Author Archives: cmkarabians

The Descent of Anazeh (Part I)

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Leopard and Linden Tree

by Michael Bowling
Copyright 1979 by MICHAEL BOWLING
used by permission
published in Arabian Horse World July 1979
Photos from the Carol Mulder collection (unless otherwise noted)

ANAZEH 235 — a painting by George Ford Morris (courtesy Lois M. Berry).

ANAZEH 235 as the camera caught him — a bit of *Naomi’s influence shows in the head, but this is a handsome horse.

To begin by clarifying one point–this is being put together under the heading of “the descent of ANAZEH” rather than “the genetic influence of *Leopard” because we know ANAZEH has descent (within the limits of reliability of studbook records, anyway, but that’s another whole story). At this late date and considering some of the pedigree contortions the *Leopard descendants went through in the early generations, I am not at all sure whether poor old *Leopard has any genetic influence at all. I do know that I have no idea how to go about computing it. (More of this later, when the subject of early redoubling of the *Leopard line comes along.)

Randolph Huntington’s pure Arab breeding program came about as a secondary project, in connection with his attempts to produce an American trotting breed–this story is gone into in the *Leopard and *Linden Tree historical review in this issue, in some detail. *Leopard was the origin and the inspiration for the purebred section of the Huntington stud–if he had not come along, Huntington would never have gotten a start in Arabs, and so *Leopard is essential to the story in that light. From a breeding standpoint Huntington did not make as much use of *Leopard, however, as he might have. Huntington was the first American Arabian breeder, which I suppose makes it inevitable that he was the first American Arabian breeder to be a proponent of intense inbreeding; this notion has been part of the breed’s history here from its beginnings.

What made things awkward from *Leopard’s point of view was that Huntington became captivated by the notion of the “Maneghi racing strain” and the desirability of inbreeding this type. *Leopard was a Seglawi Jedran–so he became a distraction from the Huntington program almost as soon as he inspired it; thus apparently, the fact that *Leopard was bred to “his” mare *Naomi 230 just once, leaving just one offspring in the program, his son ANAZEH, the object of this narrative. Ironically, *Naomi herself was of mixed strains, not inbred (brother x sister) Maneghi as was thought at that time, since she was sired by a Kehilan stallion. Further, *KISMET and MAIDAN, two supposed Maneghis which played important pedigree role in the Vidal program which Huntington bought out, turn out to have had no recorded strains at all–thus making it difficult if not impossible to make much sense out of the claims of the *Naomi family to represent “inbred Maneghi type” at least until Huntington got through with it. He did inbreed it to startling degrees.


Even though not inbred, *Naomi was a very prepotent broodmare; her outcrossed offspring *NAZLI and ANAZEH resembled each other rather strongly, and ANAZEH looked even more like *NAZLI’s son *NIMR (because both stallions were better looking than the mare). Bred to her grandson *NIMR, *Naomi produced Khaled, another good-looking horse, though less attractive about the head than his sire.

Naaman 116 ch. st. foaled 1896 by Anazeh and out of *Nazli, bred by Huntington.


NAAMAN (Anazeh x *Nazli) is downright beautiful in the one photo of him which survives, but with further inbreeding things got rather less pleasing — there are not many photos available from which to judge the intensely-bred results of this line, but they do seem to have gotten rather coarse and angular, with a high frequency of lopped ears, as things went on. Some of these inbreds outcrossed very satisfactorily indeed, with a number of quite distinguished early representatives, but I can’t help speculating as to what might have happened had a) Huntington kept on with his program a little longer (the most extreme inbreds were produced by programs founded on his stock) or b) *Leopard (or somebody else not closely related to *Naomi) been used more freely in the early days, giving a broader genetic base to continue operations on.

Since we are dealing not with what could have happened, but with the story as it actually took place, we must refer to the Studbook rather than to my imagination. ANAZEH is credited with just seven get in Volume V, but of course there is no way of knowing how many of his offspring went unregistered; his youngest listed foal was a 1900 model, eight years before the Registry was founded, and no great deal of industry was devoted to tracking down “lost” pre-Registry purebreds. The first point to note is that neither of his outcross sons left descent; thus all *Leopard’s immediate descendants were inbred back to the prepotent *Naomi, a fact which had to militate against his visible influence. ANAZEH’s first listed foal, out of his dam *Naomi, was also lost to the breed. The other four get of ANAZEH all bred on to one degree or another.

It would appear that the Pennsylvanian Herman Hoopes bought the full siblings, NAARAH 256 and the handsome NAAMAN 116, around 1900, and presumably from Huntington. His breeding program, based on this pair and cooperating with Huntington’s Maneghi project (since he bred to *Nimr in 1903 and Khaled in 1904), continued at least until 1911 and the production of NIMNAARAH 129, the only animal of this branch to leave descent and a “sure enough” inbred Maneghi; rather than try to explain the interactions here I refer the reader to her pedigree.

NIMNAARAH 129
Chestnut mare 1911		 Naaman 116 Anazeh 235 *Leopard 233 DB
DB
*Naomi 230 Yataghan GSB DB
Haidee GSB DB
*Nazli 231 Maidan GSB DB
DB
*Naomi 230 Yataghan GSB DB
Haidee GSB DB
Nimrette 128 *Nimr 232 *Kismet 23 DB
DB
*Nazli 231 Maidan GSB
*Naomi 230
Naarah 256 Anazeh 235 *Leopard 233
*Naomi 230
*Nazli 231 Maidan GSB
*Naomi 230
DB: Desertbred
GSB: General Stud Book, England
NIMNAARAH’s descendants are all through her outcrossed daughter by *HOURAN 26 DB.

NIMNAARAH, fortunately for the sanity of pedigree readers, passed into the hands of Hamilton Carhartt of South Carolina, who bred four outcross foals (at least that many–note that only fillies are registered, suggesting the possibility of colts which may have dropped out of sight) from her by the desertbred *HOURAN, a Kehilan Tamri imported by Davenport. The next step is uncertain, but it appear that two NIMNAARAH daughters, HAARANMIN 451 and BINT NIMNAARAH 452, went to Traveler’s Rest with General J. M. Dickinson for a brief stay, during which BINT NIMNAARAH was bred to Dickinson’s ANTEZ. At any rate in 1932 both foaled fillies for John A. George of Indiana–BINT NIMNAARAH produced the ANTEZ daughter YDRISSA 947, and HARAANMIN produced the RIBAL daughter OURIDA 946, RIBAL being the George herd sire at that time.

The George program does not seem to have existed very long; the last foals for which he is listed as breeder came in 1935. HAARANMIN produced two more fillies and a colt for the program before leaving for Texas, where she produced in the Walter Gillis breeding group. This program got off to a good start and went along for several generations but seems to have left descent among modern registered stock in only a few collateral lines.

The George-bred HAARANMINs were luckier, and indeed count some of the breed’s most influential horses among their number. Her son YOHANAH 1174 is quickly dismissed as he has no registered get; daughter MINA 1097 went to New York and produced three sons, two of which were used for breeding. HAARANMIN’s second daughter BERLE 1021 by RIBAL, and thus full sister to OURIDA, produced a total of 14 foals in Indiana, Maryland and Pennsylvania by a variety of sires. Donald Shutz of North Manchester, In, recalls BERLE as “one of the taller mares” of her time and of good type, comparable to her sister OURIDA.

I am most familiar with the members of this family which entered the “Double R” program, including my favorite of the lot, the splendid mare AMYR DOREEN 26232. This branch carried the *Leopard descent to England and Australia, for BAZZA 7306 (Zab x Berris) was exported to England’s Briery Close Arabian Stud by Major and Mrs. T. W. I. Hedley, where she produced the filly BAZZAMA by AL-MARAH RADAMES. BAZZAMA is a highly-regarded matron for the Hedleys, and BAZZA’s son SNOW KING by the former head sire at Briery Close, named GENERAL GRANT oddly enough, is in Australia.

After YDRISSA, BINT NIMNAARAH produced IRMA 1022, blood sister to OURIDA and BERLE but rather less lucky in the stud; she produced three foals, including BAREK 1482 whose name one used to hear once in a while, but this line did not breed on any further. BINT NIMNAARAH’s last registered foal, BINT NARMA 1094, did a bit better; her first foal was SHARIK 1784, the noted “high school” horse exhibited by Ward Wells of Oregon. BINT NARMA also produced three redoubled-*Leopard-line foals by ALLA AMARWARD 1140; two of these bred on, one being dam of, among others, the superb Abu Farwa daughter ALLA FARWA 13333 and the “ultimate show gelding” RIBAL DEYR 14400. The gelding is not doing much to carry on the *Leopard descent genetically (except of course to promote his collateral relatives), but he is quite a horse.

[Photos from the Gina Manion collection appearing with this article included: Ourida and Ydrissa, Rafissa, and the “*Leopard descendant in costume class.”]

That sums up the NIMNAARAH branch of descent from ANAZEH–except for most of it. OURIDA and YDRISSA were the foundation mare of the Manions’ program, which celebrated its 40th year of Arabian breeding in 1976, and this group of *Leopard-descended Arabians has been very influential indeed.

Excerpted from The Horse & His Master

Articles of History:

Cover Story

Excerpted from THE HORSE & HIS MASTER

by Vere D. Hunt, Esq.., London, 1859The Khamsat Vol 8, Num 1, Feb. 1991  

…the good points which on the other hand are to be looked for, are those considered desirable in all horses that are subject to shocks, i.e. ‘concussion of the gallop.’ Calf knees are generally bad in the race-horse, and are very apt to be transmitted, whilst the opposite form is also perpetuated, but is not nearly so disadvantageous. Such are the general considerations bearing on the soundness limb. That of the ‘wind’ is no less important. ‘Broken-winded’ mares seldom breed, and they are therefore out of the question, if for no other reason; but no one would risk the recurrence of this disease, even if he could get such a mare stinted. ‘Roaring’ is a much vexed question, which is by no means theoretically settled among our chief veterinary authorities, nor practically by our breeders; every year however it becomes more and more frequent and important a marked evidence of degeneracy in our horses, and the risk of reproduction is too great to run by breeding from a ‘roarer.'”

Lastly, the temper is of the utmost importance, by which must be understood not that gentleness at grass, which may lead the breeder’s family to pet the mare, but such a temper as will serve for the purposes of her rider, and will answer to the stimulus of the voice, whip, or spur. A craven or rogue is not to be thought of as the “mother of a family.”

Blood is so much a matter of taste, that I say nothing of its choice, nor will I quote the able opinions of others in reference to it in brood mares; but if the breeders of general horses agree with the indisputable theory that teaches purity of blood in a parent has a preponderating influence in transmitting the qualities of the parent to progency, and that the male exercises a greater influence than the female in a similar capacity, then I say nothing short of an ignorant bigotry can condemn the introduction of Arab sires.

I extract the following letter from the “Field,” January 8th, 1859:

HORSE BREEDING – THE ARAB

    “Sir, Those of your correspondents who despise Arabs cannot know much about the animal they condemn. One says the Arab is ‘devoid of excellence for the turf, being neither swift nor enduring.‘ Another complains of ‘having to shoot two Arabs for broken wind, the brutes in question having been bred, the one in France and the other in Germany!” Another writer pictures the misery of a luckless wight doomed to ride an ‘Arab ten miles to cover, hunt him all day, and conclude with a trot home twenty-five miles,’ — a weary pilgrimage, in which the pretty Arab would break his own knees and his master’s heart;’ whilst’ the English hunter in a like predicment would trot and walk along with his head in the air and gay to the stable door.’ In such a plight, rather than encounter such a heartrending amount of knee-smashing, I would suggest a deviation from her Majesty’s highway, and finish off with the larking process of arrival at the stable door and see next morning which horse showed the cleanest manger and the coolest legs, the English hunter or the Arab jade!

    “It would take up too much time to answer the anti-Arabites in detail but perhaps you will accept my humble effort to disabuse the minds of the uninitiated as to what is meant by the term Arab, where the genuine article is to be found, and how to be procured.

    “Ali Bey, describes six different breeds of Arabians. The first, named the ‘Dgelfe,’ is found in Arabia Felix. They are rare at Damascus, but pretty common in the neighbourhood of Anaze. They are remarkable for speed and fire, yet mild as lambs; they support hunger and thirst for a long time; are of lofty stature, narrow in the chest, but deep in the girth, and long ears. A colt of this breed, at two years old, will cost in its own country 2000 turkish piastres.

    “The second breed, called ‘Seclaoni,‘ comes from the eastern part of the desert, resembles the ‘Anaze‘ in appearance, but is not quite so highly valued.

    “Next comes the ‘Mefki,’ handsome, though not so swift as the two former breeds, and more resembling the Andalusian in figure. they are very common about Damascus.

    “Then the ‘Savi‘ resembles the Mefki; and the fifth breed, called Fridi, is very common, but it is necessary to try them well, for they are often vicious, and do not possess the excellent qualities of the other breeds.

    “Sixth comes the ‘Nejdi,’ from the neighbourhood of Bussorah, and if they do not surpass, they at least equal the ‘Dgelfe, or Anaze, and Seclaoni.‘ Horses of this breed are little known at Damascus, and connoisseurs assert that they are incomparable; thus their value is arbitrary, and always exceeds 2000 piastres.

      “It is from the Anaze and the Nejdi, that the turf in India is chiefly supplied; and I doubt if ‘______’ has ever seen a specimen of either of those breeds, although his Turkish experience may have met with some of the inferior sorts, which of course are not of a stamp to find favor in a breeder’s eye.

    “If it be true that some English stallions have gone into Arabia, I cannot conceive a greater misfortune to befall the desert. Judging from the fruits of English crossing in the goverment studs in India, I should expect nothing but mischief to follow any similar attempts in Arabia.

    “I have elsewhere asserted my belief that ‘Arabs’ are, in proportion, naturally the largest limbed blood horses in creation; and looking at the ‘tobacco-pipe’ sort of legs now cultivated in England, I wonder what desert blood would gain by English contamination!

    “I have seen Arabs of such stature as to raise suspicions of their purity. I once possessed a colt myself that stood fifteen hands and an inch at three years old. He had the sterotyped assortment of eastern breeding; could stick his nose in a tumbler, and looked the gentleman all over; remarkably muscular, and as stately in his bearing as an autocrat; but his clean, flat, wiry legs, measuring eight inches round the shank below the knee, had nothing English in their composition. This was a pure Anaze Arab. His career of usefulness as a hunter or racer was cut short by his casting himself in his stall and dislocating his hip; but the Government gave me 150 Lb. for him on his three legs for stud purposes.”

The End

Rancho San Ignacio: A Look Back

Rancho San Ignacio: A Look Back

Copyright R.J.CADRANELL from Arabian Visions May-June 1997 Used by permission of RJ Cadranell    

        In reviewing Richard Pritzlaff’s life with Arabian horses and reading what he has written about them, several themes come out again and again. This simplifies things for a writer: include most of them and the story of the Arabians at Rancho San Ignacio will have been told.

        Richard Pritzlaff knew horses all his life. Born in May of 1902 and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he grew up when horses were still a daily sight for most Americans. At about age 12 he studied riding under a German instructor who schooled him in a balanced seat; for the next 70 years this philosophy influenced his riding. Richard graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1924, and later lived in Hawaii and California, enjoying riding whenever he could.

