Category Archives: Individual Horses

Articles about individual horses.

*El Bulad 29: The New Photo

from The CMK Record X/4 Winter 1994

Photos: Record archives, as credited

This photograph of a handsome grey Arabian at Hingham Stock Farm has resided for as long as I can remember in an antique cigar box of unidentified prints and negatives in the W.R.Brown collection. On my trip to Tucson for the 1992 Al-Marah Winter Forum I was able to take an extra day and go back to my breed-history roots in the Brown material at the Arabian Horse Owners Foundation. Given the obvious age of the print and the unmistakable Hingham background there were only a few candidates for its identity; after comparison with other known photos, I realized I was looking at the best *El Bulad image I’d ever seen. R.J.Cadranell and Jeanne Craver have since confirmed that diagnosis. A real puzzle by modern standards is why, with a photo like this one available, the others ever saw the printed light of day, but this is the way that story has evolved–almost every Davenport imported Arabian has come to be represented, in the last 20 years or so, by photos which show it in a more favorable light than any that were published near the time of the importation.

*El Bulad did not leave a direct sire line, which makes him easy to miss if one follows the conventional track of riding the top or bottom lines of pedigrees. His descent is all in common with other Davenport imports so several of his chief connections have been mentioned before, in the *AZRA feature, and in the RHUA, *HAMRAH and HANAD sections of the *URFAH story; another will come up in the SAAIDA chapter of our *HADBA treatment.

To begin with a brief summary from the Cravers’ Annotated Quest:

“*El Bulad 29 was a 1903 Jilfan Stam Al Bulad by a Kuhaylan-Ajuz stallion. Davenport wrote in his 1909-10 catalog: ‘…His well-formed body threatens to eclipse even that of Haleb. His lines are extremely pleasant and his bone is good and flat. He has shown great ability at the trot though a frictionless galloper. His mother was a war mare of much repute…Jilfans are noted for the peculiar slant of the shoulder and hip and this horse is a striking example of that peculiarity.'”

All statements about ownerships and dates of death which follow are based on information as provided through 1939 in The Arabian Stud Book and its supplements. This can be at best an approximation of the travels of *El Bulad and his descendants; the stud books and supplements presented information current at the time they were set in type. If a horse underwent two or more transfers between two publications, the reader has no way to catch the intervening owner(s) from the printed record, unless (and this would only readily apply to mares) it also had registered offspring in such an ownership. It also happened occasionally that a horse would be transferred to a distant owner, but stay at or near the home stud, whether to board there for breeding or simply because it was sold again before the new owner had a chance to move it. Thus ownership records may also imply travels which never took place.

(A word to the wise: The only way to trace an Arabian’s changes of address after 1939 has been through stud book breeding records, assuming the breeder of a foal to be the owner of its dam, and in the absence of evidence of the contrary, most foals to be sired by local stallions. This oversimplified picture became further removed from reality in the late 1980’s with the introduction of the “assigned breeder” designation, but its outlines had already been blurred a decade before when the microfiche stud book was produced. Horses whose breeders still were active at that time in the AHR computer files apparently were listed in the microfiche with their breeder’s most recent address, even though that might be unrelated to where the breeder [and so the horses] had lived at the time. The printed stud book remains a more reliable indicator of locality, even with all its limitations. As a rule of thumb, the more nearly contemporary a source is to the time a subject horse lived, the more seriously it must be considered.)

In the Arabian Horse Club’s original 1909 stud book *El Bulad was one of 23 entries “imported from Arabia in 1906” and “owned by the Davenport Desert Arabian Stud, Goshen, N.Y. and Hingham, Mass.” In 1913 his owner was Peter B. Bradley’s Hingham Stock Farm (Hingham, MA) and this was repeated in 1918. The supplement for 1923 shows *El Bulad transferred to Albert W. Harris, Chicago IL (though no doubt the horse spent most of his time at Harris’ Kemah Stud in Lake Geneva, WI); by 1927 he had been reported dead. Judging from the foaling record, *El Bulad was at Kemah by 1921 and probably died between the breeding seasons of 1924 and ’25. Of *El Bulad’s 15 progeny of record, he seems to have gotten two foals for Davenport, three bred by Hingham and ten credited to Harris.

Dahura (*El Bulad x Nanshan), age 24 with her last foal Aabella. Dahura would prove her sire’s most significant offspring and indeed one of the most influential mares bred at Hingham Stock Farm.

One observation I make repeatedly in these stories is that many horses could have died after siring a first crop, or first foal, and still left a major mark on the breed’s history. *El Bulad certainly comes in this category: his first registered foal was the great mare DAHURA, out of the Ramsdell mare NANSHAN (*Garaveen x *Nejdme). DAHURA became the dam of 17 registered foals and founded one of the most extensive branches of the important *NEJDME dam line; she had three non-trivial breeding sons as well.

DAHURA was a grey foaled in 1909; her original registration, in the 1913 stud book, had her owned by Hingham Stock Farm and bred by the Davenport Desert Arabian Stud. DAHURA was “bred and owned” by Hingham in the 1918 volume. Her dam NANSHAN apparently was in Davenport’s hands well before 1906 (to judge from a youthful photo published in that year and reprinted in The Annotated Quest) and was registered in the 1909 stud book in Homer Davenport’s ownership, not in the form “Davenport Desert Arabian Stud.” No horses had been listed in the 1909 book as owned by Hingham Stock Farm, although Bradley’s name did appear as First Vice President of the Arabian Horse Club and Bradley was breeder of record on some registered horses, foaled from 1896 through 1903, derived from the Hamidie Society’s 1893 World’s Fair imports. R.J.Cadranell reminds me that the 1906 importation had been financed by Bradley, and that “Davenport Desert Arabian Stud” was a joint venture of Davenport, Bradley and A.G.Hooley; its two addresses were Davenport’s and Bradley’s respectively. (But note: it was not the given owner of NANSHAN in 1909. The more one digs into the early stud books the more casual about assigning breeder designations the Arabian Horse Club appears to have been, and the more some appear to have been assigned “by guess and by gosh.”) At some point most of the Davenport Desert Arabians were transferred to Bradley’s sole ownership and went on as Hingham Stock Farm; this was probably before Homer Davenport died in 1912 (see the *HADBA story, IX/4, for the imports Davenport seems to have owned when he died.) Hingham Stock Farm did excellent work with the Davenport horses in any event, and DAHURA played a major role in the program.

DAHURA produced 10 foals bred by Hingham in as many seasons, from 1913 through 1922, and half of them remain in pedigrees. That proportion carries through on the eight full siblings by *HAMRAH; those with descent are the grey sisters DEHAHAH, of 1914; MORFDA, 1916; MERSHID, 1919 and AMHAM, 1920. Their stories have appeared in the *HAMRAH chapters (VI/4 and VII/1) under *URFAH, but to hit the high spots, MORFDA produced the important early sire STAMBUL; MERSHID and AMHAM founded extensively branched families. Both the M-named sisters were Kemah Stud matrons; Harris seemed to seek out multiple sources of any influence which worked particularly well in his terms. The lovely AMHAM was a favorite mare of W.K.Kellogg.

DAHURA’s final Massachusetts foal was her first bred son, the grey 1921 colt JOON by *AZRA, whose influence was summarized in his sire’s cover story (IV/4). His most frequently seen offspring in pedigrees probably is the Kellogg producer SHEHERZADE, dam of the familiar sire COURIER and a string of good mares. ROABERTA, OTHMANEE, RAMADI and JOONTAFA are other widespread JOON matrons.

