Jeanne Craver shared a photo of the Davenport stallion *Muson which I had not seen before. I recall reading somewhere — forgetting the source now — that the breed in its original form displayed more distance between the back legs than between the front legs.
The strain of Kuhaylan Tamiri was one of the first strains the Sba’ah Bedouins chose to breed from. From Prince Mohammed Ali’s lists, based on notes taken by the agents of Abbas Pasha: “Says Murshid al-Nawwaq [of the Sba’ah]: The horses which were in our possession in Najd sometime ago have no parallel anywhere. When asked which ones were allowed to mate, he replied that the ones they allowed to mate were only three: first the Saqlawi, second Kuhaylan Tamiri and third Shuwayman Sabbah.“ Similarly, but in the APM itself: Dabbi ibn Shutaywi [of the Sba’ah, specifically their Gmassah section] was asked what stallions of the stud were used on their mares at the time al Gomussa were at Nejd. He replied, “As long as I can remember we mated al Saqlawiyat and other stallions that are well known to this day. But our white haired men told us when I was a child, that before al Saqlawiyat, al Gomussa were using a Kuhaylan al Tamiri as a stallion. And also a Kuhaylan al ‘Ajuz that belonged to al Gomussa and was cut off.
The twin strains of Kuhaylan ‘Abhul and Kuhaylan Mu’abhil belong the Ruwalah and are named after men from this tribe. These strains are themselves branches of the better known Kuhaylan Tamiri. On the first, page 595: Orar al Honaydi al Sha’lani of the Ruwalah, upon being asked about the sire of a certain mare: “O Ali, we do not remember that time, but they mated them to Saqlawi Jedran and Kuhaylan Tamiri of the horses of Ibn Abhul“ On the second, page 522: Faysal al-Sha’laan, leader of the Ruwalah, upon being asked about it: “[…] and as for al Moabheliyah [alt. spelling Mu’abhiliyyah, masc Mu’abhil], she is Kuhayla Tamiriya, and her owner is Tamir of al Daghman and she is Kuhayla om Maarif.”
Arnault Decroix posted this photo of the Syrian stallion Nimr Shabareq on his Facebook page. He is standing him at stud in Normandy this yesr. I believe this stallion to be, despite some defects, the embodiment of the old desert type. I love his balance, and how the parts all fit together.
The digital copy of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM) has allowed me to follow the tracks of particular horses as they changed hands from one Bedouin tribe to another. One of these horses is Saqlawi Al Araj (“the lame”), apparently a famous horse in the mid 1800s. A search of Al Araj in the APM yields the following information: he was a Saqlawi Jadran from the strain of Ibn Sudan. He was probably bred by Ibn Sudan of the Sba’ah, and the Sba’ah certainly used him for breeding. Several mares of the Sba’ah were bred to him, whose daughters then went to the Abbas Pasha stud. Subsequently, he reappeared in the ownership of Bandar Ibn Sa’adun, the leader of the Muntafiq tribe in Southern Iraq. Bandar also used him as a stallion, and bred from his Wadnan son after him. Example on page 547: “And we mated the daughter of Hadban a second time to Saqlawi al Araj of the strain of Ibn Sudan, belonging to Bandar al Sa’doun“. The lists of Abbas Pasha imports gathered by Prince Muhammad Ali Tewfik include several daughters of Al Araj (correctly spelled al-A’raj). From a quick look, most appear to be out of…
Arnault Decroix published this photo of the 1967 Arabian stallion Salam (Agres x Tosca by Fellous) on his social media accounts. Salam, who I saw during the 1994 WAHO conference in Rabat at the age of 27, was the head stallion for the Moroccan government. He struck me then as a very correct stallion with excellent proportions. His pedigree blends old, authentic French bloodlines (75%) and Tunisian/Algerian lines (25%). I don’t know who took the picture. He is very reminiscent of some Davenport horses in the USA.