        Richard made his first trip to New Mexico in 1922. He lived alone in a cabin high in the mountains, riding most days with the cowboys to check cattle. He enjoyed the country and the wildlife. Those halcyon days must have made a deep impression on him, for early in 1935 he jumped at the chance to return to New Mexico. A friend had a ranch for sale, elevation 7,600 feet, near Sapello. He was showing it to some prospective buyers from Texas, so Richard went along for the ride. After a few days there, Richard decided to buy it himself. He named it Rancho San Ignacio, after a village nearby.

        The original purchase was about 2,000 acres. Later, 19 smaller tracts were acquired, bringing the total holding to four square miles. The ranch was left pristine and rustic as much as possible. The house, barns, and sheds were built of adobe and native lumber. Hermit’s Peak made a dramatic background for many views across the ranch. The ranch remained a refuge from the noise and crowds of modern civilized life. If a man’s house is his castle, then Rancho San Ignacio was Richard Pritzlaff’s kingdom.

        In 1947 Richard’s paint gelding collided with a steer. He had to be carried back to the house, and decided it was time for a more agile mount. He had seen Arabians before, and through friends in Santa Fe had been introduced to writer and traveler Carl Raswan, then living on a ranch in Cedar Crest, New Mexico. Richard bought Muntez (Sartez x Munia) from Raswan, and asked his advice about finding a filly. *RASHAD IBN NAZEER     TIBOR THE GENERAL 1959 (Rabanna)         SIR WHITE MOON 1963 (*Bint Moniet el Nefous)             KUMONIET RSI 1974 (Kualoha)     GRETE 1960 (*Bint El Bataa)     SHIKO IBN SHEIKH 1961 (*Bint El Bataa)         UMI 1965 (*Bint Dahma)             NASZUMI RSI 1969 (Naszra)             KUUUMI RSI 1970 (Kualoha)             NASZEERA 1971 (Naszra)             TOMONIET RSI 1972 (Monieta RSI)                 RASMON NEFOUS RSI 1976 (Tatutwo RSI)             ALMONIET RSI 1975 (Monieta RSI)                 SONIETASSOLAR RSI 1978 (Sonieta)                 ALSONIA RSI 1979 (Sonieta)                 GHAMONARSI 1981 (Kumoniet RSI)                 TATUCENTA RSI 1983 (Tatu)                 MONIET HARMONY 1985 (Golondrina RSI)                 GOLMONIET RSI 1986 (Golondrina RSI)                 ALPERFO RSI 1988 (Perfecta RSI)     NASZRA 1962 (Rabanna)     HANNELE 1962 (*Bint El Bataa)     BINT EL SARIE 1962(*Bint Dahma)     RSI SARA 1964 (*Bint Dahma)     RSI RARA DELSOL 1964 ( *Bint Moniet el Nefous)     ALCIBIADES 1965 (*Bint Moniet el Nefous)         ALFISA RSI 1970 (*Bint Nefisa)         KUVAL 1971 (Kualoha)             GHAZIET RSI 1977 (Tatu)             TATUS TRIUMPH RSI 1981 (Tatutwo RSI)             ROBIN RSI 1982 (Naszumi RSI)             MONICENT RSI 1983 (Monieta RSI)             SARACENTA RSI 1983 (Sara Moniel)             SARACENCE RSI 1984 (Sara Moniel)         MNAHI RSI 1972 (Kualoha)             PINNACLE RSI 1982 (Naszare RSI)         NASZARE RSI 1972 (Naszra)         BLUE BOY 1973 (Tatu)             BLUEWHITE RSI 1987 (Naszare RSI)             EXCEED RSI 1987 (Sara Moniel)             BLUSARA RSI 1988 (Sara Moniel)     SOJA RSI 1966 (*Bint Dahma)     MONIETA RSI 1967 (*Bint Moniet el Nefous)     ORIN RSI 1967 (Naszra)         ORFISA RSI 1972 (*Bint Nefisa)     MONIETOR-RSI 1968 (*Bint Moniet el Nefous)         NASZRIETA 1973 (Naszra)         BALMONIET RSI 1974 (*Bint Nefisa)         DAHMONIET RSI 1974 (*Bint Dahma)         DINARA RSI 1975 (Kualoha)         PERFECTA RSI 1978 (Alfisa RSI)         KUALASHA RSI 1979 (Kualoha)     TATUTWO RSI 1968 (Tatu)     SONIETA 1973 (*Bint Moniet el Nefous)     DYMONIET RSI 1975 (*Bint Moniet el Nefous)         DYSZARA RSI 1979 (Naszare RSI)         DYTATU RSI 1982 (Tatutwo RSI)         MONIET UNITY 1985 (Naszare RSI)     RAJ RSI 1975 (Alfisa RSI)         MONIETSMELODY RSI 1980 (Monieta RSI)         RAJEER RSI 1982 (Monieta RSI)     GOLONDRINA RSI 1977 (Alfisa RSI)

*BINT NEFISA     ALFISA RSI 1970 (Alcibiades)         RAJ RSI 1975 (*Rashad ibn Nazeer)         GOLONDRINA RSI 1977 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)             MONIET HARMONY 1985 (Almoniet RSI)             GOLMONIET RSI 1986 (Almoniet RSI)         PERFECTA RSI 1978 (Monietor-RSI)             ALPERFO RSI 1988 (Almoniet RSI)     ORFISA RSI 1972 (Orin RSI)     BALMONIET RSI 1974 (Monietor-RSI)

RABANNA     KUALOHA 1955 (Ghadaf)         KUUUMI RSI 1970 (Umi)             KUALICE RSI 1976 (Ansata El Salim)         KUMONIET RSI 1974 (Sir White Moon)             GHAMONARSI 1981 (Almoniet RSI)         KUVAL 1971 (Alcibiades)         MNAHI RSI 1972 (Alcibiades)         DINARA RSI 1975 (Monietor-RSI)         KUALASHA RSI 1979 (Monietor-RSI)     JOHN DOYLE 1957 (Ghadaf)     TIBOR THE GENERAL 1959 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     NASZRA 1962 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         ORIN RSI 1967 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         NASZUMI RSI 1969 (Umi)             ROBIN RSI 1982 (Kuval)         NASZEERA 1971 (Umi)             SARA MONIEL 1977 (*Fakher el Din)                 SARACENTA RSI 1983 (Kuval)                 SARACENCE RSI 1984 (Kuval)                 EXCEED RSI 1987 (Blue Boy)                 BLUSARA RSI 1988 (Blue Boy)         NASZARE RSI 1972 (Alcibiades)             DYSZARA RSI 1979 (Dymoniet RSI)             PINNACLE RSI 1982 (Mnahi RSI)             MONIET UNITY 1985 (Dymoniet RSI)             BLUEWHITE RSI 1987 (Blue Boy)         NASZRIETA 1973 (Monietor-RSI)

*BINT MONIET EL NEFOUS     TATU 1962 (John Doyle)         TATUTWO RSI 1968 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)             RASMON NEFOUS RSI 1976 (Tomoniet RSI)             TATUS TRIUMPH RSI 1981 (Kuval)             DYTATU RSI 1982 (Dymoniet RSI)         BLUE BOY 1973 (Alcibiades)         GHAZIET RSI 1977 (Kuval)         TATUCENTA RSI 1983 (Almoniet RSI)     SIR WHITE MOON 1963 (Tibor the General)     RSI RARA DELSOL 1964 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     ALCIBIADES 1965 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     MONIETA RSI 1967 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         TOMONIET RSI 1972 (Umi)         ALMONIET RSI 1975 (Umi)         MONIETSMELODY RSI 1980 (Raj RSI)         RAJEER RSI 1982 (Raj RSI)         MONICENT RSI 1983 (Kuval)     MONIETOR-RSI 1968 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     SONIETA 1973 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         SONIETASSOLAR RSI 1978 (Almoniet RSI)         ALSONIA RSI 1979 (Almoniet RSI)     DYMONIET RSI 1975 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)

*BINT DAHMA     BINT EL SARIE 1962 ( *Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     RSI SARA 1964 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         DAHSARA RSI 1976 (Ansata El Salim)     UMI 1965 (Shiko Ibn Sheikh)     SOJA RSI 1966 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         CIBOLA RSI 1970 (Ansata El Salim)     DAHMONIET RSI 1974 (Monietor-RSI)

*BINT EL BATAA     GRETE 1960 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)         CHEV-RSI 1968 (John Doyle)     SHIKO IBN SHEIKH 1961 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     HANNELE 1962 (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer)     NASZALA 1968 (Bel Gordas)     SABATAA RSI 1973 (Ansata El Salim)         Raswan recommended that Richard buy Rabanna, bred by Delma Gallaher in California. The Gallahers had purchased her sire, Rasik (*Nasik x *Rasima), from the Kellogg Ranch. Rabanna’s dam was Banna (*Nasr x Baribeh), bred by J.M. Dickinson. Richard bought Rabanna at age six months in 1947, without even having seen a photograph of her.

        In the early 1950s, Carl Raswan lived at Rancho San Ignacio. This was before the breeding program got started, but he visited later and continued to correspond. Over the years Richard also served as a patron to Raswan, helping to make it possible for him to complete and publish The Arab and His Horse and later the Raswan Index.

        When it came time to breed Rabanna, Richard turned again to Raswan for advice. Raswan was in regular correspondence with Dr. Joseph L. Doyle of Sigourney, Iowa, concerning the establishment of a breeding program which would preserve a high pedigree relationship to the horses bred in the late nineteenth century by Ali Pasha Sherif of Egypt. As it unfolded, the Pritzlaff program would also seek to maintain this high pedigree relationship.

        Raswan wrote to Dr. Doyle (letter from Rancho San Ignacio dated “Friday”):

            ”Rabanna is a true Saqlawiyah with muscle ‘thrown-over her’ from the Kuhaylan.“

In another letter to Dr. Doyle from Rancho San Ignacio, dated September 28, 1953, Raswan wrote:

            Richard bought a son of Sartez and Munia…. I also helped him to get …”RABBANA”…and I have just made out her pedigree 8 and 9 generations complete to the Abbas Pasha – Ali Pasha Sharif and Desert origins.

            I wanted her myself…but Richard needed a start and he is looking for a match to her (she is six years old now and Richard did not breed her yet, waiting that I show up and help him find a stallion)….If Richard breeds this rare Saqlawiyah mare to a perfectly matched stallion you might trade later some horses with him. …

            Rabanna is small (ideal), fine boned, a 3 circle horse, well balanced, a lovely head (not extreme but all the details) with large eyes set low, wonderful muzzle parts (nostrils etc).

        Dr. Doyle was standing a 25-year-old stallion named Ghadaf (Ribal x Gulnare), bred by W.R. Brown of the Maynesboro Stud. On Raswan’s insistence, Rabanna was bred to Ghadaf in 1954, producing in September of 1955 the first Pritzlaff foal, a grey filly named Kualoha.

        Rabanna was bred back to Ghadaf for foals born in 1956 and 1957. In 1957 both Ghadaf and Dr. Doyle died; Rabanna’s 1957 colt was named John Doyle. But by that time, Richard was already seeking elsewhere to round out the foundation of his herd.

        Raswan had suggested that Richard look to Egypt. Since 1949 the government breeding program at El Zahraa near Cairo had been under the direction of General Tibor von Pettko-Szandtner. In earlier days he had headed the Hungarian state stud of Babolna, where he made good use of the desert bred Kuhaylan Zaid, a stallion Carl Raswan had helped procure. So in 1956, after visiting Germany and Austria, Richard flew to Cairo. Each day he went out to the farm and looked over the horses of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization. Finally he selected a colt and filly, but as there were no ships headed to the U.S., he had to give up and return home without the horses, hoping one day to try again.

        In April of 1958 he did return. This time, with General von Pettko-Szandtner’s help, Richard chose five horses for export. When a ship became available, Richard and the horses left the farm and headed to Alexandria. With papers, feed, bedding, and horse boxes finally arranged, the horses were loaded on board and the voyage to America began. Richard described wrapping himself in his coat and sleeping on the forward hatch near the horses the night the ship set out on the Mediterranean. After 13 days at sea, they arrived in Wilmington, North Carolina.

        From the beginning, Richard realized what he had in this importation. He wrote repeatedly in his farm advertising that the “General considered Nazeer the finest stallion in Egypt, and Moniet el Nefous was his favorite mare.” The horses in the importation were:

        *Rashad Ibn Nazeer (Nazeer x Yashmak, by Sheikh el Arab), three-year-old bay colt. Richard commented on *Rashad’s action and elegance, and stated he stood 15.2 and a half. He described him: “Tall, sloping shoulder, high withers, short back, long neck and reliable disposition — wonderful for cross country riding.”** He lived until 1976.

        *Bint El Bataa (Nazeer x El Bataa, by Sheikh el Arzab), three-year-old chestnut filly.

        *Bint Moniet el Nefous (Nazeer x Moniet el Nefous, by Shahloul), yearling chestnut filly. Of the imported mares, she had the greatest influence on the herd, through both sons and daughters.

        *Bint Nefisa (El Sareei x Nefisa, by Balance), yearling bay filly.

        This was the first Nazeer and Moniet el Nefous blood to reach the United States, and also the largest importation from Egypt since the Babson and Brown horses had arrived in 1932. This first group of “new Egyptians” opened the floodgates for the later new Egyptian importations which followed.

        The story of Rancho San Ignacio cannot be told without mention of Col. Hans Handler. While skiing in Austria in the 1950s, Richard met Col. Handler and became friends. Col. Handler was made head of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, and Richard was able to observe the training of the horses there. In later years Col. Handler was a guest at Rancho San Ignacio and schooled a few of Richard’s stallions.

 

THE BREEDING PROGRAM AND BLOODLINES ADDED

        The main sire line used in developing the herd was *Rashad’s. *Rashad himself was not doing all the work, however; the program is unusual for the large number of sons and grandsons of its foundation sire used for breeding. Readers are referred to the accompanying chart of the *Rashad male line, which shows the *Rashad line horses which Richard Pritzlaff used for breeding. Stallions are in bold face. Each step to the right represents one generation. Other charts arrange the breeding stock by female line.

        Ghadaf’s son John Doyle made an early and permanent contribution to the herd through his grey daughter Tatu. Later his daughter Chev-RSI was also added to the mare band.

        The stud books show few outside lines added following the 1958 importation. Richard introduced the blood of only four stallions.

        The 1960 Babson stallion Faarad (Faaris x Fadba), bred by Jay and Lorane Musser, got his first foal for Richard in 1965. Faarad sired nine Rancho San Ignacio foals over the next six years, but Richard himself does not seem to have used any of them for breeding. Nonetheless as late as 1987 he still spoke of the Faarad blood as a component of the Pritzlaff Arabian.

        In 1968 *Bint El Bataa produced Naszala, a filly by the Ott-owned stallion Bel Gordas (Sirecho x Habba). One of Richard’s stated aims with this breeding was to add another *Nasr line to his herd. Naszala produced one filly by Ansata El Salim and one by Alcibiades.           Starting in the late 1960s, Richard entered into a reciprocal arrangement with Norton and Millie Grow of Rafter G Arabians in Prosser, Washington. The Grows had the young stallion Ansata El Salim (*Ansata Ibn Halima x Maarqada). A number of Richard’s mares, as well as Alcibiades, were sent up to Washington. Pritzlaff-owned mares produced a total of 25 Ansata El Salim foals through 1982. Ansata El Salim’s son Cibola RSI (x Soja RSI) returned to stand in Sapello, and three Ansata El Salim daughters produced Pritzlaff-bred foals, but this blood was never widespread in the herd.