R. J. Cadranell’s notes from documents at the Trust bridge a stud book gap: DAHURA was one of the Hingham Arabians sold in 1921 to J. G. Winant (For a note on the Winants see “HANAD 489, a short biography,” in VII/4); like them she and several of her offspring, including MORFDA, MERSHID and a 1922 filly, were owned in 1923 by Morton Hawkins of Portland, IN. JOON was then with Mrs Wikoff Smith of Bryn Mawr, PA. DAHURA must have been transferred quickly to the ownership of Parker Smith, also of Portland, IN, the breeder of her grey 1924 foal AH BEN, a full brother to JOON. The logistics of all this remain unclear: that 1923 supplement still had *Azra back in New England with Mrs. Winant, which remained unchanged in 1927. A simple guess is that DAHURA left the Winants in foal and was transferred twice before the 1924 colt arrived. AH BEN has one foal to his credit, but to no long-term effect.

DAHURA was reunited with that other former Hawkins horse, HANAD (story in VII/4). The 1926 sibling, the glamorous liver chestnut VALENCIA, was her sire’s first foal and became a well-regarded Kellogg producer. VALENCIA was first registered in 1927 as bred by Dr. C.D.Pettigrew of Muncie, IN; this was repeated in 1934 and ’37. For reasons not yet clear her breeder became H.V.Tormohlen in the more widely available Stud Book V of 1944, and this was how I presented it in VII/4. Briefly, again, AMEER ALI was the original sire for the Glass program in Oklahoma; AABANN’s most important offspring was the mare sire AABADAN; AABAB got the great matron AADAH.

AMEER ALI and all those “double A” names unequivocally mark the next chapter of DAHURA’s career; she appeared in H.V.Tormohlen’s ownership in 1927, as did AH BEN who ended up with the Remount. DAHURA produced two more registered foals after her HANAD quartet, and was still listed with Tormohlen in 1939 when she would have been 30. Tormohlen was the early writer “Ben Hur” who proselytized for the breed through the pages of Western Horseman in the 1940’s. H.V. and Blanche Tormohlen and their son Brooks also were Ben Hur Farms in Indiana, and developed a very highly regarded program based on the Maynesboro and Hingham dam lines of NADIRAT and DAHURA (NADIRAT belonged to Blanche). Ben Hur stock was entirely within the CMK founder sources, and provided important elements to many modern pedigrees; the Ben Hur horses were known for extreme breed type with brilliant action, bearing comparison with that of RABIYAT according to Gladys Brown Edwards. It’s surprising the Ben Hur story has not received an extensive treatment in these pages before now.

A Ben Hur Farms brochure from about 1959 credits DAHURA with producing 19 foals; it is not unreasonable that two out of so many might have died before registration, or indeed that she might have had a couple of foals by non-Arab sires. (Of course the caption also says DAHURA is shown “at 25 yrs.” with this “19th” foal AABELLA; by my reckoning DAHURA was 24 in 1933 when AABELLA was foaled, and the filly does not look to be a yearling, so a certain carelessness with numbers may be inferred. One finds owners can tack on a year or two or five, once horses get into the mid-20s.) DAHURA probably did not actually live beyond age 30 as I can’t picture old “Ben Hur” could have failed to make much of her passing such a landmark. The brochure also referred to VALENCIA as “foaled and raised here” which taken in conjunction with the stud book implies that DAHURA had come to Ben Hur Farms from Pettigrew in foal to HANAD. Remember that the owner of the dam either at the time of breeding or of foaling could be listed as breeder of a foal, in the early volumes; perhaps in this case they took turns.

DAHURA’s foals after HANAD left for California were three-quarters siblings to the HANAD set: AABAZEM, a bay 1931 colt, was by another *DEYR son, TABAB; AABELLA, by the HANAD son MAHOMET. This made AABAZEM and AADAH seven-eights related to each other, since TABAB and MAHOMET were themselves three-quarters brothers, by *DEYR and his son and both out of DOMOW. AABAZEM was sold to Donald Jones in California by 1934; he traveled the West Coast and got 15 foals, not counting his good partbreds, through 1957. His first son FARZEM (out of the straight Davenport FARHAN) and that horse’s daughter MEHANAZEM (out of a HANAD daughter) in particular have spread his influence widely. AABELLA made her best contribution as dam of AADAH; few mares have ever contributed anything equivalent. Her full career was summarized in the HANAD story (VII/4).

The 100% Hamidie Society mare FREDA produced a chestnut colt by *El Bulad in 1910. BUZLAD first appeared in the 1918 book, when he was owned in New York, and the stud book would have it he again was bred by Hingham Stock Farm. FREDA, like NANSHAN, was registered to Homer Davenport, not DDAS, in 1909 – note that both were mares Davenport had owned before the 1906 importation. BUZLAD was reported gelded in 1923 and transferred to a Massachusetts owner in 1927 who still had him in 1930; he was noted as dead in 1937. *El Bulad had two grey straight Davenport (a concept then almost certainly not invented) fillies in 1912 and ’13, from the important mares *RESHAN and *HAFFIA; they were reported dead by 1927 and 1930 respectively and neither left an offspring of record. The *HAFFIA daughter was one of 12 Arabians, mostly from Hingham, exported to Japan before 1918; two of DAHURA’s *HAMRAH offspring were also in the group.

Fartak (*El Bulad x *Farha): faded photo, willowy hocks and all, this is an impressive and important image of an early Davenport stallion. Photo: AHOF.

The 1913 colt FARTAK (*El Bulad x *Farha) did better for himself, though he too was dead by 1927. He gave his sire two grey straight Davenport granddaughters in the 1919 Hingham Stock Farm crop, PAULAN from *MELEKY and MEDINA from HASIKER. PAULAN too had died before 1927 without producing (one begins to suspect some sort of cataclysm or at least a run of pre-Depression very bad times). MEDINA survived her, traveled a bit and left three registered foals. The 1923 supplement showed MEDINA as one of the Hingham horses owned by F.E.Lewis II in Spadra, CA; in 1927 she was in Connecticut. MEDINA’s first recorded foal, a grey filly of 1929, was JEDRA by JOON and thus represents, with AADAH, the closest *El Bulad doubling in the stud book. JEDRA was bred by Robert Jemison Jr of Birmingham, AL but both MEDINA and the filly had been transferred to Albert W. Harris before 1930. MEDINA and JEDRA each produced two foals in Illinois; JEDRA’s were for a Harris cooperator breeder and neither of them bred on. MEDINA was dead by 1932, leaving a grey filly and gelding, both by NEJDRAN JR, with Harris. The daughter TEBUK produced 10 foals, giving her a well-branched modern family responsible for some familiar names.

*El Bulad had two foals in the 1922 Kemah crop, five in 1923, one in ’24 and two in ’25. Apparently Harris regretted not being able to use the horse more extensively, since he then bought the FARTAK daughter MEDINA and her double *El Bulad filly; he already had the DAHURA daughters MERSHID and MORFDA in 1927.

Abba (*El Bulad x Dawn) had one registered foal when she was 20. Clearly she was not idle in the years the stud book shows her unproductive.