The strain of the Kuhaylan al-Khdili (alt. spellings Hedili, Khadali, Khadli) is not well known outside Arabia. It is however one of the most esteemed and revered strains of Arabian horses. Connoisseurs speak of its authenticity (asalah) with awe and respect. Few horses of that strain made it to the West. One such horse is Safita, a red bay desert-bred who according to the French Studbook Volume 21 was by a sire “de race Koheilan en Naouak” and a dam “de race Koheilan El Kedilih”. Safita was imported by the French General Detroyat from Syria to Algeria in 1934. Writes Robert Mauvy who knew him well and loved him: Safita, bai cerise. Cheval à très grandes lignes dont une encolure exceptionnelle. Sa tête était fine et légère, sculptée, avec des oreilles pointées… à l’excès. L’une d’elles endommagée par un coup de sabre- sa gorge arquée était d’une rare netteté; si le corps était excellent, l’arrière main était d’une puissance exceptionnelle; ses postérieurs, de ce fait, très distants l’un de l’autre, et ses jarrets droits, longs et larges -actions éblouissantes crins tissus d’une grande finesse. Kuhaylan al-Khdili is a branch of the Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, owned by the Khdilat clan of the…
I am featuring Thalia CF (Javera Thadrian x Bint Dharebah by Monsoon) on social media. She was one of the best I have owned. She was in my ownership between late 2015 and mid 2017. Sadly, she came in my life at the ripe age of 24 years old, after having had two foals for her previous owner. I was not able to get any foals out of her, but I will always remember her as a true illustration of the real Arabian horse.
Moira Walker took these photos of Reema CF (Trilogy x Fragrance CF by Regency CF), Debbie Mackie’s beautiful milky white mare, a Hamdaniyah of Davenport bloodlines, during the latest Al Khamsa get together in Illinois, which featured a long-awaited presentation by Jeanne Craver on strain.
Kate found another Western source citing early Arabian horse strains: Prince Hermann Puckler Muskau (1785-1871), in the 1830 . Kate did the research for this entry. “Amongst the thousand tribes that inhabit Arabia and the desert, almost every one has its race and its particular denominations, and, naturally, their opinion differs as to their value ; nevertheless, all agree in according the first rank to two races. The first is that of the real Nedschdis, that is to say, those bred in the province of that name ; for, as it is supposed, that all the noble horses of Arabia originally came from thence, the term Nedschdi is a general name for all horses of pure Arab blood ; a difference which should be remarked, for it has already led many foreigners into error. There are five races of these real Nedschdis : 1st, Sada – Tokan ; 2nd, Touesse-al-Hamié ; 3rd, Schouahi – emAnhoub ; 4th, Hamdanije-Symra; 5th, Souat- Hije-Aeden-Sachra. The first of these names is that of the mare, from which they derive their origin ; the second, that of the proprietor. “The second excellent race is that of Kachel. I only know four kinds 1st, Kaehel el…
A stunning aerial photo of the Syrian border town of al-Bu Kamal, on the Euphrates, before the river flows into Iraq. From the IFPO (French Institute for the Near East). The photo is dated March 6, 1936. The river to the left, the fertile plain, and the wide open desert, all the way to Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
There are four references to the Mulawlish (also spelled Mulawlishan, Mlolshaan, Mlolshan, etc) strain in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM). Both occur in accounts by members of the Ibn Khalifah family of Bahrain, who were already using stallions from that strain by the early 1850s, and perhaps earlier on the Dahman mares. The first is on page 251: “[she] was covered by Kuhaylan al Moulawlish and she foaled a safrafilly.” The second is on the same page: We covered the shaqra mare, daughter of alJallabi, by Kuhaylan al Moulawlish (ibn al Jallabi, ibn Kuhaylan Zoayr) and she gave birth to anashqar colt which died”. In both cases, the strain is referred to as a branch of the Kuhaylan.