        The final addition was a 1977 chestnut mare named Sara Moniel, bred by Robert and Sara Loken. Sara Moniel was out of the Pritzlaff mare Naszeera (Umi x Naszra) and by *Fakher el Din, the full brother to *Bint Moniet el Nefous. Sara Moniel was added to the herd to bring in the *Fakher el Din line and cross it with *Bint Moniet’s.

 

A 1987 VISIT TO RANCHO SAN IGNACIO

        As I arrived at the ranch house and slowed down I saw an unmistakable, wizened figure walking slowly toward me. He had an eye patch and walked with two canes, one in each hand. I had heard so much about him, and seen so many photos, that it was a shock to suddenly be face to face with Richard Pritzlaff, as though a legend had come to life.

        But he did not greet me right away. “No, no, don’t park here. Park over there,” he said, indicating an area a few yards ahead. I dutifully moved the car. Later he explained that if I had left the car where it was, the view from the house to the pastures would have been blocked.

        When I got out of the car for the second time he looked at me. “How old are you?” he asked. I told him I was 22. “Then I am 63 years older than you,” he said, “and that is quite a lot.”

        We walked toward the old adobe ranch house and sat on the porch, a long, covered area, narrow, level with the ground, and floored with stone. Richard told me he had brought the table and chairs we were using from the Philippines in about 1936. Looking at them, I had no trouble believing they had spent the last 50 years on that porch. Behind Richard, against the wall, was a huge Chinese urn with long peacock feathers standing in it. There were peacocks almost underfoot, so it was easy to see where the feathers had come from.

        Next we looked at horses. Walking the herd with him, I noted that he liked a short, broad head, width between large jowls, and huge eyes. He seemed to like a big jibbah with deep dish to the face. He told me that he liked a balanced horse, though commented that he never understood what Raswan meant by the description “three-circle” conformation. I got the impression that selection for type, especially about the head, was particularly important to him.

        Uniformity in the herd also seems to have been a goal. One ad from the 1960s featured the produce of *Bint El Bataa and proclaimed, “Like Peas in a Pod.” The two yearling fillies I saw, Permoniet RSI and Golmoniet RSI, were nearly identical. Later I learned they were seven-eighths sisters. Richard pointed out one mare as coming from the *Bint El Bataa family. “That’s a Seglawi line, isn’t it?” I asked. “That’s bunk,” he retorted. Richard explained that the Bedouin strains are all mixed up now, although I did hear him refer to animals as Seglawi type or Kehilan type. I gathered during my visit, and have since read in his writings, that Richard sought a horse with the strength of Raswan’s description of Kehilan type along with the beauty and elegance of Raswan’s description of Seglawi type.

        We had walked to the far end of one of the large pastures when Richard looked at the sky and repeated an earlier warning about rain. Soon we felt a few drops. “We’d better get back,” Richard said as he turned around. We were still a fair distance from the house when a torrent came battering down on us, first rain, then hail. Richard moved as fast as he could with his hip replacement and two canes, and I kept pace beside him for a few strides before he yelled, “Run, run!” to me. So I bolted for the house and took shelter on the porch. A short while later Richard reached the house and stepped under cover. Thus at about noon we were both standing on the porch dripping wet and smiling at each other. At that moment we reached a sort of unspoken accord, and the slight stiffness of the morning disappeared.

        We went inside. The house was long and dark, with floors of wood or stone. Chinese art was everywhere. The front room was cluttered with books and papers. “It won’t be easy to get back to the road with all this mud.” Richard told me “You might be here for a day or two.”

        To reach the kitchen we passed through a small room that seemed more jungle than house, crossing a bridge over a pool of water instead of floor. Huge plants grew on all sides. From the kitchen I stared out the window at the rain, which continued to pour down, creating a network of ponds and streams behind the house. Richard offered me a drink, and I asked for ice. He informed me, “I don’t have any ice in this house,” so I had it without.

        Richard answered two phone calls while we sat in the kitchen. A mutual acquaintance had helped arrange my visit, and I heard Richard say, “Your friend is here.” Another call was from someone who owned a granddaughter of *Rashad and told Richard she was their favorite horse.

        In years past Richard had a reputation as an accomplished cook, but at 85 the lunch he served me was as he described it: “Nothing fancy: just good, nourishing food.” He told me stories of Arabian breeders he had known over the years, and greatly regretted that so many of them had been “corrupted by money,” as he put it.

        When the rain stopped we went to look at stallions. I liked Raj RSI and Monietor-RSI best. Blue Boy, who was then 14, struck me as a good natured fellow of pronounced muscularity. One young grey appealed to neither of us. “I don’t think I’ll use him,” was Richard’s conclusion. Back in the house he read me selections from Raswan’s travel books, working from photocopies of what looked like typed manuscripts.

        Friends had warned me that Richard was an old man who tired easily and that I should leave after four or five hours, but I found it difficult to get away. Each time I tried to excuse myself, he would bring out another stack of Raswan material, pour me another drink, take me back out to look at horses, put a magazine in my hands, or show me a bronze. Finally he made dinner. When I did leave, he walked me out to my car and told me to drive carefully. The mud was treacherous, but I avoided getting stuck and finally made it back to the gravel road.

 

GOALS AND PERSPECTIVES

        The Pritzlaff breeding program had clearly stated goals, chief of which was preservation of “the very finest, true Bedouin horse” using “the world’s finest, purest Bedouin blood,” as Richard wrote. He was convinced there were no better bloodlines for the task than what he had assembled with the help of Raswan and von Pettko-Szandtner, although friends say he recognized and admired other bloodlines.

        As time went on the herd became more tightly linebred, with a high relationship to *Rashad and *Bint Moniet in particular. By 1987 Richard was writing that “Pritzlaff Arabians are a type,” although it had probably been true a good many years before that. In an interview he stated, “Selection has established the type at Rancho San Ignacio.” He considered a quiet and gentle disposition to be an important Arabian characteristic. He also felt the Rabanna blood “contributed stronger croups and more athletic bodies.” When asked to name his favorites in the interview, the *Bint Moniet offspring Tatu, Monieta RSI, and Dymoniet RSI were all included.

        A continental European approach informed Richard’s ideas of how to use horses, thus he was never tempted to select for some of the less useful aspects of halter horse conformation. If his horses could excel in dressage or jumping, or carry a rider mile after mile over the ranch, he was pleased with them. Richard Pritzlaff is named in the stud books as the breeder of more than 230 foals, many of which left the ranch and had successful careers. To discuss them all would require another article, so one recent example will have to do. The 1988 stallion Drkumo RSI (Dymoniet RSI x Kumoniet RSI) won the American Endurance Ride Conference’s Jim Jones Award in the ownership of Crockett and Sharon Dumas, Rodarte, New Mexico.

        Richard believed his horses were healthier and happier living with access to spacious pastures and with all of their hair intact. He felt that keeping horses in confinement, hooded and blanketed and overgroomed, was unhealthy and psychologically damaging. In keeping with this philosophy, some of the more baroque aspects of barn architecture — fountains, Corinthian columns, cut crystal chandeliers — were not found at Rancho San Ignacio.

        Richard continued to ride into his 80s. By the time Richard was 86, managing a large herd was becoming more difficult; he placed ads announcing a herd reduction. During his last years, breeding activity slowed and he became less mobile, but he could still see the horses from his window, and that made him happy. He died at the age of 94 on February 6, 1997, and a memorial service was held at the ranch on April 19. At the time of this writing, there are still about 40 Arabians on the ranch.

        It was Richard’s wish that Rancho San Ignacio would be preserved as the half-tamed, mountain refuge he called home for more than 60 years, and that conscientious breeders would continue his program. The horses have already contributed to breeding programs around the world, many based largely or entirely on Pritzlaff blood.

 

 

**Arabian Horse World, November 1980, p. 364.

Articles by Richard Pritzlaff himself appeared in:

Arabian Horse World, May 1983, p. 387.

Arabian Visions, October 1987, p. 80.

And an interview with him appeared in:

Arabian Horse World, May 1987, p. 298.

Thanks also to Richard’s friends Gerald Klinginsmith, W.B. Winter, and Charles Craver.

A Hungarian Horseman in Egypt: General Von Pettko-Szandtner and the Arabians of the Agricultural Organization

copyright by R.J.CADRANELL
from Arabian Visions May/Jun 1993
Used by permission of RJCadranell

Between the two world wars, the Hungarian state stud of Babolna “was known as the Mecca of European Arab breeding,” Erika Schiele wrote in The Arab Horse in Europe. She continued,

“The stud owed this prestige mostly to the unforgettable General Tibor von Pettko- Szandtner, commandant from 1932 to 1942. He was well known in Germany, earning storms of applause at Aachen Show when he turned out with Arabian or Lipizzan five-in-hands. He applied his principles in breeding in three departments: pure-bred, part-bred Arab, and Lipizzan. The criterion for all three was the same: ‘A horse must be handsome, possess quality both inwardly and outwardly and arouse enthusiasm by its action.'”

In later years the General directed the Egyptian government Arabian breeding program and attracted acclaim to it. During the General’s tenure horses were exported from Egypt to Germany, the U.S.S.R., and the United States. In the decade after General von Pettko-Szandtner left Egypt horses of his breeding were sent to Germany, Hungary, Morocco, Nigeria, Syria, the U.S.S.R., and Yemen — but the greatest number came to the United States. The General bred *Ansata Ibn Halima, the only imported Egyptian stallion to sire both a U.S. national champion stallion and a U.S. national champion mare; and *Morafic, the leading imported Egyptian sire of national winners. In Germany, Ghazal was a popular sire while Hadban Enzahi revitalized the breeding program at Marbach. Aswan was a key sire at Tersk in Russia and his influence is now spreading through the Polish state studs.

World traveler and Arabian horse devotee Carl Raswan wrote of the General as “not only one of Europe’s great horsemen, but also a distinguished scientist, scholar, cavalry officer and stud manager of the first rank, honoured and loved in every country wherever he showed his famous horses under the saddle or in harness.” Raswan wrote that his contact with General von Pettko-Szandtner extended from the pre-Warld War I years to the end of the General’s life. According to Raswan, the General “was born in 1886 on the Hungarian studfarm of his father. During the First World War he served four years in the artillery and returned after the war to his work (management of the Hungarian studfarms.)”         

In 1932 the General became commandant at Babolna. Among the chief sires he used at Babolna were the purebred Arabians Koheilan VIII, Mersuch II and Mersuch III, Siglavy Bagdady IV, and the desert bred Kuhaylan Zaid. Among his chief Shagya stallions were Gazal II, O’Bajan VII, and Shagya XXV.

The General left Babolna in 1942 when he was called to Budapest to join the Agricultural Ministry, heading all of Hungary’s state stud farm. He held this position until 1945 when, along with thousands of other Hungarians, the coming of the Russians forced him to flee the country. This ended General von Pettko-Szandtner’s association with the Hungarian horse breeding industry. According to the General’s friend and associate Laszlo Monostory, today the sole surviving pre-World ‘War II commandant of a Hungarian state stud, it was an association which had lasted 43 years. As with the Polish state studs, Hungary’s Babolna, Mexohegyes, and Kisber were decimated during the war. Now homeless, the General and his wife went from Germany to Sweden.

The president of Egypt’s Royal Agricultural Society, Mohammed Taher Pasha, had visited Babolna during the General’s tenure. He now contacted the General about accepting the directorship of the Society’s Kafr Farouk Stud near Cairo. In 1949 General von Pettko-Szandtner, then in his 60’s, moved with his wife to Egypt to take on the task of breeding and managing Egypt’s national Arabian horse stud.

General von Pettko-Szandtner developed many aspects of the society’s operation. Stables, administrative buildings, and living quarters were remodeled or built from scratch. New paddocks were fenced. The General undertook extensive landscaping projects, including the planting of trees and grass. Judith Forbis visited the farm shortly after the General’s departure in 1959 and reported,

“The farm was kept immaculate, flowers bloomed gaily in the gardens, and the corral fences were kept sparkling white.”

With the reorganization and improvement of the physical plant also came the General’s restructuring of the breeding program. He culled the broodmare band, keeping only those mares with the type, conformation, and pedigree to meet his standards. He applied the same selectivity to the stallion battery, retiring older stallions he found faulty or unsuitable and drawing some of his replacements from the Society’s several stallion depots. Nazeer was among the latter, and in America General von Pettko-Szandtner is probably best known today as the one who incorporated Nazeer into the Society’s breeding herd.

The next major reorganization of the herd came with the absorption of the horses from King Farouk’s Inshass stud. In The Classic Arabian Horse, Judith Forbis tells the story:

“When King Farouk was deposed, the R.A.S. was renamed the more democratic-sounding Egyptian Agricultural Organization and the name Kafr Farouk was changed to El-Zahraa. At that time the General became responsible for selecting what remained of the ex-king’s horses. He screened them rigidly, breeding them apart at another farm until he decided which ones to approve for incorporation with the old society herd.”

In 1959 the time came for the General to leave Egypt. He and his wife moved to Germany to seek treatment for his advancing cancer, living as the guests of a Bavarian prince. According to Carl Raswan General Tibor von Pettko-Szandtner died in the spring of 1961. Raswan wrote in 1961 that

“his memory lives forever not only in the hearts of his beloved people — the Hungarians — but also among the Egyptians and horse-lovers all over the world.”

By using the listings in The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt one can analyze General von Pettko-Szandtner’s breeding program in Egypt. He worked toward increasing the numbers of the mare band and foal crops in Egypt. The 1950 and 1951 foal crops of the R.A.S. numbered fewer than 20. By the late 1950’s the number was closer to 30, with the Inshass mares contributing additional foals.

Most of the stallions the General used in his breeding had been born before he arrived in Egypt. The principal R.A.S./E.A.O. stallions he used, listed in order of approximate number of foals they sired for him (as tallied from The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt), are as follows:

1. Nazeer, 1934 grey (Mansour x Bint Samiha, by Kasmeyn). Although his first large foal crop did not arrive until 1952, Nazeer sired more foals for the General than any other stallion — approximately 100 born from 1950 through 1960. Laszlo Monostory says the General described Nazeer to him as a fine skinned grey with correct legs and good action. He had a great nobility of type, and many people feel he was a major source of quality in modern Egyptian breeding. Nazeer died in 1960.

2. Sid Abouhom, 1936 grey (El Dere x Layla, by Ibn Rabdan) began as the General’s head sire, with more foals than any of the other stallions in the 1950, 1951, and 1954 crops. He remained one of the General’s primary stallions throughout General von Pettko-Szandtner’s stay in Egypt, siring approximately 70 foals for him. Laszlo Monostory wrote that von Szandtner described Sid Abouhom as a large, strongly made horse with particularly good withers and hocks. Sid Abouhom was also known as a good mover. He died in 1963.

3. Gassir, 1941 grey (Kheir x Badia, by Ibn Rabdan) never monopolized a foal crop, but the General used him steadily throughout the 1950s. Gassir sired just over 20 foals for General von Pettko-Szandtner. According to Laszlo Monostory, the General considered Gassir to be another well made, good moving horse with correct legs. Gassir died in 1970.

4. El Sareei, 1942 bay (Shahloul x Zareefa, by Kasmeyn) sired almost as many foals for General von Pettko-Szandtner as did Gassir. His first foal did not arrive until 1955. That year, the General made El Sareei, along with Nazeer, the major sire for the 1956 foal crop. Mr. Monostory records that the General considered El Sareei a particularly handsome, good moving horse with notably good tail carriage. El Sareei died in 1967.