That 1922 pair were three-quarters brother and sister, a grey filly MEDINAH from SULTANA (Nejdran Jr x Rhua) and “ch/gr” colt RUSTAM from RHUA herself; this straight Davenport mating was repeated again to produce BEN HUR in the following year. SULTANA and her sister DAWN produced four more of the *El Bulad foals, so seven of 10 were from the RHUA family. Harris’ other straight Davenport foundation mare SAAIDA outlived *El Bulad but did not produce to him; her NEJDRAN JR daughter GAMELIA did, twice. The other productive Kemah mating for *El Bulad was with the old Ramsdell mare NANDA, sister to NANSHAN, making the resulting filly ALOHA a younger blood-sister to DAHURA. ALOHA was one of the five Kemah *El Bulad offspring to die relatively young (before ages three through seven) without progeny, still apparently in Harris’ ownership. RUSTAM became a Remount sire and seems to have lived until some time between the 1937 stud book and the supplement of 1939. BEN HUR and MURAT (ex GAMELIA) were both listed as living in 1939, in California and Missouri respectively, as stallions, but neither had registered offspring. That left MEDINAH, ABBA (1923) grey filly from DAWN) and SHARAZAD (MURAT’s 1925 bay sister) to breed on from this chapter of the story. For the extensive family of MEDINAH and the thin line from ABBA see under RHUA in the *URFAH treatment (VI/3); SHAHRAZAD must wait until the SAAIDA chapter of *HADBA.

Five of *El Bulad’s 15 offspring still are in pedigrees; he had 33 registered grandchildren (over half through DAHURA) and several of the resulting lines are widespread at the backs of modern pedigrees. As part of the genetic history of the Davenport horses, note that five of *El Bulad’s 15 foals were straight Davenport but there were only two such in the second generation and none after that. *El Bulad maintains a moderately strong link to the Davenport importation in the general Arabian population, but is not represented in modern straight Davenport breeding.

Antezeyn Skowronek 5321

by Michael Bowling (copyright)
originally appeared in the Oct. ’76 issue of the Arabian Horse World

Antezeyn Skowronek in May 1976 at age 27.
He is by Abu Farwa (Rabiyas x *Rissletta by Nasem) and out of SHARIFA (Antez x Ferdith by Ferseyn).

Antezeyn Skowronek was foaled 21 April 1949, bred by E. J. Boyer of Puente, California. He was sired by the quite literally unforgettable Abu Farwa 1960, a horse that can’t be done justice in short space. Briefly, Abu Farwa is one of the most strongly positive breeding influences on the Arabian horse in this country. His get and descendants excel in quality and conformation, and they continue to compile an impressive record in all fields open to the breed, both in and out of the show ring. Abu Farwa was an early product of the famed program of W. K. Kellogg; his sire was the end result of years of breeding for quality and athletic ability by Randolph Huntington and W. R. Brown in this country with basically English stock, and his dam was one of the most elegant individuals ever imported from Crabbet Park. He had the quality and ability for which he was bred, and he passed it on with great success in breeding.

SHARIFA 2798, dam of Antezeyn Skowronek, was not famous as his sire was—in fact she had a rather short breeding career and is best known for this one son. His success as a breeding horse indicates she must have possessed considerable genetic merit, for no sire, not even one of the magnitude of Abu Farwa, can get breeding horses without some cooperation from the mares he is bred to. Pictures and eye-witness accounts of SHARIFA show a very smooth compact mare with a beautiful big-eyed head. She had a fine disposition and was a good riding horse, certainly traits to value in the dam of a prospective foundation sire.

SHARIFA’s pedigree is less consistently English than Abu Farwa’s; her sire was one of the famous early “straight Davenports” and was trained for the track, setting records in speed trials. He has proven one of the most valuable outcrosses to English blood in this country, Antezeyn Skowronek being just one of many successful results of this blend. SHARIFA’s dam FERDITH was the first foal of the former top sire FERSEYN, and remains one of his best achievements; she topped an early-day California production sale and went on to produce many outstanding Arabians, including a remarkable lineup by ABU FARWA. It will be most interesting to read Carol Mulder’s article on FERDITH and her produce when she gets to her numerically, as she knew this group of good horses well. FERDITH’s dam ARDITH founded a good family in the Northwest; she was a great-granddaughter of *ABU ZEYD, called by Lady Anne Lytton the most beautiful son of MESAOUD, so crossing back to the top of the pedigree.

[Note added in 1999: Ardith’s paternal granddam Domow is registered, impossibly, as the bay daughter of two chestnut parents. The latest investigations confirm that her dam line matches that of the chestnut *Wadduda, so this *Abu Zeyd connection is no longer supported by the evidence. The sire of Domow is being sought among the bay stallions in Homer Davenport’s possession in 1912. MB]

The rest of ARDITH’s background was again the Davenport desert group—so Antezeyn Skowronek’s pedigree represents English breeding outcrossed with two highly successful American lines of closer desert derivation.

This pedigree produced a remarkable horse who offers an illustration of the fact that the most worthwhile horses do not always get an opportunity to have brilliant show careers. Antezeyn Skowronek won his class at Pomona as a yearling and as far as I know never entered a show ring again. He has spent the rest of his life as a breeding stallion, although as a mature horse he was started under saddle and proved a willing and enjoyable mount for trail and pleasure riding in his spare time.

After winning that colt class he was purchased by Carleton Cummings and taken to Idaho where he stood several seasons, his first foals arriving in 1952. He was used on Mr. Cummings’ mares and on some Kellogg mares at the University of Idaho during this period. Some time after 1955 he was moved to Spokane, Washington where it seems he remained for the remainder of his owner’s life; it was at this time, the Arabian population of Washington being a bit higher than that of Idaho, that he stood to some outside mares. At Mr. Cummings’ death the horse went into retirement for a couple of years, returning to active duty in 1965 on lease to the Synowski Ranch in Oregon. He was purchased from the Cummings estate by Lois Selby Perry, spending one season on lease at Glenwood Farm in Iowa on the way to Connecticut and the Perry establishment.

Antezeyn Skowronek was not used to sharing his world with a number of stallions and did not thrive at Perrys’; he was made available to the Illings of Twin Brook Farm in New York, first on lease and eventually by sale. In January of 1975 he made what is expected to be his last move and change of ownership; he is now “alive and well in Waldorf, Maryland” and being used lightly at stud. He observed his 27th birthday quietly and shows every sign of planning on at least a few more.

Listing the Antezeyn Skowronek get and descendants of note is simply beyond me in the time at hand—besides, I don’t have the whole October issue to fill with their stories. Rather than offend some by mentioning others I will risk offending all by limiting myself to general statements. Antezeyn Skowronek and his sons have sired many winners in halter and performance in Arabian and open shows, Antezeyn Skowronek is on the Leading Sire list (he is accounted the third leading siring son of Abu Farwa) and has founded a strong male line, with many sons and tail male descendants represented every year by Class A winners. His get and descendants include regional and Legion of Merit champions and U.S. and Canadian Top Tens at halter and performance, and National Champions in performance. He is, simply, a fine sire and an influence for good on the breed.

The story of Antezeyn Skowronek has been 27 years in the telling (leaving out the years of prologue before his birth) and this short sketch is hardly an adequate summary.

NOTE: I sincerely thank all those who participated in this tribute, and apologize to those who would have taken part had they been notified, or notified sooner.

(Ad recreated from the one appearing with 1976 Antezeyn Skowronek article)

July 1976 at age 27 (with Martha Baines)

Antezeyn Skowronek

is alive and well

and living in

Waldorf, Maryland

Visitors Welcome — Young Stock For Sale

Call weekends (AC 301) 645-5547

Michael Bowling

Box 1332

Frederick, Maryland 21701

and still siring foals like these:

May filly at 2 1/2 months ex Mostly Magic by *Touch of Magic.