One of the Western travelers to write about Arabian horse strains was the Swiss Johann Ludwig Burkhardt. His Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys: Collected During His Travels in the East were only published in 1831, but were based on information collected in the Hijaz between 1814 and 1815. Burkhardt died in Cairo in 1817. His book featured this anecdote: “The favourite mare of Saoud, the Wahaby chief, which he constantly rode on his expeditions, and whose name, Keraye, became famous all over Arabia, brought forth a horse of uncommon beauty and xceellence. The mare, however, not being of the khomse, Saoud would not permit his people to use thatfine horse as a stallion; and not knowing what to do with it, as Bedouins never ride horses, he sent it as a present to the Sherif. The mare, Keraye, had been purchased by Saoud from a Bedouin ofthe Kahtan Arabs for fifteen hundred dollars.” This account ties the strain of Kuhaylan al-Kray, a branch of the Krush strain that was present with the ‘Ajman Bedouins at the time of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (ca. 1850), to the Qahtan Bedouins from a very early date. It corroborates the information which ‘Ubayd al-Hafi al-‘Utaybi…
The Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM), compiled around 1852, is the single most comprehensive — and perhaps the only — source of Bedouin accounts and stories about their Arabian, faithfully and painstakingly recorded by the envoys of Abbas Pasha. The unique value of the APM lies in the Bedouins being both the narrators and the protagonists of these stories. Every other written source at our disposal comes from Western travelers and explorers who, with few exceptions, did not speak the language, communicating mostly through interpreters and other intermediaries who “explained” things to them, which they would then go on and explain to us the readers of their books. We readers became accustomed to seeing the Bedouins and their horses through the more or less distorting lens of travelers like Upton, Blunt, Davenport, etc. The Bedouins in these Western accounts lost their agency and became subjects. Arabian horses became a Western field of knowledge. Carl Raswan, despite living among the Ruwalah for some years, is a good example of this distorting lens: what his numerous writings show is his own perspective, as illustrated by his classification of Arabian horse strains. For example, Raswan classified Sa’adan, Rishan, and Samhan under the “Muniqi related”…
Another very rare Arabian horse strain is that of Rishan (feminine Rishah). The most common marbat is Rishan Shar’abi. I have developed a special interest in this strain over the years, because of the high quality of the individual representatives I have seen. A search for ”Rishan” in my digital Abbas Pasha Manuscript copy turned up a single mention. This reference is on page 346. A man who appears to be from the southern Shammar (the Shammar at Jabal/Mount Shammar in Central Arabia) speaks of his Saqlawiyah mare: “and we covered her at our place by al Rishan Sharabi of the horses of Beni Wahab, the horse of al Fawadi of Shammar al Jazirah.” Shammar al Jazirah is a reference to the Northern Shammar, the Jazirah (island) is Northern Mesopotamia between Euphrates and Tigris). The Beni Wahab are a ‘Anazah tribal confederation that includes the Wuld ‘Ali tribe among others. The Arabic i/y (ya’) letter is often mistaken for a b (ba’) in handwritten texts, because the only difference between these is a dot under the letter. The b has one dot, while the i/y has two. So I searched for “Ribshan” and “Rabshan” as well. The latter was more…
Just sharing it here for easy reference, given my lease of a direct paternal grandson of Siglavy Bagdady VI (b. 1949), an Al Khamsa horse since 2009.
It is nice to repost this Crabbet video every ten years or so.
This photo of Subanet Jabbar SDA caught my attention on Bev Davison’s social media feed. She bred him and still owns him. He is the sire of my Kinza Al Arab. Note the depth of the jowls, the thickness of the tail bone and the width between the eyes. Also the flat bone and the long withers.
Balia (top) was an asil daughter of Kuhaylan Zaid, bred in 1936 at Babolna in Hungary. Bona (bottom), bred in 1937 was another daughter of his, from the same damline of Bent El Arab. Both later went to Poland.
Lyman pointed to me the similarity between my young stallion Shaman Al Arab and his multiple ancestor Julep (Gulastra x Aziza) Shaman has seven close crosses to Julep. Putting side by side the photo of Julep that was recently shared online, and the last good photo I have of Shaman at three years old in August last year, the resemblance is striking. Lyman tells me that the likeness is more striking now that Shaman looks more mature, fuller, with bigger withers and a stronger butt. I was unable to see beyond the coat color difference but Lyman has a good eye.