5. Sharkasi was a grey racehorse of T.G.B. Trouncer’s. After Trouncer died in 1955 the E.A.O. acquired Sharkasi. He sired a few foals for General von Pettko-Szandtner in 1955. Larger numbers came in 1959 and 1960 from the Inshass mares.

6. Mashhour, 1941 brown (Shahloul x Bint Rustem, by Rustem) was used at the beginning and again at the end of General von Pettko-Szandtner’s tenure in Egypt for a total of just over ten foals.

7. Sayyad el Lel (Mashaan x El Dahma, by Rustem) was born in 1938. His number of foals for the General was also just over ten, but these foals were all born from the years 1951 to 1953.

8. Azmi, grey (Sid Abouhom x Malaka) was born in the early 1950s. He sired fewer than ten foals, all born in 1957 and 58. Azmi was exported to the U.S.S.R. in 1958.

9. Balance, 1928 grey (Ibn Samhan x Farida), had been a successful race horse in years past. According to Monostory, the General felt Balance had good bone structure but was not as typey as the other stallions. He was a minor sire for General von Pettko-Szandtner. Since Balance was an older stallion, the General was able to incorporate the Balance influence through his pick of the Balance daughters born before General von Pettko-Szandtner came to Egypt. Balance died in 1960.

10. El Amin, 1947 chestnut (Shahloul x Rowala, by Ibn Samhan) sired two foals born in 1954.

11. *Morafic, 1956 grey (Nazeer x Mabrouka) was a young stallion just coming into use as the General was leaving Egypt. He became an important sire at the E.A.O., and was imported to the United States in 1965 by Douglas Marshall of Gleannloch Farms.

The stallions Amro, El Dalil, and El Nasser were minor sires; each got one foal for him listed in The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt.

General von Pettko-Szandtner’s Broodmares from the R.A.S. Herd

    

General von Pettko-Szandtner is said to have chosen his broodmares carefully from the R.A.S. mares foaled before 1950. The mares named in the chart at left produced R.A.S./E.A.O. foals listed in The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt during the period from 1950 to 1960.

The group included seven daughters each from Shahloul and Sheikh el Arab, five Balance daughters, three each from Ibn Rabdan and Kheir, two each from Gamil III and Hamran II, and one daughter each of Kasmeyn, Mashaan, Nabras, Baiyad, Mansour, El Garie, El Nasser, Awad, Registan, Ibn Manial, Ibn Samhan, Zareef, and Sid Abouhom. When von Pettko-Szandtner began placing young mares of his own breeding in the mare band, they were overwhelmingly daughters of Nazeer and Sid Abouhom (see chart [which follows]).

Broodmares the General singled out for admiration in his correspondence with Laszlo Monostory include Moniet el Nefous, Bukra, Nefisa, Maisa, Shams, and Salwa. Raswan described Moniet el Nefous as von Pettko-Szandtner’s favorite mare.

In arranging breedings, von Pettko-Szandtner paired a mare with a variety of stallions over the years. For example, Nefisa had foals by Sid Abouhom, Nazeer, and El Sareei, as did Maysouna. The General’s registered foals from Bukra were all by Nazeer, and Medallela’s were all by Sid Abouhom, but such exclusive pairings were the exception.

The military coup resulting in King Farouk’s being deposed happened on July 23, 1952. After the coup the horses from his Inshass stud were scattered in several directions, but a core was kept intact and the horses temporarily bred separately from the E.A.O. herd. The first foals from E.A.O. stallions crossed on Inshass mares arrived in 1959. The same years saw the birth of foals by the Inshass stallion Anter out of E.A.O. mares. In 1960 there came many more foals by Anter and out of E.A.O. mares. Anter and Sameh became the most used Inshass stallions after the coup. Aboud and Bedr were also frequently used Inshass sires in the middle 1950’s.

Zareefa 1927 b Kasmeyn x Durra, by Saadun
Bint Farida 1931 gr Mansour x Farida, by Saklawi II
Samha 1931 gr Baiyad x Bint Samiha, by Kasmeyn
Zamzam 1932 gr Gamil III x Bint Radia, by Mabrouk Manial
Gamalat 1934 gr Ibn Samhan x Bint Gamila, by Mabrouk Manial
Kahila 1934 b Ibn Rabdan x Bint Rustem, by Rustem
Medallela 1935 ch Awad x Khafifa, by Ibn Samhan
Bint Zareefa 1936 gr Balance x Zareefa (above)
Komeira 1937 gr Nabras x Layla, by Ibn Rabdan
Kateefa 1938 gr Shahloul x Bint Rissala, by Ibn Yashmak
Ragia 1938 ch Ibn Rabdan x Farida, by Saklawi II
Shams 1938 b Mashaan x Bint Samiha, by Kasmeyn
Zahra 1938 ch Hamran II x El Yatima, by Ibn Rabdan
Badr 1939 b Registan x Bint Samiha, by Kasmeyn
Salwa 1939 bl Ibn Rabdan x Bint Rustem, by Rustem
Helwa 1940 gr Hamran II x Bint Farida (above)
Kawsar 1940 ch Ibn Manial x Zamzam (above)
Atlus 1941 gr Zareef x Zamzam (above)
Malaka 1941 gr Kheir x Bint Bint Riyala, by Gamil Manial
Yashmak 1941 b Sheikh el Arab x Bint Rissala, by Ibn Yashmak
Bukra 1942 gr Shahloul x Bint Sabah, by Kasmeyn
Kamla 1942 gr Sheikh el Arab x Samha (above)
Futna 1943 gr Shahloul x Farida, by Saklawi II
Yosreia 1943 gr Sheikh el Arab x Hind, by Ibn Rabdan
El Bataa 1944 b Sheikh el Arab x Medallela (above)
Halima 1944 b Sheikh el Arab x Ragia (above)
Rouda 1944 b Sheikh el Arab x Fasiha, by Awad
Amara 1945 ch Kheir x Zahra (above)
Lateefa 1945 gr Gamil III x Salwa, by Ibn Rabdan
Nefisa 1945 gr Balance x Helwa (above)
Om el Saad 1945 gr Shahloul x Yashmak (above)
Afaf 1946 gr Balance x Badr (above)
Fadila 1946 gr Sheikh el Arab x Atlus (above)
Moniet el Nefous 1946 ch Shahloul x Wanisa, by Sheikh el Arab
Turra 1946 gr Balance x Layla, by Ibn Rabdan
Zaafarana 1946 gr Balance x Samira, by Ibn Rabdan
Halawa 1947 ch Shahloul x Medallela (above)
Khairia 1948 ch El Garie x Kawsar (above)
Maisa 1948 gr Shahloul x Zareefa (above)
Maysouna 1948 br Kheir x Shams (above)
Sehr 1948 bl El Nasser x Salwa (above)
Galila 1949 gr Sid Abouhom x Rouda (above)

The “Next Generation” Broodmares (mares born in 1950 or later with E.A.O. foals born by 1960 and listed in The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt)  

Dahma II 1950 gr Nazeer x Futna
Elwya 1950 gr Sid Abouhom x Zareefa
Fathia 1950 gr Sid Abouhom x Shams
Saklawia II 1950 ch Mashhour x Zamzam
Farasha 1951 gr Sid Abouhom x Yosreia
Fayza II 1951 ch Sid Abouhom x Nefisa
*Ghazalahh 1951 gr Mashhour x Bint Farida
Mabrouka 1951 ch Sid Abouhom x Moniet el Nefous
Rahma 1951 b Mashhour x Yashmak
Hemmat 1952 gr Sid Abouhom x Maysouna
Samia 1952 gr Nazeer x Malaka
Tahia 1952 gr Gassir x Kawsar
Abla 1953 gr Nazeer x Helwa
Ahlam II 1953 ch Sid Abouhom x Bint Zareefa
Fatin 1953 gr Nazeer x Nefisa
Kamar 1953 gr Nazeer x Komeira
Mamlouka 1953 ch Nazeer x Malaka
Bint Kateefa 1954 ch Sid Abouhom x Kateefa
Mouna 1954 ch Sid Abouhom x Moniet el Nefous
Nazeera 1954 gr Nazeer x Malaka
Souhair 1954 br Sid Abouhom x Salwa
Rafica 1955 gr Nazeer x Om el Saad
Shahrzada 1955 gr Nazeer x Yosreia
Zahia II 1956 br El Sareei x Zaafarana

Approximately 24 different Inshass broodmares produced foals in 1959 and 1960. They included Hafiza, Ghorra, Shahbaa, and Rooda.

The Inshass herd had many lines in common with the E.A.O. stock of von Pettko-Szandtner’s time, but it also included lines distinct from it — most notably some gift mares from the House of Sa’ud. By 1960 the Inshass mares had arrived at El-Zahraa and the two groups have since then been bred as more or less one herd.

It is not clear to this writer to what extent von Pettko-Szandtner would have integrated the Inshass lines with the E.A.O.’s existing herd had he remained in Egypt, but clearly an intermingling was already underway when he left. The Austro-Hungarian military horse breeding tradition of which he was a part made repeated and regular use of outcross bloodlines. Early to mid-20th century pedigrees of both purebred and Shagya Arabians from the Hungarian state studs show a minimum of inbreeding and regular use of outcross animals.

General von Pettko-Szandtner’s purebred Arabian breeding at Babolna was mostly scattered or destroyed during World War II. It lives on mainly as trace elements in some Polish pedigrees. It seems ironic that this great Hungarian horseman should have had his largest influence on world Arabian breeding through what amounted almost to a retirement venture for him — and in a land many miles and across a sea from his native Hungary.

Sources

Judith Forbis, The Classic Arabian Horse, Liveright, New York, 1976, pp. 218-9.

Laszlo Monostory, “General Szandtner and the El Zahraa Stud Farm in Egypt,” Arabian Horse World, June 1980, pp. 107-10.

Colin Pearson with Kees Mol, The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt, Alexander Heriot & Co., England, 1988.

*Carl Raswan, The Raswan Index, vol. IV, Mexico, 1961; pp. 563-34 and section between plates 117 and 1320.

Erika Schiele, The Arab Horse in Europe, American edition 1973, pp. 207-8.

Jadaan: The Horse That Valentino Rode

by Aaron Dudley
Photos from Spide Rathbun Collection
from Western Horseman Mar 1952

Two great horses. Jadaan visits the statue of the immortal Seabiscuit at Southern California’s famous Santa Anita race track. A special platform was built in the midst of one of Santa Anita’s noted pansy beds for this occasion.

Probably no horse of modern time — including the favorite mounts of our current TV and movie cowboys — has enjoyed greater popularity or been viewed by more people than a proud little grey Arab named Jadaan.

That name probably means little to the average horseman, and certainly nothing to the millions of curious fans who have seen him, but when you say he’s “the horse that Rudolph Valentino rode” there’s an immediate reaction.

Rudolph Valentino and the stallion Jadaan in full desert regalia, ready for a dash over the sands for cameras recording “The Son of the Sheik.” This costume and the Jadaan trappings are still on display in the tackroom of the W.K.Kellogg ranch at Pomona.

Millions trekked to the famous W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse ranch at Pomona, Calif., upon the matinee idol’s death to see this horse and view trappings the dashing Latin used in his popular desert pictures of the 1920’s. And although the ranch had many fine horses, fully 90 per cent of the visitors who came wanted to see “the Valentino horse.” Women crowded around his box stall, wore the stable door smooth pressing for a better look at the sleek stallion. And they stood to silent near-reverence when Jadaan was led riderless into the arena carrying his former master’s colorful desert regalia.

Jadaan in later years, standing at the foot of the Valentino shrine in Hollywood. The old horse was trailered to hundreds of gatherings honoring Valentino, and was a top attraction at movieland parades.

This idolizing of a movie hero’s horse continued almost unabated for 19 years until the little horse died in 1945. And then avid Valentino zealots had his skeleton preserved and enshrined in the University of California’s School of Animal Husbandry.[1]


Unfortunately, Jadaan was neither a top individual (from a horseman’s point of view) nor did he produce outstanding colts; this in spite of the fact his ancestry was the best of old-line Arabian stock. His granddam was the famous mare Waddudda, brought to America in 1906 and presented to Homer Davenport by Achmet Hefiz, who also reportedly sent along a desert tribesman to care for the mare.

Registry No. 196, Jadaan was foaled in April, 1916, at Hingham Stock Farm, Hingham, Massachusetts. His sire was the desert-bred Abbeian, imported by Homer Davenport in 1906. The dam was Amran by Deyr, No. 33, another Davenport importation.

Deyr, a very fine individual, was the only stallion of the original Davenport importation ever at the Kellogg Ranch. His skeleton, a classic example of the Arabian, is now on display at the Los Angeles Museum at Exposition Park.

But in spite of this royal Arab lineage, Jadaan had very poor front legs and his get tended to be even farther over in the knees than their sire.[2]

Horsewomen Monaei Lindley dons Arabian garb and mounts Jadaan for a photo at the Kellogg Arabian Horse ranch entrance. Everything good and bad about the horse can be clearly seen in this photo. Miss Lindley, at the time this photograph was taken, was an active horse breeder of Cinnebar Hill, Reno, Nevada.

H. H. Reese, in charge of the Kellogg Ranch when Jadaan was at the height of his fame, complied to the public clamor for colts from “the Valentino horse” and produced a big crop of colts for several seasons. They sold fast, but failed to do anything in the shows, and when a noted judge finally complained about the uniform badness of Jadaan’s offspring, Reese retired the stud to the limelight of his fame as a movie and parade horse and withheld him from further activity in the stud.

This situation was made to order for Spide Rathbun, promotion manager for the Kellogg ranch and the man second only to Valentino in contribution to Jadaan’s fame. It was Rathbun who gave Jadaan the big build-up as Valentino’s horse, who made Jadaan THE Valentino horse, in spite of the fact Valentino had ridden Raseyn and other Jadaan stablemates in motion picture work.

So when Reese wrote finis to Jadaan’s career in the stud, Rathbun went to work with added enthusiasm. Jadaan’s picture began appearing in the Sunday supplements at a rapid rate. Struggling movie starlets begged for an opportunity to be photographed with him. He was a fixture at Hollywood parades, and even was placed on exhibit in a special stall right in the lobby of one of the town’s plushiest theaters. He led Pasadena’s famous Tournament of Roses parades, had half a dozen different authentic desert outfits and rivaled the famous Lady in Black in contributing to the fanatical Valentino memorabilia. People just wouldn’t forget Valentino nor anything that had been connected with him.

Spide Rathbun and Jadaan went along with them, and whatever the little horse lacked in conformation he made up in spirit and a strange human like response to parade music or camera lens.

Jadaan in his prime looks over the Kellogg ranch from a nearby hilltop, with Ken Maynard as Buffalo Bill Cody astride. Maynard was a frequent visitor at the Kellogg ranch and often rode Jadaan in parades.

“Jadaan had an extraordinary faculty for falling naturally into beautiful poses,” says Rathbun. And there are literally thousands of pictures to prove it.

Jadaan had natural beauty, poise, grace, and a vibrant personality. His head and shoulder poses were described by some of Hollywood’s top cameramen as the most impressive they had ever photographed.

There is no denying he was an impressive horse.

Valentino first saw him in Palm Springs. Jadaan was in his prime and in his element, the sandy desert. And he had the benefit of a masterful rider, a European horsemen named Carl Schmidt, known to thousands of Arabian breeders today as “Raswan.”