March colt at 3 weeks ex Faranique by RST Kumait+ He is for sale at private treaty. Contact Intissar Arabians, 3510 Walnut St., Harrisburg, Pa. 17109

July colt at 2 days ex Ramnada by Damascus Ramnada is for sale. Contact Mrs. Richard P. Davis, Prly Hill Rd., Sanbornton, N.H.

(Ad recreated from one appearing in the Arabian Visions, Jan-Feb, 1993)

Abu Farwa 1960 (Rabiyas x *Rissletta by Naseem) working cattle at the Richardson Ranch, near Chico, CA in 1956. Photo courtesy the Wests of Green Acres Arabians.

A recurring theme at New Albion is reinforcing a valued influence through multiple pedigree samples; we do not believe that a single source of any desirable ancestor provides an adequate genetic sampling. Our connections to the great Abu Farwa illustrate this handily. Watch for our new series of ads featuring other major elements in our program.

Abu Farwa, foaled at Pomona, California in 1940, was bred by the W.K.Kellogg institute and has become one of the sires in CMK breeding (and he exemplifies the origin of CMK as a concept: bred at Kellogg’s from a Crabbet-imported mare, while his sire had come to Pomona en utero from Maynesboro). Abu Farwa found his niche in life as a sire for H. H. Reese, the former Kellogg Ranch manager around whom crystallized the Southern California Arabian breeding tradition of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Abu Farwa sired 235 registered foals and became a major force in show and performance breeding; he was selected a Living Legend and his influence still is highly prized where real using horses are valued.

At New Albion we have been fortunate in owning one of the greatest Abu Farwa sons and one of his youngest daughters, in breeding to several of his sons and in working with the Abu Farwa influence through more distant lines. New Albion history parallels that of the breed in general, as in the way we have accidentally lost sources we would rather have maintained (italicized below). We do not claim this to be the ultimate Abu Farwa sampling and it certainly is not meant to be a static thing — there are Abu Farwa sources we would like to add or reinforce. This is where our program stands right now, in terms of one particularly prized founder.

Abu Farwa sources at New Albion (dam and maternal grandsire in parentheses): Tamarlane (Rifanta by Rifnas); Faryn (Ferdith by Ferseyn); Aayisha (Nawari by Alla Amarward); Nirahbu (Nirah by *Ferdin); Shama (Shamrah by Balastra); Abu Baha (Surrab by *Latif); Antezeyn Skowronek (Sharifa by Antez); Awad (Shamrah by Balastra); Farlowa (Farlouma by Farana); Muhuli (Follyanna by Terhani); Shah-Loul(Pomona Avesta by Farana); Galan (Saadi by Rifnas); Miss Nateza (Nateza by *Witez II).

[Additional lines through ’99 include: Riehaba (Amrieh by Kasar), Ga’zi (Ghazna by Chepe Noyon), Rokkara (Sokkar by Rantez) and Lawsouma (Farlouma by Farana).]

Our stallions trace to Farowa, Muhuli, Shah-Loul and Tamarlane. We have retained breedings to the Galan line through a son (out of the youngest Antezeyn Skowronek daughter) and grandson.

Michael, Ann and Lydia Bowling

Claire Bowen Trommershausen

The New Albion Stud

Crabbet-Maynesboro-Kellogg Preservation Breeding

24920 Road 96 Davis, CA 95616

(916)756-3911*

CMK Stallions at Stud and Stock for Sale

*The above area code has been changed,

and the number is now

(530)756-3911

Leopard the Arab and Linden Tree the Barb (Part I)

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Leopard and Linden Tree

by Michael Bowling
from Arabian Horse World July 1979
copyright by MICHAEL BOWLING
used by permission of Michael Bowling
first published in the Arabian Horse World July 1979

*Leopard

*Linden Tree Engravings of *Leopard and *Linden Tree from Randolph Huntington’s 1885 book, General Grant’s Arabian Stallions

“Wonderful Arabian Horses Presented to General Grant by the Sultan of Turkey”—note that this is the same pose of *Linden Tree (in background), with same pyramids and palm trees, as in another photo which follows. (Courtesy Linda Sale)

The story of the Arabian breed in North America is a long and complicated one, and could be approached from any number of perspectives. We are centering on the arrival of the Grant stallions simply because 1979 marks the centennial of their setting foot here—and one of them, *Leopard 233, became the first imported and registered Arabian to leave descent in our studbooks.

*Leopard was by no means the most important stallion ever imported to this part of the world, but he does hold chronological pride of place, and he is not without strategic importance. With the passage of time it is no longer entirely clear just who got whom started in breeding Arabian horses in America, but certainly, just as *Leopard arrived first, Randolph Huntington’s program was the first of the American historical groups to produce horses that bred on into modern pedigrees. It is quite certain that it was *Leopard that started Huntington on his career with purebred Arabians, so any influence Huntington has had, on breeding stock or on ideas of the breed, is owed in fact to *Leopard as first cause. It may well be that, Huntington or no, American Arabian breeding would have had a start in 1893 with the Hamidie Society horses from the Chicago’s World’s Fair—but how do we know that Huntington’s beginnings with the breed did not prepare the way for that group and its barbaric showmanship to make an impression?

In another intriguing sense, which has come clear to me gradually over the course of the pedigree research into *Leopard’s descent, this line of horses is a marker for the “American” breeding groups. Whether they were key individuals of a given line or not, *Leopard’s descendants turn out to have been owned, and bred from, by almost all of the important early-day American breeders—and thus in all but a few of the pedigree-defined “breeding groups” of today, lines to *Leopard will be encountered.

My search for photos of, and references to, the Grant stallions and their get and immediate descendants, has made another indelible impression on me: I now understand, in a way I never had before, that a hundred years ago the horse was a fact of life, a given, so basic and so commonplace to daily existence that next to no notice of it was taken by most people. Witnesses of the time are maddeningly casual in their accounts of the doings and activities of horsemen as related to the horses. Photography was an infant technology and was seldom applied to recording images of horses. A great deal of frustration has been the result, for from a 1979 perspective it seems impossible that horse ownership and the pursuit of a breeding program could be taken so much for granted. (I suppose from the perspective of 1879 the fact that most people today own and drive automobiles and give them little or no thought would seem just as outlandish—and the way things seem headed, our successors of 2079 may find today’s automobile-oriented society just as farfetched.)

At any rate, in the days of the practical horse, history at large is recorded on a basis of horsepower. It seems not to have been thought necessary to record the details of how that power was generated and applied, and the details of individual power units were recorded very seldom. Much of what we do know of the careers of the Grant stallions, we owe to Randolph Huntington’s passion for detail and documentation of horse breeding information. Huntington had a feeling for the existence of a gene pool (a concept no one in 1879 could have defined, but which Huntington understood intuitively) in which individual animals are merely temporary combinations of elements which may be eternal if man allows them to breed on—but which are lost forever without man’s cooperation. Huntington devoted a lifetime to the cause of breeding better horses, and it is most fitting that he be remembered in connection with the centennial of the Arabian in America. An excellent article on his career appeared in the June 1978 issue of this magazine, originating with the Arabian Horse Owner’s Foundation; this is recent enough that is should be pretty widely available, so I will not go into too much detail except as he relates to the Grant stallions.