A search for horses of the strain of Sa’dan (Sa’adan/Saadan) Tuqan in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, using two different spellings of the name, Tuqan and Tawqan, yielded three mentions, all pertaining to the same horse, which was owned by the Mutayr: The first is on page 439 and occurs in a testimony by Shafi ibn Fuhayd al-Sayfi, the leader of the Central Arabian Bedouin tribe of Subay’, about a mare from the strain of Ubayyan Sharrak that was known after his name (Ubayyan al-Sayfi): “And we mated the safra, Hosayna, to a Kuhaylan Saada Tuqan, the horse of Ibn Hobaylis of al Qublan of Muteer“. The second is on page 440, in the same account, about a close relative of the first mare being bred to the same horse: “We mated the safra Al Dughayim to Kuhaylan Saada Tuqan, the horse of Ibn Hobaylis of al Qublan of Muteer”. The third account is on page 620. It is by Sharyan ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Dawish, of the leading Dawish clan of the Mutayr tribe, about a mare of the Rabdan strain, which this clan bred: “And we mated the shaqra a second time to Sa’adan, whose mother is Saada Tawqan, the…
This is a recent shot of Shaykh Al Arab, courtesy of Lyman Doyle whose father Terry owns him. Shaykh is four years old this spring, so he hasn’t fully developed yet. He will become drier and more refined as he ages, and will reach full maturity around eight or even nine years old. Here’s why: he has a short back, a strong coupling, a high tail set, a round croup, a thick tail bone, a long, strong hip, a strong loin, a muscled gaskin, a deep abdomen, a round barrel, ribs well sprung, a deep girth, long withers extending well into his back, a sloped shoulder, a broad chest, a long forearm, a short cannon bone, flat bone, and a naturally shiny coat. Overall, he exudes balance, harmony, tightness, condensed power, like a compressed spring, all parts fit together, nothing is loose, nothing is too much or too little. That’s how I think Arabian stallions should look like. At least that’s how I like them, and how I will keep advocating for them tirelessly. The old-fashioned type (I balk at the meaning the term “classic type” has taken in today’s Arabian horse circles, so I say old-fashioned). It’s the type…
Two years ago, Judi gave me a digital copy of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. It’s been a game changer to work with, because it allowed me to search for a specific person’s name, or for a particular strain, across multiple recorded accounts by Bedouin breeders over hundreds of pages. Not only does it save time, but the large number of horses mentioned (in the thousands) also gives a bird-eye’s view of a certain topic, a horse, strain, making more in-depth analysis possible. For example, a search for “India” will result in 21 mentions. In the context of the Manuscript, looking for “India” will give you an idea of the stallions and colts that went there for racing, their strains, breeders, buyers, approximate area of origin, etc. Patterns emerge. More on some interesting findings later.
I am very happy to have obtained the 2001 stallion Dahhmany Bagdady (two photos of him below, from a few years ago) on a permanent lease from his owner, through the good offices of his breeder Laszlo Kiraly. He arrived in France this past Friday, to Arnault Decroix’s stud farm, together with an older bay mare Laszlo also gave me. More on her later. I will share pictures of both soon. Dahhmany Badgdady, born in 2001, is the only asil son of the 1977 Sweden-born stallion Wahhabit. He has at least three breeding age sons across Europe, in Hungary, Switzerland and Lithuania. His sire Wahhabit had the distinction of being the only asil son of the 1949 (!) Babolna stallion Siglavy Bagdady VI (photos below). Wahhabit’s dam was a Kuhaylan Krush from the line of the Davenport mare *Werdi. Notice the resemblance between the grandson Dahhmany Bagdady (first photo on this page) and the grandfather Siglavy Bagdady VI (the photo just above). Siglavy Bagdady VI was the son of Siglavy Bagdady V (b. 1939), also a head stallion at Babolna, out of a daughter of Kuhaylan Haifi I (himself the son the famous desert-bred tallion Kuhaylan Haifi). Two photos SB…
Bev Davison recently posted these two photos of Bint Sierra SS (Parnell x Sierra Summersong), one of her previous mares. I had never seen photos of her before. She is of Babson and Doyle lines. She is the paternal granddam of Subanet Jabbar SDA, the sire of my Kinza. You can see the resemblance between him in the third photo and his granddam in the second. All photos from Bev Davison That’s how I like them, coat color included.
I am really liking how the new little filly is shaping up. She is beautiful, three circle, and solidly built. Too early too tell if she features some of the damline’s characteristic legginess and dryness, which I like. What is certain is that Monologue fixed the dam’s short and droopy croup, at least in part, and brought more width between the eyes, and a larger and lower-set eye. The shoulder-girth complex is still there (thanks to her maternal grandsire Wadd), and so is the short back. I decided to use Monologue a lot more. He was bred to Wadha two weeks ago. Jamr was bred to Miracle on the same day. Photos from Monica Respet’s visit to the horses last weekend.
The superb Larabi, born in 1966 and a Jilfan Dhawi by strain, was together with the Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Guercif (b. 1961), one of the last asil stallions from Algeria. The small group of asil Arabians from the Algerian state stud of Tiaret were, in my opinion, the best in the world. As a group, they were better than the Straight Egyptians in my view. Too bad only one stallion and one mare are now left. Below, a photo of Larabi’s asil daughter Bakra (x Guemria by Zilzal), from the collection of Jean-Claude Rajot.