The pair made an impressive picture, and Valentino immediately was interested in the prancing stallion. The price was $3,000 at the time, according to Raswan. (Kellogg had paid $1,200 for him.) Carl and Valentino visited at length concerning Jadaan and his possibilities as a movie horse. This was in 1926 and Valentino was about to make another desert picture in which he hoped to use an outstanding mount.

Jadaan at this time was owned by W. K. Kellogg, the cereal king, having just been purchased from C. D. Clark, of Point Happy Ranch, Indio, along with nine others. Kellogg, however, left the horse in Clark’s care, with Schmidt in charge.

Jadaan was then 10 years old.

Valentino wanted Jadaan badly. Friends said he mentioned the horse often in the next few months, comparing the horse with famous statues he had seen in Italy, statuary of Garibaldi and Marco Polo, always mounted on rearing horses.

“I used to look at the great, metal Garibaldi in the little park,” friends quoted the actor saying. “I can see him now, seated firmly on his rearing horse. I always wanted to ride like that.”

This admiration for dashing horsemanship probably was responsible for much of the success of Valentino’s desert sheik pictures and, no doubt, led to his first interest in Jadaan. Jadaan commanded attention.

Unfortunately for Valentino and his backers, the actor did not give in to his urge to own Jadaan. Instead, it was decided to rent him from Kellogg for use in the upcoming movie.

This decision was an expensive one, for before they were through shooting, the aggregate cost of rental and insurance reached a reputed $12,000. And the movie makers had to furnish an expert attendant besides.

One day of retakes cost the film company $750 of insurance alone, and the backers were pretty sick of horse problems before they had the picture wrapped up.

And Valentino, in spite of the fact he was a far better than average horseman, was too valuable an asset to risk on a spirited horse for any length of time. As a consequence, the producer had to hire Carl “Raswan” Schmidt as his double. In the famous film “Son of the Sheik” Carl portrayed both the son and the father in all long shots and all those requiring fast or dangerous riding.

It was not long thereafter that Valentino died, and Jadaan, under the expert press agentry of Rathbun and thanks to an idolizing public, became the nation’s most famous living horse.

He was in such great demand that Kellogg Ranch officials had to maintain careful future booking records and exercise great caution in agreeing to public appearances for him. Idolizers of Valentino pulled hair from the horse’s tail and mane, asked for his shoes, and taxed the patience of attendants by filching jewels from the showy saddle, bridle and other elaborate trappings.

Heirs of Buffalo Bill Cody, after seeing photos of a movieland Buffalo Bill mounted on Jadaan, requested that upon the animal’s death his skin be sent them for mounting and placing in the museum at Cody, Wyoming. It was recalled that Buffalo Bill’s favorite mount was a white Arabian, Muson, a stallion loaned to him by his friend Homer Davenport. Cody always rode Muson in his appearances at Madison Square Garden; and it was on this animal he is mounted in the Rosa Bonheur painting.

Jadaan’s skin was preserved upon his death, but it apparently never reached its destined place of enshrinement at Cody.

The Jadaan-Valentino saddle is still much in evidence at the Kellogg ranch (now Southern California campus of California Polytechnic College). It looked for a while one day recently that future generations would not be afforded an opportunity of seeing this historic piece of Hollywood gear. As is the custom each Sunday, a riderless horse outfitted with the Valentino saddle, bridle, fringed martingale, and jeweled blanket is brought into the ring. The young Cal-Poly student who saddled the honored Arab on this particular day evidently saw no reason for cinching up the rig tightly, and the filly bearing it promptly bucked it loose midway in her appearance and proceeded to kick it pretty well to ribbons as it hung beneath her belly.

Harness maker Z. C. Ellis, of Pomona, came to the rescue, however, painstakingly piecing embroidery, dyed leather, and jewels back together again; and posterity can now see the saddle that Rudolph Valentino rode.

And parents can continue to scoff when youngsters look blank and inquire, “Who was he, anyway?”

Jadaan’s Get

From “Jadaan 196” by Carol W. Mulder in Arabian Horse World Dec. 1971

Year Name Dam Notes
1925 Markada Fasal a broodmare for Dickinson 3 reg foals (from Dickenson’s Catalog(’47): “Height 15.1 weight 1025” “Markada is intelligent to a degree and has been well educated. She knows a number of tricks and has personality enough to make an ideal heroine for a ‘human’ horse story. She seems to take pride in giving one a good ride. Markada is above average size and well built up, especially in the forehand. She has deep shoulders, sloping nicely, and good withers. Her middle piece is well rounded and she carries herself well at both ends. This mare is close to desert breeding and strong in the blood of great producing dams.” “Used 1931-1934. Sold in Tennessee”[3]
1927 Irak *Raida no recorded get
Wardi Sedjur a broodmare for Jedel Ranch
1929 End O’War Amham died at 4 months
Raidaan *Raida a sire for Gordon A. Dutt. 7 reg. foals
Jadanna *Rossana exp. to Mexico City, Mexico
Gloria Davenport Sedjur 4 reg foals
1930 Jadur Sedjur 2 reg. daughters
Badia Babe Azab Dam of12 offspring including the Davenport 2nd foundation mare, Asara. Damline of Fadjur’s favorite mare, Saki.
Estrellita Amham 8 reg. foals
1931 Jadura Sedjur line has died out
Amaana Amham at least 5 reg foals
Raidaana *Raida Kellogg broodmare. at least 6 reg foals. Destroyed by Remount in ’44 at age 13. Lame.
1932 Bedaana Beneyeh 5 reg foals
Majada *Malouma died at six months
Jurad Sedjur did not breed on.
Hamaan Amham sire for Marie C. Scott’s Wyoming ranch. 20 reg. foals
Jarid *Raida a sire for Dr. Fred A. Glass
Fred E. Vanderhoof bred 3 mares to him in 1938 resulting in
1939 Leidaan Leila bred on.
Havanna *Bint at least 7 reg. foals.
Ravaana Rasrah at least 7 reg. foals.
  1. [1]From Mary Jane Parkinson’s The Kellogg Arabian Ranch: The First Fifty Years p. 277: “JADAAN, age 29, had outlived his usefulness. …was destroyed on May 28” by the U.S. Remount.↩
  2. [2]“(Buck-knees) While this is a very unsightly disfigurement, it is not by any means as serious as several other front leg flaws, and is, in fact, considered by many experts to be relatively harmless!” — Carol Mulder↩
  3. [3]From “Fasal 330” by Carol W. Mulder in Arabian Horse World Feb. 1976: “(Markada) dying in her prime.”↩

Arab Families (1950)

by GRACE DASHIELL

(Western Horseman June, 1950)

There are definite and noticeable variations in the conformation of Arabian horses. Most of these can be traced to the influence of the three main family strains. The Muniqui strain seems to be responsible for the tendency of many modern individuals to fall short of the standard of perfection we like to see in the Arab. This strain has been mixed for the last half century to such an extent that the true classic Arab is difficult to find in any large number today.

Today there is more concern about families than any other phase of Arab ownership. Slowly and surely, there is a concentrated movement to save the remaining classic Arabian horses and, from this priceless nucleus, to reproduce enough of the right kind to save the type for posterity. There is a world-wide return to classic strain breeding. Methods which were practiced for centuries by the purists among the desert tribes and by the master breeders of Arabia and Egypt are again being followed with most gratifying results. Classic stallions are being leased in new territory, and mares are being taken long distances to others. Arabs which are bred within either the Kehilan or the Seglawi, the two distinctive classic strains, or a combination of the two, are being produced. In these are found a well balanced blending of strength and beauty, proving beyond any doubt that this method of Arab breeding is more than just a theory.

Attempts are made to justify mixing the families and to disprove pure-in-the-strain breeding by reference to the unbelievable and amusing tale about the families being founded with the Prophet’s five thirsty mares, which stopped their mad dash for water when Mohammed’s bugler sounded the call to halt. Also, they call attention to the fact that an Arab takes its family name from that of the lower line of the dam only. This was done by the Bedouins in recognition of the most important line. However, these critics fail to go on to explain that it is customary to place the family strain under the name of each Arab on a pedigree for generations back, especially through the great grandparents, and usually six or more generations. When this is done, a clear pattern of the conformation and breeding of the individual under study unfolds.

Advanced pedigree students and serious breeders make out pedigrees on unborn foals when studying sire selection, all complete with families, as an important phase of Arab production. Knowing the characteristics of the various families, they are able, with surprising accuracy, to predict the conformation of the future foal. A basic knowledge of the science of genetics is most helpful. It is customary to study any faults in the mare and aim to correct them in the foal through the sire. Here again, definite knowledge of the family influence is of first concern. Knowing that the genes do not always take the same pattern (except in identical offspring such as some twins, triplets, etc.), any horse being a product of his ancestors and the gamble involved in genetics, the wise breeder looks to the purity of bloodlines for greater surety of success, this cutting down the percentage of chance.

The most important book in the library of the classic breeder is a copy of the early Arabian stud book, which lists the descriptions and family strain of each Arab, the latter in accordance with the practice which was followed by the Bedouins for centuries. The Arabian Horse Club of America discontinued the strain name in the last two editions, Volumes V and VI. As a result, the early copies are in great demand and priced many times their original cost. Many feel that the families should be in the stud book for those who desire this information. The rest could ignore them.

Breeders and buyers are securing copies of the reprints of the books of Brown, Davenport and Borden in their search for information. Some are fortunate enough to have a copy of Lady Anne Blunt’s book, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, which was published in 1879 and gives much information on families, including a large chart of the family strains. Still others have copies of the Selby brochure (published 1937), the Dickinson catalogs, the 1908 catalog of Davenport, and the 1925 catalog of the Maynesboro Arabian stud, all of which give detailed information on families. Some seekers of knowledge have borrowed copies of the original stud books and have written the strains in the last two volumes. Issues of THE WESTERN HORSEMAN which contain articles and pictures by Carl Raswan are highly valued and used as constant reference. Only Raswan himself knows how many marked pedigrees he has filled out in answer to requests, but they must number many hundreds. Others beat a path to his door where he cheerfully gives more information, taking precious time from his writing.

KEHILAN

Historians agree that the original Arabian horse was of the Kehilan type. His body was rounded, muscular, masculine and short coupled. His throat was wide to accommodate a large windpipe which carried oxygen to good sized lungs which were housed within a deep, broad chest. He had an excellent middle with a deep girth and well sprung ribs.

Dharebah AHC 3848, a classic type Arab mare, 1/2 Kehilan and 1/2 Seglawi. She traces entirely to Davenport importations. Photo by the author.

The bone of his legs was fine, but dense, and the tendons were large and well defined. His shoulders were sturdy with a remarkable slope to strongly muscled withers. His short back was joined to his quarters with a short, heavily muscled loin, thus making him a good weight carrier. His joints were large, strong and clean of meatiness. He had long, well muscled forearms, short cannon bone, powerful gaskins and deep, broad quarters, all of which gave him a powerful, extended stride. He was and is the horse of endurance. His jaws were deep and clean. His wedge shaped head tapered to a small muzzle having large, expressive, thin nostrils. It was distinguished by pronounced “tear bones” and was chiseled and full of detail about the lips an nostrils. Summing it up, he was a good horse by any standard. Admittedly, any breeding methods which destroy these good characteristics of the Arabian horse to any noticeable degree are wrong and should be discarded.

Today, the Arab which is bred chiefly within the Kehilan strains for more than four generations is an exact replica of his distant, classic ancestors, proving beyond any doubt that the Arab’s conformation is definitely influenced by pure in the strain breeding. The Kehilan matures slowly and increases steadily in beauty until eight and usually up to 12 years. One of their most noticeable characteristics is a lower head carriage, which makes them ideal sires in the production of cutting horses and Stock Horses. Stockmen who do not like Arabs with the higher head carriage, lighter bone and longer lines would do well to secure Arab stallions of predominately Kehilan bloodlines.

An excellent example of the pure Kehilan type is the chestnut stallion Rasraff. His parents, *Raffles and *Rasmina, his four grandparents are Kehilan. And many others that are predominately Kehilan are being produced each season. These excellent breeding stallions are able to stamp their get. The Kehilan add more bone, shorten back and loins and give more muscle over the back and, in general, more muscle throughout, plus more depth and width to foals of mares which might lack either. Breeding within the two classic strains is being practiced by leading breeders in the United States and other countries, and these Arabs are consistently commanding the highest prices on the market.

Ibn Hanad AHC 4165, sire Hanad AHC 489, dam Gamil AHC 1427, the classic type Arabian. Both sire and dam were of the Seglawi strain. Photo by the author.

SEGLAWI

Occasionally highly refined horses appeared among the early Arabians. Through selection and by crossing the finer with the finer, by inbreeding and line breeding, a distinct type which had finer, longer (but still rounded) lines evolved from the primary Kehilan type. His action was more animated, he was more spirited, his tail was like a gay plume, and he carried his head noticeably higher.

His head was slightly longer and not as broad, but it had more bulge and dish, although, like the Kehilan, he had a clean, chiseled face with prominent tear bones and much detail about the lips and nostrils. He became the showy picture horse which the Bedouins admired as they gathered before their tents in the desert. He was often represented on canvas as the ideal beauty type. The present day Arab, which is bred chiefly within the classic Seglawi strains of several generations, is also a picture in duplicate of his original Seglawi ancestors.

Breeding back to the classic type is one of the features of breeding the Arabian horse which makes it so rewarding and so fascinating. The breeder has a sacred responsibility to preserve this species of horsedom and to mold this plastic clay in the image of his beautiful classic ancestors. To do otherwise, thus destroying the reputation of the Arab for endurance, beauty and purity of bloodlines, is a sin against his trust.

An outstanding example of the ideal Seglawi type is young Ibn Hanad, said by many to be the most beautiful Arabian horse which they have ever seen and acclaimed by that noted authority, Carl Raswan, to be “the most beautiful Arabian stallion which has been produced in the past 40 years.” His parents, Hanad and Gamil, are Seglawi; also his four grandparents and all but two of his great grandparents, which were Kehilan. Stallions such as Ibn Hanad add grace and beauty to foals whose dams are heavy boned or on the plain side. They give finer, slightly longer, rounded lines. They beautify the head and animate the action. Their gaily arched tails wave like a royal banner. Truly they are the peacocks of the Arabian horse world. They are the showy, parade type. To have one of these proud, lovely creatures as a riding companion is to enjoy one of life’s most enjoyable experiences. More Seglawi type foals, which are bred almost wholly Seglawi for four or more generations, are arriving each season as this breeding program gains momentum.

MUNIQUI

According to historical accounts, in the first half of the 6th century, during the reign of Mohammed, some of the Prophet’s warriors returned from war riding foreign stallions in place of their Arab mares which they had lost in battle. Some of the Bedouins crossed these stallions with Arab mares to produce a larger, racy Arab which would be most useful in warfare because of its additional size and speed. Here again, through selection, inbreeding and line breeding, a definite type was produced which was larger, more angular, but plain. They sacrificed beauty for speed in this Arab, which became known as the Muniqui Hedruj. The early purists, then as now, did not believe in mixing this blood with the Kehilan and the Seglawi. It’s as simple as that.

Today, there is not one pure Muniqui Hedruj in the United States. However, being intensely inbred in passing, he has stamped his characteristics in many of the present day Arabs, thus causing their conformation to fall short of the standard of perfection set up for the breed. In fairness, most of the novice breeders did not realize what the effects of the Muniqui blood would be. They did not know how to produce the classic Arab, but they are learning.