Our story properly begins with the world tour taken by General Ulysses S. Grant after he served as president of this country. In the late 70’s of the last century it was not a casual project to travel around the world, and the details of the trip would be most instructive. What matters to us in this context is that in March of 1878 the general and his son Jesse arrived in Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

The published accounts of what actually took place on the day the Grants toured the private stables of Sultan Abdul Hamid II are distinctly contradictory. This is the first instance we encounter in the course of our narrative, of the misty insubstantiality of “fact” given the passage of sufficient time. This is especially true in a case like this, where the subject, a tour of a stable of horses, is of interest to specialists today but was scarcely a major event at the time.

In his memoirs published in 1925, Jesse Grant does not make it clear whether the Sultan was even present when the horses were displayed. He presents his father as asked to pick his favorites of the stallions paraded and naming a pair of bays; when asked his second choice, the general indicated a pair of greys. In his narrative Grant is shown as embarrassed on being told that the grey horses were his as a gift from the Sultan.

Thorton Chard, in a 1937 Western Horseman article drawing on Randolph Huntington’s private papers, quotes Grant’s friend and comrade in arms, General G.E. Bryant, as remembering a rather different story told him by Grant himself. Bryant’s version has the general told, by the Sultan speaking through an interpretor, that he was to be given his choice of the stallions, Grant naming *Leopard. Abdul Hamid II then presented *Linden Tree to make a pair.

CHRONOLOGY

1873 – *Leopard foaled in the desert
1874 – *Linden Tree foaled in Abdul Hamid II’s stables, Constantinople
Before 1878 – *Leopard presented by Jedaan Ibn Mheyd to Turkish governor of Syria
March 1878 – General U.S.Grant visits stables of Abdul Hamid II and is presented with *Leopard and *Linden Tree.
May 31, 1879 – Stallions arrive New Haven, Connecticut
Summer and Fall 1879 – Stallions exhibited at fairs
Late Fall 1879 – Stallions stabled at Gen. E.F. Beale’s Ash Hill Farm, Washington DC.
1889-1883 – Randolph Huntington breeds Clay mares to stallions.
1883 – *Leopard registered to J.B.Houston, New York, NY
*Linden Tree registered to U.S. Grant, Jr., New York, NY
Stallions shown at New York Horse Show, *Leopard placing first
1884 – Stallions again shown at New York Show, *Leopard again first.
1888 *Naomi imported by Huntington
*Linden Tree sold to General L.W. Colby and taken to Beatrice, Nebraska
1890 – ANAZEH foaled
Linden Tree Park founded in Beatrice
1893 or 1894 – *Leopard ridden in militia parade by General Colby, probably in or around Diller, Nebraska

An addition to this version of the story has the original “Linden Tree,” chosen by the Sultan, injured before he could be shipped, and replaced without the Sultan’s knowledge with our registered *Linden Tree.

In any event, Chard published a facsimile of a letter from Grant to Huntington documenting that he was given two stallions from the Sultan’s stables, and Huntington himself eventually tracked down their origin in more detail. In his 1885 book on the subject of the Grant horses, Huntington says that “I believed, as will any American, that they must be of the highest possible type. No empire or nation would insult herself by presenting to so great a man, also the one representative man of so great a nation as ours, an inferior gift from its native animal life. General Grant’s Arabs had to be the purest and best.” According to Chard, “breeding the two horses to the same mares produced offspring with such different characteristics that Mr. Huntington was convinced that there was a blood difference, so he began a deliberate search, which after eight years, resulted in information that confirmed him in his convictions and established the facts that Leopard was a purebred Arabian and Linden Tree a purebred Barb.”

*Leopard was a Seglawi Jedran, desertbred by the Anazeh, foaled in 1873 and presented by Jedaan Ibn Mheyd of the Fedaan Anazeh to the Turkish governor of Syria. (Some accounts list Ibn Mheyd as the breeder, but Carol Mulder, with typical caution, makes the distinction that we only know he presented the horse.) This governor then presented the horse to Abdul Hamid II, who in turn gave him to General Grant.

Recall that in the same year of 1878, the Blunts were traveling within the Ottoman Empire, and found that they could not gain access to the best horses of the desert Bedouin while in company with Turkish officials, as the Bedouin feared confiscation of their stock in the name of the Sultan. Presenting that potentate with an inferior specimen would have been a most risky course of action—he owned his subjects’ lives as well as their horses—so we may safely assume that *Leopard was accounted a high-class example of Anazeh breeding.

Other Seglawis of the Fedaan Anazeh figure in modern pedigrees; surely the most distinguished of them is the great ZOBEYNI, the most important breeding horse in the fabulous collection of Abbas Pasha I (another potentate with an eye, and a yen, for the best and rarest, so his possession of Seglawis from the Fedaan is high recommendation). The Blunts’ desertbred KARS, a high-quality individual and the original head sire at the Crabbet Stud, was a Seglawi bred by Jedaan Ibn Mheyd and foaled just a year after *Leopard.

A hundred years ago in the desert, strains were not just name tags—the horses of a tribe were by and large interrelated, and those of the same strain and tribe almost certainly so. *Leopard’s origin is thus in common with that of some of the breed’s most unimpeachable breeding animals. It is most unfortunate that a widely-read 1965 Western Horseman article made a sidelong reference to *Leopard and *Linden Tree and lumped them together as “not, however, purebreds.” In the nature of things, people who would never be tempted to do any pedigree research remember statements like this one, without realizing they have no documentation, and an astonishing number still recall this “fact.” People, it ain’t so!

*Linden Tree was apparently bred by Sultan Abdul Hamid II and foaled in Constantinople in 1874. His Barb ancestors were associated with Abdul Hamid’s family for generations. It seems quite likely—and would support the Bryant version of the presentation story—that the Sultan would like to see a horse of his family’s breeding ranked at least as highly as one he had been given. Thus his singling out of *Linden Tree and sending him along.

These names, incidentally, are purportedly translations of the original Arabic names of the horses, not bestowed by General Grant. *Leopard seems to have been named with reference to his dappling; the origin of the other title has puzzled me since I first heard it.

Leopard the Arab and Linden Tree the Barb (Part 3)

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Leopard and Linden Tree

by Michael Bowling
from Arabian Horse World July 1979
copyright by MICHAEL BOWLING, used by permission

STUMP’S GUY 1081-R
the horse recommended to me to represent the Colorado Ranger Horse Association by its executive officer, Mr. John Morris. I was very favorably impressed with the CRHA’s attitude, typified perhaps by this choice: STUMP’S GUY is not the horse siring the most foals in 1978, or the leading halter horse of their circuit—but the high point performance horse of the 1978 CRHA National Show. He is incidentally six generations removed from the foundation, Colby-derived linebred CRHA sire FOX II.

This band of Nebraska horses left influential and highly-regarded descent in Colorado, and over the years other horses of similar quality, some with reputed Arab or Barb crosses as well, were added. This resulted in tough, hardy, very able cowhorses which were recognized in 1934 with the name “Colorado Rangers.”

The Colorado Ranger Horse Association, Inc., was founded in 1938, with a charter limitation to 50 active member at a time. This of course made it impossible for CRHA to take part in the tremendous growth experienced by the horse industry at large in the 1960’s, but a belated growth phase is now under way with the lifting of the membership limitation and the institution of a National show.