The article was written by Fouad Abaza, the Director-General of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt and a Governor of the Arab Horse Society of England. It includes a description by Doris Walter of her 1934 visit to Kafr Farouk, as well as a description of T.G.B. Trouncer’s Sidi Salem stud. There are a few studs of pure-bred Arabs, of which we may mention those of:— His Royal Majesty the King. The Royal Agricultural Society. H. E. Mahmoud Attribi Pasha. Said Bey Samaha. Mr. Trouncer. Daira Lotfallah Pasha. Some members of the the El Tahaoui family in the Sharkia Province, and a few other individuals, also own mares obtained from the above-mentioned studs. The mares in the first five studs are nearly all the descendants of Abbas Pasha I famous horses, and all these studs maintain their own stallions. Nearly all the other breeders all over the country depend entirely on the Royal Agricultural Society’s stallions, which are distributed in twenty-five districts in Egypt. The stallions were distributed as follows (p. 107): Doris Walter records her impressions of some of the horses at Kafr Farouk: Prominent among the mares in the paddocks was FARIDA, mother of BALANCE, and all those…
From time to time, I see nice photos posted on Facebook, which I feel deserve to be featured here. This is one of them. I don’t know the source or the photographer. That stare..
Very proud of the lastborn Al Arab filly. Both Monologue CF and Barakah Al Arab did a wonderful job there. Jeanne Craver said that the filly looked like a camel — in a good way. I so agree.
I saw Judi last week at a Pyramid Society even in Morocco, where she spoke about her long and successful career as a breeder, and asked me to speak about the consistency of Arabian horse type over the past 500 years, based on Western and (the very few) Arab first hand accounts. It was a nice event hosted by Pyramid Society Morocco’s president Youcef Laghzal and his group of breeders. Judi and I reminisced about the time we spent at Joe Ferriss’ working on the book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha” in November 2022. Sharon Ferriss took the photo, and Joe did the captions — not me. I do not remember what he was talking about, but it was certainly interesting, like everything Joe says.
This precious photo of Julep (Gulastra x *Aziza by Gamil Manial) popped up on my Facebook feed this morning, posted by Julie Koch, who indicated that it was “a photo Joan Yerkie took of Julep at Cedardell Arabians in the 1960s”. It is dated Aug 1966. Julep is in at least three horses I have owned and in two I bred and still own. He is one of the treasures of US asil breeding.
The Hamdani Simri stallion Monologue CF (photos below, earlier and in 2022) has been producing extremely well over the years. His son Haykal Al Arab (x CSA Baroness Lady), now gelded, is perhaps the showiest colt I have bred so far (video below as a colt). My recollection from seeing Monologue’s other son Inaam Al Krush at Jackson Hensley’s several years ago is that of an outstanding horse (more photos here by current owner Kim Davis). A third son, now gelded, Malaak Al Talj (x Mi Blue Angel), at Laura Fitz, has also been getting a lot of compliments. Photos below at a young age, then as a long yearling. There is also Kandahar TW, which I don’t recall having seen, and Darlene Summers’ Rose Petal Rhapsody (x Divine Little Rose), now with Aida Schreiber. And now my own little Badiah Al Arab (x Barakah Al Arab), born April 2024. Pity that there are not more of his progeny around, because Monologue is an excellent representative of Arabian horse true type. I can say that because the credit for breeding him goes to Charles and Jeanne Craver. I am just lucky enough to co-own him with Darlene Summers. I wish…
Jeanne Craver tells me that she “love[s] “the head shape, and the low set eye, nicely cut ears, very close coupling, love[s] the angles of the shoulder and hip”.
This was once one of the largest and nicest groups of Al Khamsa Arabians in North America.
