of Algerian/Tunisian bloodlines in my top ten list of best Asil Arabian mares ever bred has achieved its (undeclared) goal: it has sparked an interesting and lively debate about the Asil status of these bloodlines and their place within the broader community of Asil Arabian horses. Such a debate was way overdue, in my opinion. Yet before delving into a discussion of these little-known Asil Arabians, let me share with you a few pictures of some of these horses, to give you a feel for what they look like. Below is the magnificent Nichem, a 1970 Asil stallion, bred in France from Tunisian and Algerian bloodlines. Nichem was by Iricho and Caida, who was Rabat and Salammbo, by Bango. Nichem’s sire Iricho was born in Tunisia in 1959 at the stud of French Navy Admiral – and otherwise master Arabian horse breeder – Anatole Cordonnier, who sold him to the French government a few years later. Iricho subsequently stood at the Haras de Pompadour for most of his breeding career. Although a horse of excellent conformation and irreproachable bloodlines, Iricho was shunned by French Arabian (?) horse breeders who preferred taller stallions of racing (i.e., highly dubious) bloodlines. In addition to a number of…