“Barbaric” colors appeared as the Colby stock and its descendants were linebred and combined with other colorful range stock, and in fact most Rangerbreds today are of Appaloosa patterns and are double-registered with the Appaloosa Horse Club. CRHA itself has never been a breed founded on color, looking on this trait, quite rightly, as unfixable and unrelated to using qualities. In a sense the Appalooa breeders rather took advantage of this, seeing CRHA horses as ready-made foundation stock for their programs, since better color-odds resulted from CRHA crosses compared to solid-colored grade horses. Through their Appaloosa connection, most CRHA-registered horses today trace to horses of different sources from the foundation Rangerbreds—in fact CRHA is probably unique as a non-color breed which is also devoted to outcrossing as a policy, requiring only one line back to a foundation sire to qualify for registration.

The word “leopard” has caused some confusion over the years, since it enters into the CRHA record in two different ways. There are “leopard” Appaloosa-patterned CRHA horses, and then there are those among the early registrations, which seem to have been named for their relationship to “our” *Leopard. In fact as far as is known, *Leopard was a typical dapple grey who turned white in his later years; the “leopard” Appaloosa pattern was introduced into early CRHA pedigrees by a son of WALDRON Leopard, an Appaloosa horse of unknown background sometimes said to be derived from the nearly-legendary STARBUCK Leopard.

The double *Leopard grandson TONY was described as “snow white with black ears” which is also rather intriguing. This sounds like a description of a black-and-white “medicine hat” overo spotted horse, as much as it does anything. A medicine hat Anglo-Arab does not really seem very probable (though it is assuredly possible: some of the “white TB” foals could be called medicine hat patterned, and I have seen photos of an Arabian foal that also would qualify — though come to think of it, all of these I know of would be “white with red ears”). American horsemen have always had trouble understanding the continuity of the grey phases and their changes and interactions, however, and my personal nomination for “simplest explanation of the description” is that TONY was a grey horse who turned nearly white before he went to Colorado, retaining black pigment on his ears and perhaps his knees and hocks for a while, as sometimes happens.

At this distant remove, it is hard to know what to say about *Leopard and *Linden Tree as individuals, let alone as breeding forces. It would surely not be amiss to quote Randolph Huntington’s descriptions of them, as quoted by Thornton Chard: On *Leopard —

“He was a beautiful dapple-grey (in 1880), fourteen and three quarters hands high; his symmetry and perfectness making him appear much taller. As he stood looking loftily over the meadows below, I thought him the most beautiful horse I had ever seen. With nostrils distended and eye full of fire, I could imagine he longed for a run upon his desert home. Addison (the groom) gave him a play at the halter, showing movements no horse in the world can equal but the (pure bred) Arabian. He needed no quarter-boots, shin-boot, ankle-boots, scalping boot or protection of any kind; and yet the same movements this Arabian went through would have blemished every leg and joint upon an American trotting horse, even though he had been able to attempt the, to him, impossible activity… the knee action was beautiful; not too much, as in toe weighted horses, nor stiff and staky, as in the english race horse, but graceful and elastic, beautifully balanced by movement in the hock and stifle.”

As to *Linden Tree —

“At that time, the spring of 1880, Linden was a beautiful smooth, blue gray, which this summer of 1885 has changed to a white-gray. In height he is the same as Leopard, fourteen and three quarters hands…in build he was more compact than Leopard, being deeper and broader; of more substance but with just as clean and fine limb as Leopard had. The limbs, joints and feet of both horses were perfect. The fetlocks could not be found; there were none. The warts at point of ankle were wanting, and the osselets were very small. Large coarse osselets show cold blood, mongrel blood. The crest of the neck in Linden was thick and hard, the same as in Leopard. This fact will astonish some fancy horsemen, who are led to believe that a thin crest is evidence of fine breeding. My experience of late years is that a thin crest belongs to a long-bodied, flat horse, of soft constitution. The mane in both horse was very fine and silky, falling over so as to cause one to believe that the crest was a knife blade with blade up for thinness. The head of Linden was the counterpart of Leopard in all ways; as in fine, thin muzzle, lip and nostril; also small, fine, beautiful ears, thin eyelids; deep wide jowls,etc.”

Photogravure of *Leopard, age 16. (Courtesy Carol W. Mulder)

A “photograph of a drawing”of *Linden Tree, age 6 or 7, (Courtesy Carol W. Mulder)

We have several images of one kind or another of *Leopard and *Linden Tree. Most frequently seen, of course, are the two “engravings from paintings done from life” which appeared in Huntington’s book on the horses. These rather stolid, lifeless visions differ chiefly in color — one shows dapples and the other is indeed a “smooth” grey — and as old “Ben Hur” (the late H.V. Tormohlen) said in one of his Western Horsemen articles, they could easily pass for harness store dummies. The rather scratchy “Wonderful Arabian Horses” with its imaginary, and highly inappropriate, Egyptian background, does make some distinction between the horses — *Leopard is a bit sickle hocked while *Linden Tree’s hind legs are distinctly too straight, for example — but still is not anything one would like to judge a horse from.

The other two pictures have been called photogravures (a process involving a sensitized metal plate and a photographic negative, which would render a “photographic” likeness) and indeed, that of *Leopard is called such, in the Thornton Chard article in which it appears. This *Linden Tree picture is referred to in that article, however, as “photograph of a drawing” and on closer inspection this proves to be the same image as that of *Linden Tree in “Wonderful Arabian horses,” with the same silly pyramids and palm trees in the background (more visibly present in other prints than in the present version). A photograph with a painted background would not be an impossibility, of course, but it is difficult to make this fit with Chard’s “photograph of a drawing” designation. It is also unlikely that a repainted negative would produce a satisfactory photogravure, and I am not sure the techniques for photographing a retouched photograph (to produce the photogravure from the second negative) were available in the early 80’s when this is dated.

The clincher for me is the fact that *Linden Tree is shown without a bit or headstall. The clumsy photographic gear of the time, let alone the slow plates then available, would not be suited to photographing horses at liberty. I suspect there was a pair of drawings of the stallions and that the *Leopard one was lost, but not before the “Wonderful Arabian Horses” print was derived from them, while a photograph of the *Linden Tree drawing survived.

At any rate, we do have what appear to be a reliable likeness of *Leopard and he is the one we’re interested in—he was the Arab and he appears in our pedigrees today.

*Leopard’s picture speaks for him and as compiler of this review I don’t feel called upon to add to this, except to say that *Leopard probably compared quite well with the foundation desertbred sire of any Arabian breeding company—and that his high-class origin and the repeated references to his air of quality and breeding and his excellent trot suggest that we may wish we had more of his genes in our modern Arabian population than we do. In any event he seems to have had one of the finest, most proper necks ever to come out of the desert.

Evaluating *Leopard as a sire is difficult, since his purebred descendants of the first few generations all had much more of *Naomi in their pedigrees than of *Leopard, and all seem to show her very strong influence. Fortunately we do have photos of ABDUL HAMID II and two of his sons, the result of crossing *Leopard into a distinctly different breeding group. The photos of *Leopard’s two sons and three grandsons (see the crossbreds with this article, and the purebreds in the article on the descent from ANAZEH) are a very attractive group indeed. The weak loin seems to have bred on, and the calf knees (but not through ANAZEH), but so has the fine reach of neck. ANAZEH’s son seems to have slightly soft pasterns, which I had not noticed before—interesting since a lady from Oregon wrote and sent photos of “a granddaughter of a linebred *Leopard mare” with the most extreme case of soft pasterns I think I’ve ever seen. This is not the line from the ANAZEH son however, going back to EL SABOK instead, and his pastern, while a bit short, do not seem soft at all.

There are a good many animals back in our pedigrees with soft pasterns, and many of them are closer to today’s horses, and appear through more sources, than *Leopard—so I find it hard to invoke him as a cause of this fault today.

