Twelve Davenports of Christmas: Abbess
The 1911 Ma’naghiyah mare Abbess has no remaining descent, and her sire *Abbeian‘s sire line in the straight Davenports died out with Ibn Ralf. Her dam, *Farha, has a thin line remaining (both in straight Davenports, and another family in Al Khamsa more generally) through Ralf. I don’t know if Abbess’ age in this picture is known, but she looks young to me, perhaps two or three. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
FIVE gold rings!!!! Four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
I am really loving this series Ambar. Thanks a million times for this.
Happy Holidays,
Ralph
I hadn’t been planning to inflict this on the unsuspecting public, but needs must:
Onnnnnneeee Ma’naghiyah!
Two Hamdani mares,
Two bay colts,
Two twin fillies (90 years apart)
And a gray mare to ride under a tree
(Yes, one must take liberties with the tune, but it’s already irregular, so why not? The rest of the song is left for the amused reader to derive…)
Looking at that patch of white over the point of Abbess’ buttock, I’m reminded of her cousin ADA Skylarking, another gray filly who grayed very unevenly in places. Most striking was a pastern which had a line down the middle: one side near white and the other very dark. You can only just see it in this photo; it’s the right fore, where the white-gray side is toward you, and you can just see the black line marking the darker outside.
I am moved to wonder about X-inactivation, and if that’s a possible cause for this mottling in some gray fillies (temporary, of course, since they eventually end up white.) Michael?
I don’t think this patchy greying is limited to fillies, although I can’t put my hand on a male example at the moment. We do know the G locus is not on the X chromosome, though. What ADA Skylarking is doing there I’ve come to call “grey markings”–I don’t see it, myself, as the same thing Abbess is doing here.
Porte did this, Ambar, among others. And you can see it on photos of Thompson’s Grey taken on the Davenport trip, who we hypothesize is the same horse registered as *Abbeian, Abbess’s sire.
Another entertaining hypothesis shot down by the facts! 😀