This morning Barakah delivered a strong, healthy filly by Monologue CF. Mother and baby are doing well. I feel so blessed, and I pray things continue to go well. The vet is coming this afternoon for an IgG blood test and plasma transfusion. This filly is special because she is the first third-generation foal from my breeding, after her dam Barakah Al Arab (b. 2016) and her maternal grandsire Wadd Al Arab (b. 2011). Wadd was the son of my first mare in the USA, Wisteria CF. She is also the outcome of a sustained effort to preserve the rare female line to *Nufoud, Albert Harris’ imported desert-bred mare. This effort is one of the many bright spots in the preservation campaign Al Khamsa launched in 2010, around the AK Preservation Task Force. This filly is the the third one I have bred from that strain in eight years. I also retain her dam and her dam’s half-sister. *Nufoud was named after the Great Nafud sand desert of Central Arabia, so it’s only fitting that her eighth-generation descendant in the female line be named Badiah. Badiah in Arabic means both “nomads” as a collective (a synonym for bedu, the Bedouin,…
My friend Muhammad Ma’sum al-Agub recently acquired a promising young Saqlawi Marzakani stallion of Shammar lines. His sire is my black Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion Mushahhar, his dam is a daughter of Zayn al-Khayl. Notice the short back, the long hip, the sloped shoulder, the round barrel, the strong coupling, the long neck, and the (moderately) large, black eye.
A nice article by Gudrun in her magazine “In the Focus” on this important Central European asil sire.
Jeannie Lieb recently provided an update on social media on the Davenport Hadban horses that she helped put in Al Khamsa preservation homes in 2010. Quoting her: Updated March 2024: 1998gg RL Thunder Cloud (DDA Tyreb CF x DDA Hadba) Owner: Kathryn Toth, OH 2003gm RL Shelby Girl (RL Thunder Cloud x DDA Shalaana) Owner: Jessie Heinrick, OR 2011gm Wordah CW(RL Thunder Cloud x RL Shelby Girl) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2013gs Zubayr CW (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Shelby Girl) Owner: Karlee Mason, Alberta Canada 2006cm RL Bilquis (DDA Rasan x RL Boomerette) Owner Jeannie Lieb, MA 2013cm Suri Al Sahra (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Bilquis) Owner: KathyWerking, KY 2010bm Zuraidah Assahara (RL Thunder Cloud x RL Kadbat Abril) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2018bm Free Reins Tahir’s Lotus (pending)(Wahid CW x Zuraidah Assahara) Owner: Hannah Logan, Alberta Canada 2010cm Zubaidah Assahara (Rl Thunder Cloud x R L Angel Girl) Owner: Hazaim Alwair, NC 2020bs Nawaf Alasil
These two figures from the seminal paper Remer et al, 2022 on Y-DNA in Arabian horses will become the subject of much attention in the coming years.
Severine Vesco and I were doing some background work on the Tunisian sire lines today. We found that the Volume IV of the Tunisian Studbook (1977-8-9) had the strains of the horses assigned in the good-old-fashioned European way… by using the strain of the tail male ancestor. The stallion Rial, for instance, was given the strain of “Seglaoui” while he was actually a Jilfan Dhawi, because his dam traces to Wadha. Rial goes back to the Tahawi-bred stallion Nasr in the sire line (Rial-Esmet Ali-Hazil-Fadjer-Nasr), and Nasr was a Saqlawi or “Seglaoui”, hence the mistake. Similarly, the stallion Soufyan, was given the strain “Hamadani El-Samri”. That’s the strain of the desert-bred stallion in his sire line, a horse called Dynamite II. Dynamite II was himself recorded as being “de race Hamdani Semri”. The error becomes even more conspicuous when you notice that Soufyan and Sibawaih, the stallion right above him on the screenshot above, are assinged the same strain while tracing to two different dam lines, one to Mansourah, and the other to Emtayra. Finally, the strain of the fourth stallion on the screenshot, Raoui, a head sire at the government stud, is listed as Hamdani. However, Raoui’s tail female…
This morning my neurons’s synapses made a long-overdue connection concerning the strain of the 1899 grey desert-bed stallion Ibrahim, who was famous for siring Skowronek. Ibrahim’s recorded strain is “Saklawi Faliti” (cf. the comprehensive list of sources of information on him on allbreedpedigree.com). There has been much speculation about this Faliti qualifier, some of it involving a fake pedigree of Skowronek drawn by Lady Wentworth (but that’s not the point of this article). This morning it occurred to me that the Faliti were none other but the leading clan of the Frijah section of the Ruwalah Bedouin tribe (see here for example, spelled Fliti). That Ibrahim was a Saqlawi by strain makes this inference very plausible. That’s because the Frijah were the wellspring of the Saqlawi Jadran and Saqlawi Ubayran strains, as shown in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. The Qidran (or Gidran, hence Jidran and Jadran) are one of the ten or so subsections of the Frijah. The Ubayrat are another section of the Frijah. One of the many, many Saqlawi mares Abbas Pasha acquired from the Frijah was known by his agents as the “Mare of Yahya al-Faliti”, after the Bedouin leader of the Frijah Ruwalah (cf. the Abbas Pasha…
The striking1985 chestnut Kuhaylan al-Ajuz stallion Samir (Sibawaih x Chajaret Eddour by Esmet Ali) was the other chief sire at the government stud of Sidi Thabet, together with Dynamite III. I saw him at Sidi Thabet in 2005. He reminded me of Regency CF at the time. Photo from the social media account of the Tunisian national federation of horse breeders.