Well—there you have them—”*Leopard the Arab and *Linden Tree the Barb,” in Huntington’s phrase. *Leopard has Arabian descendants in large numbers today; both seem to have influenced the Colorado Rangers and through them the Appaloosas; and if truth be known it’s likely that both are unrecorded far back in many Standardbred pedigrees.

The fact that you have just read this indicates that they’ve had an intellectual and historical impact in the course of a hundred years, quite likely beyond what anyone ever expected.

Leopard the Arab and Linden Tree the Barb (Part 2)

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Leopard and Linden Tree

by Michael Bowling
from Arabian Horse World July 1979
copyright by MICHAEL BOWLING, used by permission

The Grant stallions arrived in Connecticut on 31 May 1879 aboard the steamer Norman Monarch—14 months after their presentation in Constantinople. They were exhibited at fairs in the mid-Atlantic states through the summer and early fall and then stabled just outside Washington, D.C., at General E.F. Beale’s Ash Hill Farm.

There is no record of General Grant’s ever having paid any attention to the horses after he was given them, and his only documented reference to them appears to be the letter to Huntington. In 1883, Volume IV of The American Stud Book, registering thoroughbreds (and sporadically the occasional Arabian), listed both stallions as in New York. *Leopard was owned by J.B.Houston and *Linden Tree by U.S.Grant,Jr. In 1883 and again in 1884 they were exhibited at the New York Horse Show (apparently, quite literally, “in a class by themselves“) with *Leopard placed first both times.

Fig. 2 Leopard.
Fourteen hands 3/8 inches. Apparently a tracing of a lost photograph of *Leopard. This illustration is from a 1911 article by H.K.Bush-Brown which outlined an innovated, “objective” system of measurement of the proportions of the horse. Fortunately this did not catch on. *Leopard’s height is given as 14:0 and 3/8, which contradicts Huntington’s description and seems awfully small for anything to be siring harness racers.

Randolph Huntington was not idle while all this was happening. He was an active breeder and trader of harness horses at the time, and would have heard of the exotic imports soon after their arrival. As soon as he heard of the horses and their origin he determined to make use of them in his trotting horse breeding program. He held the entirely reasonable theory that the Thoroughbred, product of many generations even then, of selection for specialization at the gallop, was not necessarily the ideal cross to use to increase speed at the trot. His belief was that it was the methods the developers of the TB employed, that trotting horse breeders should make use of—not the horses themselves, which were the product of selection in the wrong direction for trotting speed. He saw the Arabian as the unspecialized, adaptable desert origin of speed, whether at the trot or at the gallop, and all his future breeding activities were directed toward the long-term goal of producing a linebred, predictable national breed of fast hardy harness horses.

In a time when horses were transportation, transporting mares away to stud was all but unheard of. Stallions traveled from one district to another; a horse would be used in a locality until the demand for his get declined, then would move on to a new station in keeping with whatever reputation he had achieved.

Huntington determined to make use of the Henry Clay family of horses, already well proven and linebred with Arab and Barb ancestry. Based in New York, he bought mares from as far away as Michigan and Tennessee to send to stallions which were standing just outside Washington D.C. This did not entail more pedigree-shopping, sight-unseen: he traveled himself to find the best representatives of the Clay breeding, selecting animals showing the traits he wanted them bred for. This occupied him during the fall and winter of 1879-1880, giving him, in the spring of the latter year, “five young, sound, healthy virgin mares by Henry Clay or by his sons, three being inbred, and all were choice; four being very fast natural trotters, and the fifth one would be were she not mixed at times in her gait.” That has an almost Biblical ring; one gathers that the emphasis on maiden mares was due to a belief in telegony (“the influence [on the foal] of the previous sire [to which the mare was bred]”), a false but widespread notion to which Lady Anne Blunt also appears to have subscribed, and which was not scientifically disproven until early in this century. At any rate Huntington clearly had no prejudice against “first foals.”

The Arab/Clay (and Barb/Clay) foals began appearing in June and July, 1881, and Huntington was enough encouraged to continue using *Leopard and *LINDEN TREE (still standing at Ash Hill) until his first crossbred colts were old enough for breeding. The backcross of these young horses to linebred Clay mares was sufficiently exciting to enable Huntington to obtain backing for a corporation which would develop and promote an “Americo-Arab” breed. This was envisioned along the lines of the Russian Orloff, linebred for consistency, and was expected to take over from the (to Huntington) random-bred and genetically unpredictable horses which were then founding the Standardbred breed.

Horsemen of the time were sufficiently impressed with the type of stock Huntington’s program was producing, that ABDUL HAMID II (*Leopard x a double Henry Clay granddaughter) was awarded a gold medal in 1889 at the Buffalo International Horse Show. Reportedly $10,000 offers were turned down for this horse and one of his sons about this time.

All this makes an interesting story, but has nothing to do with us today. Fortunately, Huntington imported the Arabian mare *Naomi from Reverend F.F.Vidal in England in 1888, specifically for breeding to *Leopard to maintain Arab stock analogous to his linebred Clays, for future crosses. Unfortunately for *Leopard’s own interests, this developed into a project to inbreed the “Maneghi racing type” which had very little room for the Seglawi *Leopard. Huntington imported the supposed Maneghi *KISMET (strain actually unknown) in 1891, but this horse contracted pneumonia on shipboard and died shortly after landing. Nothing daunted, Huntington purchased Vidal’s last three horses in 1893 (*Naomi’s daughter *NAZLI, and two *KISMET colts out of *Naomi daughters) and embarked, with these and *Naomi and her *Leopard son ANAZEH, on his inbreeding program. *Leopard does not seem to have played a part in Huntington’s program after 1889; in 1890 he was represented by ANAZEH and the Americo-Arab filly LEOPARDESS, out of his own granddaughter, COQUETTE by ABDUL HAMID II.

In 1894 the Americo-Arab consortium went into receivership, as a result of Huntington’s misplaced trust in its secretary. This gentleman absconded with all the ready cash of the corporation, leaving no option but auction sale of the hundred and more horses involved. According to a stocklist Huntington published in 1895, he was left with a few of each category (Arab, Clay, and crossed), including five pure Arabians: *Naomi, *NAZLI, ANAZEH, *NIMR and NEJD. *Naomi was then carrying her second influential son, Khaled, by her grandson *NIMR.

ABDUL HAMID II (*Leopard x Mary Shepard), also known as General Berle, gold medal winner, Buffalo 1889.

CLAY KISMET, “Grandson of Kismet and Linden Tree.” was one of the horses sold at auction in 1906; by reconstruction from Huntington’s 1895 stock list, he must have been a son of *NIMR out of CLAYRABIA.

KASIM, a *Leopard grandson sired by ABDUL HAMID II.

FEZ (gold medal winner, Chicago world’s Fair), a *Leopard grandson sired by ABDUL HAMID II.

Photos this page courtesy of the American Genetic Foundation.

Some vindication of Huntington’s beliefs came in 1901, when eight head of Clay-Arab stock, not owned by him but based on his breeding, sold at auction for an average of over $1,800, topped by ABDUL HAMID II’s daughter LARISSA at $3,500. Huntington was an old man by this time, worn down by the pursuit of his lifelong devotion to excellence in horseflesh. His herd seems to have been dispersed by auctions in 1906 and 1907, many going for a few dollars due to being in poor condition, as his finances finally failed. The Arab legacy of Randolph Huntington is still with us; his efforts on behalf of the trotting horse did not have the success he envisioned, though it is difficult to believe that his highly-selected stock is not the unrecorded foundation at base of a lot of Standardbred pedigrees. Sadly, by 1947, when Hervey’s standard work The American Trotter was published, it was possible to sketch the history of the Henry Clay breeding in a few paragraphs—and Randolph Huntington’s name was not even mentioned.