Matih AHC 469, dam of Muniq. Photo by Raswan.

Muniq, sire Nasim AHC 541, dam Matih AHC 469, the oblong, angular race type. Both his sire and dam were of the Muniqui Hedruj strain.

Produced by a Muniqui Hedruj sire and dam, the bay stallion, Muniq, is a striking example of this type, his breeding being planned with that object and to prove that the Arab can be bred back to type, in this instance the Muniqui such as the Bedouins originally produced. Muniq is strong in type because he traces on both sides through his sire, Nasin, and his dam, Matih, both registered Muniqui Hedruj, to many of the same Muniqui Hedruj Arabs. Both great grand dams are Nazlet. Both grandsires trace to Kismet and Nazli, Nazli also being the dam of Nazlet. Out of 16 great great grandparents, seven are Muniqui Hedruj, the seven being *Nimr, *Namoi (Naomi), Khaled, *Nazli, *Nimr, Khaled, *Nazli; six others out of the 16 are Kehilan, which should give Muniq great endurance. He attracted much attention at the 1948 Pomona all Arab show, since he was the most extreme Muniqui Hedruj type present.

Image of Khaled by George Ford Morris

The true Muniqui Hedruj is a splendid type. This type should also be bred pure, since it is especially useful in crossing with the Thoroughbred to produce the Anglo-Arab, which meets with much favor among riders who like the higher, thinner withers and the larger size.

Two other principal strains among the Muniqui are the Jilfan and the Sbaili. The Jilfan are tall and leggy, having a long back and a croup which is often higher than the withers. The Sbaili (being a Seglawi cross) are handsome and are often mistaken for the Seglawi, but they have smaller eyes and are narrow between the jowls, sometimes only one finger wide. Their hock action and tail carriage are exaggerated, leading some to consider addition of this blood to correct a sloping croup and a low tail set. But, unfortunately, the narrow throat, small eyes, longer loin and smaller middle are oft times a costly accompaniment.

The eyes of the Muniqui, which sometimes do not match, are smaller and set higher. The bulge may be too low and the face too smooth, lacking distinct tear bones and other detail. The Bedouins always look to the head for signs of good breeding. In judging a good Arab, they measure the throat and space the head, check the chest and place three fingers between the ribs and the point of hip, the length of the loin governing this space.

The aforementioned Muniqui characteristics, and others which produce some Arabs which are not put together right, will be found in varying degrees in the Arabs of mixed families, depending on the number of generations they are removed from Muniqui. Alert observers are able to spot Muniqui blood, especially in the first three generations. Then they check the pedigree for verification.

HAMDANI

The Hamdani, which is a Kehilan strain, have a wide throat and large, intelligent eyes, but their profile is somewhat straight and their muzzle slightly heavier. Although a splendid type, known for strength and endurance, those interested in finer heads and smaller muzzles do not breed this line. Also, the Hamdani do not generally cross well with the Hedruj since they have a larger, longer, plainer head. From characteristics such as these a breeder should know how to avoid disappointment in foals, some of which are pretty as youngsters but get progressively plainer with maturity.

There are some Arabian mares and stallions in the United States which have been bred wrong during most of their careers. It is these Arabs of pure strains which the purists are happy to secure (even in their old age) to prove their ability to produce beautiful classic Arabs when bred right.

Many Arabian horses of mixed families approach the classic type, as a large per cent of them are only 1/8, 1/16 or 1/32 Muniqui. It is among these that we find good sized Arabs which please the rider who likes a large Arab of the Thoroughbred and Morgan types. Many of these mares are capable of producing a classic type foal through proper sire selection, recognizing that we make improvement through the sire. Mistakes in sire selection may result in a foal which will be plainer than either the sire or the dam. A mare which is 1/8 Muniqui can produce a foal four generations from Muniqui. This filly (1/16) can produce a foal of classic type. When all of the blood is good with the exception of 1/16 or 1/32 or less, then the influence of the unwelcome strain is tapering off. However, classically bred stallions are priceless in this program. The fact that more breeders understand this feature of breeding makes the future of the Arabian horse most encouraging. Now many are aware that the present day Arab can be used in a program to breed back to the beauty of the original classic Arab. It is here that the early stud book with the families is of such great value.

Due to lack of knowledge, many buyers shy away from the mere mention of Muniqui. It is here that an educational program would be of definite value to the breeders who are mixing the families. As it is, visitors measure throats, study heads and check conformation in general. The novice buyer is more selective and more educated than formerly. He has studied differences and judged conformation wherever the Arab appears. Some breeders are producing Arabs which meet the standards of the ideal Arab. The observer is quick to notice these horses. There is no weight in any statements to the contrary once he has seen them for himself. A study of pedigrees later merely verifies his find. Buyers are indicating a preference for Arabs with pretty heads and well balanced bodies. More breeders will swing to meet this challenge. In the long run, it will be the best thing that ever happened for the good of the Arabian horse. And whatever benefits the breed will eventually benefit the breeder.

Preservation Breeding and Population Genetics

by Michael Bowling © 1995
from CMK Record XI/2 Spring ’95

(This discussion is based on outline notes for the talk I gave at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the Arabian Horse Historians Association. The timeliness of the topic is underscored by a comment from the outgoing AHHA president, Carol Schulz, that at least 90% of the Arabian foals registered in the last several stud books are of generalized “show horse” lines, representing no particular breeding direction or identity. This does not say anything against the show horses, but makes it clear that all other aspects of the Arabian horse–and that includes straight Polish, Egyptian, Russian and Spanish–must be divided among less than 10% of current US breeding activity.)

AZZ (Ibn Nura x Bint Azz), shown here with Lady Anne Blunt, was the last of her line. Lady Anne sent the mare to England in the vain hope that more sophisticated veterinary care might preserve this branch of Dahman Shahwan. (NBGS)

What do we actually mean when we talk about “preserving” a genetic stock? The object of the exercise is not simply, or even chiefly, keeping names in pedigrees; pedigrees are merely a tool which may aid in evaluating the structure of a breeding group. It is obviously possible to breed in a preservationist sense with stocks that don’t even have recorded pedigrees. It is also perfectly possible to have a name present in pedigrees, while no modern representative carries a gene from the individual in question.

The goal of preservation breeding is to keep in the world the traits, characters, hereditary factors which make one aspect of a breed or species different from another–in short, to preserve genes for the future. Preservation breeding carries the unspoken assumption that the “preserved” genes will benefit a larger population in future; defined breeding groups have value and identity in their own right, but in another sense they are being maintained for future use.

This brings us inescapably into the realm of population genetics: the aspect of the science of heredity which considers the behavior of genes over time, as affected by particular mating systems. Population genetics is a mathematical and highly theoretical discipline–frankly in graduate school I found it the least compelling aspect of genetics–until you have a real problem to which it applies, when the charts and equations suddenly take on life and meaning.

Much of population genetics theory is derived for the special case of “random mating”–defined as a situation in which every individual in a population has equal probability of mating with every other individual of opposite sex. Clearly this is an imaginary construct to simplify the math. Real-life matings are constrained by geography, finance, fashion, etc., any of which will lead to wide use of some lines or individuals, and neglect of others, and so directly to loss of genetic diversity.

Any individual horse standing before us is the product of its genetic makeup interacting with all the environmental factors it has encountered. Nutrition, training, medical care–all these come under the heading of “environment,” not just weather and soil conditions. Genetic diversity buffers the population against the effect of environmental change; it is what gives a breed the potential to respond to new conditions. Diversity includes the physical and mental traits of the traditional Arabian; “new conditions” in our context may include things like an increased appreciation of the traditional using and companion Arabian horse.

A breed is the sum total of all its individual horses. Historically the genetics and veterinary literature has treated members of breeds as if they were interchangeable average mathematical units. Fortunately with the recognition of genetic diversity as a positive good, an alternative approach is gaining currency. Preservation breeding emphasizes that a breed must not be viewed as the average of all its “random mating” individuals–in order to preserve we must identify and try to understand the differing strands of its makeup.

I have referred before to that useful metaphor of “the tapestry you are preserving.” One may “preserve” almost anything, from a near-perfect wall hanging which just needs to be cleaned and protected from future damage, down to a scrap of authentic thread which may be very useful for repair or reinforcement of a more complete but related fragment.

A static image of conservation or preservation could be misleading (any metaphor however useful is a comparison, not a description). We do need to remember that in Arabian horse terms there are no perfect tapestries, and clarify one difference between preservation breeding and other kinds of conservation (working with animals even differs from preserving rare plant stocks): Genes (DNA molecules) are essentially unchanged over the generations; individual horses are transient, ephemeral, fleeting combinations of genes. The tapestry image works so long as we keep in mind that the process is analogous, but the object of the process is quite different.

What classes of fragments might we conserve? All will be arbitrary, defined in some historical terms–“species” at least in the ideal is a natural, biological classification, but we are not working at the species level. Fortunately we can describe any group in biological terms once we’ve defined it.

  • Large closed groups: this is certainly the easiest category if you have one.
  • Large groups, with fuzzy edges: this has practical advantages but must be defined.
  • Small closed groups: working with these is challenging but possible.
  • “Endangered species”: this is where we run the greatest danger of “keeping a name in a pedigree” without any associated biological reality; small fragments are meaningful only if maintained in some relevant larger context.

Large closed groups: These are easy to define once we decide how large is “large”? Bottlenecks are relative, the more numbers we work with the better our chance of keeping a major proportion of the genetic variation we’re trying to save. We can describe a general picture here, and the other situations can be treated as they vary from it. This is where we need to introduce some population genetics concepts:

“Gene frequency”: a thing, a number, which tells us something about a breeding group; don’t worry about how to develop the actual number. All traits are based on genes, and all genes exist at some frequency–it’s just harder to measure the interesting ones so we sometimes use “markers.”

“Effective population size”: another informative number, which takes into account the relative breeding contributions of males and females. An effective population of 10 can retain genes existing at frequency of 0.1 or higher; uncommon (below 0.1) and rare (below 0.05) variants will likely be lost. For our purposes, in a typical horse-breeding situation, “effective size 10” means some number much larger than 10. Note: it does not matter whether the population expands in numbers; expansion helps to keep in circulation the genes that you do have, but it does not do anything about ones that were lost when the founders were selected.

“The sire is half the herd”–we all know that maxim. In a preservation breeding context the point is precisely that we don’t want any one sire to dominate any program to the extent of half its genes. The more one narrows down the sire selection, the more, and the more diverse, mares must be kept in order to retain the original genetic variation. The most efficient way to maintain diversity is to use multiple sires on several small sets of mares, and rotate the sires. The idea, always of course influenced by real-world considerations, among them the phenotypic suitability of a particular combination, is to equalize breeding opportunity in order to maximize the proportion of genes retained.

Inbreeding and selection pressure are considerations in any breeding situation–they are not specialized aspects of the preservationist approach. Inbreeding, like random mating, simplifies the math, so is overly important in population genetics theory. Inbreeding can be a useful tool, and incidentally is a fact in any closed breeding group–inbreeding operates at the level of breeds, so long as they have closed stud books, not just within limited subsets of breeds. Inbreeding drives genes to fixation and can lead to the loss of alleles from the population, so one goal of presevationist planning should be to minimize the average degree of inbreeding. Inbreeding is not an end in itself.

Once we have a preservation group defined (say for now all the horses, or at least a representative sample, are in preservationist hands, though that is not a trivial assumption) and reproducing, the best way to retain maximum genetic diversity is to spread the horses among more than one program, and let subgroups happen. In theory we want a set of “cooperator breeders” working toward a shared vision. That calls to mind another non-trivial problem: preservation breeders as people will, by definition, be eccentric and… let’s say independent minded. Those independent visions are essential, each maintaining its own distinct sample of the horses in question; there still must be enough of the shared vision, and some sort of working definition, to retain the genetic identity of the preserved group.

Part II (CMK Record, XI/3 Fall, 1995)

(Continued from last issue — the “to be continued” text block was lost in production. Last time we outlined the basic notions of population genetics, in terms of preservation breeding with a large closed population. Further implications arise when other kinds of genetic entities are to be preserved.)

Large blurry groups will maximize the contribution from the founder animals. Generally, by the time any breeding group needs attention at the preservation level, the genetic influence of many founders will be lost among those descendants which qualify for inclusion in a closed group. Whether through attrition of numbers, or use in outcross programs, or most likely both, any set of “straight” pedigree horses carries only a fraction of the founders’ genes–compare, for example, the original Blunt or Davenport array, with the sample of those influences represented in modern straight Blunt or straight Davenport breeding.

Gene frequencies among the surviving descendants of anything reflect the action of mutation (negligible over human time scales), chance and selection. The gene frequencies of any modern closed group likely will be very different from the frequencies that would have been calculated among the founders. This effect is apt to be less exaggerated (simply because more of the founders are represented) if we define our modern population so that it descends “largely” (deliberately vague) from those founders. To follow up the previous example, there are Blunt and Davenport genes in modern CMK Arabians which have been lost from their straight Blunt or Davenport relatives.

Philosophically and historically the breeding group with blurry outlines is different from more traditional approaches but it is squarely based on an accurate biological view: species are naturally distinct biological entities with more or less firm barriers against crossing; breeds are artificially maintained subsets of a species. “Breed” is a historical (originally geographic) concept, and acquires biological reality only after the fact; this cannot be overstressed. “Breed” and “species” do not have equivalent implications, in terms of original or maintained genetic differences. In evolutionary terms, the genetic distance between pairs of species is measured by comparing their relative frequencies for marker genes–in making such measurements researchers do not expect to find complete non-overlap between related species. Obviously then this will not be expected between breeds, leave alone subsets of a breed.

Working with a blurry edged pedigree definition is not the same as maintaining a closed group, and not a substitute where the closed group still exists–the two approaches are complementary. In setting up a blurry group its organizers must neither claim that it is something else, nor allow it to be thought less than it is in its own right. There must be a working definition which sets off a biologically and phenotypically distinct entity from the breed at large.

Few (if any) absolute genetic differences exist between breeds. Still less can there be absolute differences between subsets of a breed, and there simply is no way to tell what caused such differences anyway–they are every bit as likely to have arisen through chance loss of genes from one set but not from the other, as they are to reflect an original difference. Given they were shown to represent an original difference, such still could represent accidents of sampling the original population (in our case the Bedouin horses, which ranged over a large area geographically and were more or less separated in terms of tribal origins).

Working with a blurry-edged definition gives tremendous possibilities in terms of developing subgroups: founder genes of different origin (in Arabian terms, different desert samples) will get together and produce new combinations not existing in the original animals. This may suit a particular breeder’s approach admirably, while it strikes another as highly undesirable. Neither response to this biological fact is “wrong,” but this does underline that one must be aware that gene combinations are not static, even in a closed group.

Preservation breeding of livestock is not like working with, say, historical rose varieties. Modern bushes of a rose bred in 1830 are biological clones of the same plant, with exactly the same gene combinations as the ancestor (barring rare mutations). Modern descendants of an individual Arabian horse which lived in 1830 need not actually carry any of its genes, and they certainly carry those genes in different combinations than did that ancestor. To give a simple coat color example from a more recent individual, Skowronek was homozygous for grey and heterozygous for the black and red pigment genes at extension locus. There are modern chestnut Arabians of intense Skowronek breeding–horses bred to maintain a high relationship to this ancestor have lost three (at least) of his detectable genes at these two easily defined loci.