For a long time there was a shadow hanging over the lineage of the senior Tunisian stallion Dynamite III (Esmet Ali x Nachoua by Madani), photo below. He and his many sons (Akermi, Safouen, Bardo, Halim, Touwayssane, etc), were accomplished racehorses of the first order and sires of racehorses in Tunisia and beyond. They were so fast, won so many races, were so powerfully built that some doubted their origins and felt that there must be some English Thoroughbred blood in their male line. As part of a broader project on sire lines, some of us — names are withheld for now — decided to compare the racing sire line of Dynamite III with the non-racing, preservation-focused, sire line of Jahir (Iricho x Ciada by Ghalbane OA and Malika by Masbout OA and Themis by Bango OA), photo below. On paper, the two lines are closely related. Dynamite III was the son of Esmet Ali (bred by Admiral Cordonnier), son of Hazil, son of Fadjer, son of the famous RAS stallion Nasr of the Tahawis). Jahir was the son of Iricho (bred by the same Admiral Cordonnier), son of David, son of Hazil, son of Fadjer, son of Nasr. So…
This iconic photo of the 1967 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres), taken by Anita Westfall, was republished on Facebook recently, and received many “likes” and nostalgic recollections. The late Charles Craver holding the bridle.
لاحظ حجم واستدارة الحنك ودقة الخشوم ورقتها وهي من صفات العتق في الخيل ولهذه الصفات تأثير مباشر على شكل الرأس فيصير مثلثًا وهذا مستحب أما الرأس المستطيل فهو مستقبح لما يدل عليه ضمنًا من ضعف الحنك أو غلاظة الخشوم أو الاثنين معًا
This blog entry features a conversation that recently took place on Facebook between two friends of mine, both bold and provovative thinkers (and doers). Yassine Jamali is a farmer and occasional horse and dog breeder who lives in Morocco. He recently authored an important book on the past, present and future of Barb horses. Severine Vesco is part of the Beni Sakr breeding program in France, which breeds solid, authentic Arabian horses of North African lines for utilitarian purposes. Her stud is one of the very few to have incorporated the bloodlines of the Syrian imports to France. They are both active on Facebook, where they often engage in substantive debates, sparring occasionally and agreeing some times. I translated and lightly edited an excerpt of this conversation, which was triggered by Severine (S) sharing a video which some “online content creator” had posted of a short 1km (0.6 miles) race somewhere in the Middle East, and Yassine (Y) reacting to that. Y: From 20,000 meter races to 1,000 meter races. I mean ,it’s a nice race, but it’s against the nature of these horses. And it speaks volumes about the lack of understanding of tradition, and the influence of Western…
I don’t know if these two photos of the desert-bred mare *Ghalia was published before. According to Al Khamsa’s online roster, *Ghalia was a 1956 bay Hamdaniyah bred by the Sa’ud Royal Stud at Khafs Daghrah, Saudi Arabia. She was purchased in 1958 and imported to the USA in 1961 by Donald A. Holm. She was by Murjan, a Hamdani of Sa’ud and out of Falhah, a Hamdaniyah of Sa’ud. She appears to have been registered by the International Arabian Horse Registry of North America Stud Book (Vol. 1), rather than the AHA. Pictured here in old age, but still looks like a nice mare, noble, and dry, with an intelligent and sweet look in her eyes, reminiscent of the best desert-bred mares I saw in Syria in the 1990s.
The handsome Dahman stallion Ibn Mahrouf, bred by the Babson Farm stood for breeding at the Sheets in the 1980s, when this picture was taken.
Not sure I published this one before. It’s from the collection of Billy Sheets, which he left me.
