The Problem of Kouch
As Moira has pointed out in the comments on the post on Gomussa there is an unexpected curve ball in the matter of Gomussa’s parentage. In the 1896 Harper’s Weekly Vol. 40, Borden quotes Vidal as saying that Kouch “was an undoubted Saglawi Jedraan, a blood bay, 15 hands, the most beautiful horse I ever set my eyes on”. Earlier in the same volume, Borden mentions two full sisters bred by Vidal, by Kouch out of an Exmoor mare named Mitre. These pony mares were Coquette and Beauty, and the photos accompanying the text show Coquette to be bay and Beauty chestnut.
The General Stud Book’s registration of Kouch, though, in Vol. 17, describes him as follows:
KOUCH (Quoch), a Grey Horse, foaled about 1860, a Saklawi Djidrane of the desert between the towns of Bagdad and Mossul. Presented by the Sultan of Turkey to H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, September 9th, 1867.
In the 1879 Farmer’s Magazine Vol. 56, mention is made of two Arab stallions belonging to the Prince of Wales exhibited at the Birmingham Horse and Hound Show:
The Arab stallions, of which there are only two, contributed by the Prince of Wales, first came under inspection. Both these were presented to His Royal Highness by the Sultan of Turkey, and were therefore interesting as genuine specimens of a world-renowned equine race, one being a gray, described as of the “Saklair breed;” and the other a bay, described as of the “Hamadady breed.” The former gained the blue ribbon, as was understood, on account of his action being superior to that of his stable companion, which was more symmetrical. The bay as a matter of course was awarded second prize.
All of which makes me wonder whether the Reverend Vidal confused the bay Hamdani with the grey Saqlawi when he bred Mitre and Naomi to the Prince of Wales’ Arab horse.
Evidence which might support this is the fact that Kouch, despite being grey, has no recorded grey foals. In the GSB, where the colour of his offspring is given, they are either bay or chestnut. Of course, it is possible for a heterozygous grey stallion with very few foals on the ground to only get non-grey offspring, so the evidence provided by colour is far from conclusive.
On the other hand, another factor to consider is that Vidal was not the only breeder to send mares to Kouch. The Anglo-Arabs Trigonia and her full sister Columbine II were both registered in the GSB Vol. 17 as bred by Mr G. F. Parker, and in Vol. 15 there is an 1883 colt (colour unknown) out of the Thoroughbred mare Felucca, bred by Lord Warwick. Is it plausible that Parker, Lord Warwick and Vidal all three mistook the bay Hamdani stallion for the grey Saqlawi?
There is another possibility, that Kouch was incorrectly registered in Vol. 17 of the GSB (which was, after all, published in 1893, thirty-three years after his estimated foaling date, and presumably several years after his death). In the same volume, another horse sent to one of the British royal family is registered as follows:
YILDIZ, a Grey Horse. Presented by the Sultan to H.R.H. Prince George of Wales; covered at Sandringham, and subsequently at Cumberland Lodge.
In 1893, the future Edward VII was still Prince of Wales, and his son, the future George V, was Duke of York. The 1895 Livestock Journal Vol. 62 refers to Yildiz as belonging to the Duke of York; the same volume also makes reference to foals sired by Yildiz out of Hackney mares at the Wolferton stud, Norfolk, in the 1890s. His first recorded foals that Moira and I have found are an 1888 filly called Pickle out of the Hackney mare Jannette, and an 1888 colt, Master Frank, out of the Hackney mare Peggy. For comparison, Gomussa was foaled in 1884, when Kouch was about 24 years old.
Could Yildiz have been the grey Saqlawi stallion gifted to Edward, the Prince of Wales, by the Sultan of Turkey and shown at Birmingham in 1879? Perhaps. This would then require him to have been given by Edward to his son George before 1893, and might explain the Prince George of Wales.
The 1889 Truth Vol. 25 supports the notion that Yildiz was gifted to Edward, Prince of Wales, and not to George:
The Prince of Wales … has established no fewer than three stud farms on his Norfolk estate … One of the sires used here is Yildiz, a fine Arab of the highest breeding, which the Sultan presented to H.R.H.
No mention of strain, though, more’s the pity!
Going back to Kouch, though, the problem remains of reconciling the GSB description of him as a grey Saqlawi, probably the Saqlawi shown at Birmingham, with Borden’s quote of Vidal’s description of him as blood bay. The question is where the error lies – with the GSB, with Borden, or with Vidal – and whether, if Vidal’s description of his colour is accurate, he is then the bay Hamdani from the 1879 Birmingham Show.
It is a befuddlement, to be sure!
Very befuddling indeed! What is vexing is that, short of finding more information from Vidal’s papers, if they still exist, there is no way of resolving this, not even by tracking down a photograph of Kouch, because if he is indeed grey, it still doesn’t help that Vidal is quoted as calling him bay, and if he were bay I would have to wonder just what happened to the GSB entry.
There’s hearsay, there’s mistaken memories, there’s potentially any number of reasons for this kind of thing.
Mameluke, sire of *Shabaka, is entered in GSB Vol XVII without a coat color; I forget, if I ever knew, where AK obtained his chestnut color. There is a letter, from Major Benton I think, which refers to Mameluke as “a common grey pony.” I have seen a picture of Lord Arthur Cecil on a horse which fits that description well enough.
For that matter, Vol XVIII credits Kesia II with two chestnut fillies by Mameluke: Mimosa in 1893 and Shabaka in 1894–and says that Mimosa was sent to USA while Shabaka is still in England covered in 1896 by Jamrood.
Our *Shabaka 237 is an 1894, and an 1896 covering date means she would have been bred at two, so presumably Miss Dillon or her secretary suffered a slip of the pen–but there’s a lot of this kind of thing.
In Spencer Borden’s “The Arab Horse” he writes a bunch about his horse’s ancestors, and includes in his segment on the Pudlicote horses a section talking about *Shabaka, who of course was the damn of his prized stallion, Segario. Therein is included a copy of Segario and thereby *Shabaka’s pedigree, which includes a color for Mameluke: chestnut.
Link to copy of pedigree
I have just tracked down an article on Kouch and the three other Arabians gifted to the Prince of Wales by Abdulaziz, and he is described as blood bay, standing 14.2 1/2 hands high. Which means that Borden and Vidal were correct, and that the GSB is wrong; Kouch may well have been confused with one of the three greys who were imported with him when he was registered more than twenty years after his arrival in England.
Good for you!
Alice Payne, in the *Shabaka entry of her copy of U.S. stud book volume III (1927), quotes Randolph Huntington describing Mameluke as “a little grey pony picked up in Bombay by Bedford.”
As for *Shabaka having been bred at two, it was not uncommon for Miss Dillon to breed two year old fillies. Were it not for Miss Dillon having obtained Kesia II and her offspring *Imamzada and *Shabaka from Lord Arthur Cecil, and bred Borak from Kesia II, probably Kesia II and Mameluke would not be in modern Arabian pedigrees.
“A little grey pony picked up in Bombay by Bedford.” That is awfully little information.
All I can say is, that is more information than is in Weatherby’s, which describes Mameluke simply as a high caste Arab imported from India by Lord Herbrand Russell.