Small closed groups make for the most difficult and challenging and certainly the most intellectually fascinating kind of project. We have already acknowledged that large groups will develop subgroups. Over time these may be selected or defined into their own distinct existence, so eventually the “small group” scenario becomes a concern in almost any preservation breeding context, regardless of your starting level. Keeping to our original examples, the Davenport program is developing an elaborate substructure, and within the English descended aspect of CMK there are a number of possible distinctions, including straight Blunt, Skowronek-Blunt, straight Crabbet, GSB-eligible, Crabbet-Old English, and CMK of high Crabbet percentage. Each of these may be maintained in its own distinctive form, while individuals of the more specialized groups may contribute genes to the more general ones.

The narrowly defined groups exist in their own right but they also serve as a resource of mental and conformation traits, soundness and performance ability, for use in other contexts. This is quite analogous to the position of preservation-bred stock relative to the breed at large. The drawback, at least in theory, to maintaining the maximum number of small sub-groups, is that inbreeding within each subgroup will increase more rapidly than it would if the entire set of horses had been crossed freely among themselves. The other side of the same coin is that crossing sub-groups will later provide a way to increase heterozygosity, and theoretically vigor and fertility, without going outside the original closed definition.

The notion to take home here is that maintaining population substructure is an efficient way to maintain genetic diversity; the modern Thoroughbred, with its history of international exchanges of sires and overall genetic homogenization, possesses far less genetic diversity than does the Arabian, with its history of breeding in national or smaller subgroups.

We all learned long ago that “inbreeding creates uniformity.” If you take nothing else away from this discussion, at least cross that off your list of life’s basic concepts. Inbreeding drives genes to homozygosity and thereby shows up underlying genetic variance. Inbreeding actually creates phenotypic variability. Selection among the results of inbreeding may give rise to uniformity. Is this what you want?

A program cannot possibly maintain the full range of genetic diversity, and is not likely to maintain representative frequencies, of any founder population, through a bottleneck of two or three or five individuals. “Rare” genes are defined to exist below 0.05 frequency–nothing in a group of five horses (among them possessing a theoretical maximum total of 10 genes at any locus, and in practice there will be fewer) can exist below 0.10. If a “rare” gene from the original population, of which these five horses are a sample, is by chance present, it automatically has gone above its original frequency; if it’s not in there it never can come back, so long as the group is bred closed. This effect is not automatically either good or bad, but is simply what happens, and it illustrates that “preservation” operates at different levels. Clearly one can only “preserve” what is still in the world to be worked with, but just as clearly, the more extensive the sample with which one starts breeding now, the more correctly the desired population will be reflected in future generations.

A program cannot achieve flat phenotypic “uniformity” without losing genes; selection for a totally uniform true-breeding group is in fact the opposite of genetic preservation (besides being a highly theoretical construct–biological reality is quite different). A program, or a group of cooperator programs, can maintain or reproduce something closer to the original population by crossing derived lines back together. Sublines will automatically develop when more than one breeder is directing the course of selection, and so far from being disadvantageous, these can be highly useful from many viewpoints. (I am deliberately running this idea into the ground–it is one of the most important things of which preservation breeders must be aware.)

Endangered Species: At this level (“threads and fragments” in our tapestry analogy) a real genetic presence can readily be reduced to “a name in a pedigree” unless the line is maintained in some appropriate biological context. When a breed is evolving rapidly, saving descendants of an uncommon element means nothing, unless the breeder interested in preserving that element is working with some semblance of the breeding background to which it belongs historically and genetically. This point is missed by many people who breed horses–perhaps especially Arabian horses–who boast they have a line to Mare X or Great Sire Y but haven’t noticed (or alternatively may be quite proud of) how often the descendant bears little resemblance to the ancestor. No one would try to deny that such resemblances can persist across a breed–but the point of preservation is precisely that more such resemblances may be more predictably maintained if breeders don’t depend simply on chance to bring them forward. Chance will tend to swamp the real genetic influence of rare lines, by simple force of numbers, outside the preservation context. [See Ann T. Bowling’s “Questioning breeding myths in light of genetics“]

Sire lines tend to be the most rapidly evolving aspect of any breed of any species, except where a closed stud book has been essentially taken over by a line or two and there’s no more room for change. The Y chromosome is a biological entity and is only handed on from sire to son. It is possible to measure genetic distance by sequencing yDNA. Probably more important for our discussion, old and traditional sire lines are more likely to be maintained in old and traditional breeding contexts; the persistence of a no longer fashionable sire line is an obvious marker for the program directed by a breeder who appreciates the traditional stock. Emphasis on sire lines works both ways then–it definitely helps us to find genes of diminishing frequency, and it theoretically carries them physically (but remember few genes on the Y are known, except those directly relating to male fertility). [NB: to date (2007), while Y chromosome variation is easily found in most species tested, none has been detected in the horse.]

Dam lines tend to be biologically conservative. Rare and uncommon genes tend to be carried through the bottom of the pedigree–simply because so many more mares than stallions breed actively in each generation. By simple chance, more carriers of any uncommon gene will be used on the female side than on the male. Occasionally a mare will hand a rare gene on to one or more influential stallion sons and a breed experiences a major change in gene frequency. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is associated with the cytoplasm, not the cell nucleus, and thus transmitted almost entirely through the egg, essentially only through the female line. Very little mtDNA is carried by sperm (though such transmission has proven detectable in carefully designed mouse experiments). [See M. Bowling’s 1998 article “What’s in a Name“] [NB: it has been shown since this writing that sperm transmission of mtDNA does not occur under normal conditions.]

mtDNA carries important genes which interact with nuclear genes; also, like yDNA [which has not proven to be informative in the horse], it can be a tracer for historical and biological change and the interrelationships of lines. Generally populations have more dam than sire lines so mtDNA theoretically is more useful than yDNA; it has also proven more variable in practice. This area is only beginning to be investigated in the horse but it carries exciting potential.

“Middle of the pedigree” elements may readily be overlooked. Historically breeders have thought in terms of sire (west) or dam (east) lines–we often study published charts of sire and dam lines as a shorthand way of handling pedigrees. Sire and dam lines in fact reflect the smallest portion of any pedigree, and certainly of gene transmission–only the Y chromosome and cytoplasmic mtDNA respectively are guaranteed to run along the top or bottom of a pedigree. Except in terms of those two elements, and thus for the vast majority of genetic material, position in the pedigree has nothing to do with potential genetic influence; important horses, still visibly influential, may not have left direct sire or dam lines. Davenport’s *Haleb and the Blunt’s Bint Nura GSB come readily to mind as examples.

This opens an enormous area for discussion or consideration, and space forbids addressing it in more than this very elementary fashion. The underlying reality is that any ancestor in any pedigree may have contributed genes to any modern descendant–but at the same time any ancestor’s genes, once we get back a few generations, may have been lost completely. There is no way to tell by looking at the list of names which is a pedigree, the ancestors that actually are genetically important in the horse to which that list belongs. We must look at the horses and learn as much as possible about the ancestors, in order to make rational judgments on this point.

Mid-pedigree names may become important in developing subgroups. Simply as a fact–with neither negative nor positive associations–breeders may use any name as a marker to define a group (and it may be used by its presence or absence). The bigger and more influential the “name,” in fact, the more useful it may be, in terms of future genetic balance, to reserve some lines for crossing back to it–within the large group however defined.

What are we trying to preserve? Genetic diversity buffers the breed against change; genetic diversity interacts with environment to provide the basis for all variation within a breed. Preservationist breeders have one underlying goal: to promote the maintenance of genetic diversity. It should not be necessary to state that the preservationist approach grows out of having observed negative changes in the breed. We are preserving the genes which influence major traits, including disposition, soundness and endurance, which are not necessarily addressed in the show ring.

Different preservationist groups have more in common than they do dividing them; it is to all our benefits to make common cause for a generally different approach to breeding the Arabian horse. A listing of preservationist group contacts would be a very useful practical tool in advancing this goal, and the members of the Arabian Horse Historians Association, assembled at their 1994 Annual Meeting, agreed that serving as the clearing house for such information was a valid role for AHHA. Preservation breeders may themselves become an endangered species–no one has any choice without a vigorous preservationist movement.

from: “For the Record” CMK Record, XI/3: page 10/12 Fall, 1995

(GMB–We’ve edited Deborah’s letter because as we understand her point it’s not so much to comment on other preservationist activities, as to caution CMK breeders about mistakes they might be in danger of making. Of course we suspect, too, Deborah would agree if we pointed out that there are many registered Arabians which are not preservationist-bred in any sense, but which also “should not be bred on” for their lacks with regard to conformation, soundness, disposition or breed character. Overall we certainly second her warning and are glad to see such thinking in the CMK ranks: this movement absolutely would lose its identity, its purpose and its point if it did not continue to turn out the beautiful, traditional using Arabian that brought all of us into the CMK circle. Fortunately it is clear that CMK pedigrees continue to produce just that kind of Arabian. We have thought about this quite a lot, over the years, and it strikes us that CMK breeders in particular are not so much in danger of full-blown “preservationist syndrome” as may be the followers of some other lines of breeding. It is easy to be caught up in enthusiasm over the rarity of a particular individual, and obviously we all have our own preferences for some style of horse as opposed to another. That said, very few of us began in CMK Arabians with the idea first and looked for the horses later; a more typical CMK story is learning to appreciate a particular kind of Arabian–we would say practically always starting from a using, riding horse orientation–and then finding that “our kind of horse” belongs with the CMK Heritage. Other major advantages to CMK as a preservation scheme are its avoiding a closed definition and the great genetic diversity it maintains. Large-sense CMK breeders have much more room to operate than do the people working with other narrow closed preservation groups; specialized narrower groups within CMK may be crossed with other CMK lines without losing their CMK identity.

As the CMK preservation movement explores more kinds of promotional efforts, we can expect to hear from more people who actually do set out to see what these CMK horses are about, with no preconceived idea of what kind of horse they’re going to find. That is precisely why we need to go cautiously on the promotion front: we must be sure we are attracting people who can understand and appreciate this kind of horse, rather than those who may latch on to the name yet expect to modify the horses to suit some other set of criteria.

Deborah may not have had this next point in mind but many horse activities pursued these days do not place very high priority on the well-being of the horse, whether physical or psychological [the two are very closely intertwined]. [See Rick Synowski’s article “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder In Arabian Horses“.] No thinking breeder would care to see any horse exposed to such dangers, but we are convinced the CMK Arabian in particular is ill served by certain aspects of modern training and presentation [and statements by show trainers bear this out]. The CMK Heritage will place more emphasis in future on the actual physical “preservation” of individual horses in this day-to-day safety sense. This must include, almost by definition, the encouragement of alternative systems of use and presentation which do maintain horsemanlike values and do emphasize the well-being of the animal.

We find, too, we can’t close without attempting to give a slightly different slant on “preservationist syndrome.” The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy distinguishes conservation–the simple maintenance of a stock in existence, without changing it–from improvement, breeding with selection toward any set of visual and functional standards. ALBC advises conservation of very primitive breeding groups, whose raison d’etre is to serve as a reservoir of basic genes for health and soundness which may be at risk for loss in high-performance domestic lines. By contrast selection for continued improvement is accounted appropriate in traditional “improved” stocks whose history includes a performance standard.

The using Arabians of the Reese and Dean circles, whose breeders provided the background for the CMK movement, certainly were highly selected. So were those of the Crabbet Stud. The breeders of the CMK Heritage can call on the genetic strength resulting from that selection; at the same time we have, as Deborah pointed out, a grave responsibility to maintain the standards which were achieved by those past breeders. The problem in modern Arabian horse circles, of course, is to recognize “improvement” when one sees it. There certainly are Arabian breeders who see any change that has come about since the horses left the Bedouin tribes as change for the worse, and who think in ALBC’s conservationist terms, of maintaining a comparatively primitive stock as little different as may be from the desert war mare. There are many more of us who are not impressed with the way the show horses have changed in this country over the past two decades [the wink of an eye compared to the breed’s history in the west, leave alone its prior existence]. There is a place for all of us, but it is essential that we understand the implications of our positions.

Do remember that many of the preservationist programs are operating with minuscule numbers of horses — all recognizable activity with an identity other than “mixed source show horse” amounts to little more than 10% of the breed combined. We address this not in terms of what level of selection a given program may have room to impose, if they are to breed any horses at all; but of the simple fact that their horses have relatively little impact on the 400,000+ living Arabians in North America. They cannot change the breed’s nature, and if such horses fill a place in their owners’ lives, that is really all that need be asked of them. There is nothing wrong with conservation breeding, in the ALBC sense, so long as one recognizes one is doing it, and does not make impossible claims for the results.

It’s a completely separate subject, of course, but we have never been comfortable with those overarching schemes one occasionally sees put forward, whereby some party or official entity is meant to “certify” breeding stock–not because we approve of breeding from poor horses, but because we cannot picture how any breed-wide selection scheme could be at once effective, in the sense of doing anything in particular, and sufficiently inclusive to recognize all the range of variation which the breed includes and which must be maintained for future reference.

As to the other-bashing of “preservationist syndrome,” we do consider it basic to be civil to one’s neighbors. In fact we always think it’s a pity when anyone with a preservationist slant doesn’t recognize that we are each other’s natural allies.)

[For more thoughts on this subject, see M.Bowling’s 1997 article “Preservation and Improvement.”]

See also:

CID: The Paradigm has Shifted

CID: The Paradigm Has Shifted

COPYRIGHT 1997 By MICHAEL BOWLING

from Arabian Visions magazine Sept/Oct 1997

used by permission of Michael Bowling

Author’s note: This piece illustrates the vitality of a new communications medium, for it grew primarily out of Internet discussions of the subject. Special thanks to Mary Anne Grimmell who planted the seed of “putting into laymen’s language” the potential uses and misuses of the new CID test, along with the positive impact it will have on breeding farms, large and small, and who assisted in reviewing the story in draft.

Everything you know about CID has to be re-examined in the light of a single new fact. It is now possible to know where the CID gene is. This changes the shape of our world. No CID foals ever need be produced again.

CID: PROGENY TESTING

Remember that progeny testing was previously the only way to know whether an Arabian horse had the CID gene. One could wait, and hope the gene did not turn up by accident; or one could make a systematic effort, and breed a stallion to known carrier mares, as one prominent breeder did with an imported horse a few years ago. (I am not aware that any other stallion was formally progeny tested, though there may have been one or two that I missed. Obviously if any horse had been so tested, and turned up negative, it would have been trumpeted from the housetops. Even at the highest estimates of CID gene frequency, most horses are expected to be negative; this implies that few were tested.)

To achieve 95% confidence of knowing an individual Arabian did not have the gene, one would have to see a) 11 healthy offspring from known carrier mates; or b) healthy inbred offspring from 22 of the tested animals’s own offspring. That awkward gender-free sentence is the only one I am going to have to write, since obviously no mare could ever be rigorously progeny tested to be CID-free, and also have a breeding career as such. Most Arabian stallions would end up siring more offspring in their progeny testing phase than they did in their breeding careers. (Note that breeding a prospective sire to 22 of his own daughters would have the advantage, over the 11 offspring from carrier mares, of potentially turning up any lethal or seriously deleterious gene(s), not just CID. Note also that it is 11 offspring from known carriers–which could include several offspring from any one carrier–but it is offspring from 22 different daughters.) That testing, to that level of confidence, has been prohibitively expensive — this is plain from the fact that essentially no one did it. And it would generate a whole crowd of young horses that needed to be somewhere, after the testing was done, whether the results were positive or negative.