This blog article quotes the famous and very funny exchange between Lawrence of Arabia and his proofreaders during the process of preparing his Seven Pillars of Wisdom for publication in 1926:
The other day Moira Walker pointed me to the book “A trip to Baghdad: With an Appendix on the Arab Horse” written in 1908 by an Indian senior official, Nawab Hamid Yar Jung. He traveled with his father, Colonel Nawab Afsur-ul-Mulk, and another man, Mahboob Ali Beg, to Baghdad in March 1907, and its vicinity, in search for Arabian horses. The following is the account of his purchase of a chestnut stallion, Faleh: “My father had seen almost all the horses in Baghdad and had a great desire to purchase a chestnutof the Nejd breed; but the owner of the horse, who was a wealthy Arab, absolutely refused to part withit, saying: “You can take any horse you like from this herd, but I cannot allow any of the SaglaviJadrania breed to go out of the land, which breed is especially brought up in our clan, and the rest ofthe Arabs have not got this kind.” When my father saw that nothing could persuade the Arab to give up the horse, he could do no better than ask Huzrut Syed Mahamood Effendi (son of Huzrut Nakeeb-ul-Ashraf), who is the religious Preceptor of all the Arab tribes and is held in…
The latest edition of the Swift Runner newsletter has an article by Betty Finke about the Crabbet foundation stallion Mesaoud being the most influential Arabian stallion of all time, an observation I agree with. The article also includes a nod to the new pedigree of Mesaoud on the sire line, which was published in the new book: “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha”. This new pedigree, stemming from the re-discovery of the Abbas Pasha Sale Catalogue of 1860, and other original Arabic documents from the time of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sharif, traces Mesaoud’s sireline all the way back to Ghadir, the foundation stallion of Abbas Pasha.
I am awaiting three foals this year, all representing the second generation of my breeding. Kinza Al Arab (to Bashir Al Dirri), Barakah Al Arab (to Monologue CF) are due in April, and Mayassa Al Arab (to Anecdote CF) in the fall. Fingers crossed after Wadha’s filly’s tragedy last year. In my fantasy world, there are thirty Al Arab foals a year, not three, from my mares and the mares I would like to have.
A picture of Monica Respet’s JDA Husaana as a younger mare. Husaana, born in 1999, has one of the nicest old pedigrees on a US Arabian horse, with a rare tail female to *Urfah and plenty of old American blood. Her line was bred by Mrs. Ott and her daughter Jane Ott for three generations. Husaana, was bred by Pam Baker, and has one daughter born in 2004.
Facebook has these superb photos from the ancient Sabean capital city of Marib in Yemen in 1987. These were likely taken by archaeologists working on excavating the temple of South Arabian god Ilmuqah (known locally as Mahram Balqis, Balqis being the Islamic name for the Queen of Sheba). No credit were given.
The last Al Khamsa mare of the Ferida lineage, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, was put down last month. I had given CSA Baroness Lady to Sue Moss in 2023 as a pet companion to one of her horses. She leaves behind a 2015 bay gelding, Haykal Al Arab (registered name Lucero De Santana, why? long story), who now belongs to Sue Moss. I also have four frozen embryos from her, at least one of which I hope is a female so that the line can keep going. Below, Lady and little Haykal.
Jeanne is the mother of Al Khamsa. Her involvement with the organization she helped found, which she documented in a recent post on Facebook, reads like a history of Al Khamsa of sorts: I was graduating from college, and realized that I could now fulfill a dream and have a horse. Fell in love with Arabians by seeing one presented at a clinic. Read the Ott articles in Rider and Driver, and wrote to them. I got a gracious reply from Mrs. Ott, who told me to get educated by visiting Walter Schimanski, HB Stubbs, and Charles Craver. All three were wonderful to newcomers. I fell for Lothar at Walter’s, and will always remember the special quality of the *Al Hamdaniah daughter, Al-Ka-Han. Skin like oiled silk, which gleamed. Walter sold me a mare bred by “Chubb” Stubbs named Fatimah, by Julyan x Fadaa. And I bought another Julyan daughter out of Sirrulla, named Sirrulya. Leased Sirrulla, and she was a real treasure. And of course, Charles and I fell in love and got married. Before that, Jane Ott had stopped publishing annual updates to the Blue Catalog, and the “Blue” community was losing contact. So like the idiot kid I…