The preamble in George Tabet’s 1937 booklet on Arabian horse strains

Google Translate has a very cool feature that allows you to translate text for an image as opposed to a word processing document. I used it to translate the introductory text of George Philippe Tabet’s 1937 booklet “Les Noms de Famille des Chevaux Arabes” — The family names of Arabian Horses. I miniminally edited the output for more clarity.

I have been studying the Arabian horse for over twenty-five years, having learned to love it from my early youth. At first, I heard this horse praised as being a Hamdani, that other a Séglawi, etc. I marveled over these titles of nobility, but I understood nothing about them. Later, when I began my first purchases of horses for racing, I was led to delve deeper. I learned, little by little, that some families were more highly regarded than others; but I was most often disappointed when, to learn more, I turned to well-known horse dealers or even illustrious owner friends. Faced with this ignorance, I decided to turn to the very source of Arabian horse breeding; and it was then that I began to understand the reasons for all these names, and what differentiates them from each other.

There are three classes of Arabian horses: pure Assayels, Assayels, and Kodches. Pure Assayels, or as they are commonly called Chebouw, are those whose ancestors are all indisputably known to have had nothing but Chebouw blood in their mixtures since the beginning. It is only from among the Chebouws that the Bedouins choose their stallions. The Assayels are indeed purebred Arabs, but not all of their ancestors are known. The Kodches are the result of a heterogeneous mix and exhibit more or less the characteristics of the Arabian horse. In short, we can say that these three classes form a hierarchy, in which the Chebouws are the Nobles, the non-Chebouws the Bourgeois, and the Kodches the lowly people.

This classification of Chebouws and non-Chebouws in no way means that the latter cannot be pure Arabs, nor that the Chebouws are superior to them in beauty, speed, and endurance. It is a distinction that was made slowly and continues to be made, caused by the lack of a serious organization to record on paper everything related to this or that branch, or this or that family. Not having an official Stud Book, the Bedouin, under oath, transmitted by memory what his ancestors told him. This is how the ancestors of each family and each line of Chebouw are perfectly known among the tribe holding the mother branch, and most of the times among all the Bedouins. The Enézés are considered to be the most informed on all the origins; nevertheless, among the Bedouins and in the cities of breeding Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Deir el Zor, there are specialists in the origins, they are called Kassasse (those who tell), and their saying is authentic. However, the different circumstances of life have caused sudden disappearances among these Kassasses; Each of them took with them their knowledge and certain facts that were proof of the origin of certain lines or branches. The descendants of these lines and branches were then considered non-Chebouws; this, I believe, is one of the main real causes of this hierarchical classification.

Tradition traces the origin of the Arabian horse to Ismail, son of Abraham, who is said to have gathered some taken from herds of wild horses. But the details only exist since Muhammad, and even then, they are not numerous.

During these years of study and frequentation of the Arab equestrian community, I noted the almost total ignorance of scientific breeding; even among educated city dwellers. Routine alone guides them, and they produce, not even assuming the existence of the great fundamental principles of modern breeding.

A few years ago, ghazous were the only means of selection, but recently, France and England, which govern Arab countries, cars, and modern armaments, have succeeded in almost permanently eliminating them. For the past five or six years, a few wise breeders have begun to choose their stallions from among the best individuals from the racetrack, but until now, almost all of them are ignorant of the principles that govern breeding in the difference between the male line and the female line, in the power of male transmission in this subject and of female transmission in that other. They are ignorant of the laws of Sexual Reproduction, from the point of view of the importance, albeit relative, of the sexes; the laws of Heredity, of Return, the laws of Variability and Crossbreeding which produce Varieties, and the various modes of Selection by Method. They leave nature to act at random, without the slightest attempt at scientific help.

This is why the Arabian horse produced in the Orient is in the process of declining, while its compatriots produced and skillfully bred in Europe are improving from generation to generation in every respect, while retaining the essence and characteristics of the initial breed.

I like to believe that our local governments will know how to value this national wealth and give the breeding of the Arabian horse the importance it deserves. This horse, which has always been the seed of all the qualities of the Equine Species, the source from which all the breeds of the world must come, under penalty of decline, to draw the sum of vitality which is necessary for them.

To facilitate the task of breeders who would like to take the trouble to produce the best Arabian horse, as well as the work of all those interested in this beautiful animal, I am publishing this list. Several similar lists already exist, but none of them, to my knowledge, distinguishes between Assayèls Chebouws and Non-Chebouws; moreover, the names are misspelled, making their pronunciation distorted and incomprehensible. There are certainly names from certain Non-Chebouw families that do not appear on this list, because I have taken care to mention only the best-known ones, but I have avoided the slightest omission in the Chebouw families.