CID can be openly discussed, because acknowledging one individual has the gene will no longer cast a pall over a whole breeding program or line of breeding. Individual horses can be tested and their individual status can be known; matings can be planned accordingly; guilt by association, and the notion of contagious genes, can finally be laid to rest. The rumor mill will have to find something else to grind. Statements of the form “Our neighbor’s daughter’s boyfriend’s cousin knew someone who bred a mare to that horse and had a CID foal” will no longer carry any weight (not that they should ever have done, but the climate of ideas will change, and the impossibility of proving a negative will no longer apply). The delusion that CID is the only lethal gene of concern in Arabian breeding can be put out of its misery as well, and the substantive discussion of other problems, and the search for other gene tests, can begin — inspired by the success with this difficult and challenging problem. The paradigm has shifted. New ways of thinking will be required.

A. What are the drawbacks to CID (or any lethal defect) without a gene test? I submit, the following:

  1. Foals die.

  2. Breeders suffer major emotional and financial hardship.

  3. Potential newcomers are put off becoming involved with the breed: at best they cannot be sure their new horses are not carriers, and they are at some risk of having known, but unadmitted, carriers foisted off on them.

B. What becomes of those drawbacks, given a carrier test? They all go away:

  1. No foals need die, because no one need unknowingly cross together two horses with the gene.

  2. Breeders can test their stock and know how to avoid the problem.

  3. Potential buyers can test their prospects and know where they stand. The paradigm shifts, and new ways of thinking are required.

For the frequency of a gene in a breed to be reduced, it is not necessary to remove from breeding all individuals possessing it. Such animals need only sire or produce fewer offspring than they would have done under random mating (if their status had not been known, in other words). That is almost certainly what will happen once this gene test is in widespread operation, and the gene’s frequency in the breed will gradually decrease. The benefits of the test therefore can be obtained without gelding all gene-positive colts, or denying registration to all gene-positives, or any other such scheme; therefore to do so would be an injustice. It would be applying the test to punish “a moral flaw,” rather than as a tool to manage “a gene” for the benefit of the breed. Genes do not have moral or ethical content; questions of right and wrong arise in the way humans deal with their knowledge.

Every individual of every species carries genetic defects, and CID is not the only lethal operating in the Arabian breed. Acknowledging the existence of a problem, and developing a rational means to deal with it, is the opposite of denying that it is a serious one. All the drawbacks of CID arose out of the fact that we could not tell where the gene was. Now we can. Vicki Hearne’s Adam’s Task, a book of long essays on animal training, describes human-animal interaction as a form of language. One of Hearne’s recurring themes is “the stories we know” about animals, or about the ways humans interact with animals, or the way animals interact with humans (she refers to animals as “knowing stories” too). Her position is that we can operate only in terms of the stories we tell ourselves, because that is the practical form our knowledge takes.

CID: COMBINED IMMUNODEFIENCY

The genetic immuno-deficiencies are a complex set of conditions; since the early 1950s close to 20 different syndromes have been reported in humans and examples have been recorded in a few other species. The first indications of what came to be recognized as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) of Arabian foals were clinical reports out of Australia in the 1960s, and the syndrome was described in the U.S. in 1973. Its inheritance as a simple autosomal recessive was established by 1977. The disease can be tentatively diagnosed from a blood sample of a young foal. A white blood cell (lymphocyte) count of less than 1000 per mm3 (vs 2500-3000 for a healthy foal) and lack of IgM (immunoglobulin M) are presumptive evidence of SCID; confirmation is by post-mortem showing underdeveloped thymus and lymph nodes. Lacking immune capacity, such foals will succumb before 5 months of age of massive infections.

With the SCID gene test:

  • Sick Arabian foals of untested parents can be tested for the presence of the SCID gene in double dose, which will provide rapid and definite distinction between foals which are candidates for major supportive efforts and those which are not.

  • Mare owners considering outside stallions for prospective matings can ask to see evidence of SCID gene status, and make informed breeding decisions.

  • Within a breeding program, excellent individuals which happen to possess the SCID gene may be bred so as to retain their good qualities and yet avoid producing affected foals, and gradually reduce the gene’s frequency.

  • It should be emphasized that SCID is a recessive genetic defect; no evidence has ever been found for any defect or weakness in heterozygous animals.

This notion has wide applications. For many years Arabian breeders told themselves the story that the Arabian, as “the oldest and purest breed of horse,” must by that nature be free of lethal defects. Many of them even extended this story to say that, if a lethal gene ever appeared, it must be the result of a pedigree flaw (not in the sense of introducing a gene from outside, but of somehow “causing” defects by violating the breed’s metaphysical purity). I recently commented to someone that Arabian horses have been held to be immune to the laws of biology; their genetic problems are viewed as the effects of past moral transgressions (this is a prominent theme in 19th century nature philosophy, and in early 20th century racism). The story of population genetics now tells us that lethal genes, like other genes, are part of a breed’s and a species’s history. Every individual of every species is now held to carry some lethal or highly deleterious gene(s) in hidden form. The longer a species has been under domestication, with matings controlled by humans and limited by studbook breed definitions, the more such genes will have a chance to arrive at substantial frequencies, and therefore to become unhidden through homozygous expression. In other words, the story that many Arabian breeders tell themselves, which amounts to saying that CID was a temporary aberration and if we can only get rid of that gene we will be “safe” again, is mis- (or dis-) information. There are candidate lethals described in the genetics or veterinary literature, some of which are better established than others (in terms of mode of inheritance, or the simple fact of being inherited; some are at present merely suspicious, since they appear to be recurring and breed-specific.).

The success of the CID story is that the gene now can become unhidden without killing foals. Our constructive response now is not to obsess over CID, which has been made harmless. It is to look for modes of inheritance, and for gene tests, which will put the other problems in the same position. People have been breeding blind with regard to CID for decades (its recessive nature has been known for over 20 years, never mind how long it existed before being defined). Now that situation has changed. With a gene test, CID is going to become a matter of fact. It will not be a whispers-behind-the-hand subject as it has been for so long. Some discussions of this topic seem to assume that the way things are (attitudes and assumptions, the stories we tell ourselves) are going to remain the way they are right now, forever. They will not. The paradigm has shifted. New ways of thinking are not only required, they are inevitable.

Selected References:

McGuire, T.C. and M.J. Poppie. 1973. Hypogammaglobulinemia and thymic hypoplasia in horses: A primary combined immunodeficiency disorder. Infection and Immunity 8: 272-277.

Poppie, M.J. and T.C. McGuire. 1977. Combined Immunodeficiency in foals of Arabian breeding: evaluation of mode of inheritance and estimation of prevalence of affected foals and carrier mares and stallions. J. Amer. Vet. Med. Assoc. 170: 31-33.

Shin, E.K., L.E. Perryman and K. Meek. 1997. A Kinase-Negative Mutation of DNA-PK (subscript CS) in Equine SCID Results in Defective Coding and Signal Joint Formation. J. Immunol. 158 (8): 3565-3569.

Studdert, M.J. 1978. Primary, Severe, Combined Immunodeficiency Disease of Arabian Foals. Austr. Vet. J. 54: 411-417.

Wiler, R., R. Leber, B.B. Moore, L.F. Van Dyk, L.E.Perryman and K. Meek. 1995. Equine severe combined immunodeficiency: A defect in V(D)J recombination and DNA-dependant protein kinase activity. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. US 92: 11485-11489.

The Arab Horse in Legend and History

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Amin Zaher

by Dr. Amin Zaher
Photos from the Zaher collection (Western Horseman Mar/Apr’48)

Nigma at 5 yrs. with her first colt in Egypt. Picture taken in front of Prince Mohammed Ali’s palace.

Amir Abdelkader Algazairy, a nineteenth century Morroccan nobleman, tells us that some Arabs of the Azed tribe went to Jerusalem to congratulate Solomon on his marriage to the Queen of Sheba. Having completed their mission, they asked him to give them food to take on their long journey. He gave them a stallion descended from the Ismail stock and said to them:

“When you are hungry, place your best rider on this horse and arm him with a stout lance; by the time you have collected your wood and kindled a flame you will see him returning with the fruit of a successful chase.”

The Azed did this and never failed to obtain a gazelle or an ostrich. Therefore they called this horse “Zad Elrakeb,” meaning “provision for the rider.” Unfortunately Amir Abdelkader did not give any description of the stallion. Later when bred he produced some mighty sons and daughters.

The first Egyptian records of the horse are very ancient. A wall painting shows an Egyptian hunter, and it was drawn about 1400 B.C. The horse has a good many of the original, desirable characteristics of the Arabian such as the dished face, the large eye, the sensitive muzzle, the long swan neck, the well rounded rump, and the cocked tail, all of which are still highly esteemed in the Arabian horse. Whether this kind of horse existed in Egypt at that time, or whether the horse originated in the mind of the artist, nobody can tell, but the latter seems improbable.

Before the rise of Mohammedanism the famous Arabian poets, Imro-olkais, Amr Ibn Abi Rabeah, and Antara wrote their masterpieces of Arabic verse. In these they described many of the characteristics, colors, and habits of the Arabian horse. From their description one can tell that they were talking of the horse of the desert.

Shahloul by Ibn Rabdan, Royal Agriculture Society stallion, Egypt.

The Bedouins of Arabia had the Arabian horse, loved it, and in their life it played an extremely important role. The sayings of the prophet Mohammed reveal the significance of the Arabian to them. The following are good examples:

1. Bounty and happiness are ever on horseback; horses are gold that one may hold.

2. Every Moslem must have as many horses as he can afford.

3. The best of all is the bay, chestnut, or black with star and three stockings.

4. Abu Horairah recalled the prophet saying: “when a man races his mare with another horse unknown to him and the winner is a matter of chance, it is not gambling; but if he knows his mare will win, that is gambling.”

Gambling was forbidden. The prophet took gambling to be a form of cheating, such as betting on a sure thing.

5. The prophet said that nothing made a man happier than the following: (a) playing with his wife, (b) training his mare, (c) hunting with his bow and arrow.

6. When Arabian horses gather and run together, the chestnut will be the leader.

7. The best is the attentive, black, five-year-old; the next best is the five-year-old with three stockings and no white on the off forefoot. If it is not black, dark brown will do.

8. Every man who loves a horse is as good a man as he who is generous to the poor.

Nigma at 32 yrs. Much of the produce of this mare came to America.

The Arabian horse has been a source of pleasure to men not only during the time of the prophet but at all other times. Al Asmai, the great Arabian poet who lived about 750 A.D., tells how Haroun al Rasheed rode out to see a race. He says,

“I was among those who came with the Califf Al Rasheed. The horses all belonged to Haroun Al Rasheed, his sons, and Soliman Ibn Gafar El Mansoor. A black mare named Zibd, which had been bred by Haroun Al Rasheed, won the race. The Califf was so delighted that he sent for me. He told me to write a poem about this mare Zibd, describing her from head to foot.”

The Bedouins certainly must have been masters in the science of breeding. In the development of their famous Arabian they used many modern breeding techniques. When they breed they never forgot the importance of color, endurance, thirst and hunger.

One trick they used was to measure their horses with a string, passing it just behind the animal’s ears and joining the two ends at the upper lip. The measurement thus gained served as a guide for the proper distance from hoof to withers. H. H. Mohammed Ali says “Find a well bred Arabian horse and it will surprise you to see what a true test this is.”

Color preference was, and still is, good material for argument among Arabian horse breeders, as it is with most other horsemen. Even the Arabs had a diversity of opinion with regard to color. In general they preferred the black first, then the dark bay with a star on the forehead, and then the dark chestnut. Dark colors were always favorites. The light chestnut and grey were last on the list.

Very light colors, such as palominos, were not popular. In fact, they used to call such a light colored animal “Ghagari,” which means “gypsy.” There was no reason for their disliking light colored horses; I believe it was just a matter of individual taste. Among the thousands of real Arabians that I have known and seen I have yet to find a single one that resembled the American Palomino. It is recorded, however, that such a color did exist among the Arabs, although it was very rare.

The Arabs were very superstitious about markings. White well up on the legs was considered unlucky. Two white socks on diagonal or lateral feet were also disliked. If the two fore or two hind feet were white, however, the horse was acceptable.

Modern scientific breeders question the belief that strains and families exist among the Arabian horses. An interesting story, however, is offered by Amir Abdelkader about the early foundation of the Arab.

At the beginning of the Christian era, about two thousand years ago, the Arem flood covered the Arabian lands, as is mentioned in the Koran, the holy book of Islam. All horses were turned loose for some little time and it became difficult to recapture them. After the flood subsided, five Bedouins were hunting in the desert. Here they saw five mares by a well. After several days they succeeded in capturing them. On their way back home they were unable to find anything to eat so they at last decided to kill one of the captured mares. Which one became a matter of heated discussion. It was finally decided to race them, the loser to be killed. This indicates that they had in mind the principle of selection. While the race was in progress, they killed a deer so that it was not necessary to kill one of the mares. These five mares were destined to become the ancestors of a new line of horses. They named one Saqlawieh, because she had glossy hair; another Om Arkoob, because she had a defective hock. Arkoob is the Arabian word for hock. Another they called Showaima, because she had many cow-licks; another Ibayyah, because the dress of her rider slipped down and she carried it all the way back on her tail; and lastly Kahilah, because she had dark eyes.

According to another story, which is believed by many authorities, the mares were originally named after their owners. When a man tied a mare in his stable, this was a sign that he owned it and the horse took his name. If the mare foaled, her offspring might be sold to another breeder, and then its name would be composed of two names, its dam’s name and the name of her dam’s owner, and so on.

The name, “Seglawi Jedran Ibn Sudan,” is found on some Arabian pedigrees. According to the above theory the female ancestors on the dam’s side were owned by three different men, Seglawi, Jedran, and Ibn Sudan. In a similar way, as time goes on, you may have separate families in this country. It has happened in every kind of livestock. Dickinson, Draper, Selby, Babson, Ben Hur, all may develop strains if they continue to breed Arabians, especially if they do not make many outcrosses. Then their names may have a meaning similar to Seglawi, Koheilan, Dahman, and so on.

The ability some claim to separate Arabians into certain types according to conformation, to relate those types to certain strains, and to know their family from their conformation is incredible to me. There is only one type that should be in the mind of Arabian horse breeders, “the typical Arabian,” even though individuals may vary.

An Introduction to the Author, Dr. Amin Zaher

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Amin Zaher

From “This Issue and Next” (Western Horseman Mar/Apr’48)

Dr. Amin Zaher, D.V.M., M.S., has recently come to the United States from Egypt to obtain a PhD. in genetics and animal breeding. His thesis title is “The Genetic History of the Arab in America.” Prior to his arrival in the states he occupied the position of Arabian horse breeder in the stud of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt for twelve years. The Egyptian ministry of agriculture has requested that he visit the various Arabian Stud farms while he is in America. Already he has visited many of the most prominent, such as Kellog, (sic) Dickinson, Babson, Van Vleet, Raswan, Tormohlen, Draper, Bazy Miller and many others. Just so that he would have plenty to occupy his time he has been judging Arabian horse shows and has kindly consented to write three articles for The Western Horseman. The first, which appears in this issue, is on the background. This will be followed by articles on the Arab in Egypt and America today.