White in the eyes
I want to breed horses that have white showing in their eyes, like human eyes. This is how the eyes of the old desert mares of my childhood and teen age looked like, and this is what gives these horses their quasi human souls. I realized this when I zoomed at the photo of Gulida below, and then I realized that Jadiba, Sahra and Wisteria all had white showing their eyes.
Wisteria’s granddam Organdie had it very obviously, and it was a feature that her owner Frank Hannesschlager appreciated in her very much. Myself, I like having some horses with human eyes and some with all-dark eyes.
I think I just like the horse, and then the clear or pigmented sclera is just an individual difference, like some roan hairs in the coat, or a snip.
Some people would throw away the horse with the “human eye” ( a rather short sighted vision – I was trying for a pun and couldn’t make it work) and others, as with Jeanne and, I include myself as one, think of the horse as a sum of it’s parts. One generally doesn’t throw away one’s children if there is a preference of brown eyes and you get a green eyed child in the bunch – well, most people do not.
Thank you for your comments on white eyes. I have been wondering what others thoughts are on this.
Do you think if you breed two horses together that have this feature you will get more of this feature? Would you do this type of breeding?
And I “see” your pun Lorriee!
Ibn Tirf had “human eyes” with white in them.
Ibn Tirf (Sultan x Shillala) 1971 ch. S.
Lady Anne Blunt describes her desert bred mare Rodania as having “…eyes showing white like human eyes.” Ibn Tirf has 35 lines to Rodania so it would seem normal that he inherited them from his ancestry. I have seen this feature also in the Moniet bred Egyptian lines as well as some of the Sirecho bred Egyptian lines, Sirecho being a son of *Nasr and pictures of *Nasr show him to have this feature also. It is indeed a very old trait seen and admired among some of the earliest Arabian horses.
Thank you for the information, Joe. I am a grateful learner. Please pardon my typo: Ibn Tirf (Sutan x Shillala).I was Ibn Tirf’s last owner, and loved him very much. When he was in his early twenties, I rode him often on the vast network of trails available to me where I lived in Rhode Island at the time. He was a perfect gentleman, and when I encountered another person or horse he would put on his splendid “wild stallion” persona. With me, we were simply buddies. I have many fond memories of this dear, very special horse, who still lives in my heart.
I remember Ibn Tirf from my visits to Upland Farm in the 1980s. He was a charismatic horse. He sired one purebred gelding before coming to Upland and then three fillies while he was there. All three seem to have been sold as part of the Upland dispersal following Joyce Hampshire’s death in 1991, although one was never transferred out of Joyce’s name. None ever produced a foal, and the youngest would be 24 now.
He also left two mares out of Jadiba, which I am trying to track down right now. They were bred by Olivia and would be 18 and 20 now.
I’m sure Joyce would have loved hearing about Ibn Tirf’s adventures on the trails with Olivia. Joyce always believed in that horse.
I don’t know how I missed commenting on this initially. Petit Point CF has human eyes on both sides, and I somehow didn’t even notice this until she arrived in California. I came to love the way this enhances the expressiveness of her gaze.
“Human eyes” are not terribly popular in Namibia and you get all the old excuses of them being wild to have problems with their vision. I file it away in the “as long as I don’t have to carry my saddle home” folder.
We have a colt here with a high percentage of Babson blood that has them and a line of horses that are line-bred to Gordonville Ziyadan (Zahir x Barakah, by Ibn Manial) and I’d love to know how far back it goes.
I believe the human eye has been a part of the Bedouin horse “forever”, or at least since we in the West have become aware of them. One of the Davenport imports (*Gomusa) had a very pronounced human eye (*Wadduda had a slight touch), and Davenport called it a “white eyeball”, which caused much confusion for years until a photo turned up with a close view of that eye not long ago. Davenport said it was very common in the desert, meaning, I assume, that I saw it frequently enough on the trip to not be concerned with it. Especially as *Gomusa was appreciated by the Arabs themselves at the time.