Wadduda of the “Wild East”
I was patiently waiting for a larger digital copy of this photo, which has just been sent to me by Heritage Auctions to be shared. The photo is of [Left] Buffolo Bill Cody aboard *Muson with [Right] Said Abdallah aboard *Wadduda. It very clearly evokes the grainy image from the Annotated Quest that I have always seen labeled something along the lines of “Wild East meets the Wild West.”
The caption of the photo on the auction website states: “This spectacular silver print taken by Hemment of New York in 1907, measures 11″ x 14″ and is mounted on a 16″ x 19” board. It shows Cody on Muson, an Arabian stallion imported to the United States in 1906 and one of the founding sires of the breed in America. Buffalo Bill had the privilege and the pleasure of riding Muson into Madison Square Garden on opening night of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1907. One of the horse’s admirers in the audience was President Theodore Roosevelt.”
This, too, was taken in 1907, and it’s highly likely that this photo and the other similar photo were taken in the same photo-shoot — *Wadduda and *Muson may have swapped sides in the two photos, but Bill Cody’s pose is almost identical in both of them. The image file sent to me was massive, and I was able to get relatively large close-up photos of the two at 100% resolution–
Absolutely lovely photos of lovely horses. In particular, I really like this photo of *Wadduda, as it shows us a mare that is bright, curious, and relaxed, with one ear fixed on the photographer, and another fixed on her rider. It is an expression I hold dear, as I am convinced that Arabians are born multi-taskers. There’s this notion that a horse with its head up and its gaze on a swivel is inattentive, yet with every Arabian I’ve ridden, they’ve done just this and kept their hooves squarely on the path I’d set out for them.
I also rather like this photo because, while she is not felt in contemporary asil breeding, *Muson and *Wadduda did have one foal together, a chestnut filly born in 1908. In all likelihood, Wadduda was in foal with Mekka during this photoshoot, or very soon to be.
The new (2017) edition of the Quest has on p. 255 a much less grainy version of the image in the 1992 Annotated Quest. We tracked down the original publication in the May, 1908 House and Garden and worked from that.
Color me 6 shades of excited all the way to Sunday to see that!
I don’t thing the horses changed positions; I think the camera did. The background is different. I just sent a web-sized version of the other photo to Edouard.
Oh, there’s an interesting observation. Now you’ve got me squinting at some current internet versions the other photo. It’s almost hard to tell – no real defining markings on *Muson as a grey, and Wadduda’s blaze is obscurred in one photo with two relatively even hind leg markings. The only other thing that I can really tell is that Bill Cody apparently switched which hand he was holding up, presumably to get the ‘best’ shot wherein his arm doesn’t obscure his body from view.
Look at *Wadduda’s mane, as well as the background.
Well. You can’t look at *Wadduda’s mane, and background, as Edouard hasn’t published the image I sent him! Soon, I hope!
I’m sure he’s busy 🙂
I was also looking at Said’s polearm (is there a specific name for this particular polearm?) and noticed that it’s held in the same hand in both photos, which doesn’t itself mean anything, but could of course serve as additional circumstantial evidence to add to the pile that makes up this particular little theory.