Back to the Grant stallions. In 1888, *Linden Tree was bought from U.S.Grant, Jr. by another fascinating character, General Leonard W.Colby of Beatrice, Nebraska. One account has it that Colby paid a pre-inflation $10,000 for the horse and later “politely” refused $50,000 for him. Another version merely says $10,000 was later refused for him, with no original purchase price given.

Beatrice, Nebraska was not a place to let this exotic and historically-associated beast go unrecognized, and in 1890 when a harness racing track was opened by the Beatrice Trotting Association, it was named Linden Tree Park. When the time came, *Linden Tree was buried in the infield of the oval, “in a straw-lined grave.”

General Colby was born in Ohio in 1846, grew up in Illinois, served the Union with distinction in the Civil War, and returned home to finish high school and college with honors, eventually taking to the law. He moved to Beatrice in 1872, was commissioned first lieutenant of the state militia on its founding in 1875, and served in the Indian conflicts of the time, eventually being promoted to brigadier general in 1890. Although I am speculating from limited data, I gather he was deeply affected by the now-infamous Wounded Knee Massacre of 1891; he brought home an orphaned Indian baby girl, and he and his wife raised her in their home. In 1895 he presented a paper on “The Ghost Dance of the Sioux Indians” to the State Historical Society; he served in Nebraska state office and in the U.S. Justice Department where he was involved in defense against claims for damage against the U.S. Government and the Indian tribes; on his retirement from the Justice Department he was employed by the Creek, Cherokee and Seminole tribes as their attorney in Washington, D.C. He was active during the Spanish-American War and “on call” during World War I; he died in 1925 in Beatrice.

Again, we are interested in an aspect of his career which was not considered worthy of detailed documentation. He and his friends made use of *Linden Tree on local mares to such good effect that the reputation of the using horses on the cattle operations around Beatrice spread through the midwest and as far as Colorado. One version has it that Colby “persuaded his old friend” Grant to let him bring “Leopard and *Linden Tree to Nebraska “for just one season” in 1894, but as Grant no longer owned the horses as early as 1883, and as Linden Tree Park was named in 1890, that doesn’t hold up too well. At any rate it does appear that *Leopard had joined the Colby menage by 1894—this in spite of a 1941 publication to the effect that Colby’s second Arabian was named “Don” rather than *Leopard and had no connection with Grant. There is a strong local tradition, to which we will refer again, that *Leopard did reach Beatrice, and another account corroborates this.

Mrs. Norma Smith of Kent, Washington tells us that her late father-in-law, who was born in 1878 and lived to be 100, reported one of the most vivid memories of his boyhood as seeing *Leopard ridden in a militia parade by General Colby. He told her the horse was ridden only on special occasion due to his age, and that this was “around 1893” when *Leopard would have been 20. Mr. Smith recalled the extremely fine hair of *Leopard’s coat, through which his skin was visibly spotted. This is, of course, another indication of advanced age—not the fine hair coat, which merely shows “breeding,” but the mottling and speckling of the skin typical of many aged grey horses. *LINDEN TREE was dismissed with “Colby had two Arabians“—*Leopard was the impressive one. (*Linden Tree was a year younger than *Leopard but may have showed his age more, especially as *Leopard stayed longer in New York and probably had led a more sheltered life. On the other hand, *Leopard was described from the beginning as the “handsomer and more graceful” of the two, which I suppose is reasonable for an Arab compared to a Barb.)

In the late 1890’s a group of Colorado ranchers got together to finance a trip to Nebraska by the respected rancher A.C. Whipple, to bring back one of the superior Colby-related horses from Beatrice. Whipple selected a band of young mares of *Leopard and *Linden Tree breeding, and to head them, the stallion TONY. TONY’s sire and dam are not named in any existing account, but their parentage is given—both were by *Leopard out of “Army TB” mares, which presumably refers to mares used as, or derived from, cavalry mounts. TONY was thus an Anglo-Arab by modern definition, if “TB” refers to full Thoroughbred mares.

This band of Nebraska horses left influential and highly-regarded descent in Colorado, and over the years other horse of similar quality, some with reputed Arab or Barb crosses as well, were added. This resulted in tough, hardy, very able cowhorses which were recognized in 1934 with the name “Colorado Rangers.”

Son of the Nobly Bred… Ibn Tirf

Upland Farm

Holliston, Massachusetts

Back in the mid 1980’s, the proportion of Al Khamsa horses in my herd was not so high as it is today. I started horse-breeding in the early 1970’s, with Welsh Ponies, and bought my first Arabian mare in 1975 with the royalties from my first novel. She was a dandy animal with much good blood in her, despite the non-Al Khamsa elements in her pedigree; she was a Saklawi descended from Bint Helwa the Broken-legged mare, and her sire, Zumirz, was a Kuhaylan-Haifi tracing to the Davenport mare, *Reshan. I treasure her blood still.

My first pure Al Khamsa horse was the 1960 Tripoli-Dharebah Davenport stallion, Janan Abinoam, who joined my family in 1978, and runs the farm to this day. One might say he opened the floodgates, since now at Upland Farm there are 41 Al Khamsa horses. 36 of whom are Davenports. The other five owe their presence to the influence of Ibn Tirf.

It must have been back around 1984, when I was trying to place my stallion, HMR Phario, in a new home, that I first heard of Tirf. Phario was one of those lovely dark bay horses bred by Howard Marks, who combined the blood of Gulustra and Hallany Mistanny with non-Al Khamsa elements, such as Tobruk. Phario had sired some nice foals for me, but I really wanted to find an Al Khamsa horse that would have, like him, a marked Saklawi appearance and that expressive “Gulastra” look. One afternoon, a lady called me from Virginia to discuss Phario’s availability, record and price; at the end of the conversation, in a very casual way, she said, “You know, we’ve got one of those ‘Doyle’ stallions down here.”

That lady never did buy anything from me, but I owe her a debt of gratitude, because she gave me the name and telephone number of the lady in West Virginia with “that Doyle stallion”. When she told me that his name was Ibn Tirf, I was able to look him up in the 1983 Al Khamsa directory, and my interest immediately blossomed.

In the 1983 Directory of Al Khamsa Arabians, Ibn Tirf was listed as ‘whereabouts unknown’. For my purposes, he was better than a straight “Doyle”, since his sire, bred by Charles Craver, was Sultan (a cross of the noted Egypt/Blunt stallion, Subani, on the beautiful Davenport Antez daughter, Antan). His dam was one of the great straight Egypt/Blunt brood-matrons bred by Dr. Doyle, Shillala, by Gulson out of Gulnara. I immediately asked his owner for pictures and in due course, I received a few fuzzy shots of a tough-looking chestnut stallion, with cute little ears and a wary expression. He had that Gulastra neck, however, the smooth curve from wither to throatlatch was accented by the typically heavy straight fall of silky mane.

I bought Tirf sight unseen and arranged for his pick up. His owner was gracious, but if a buyer had suddenly appeared from outer space, I do not think she could have been more amazed. She did inform me that the horse had received very little handling in his 12 years, and suffered from heaves. He lived outside year-round, and mares were put in with him for breeding.

At this same time I was buying a Davenport mare in Virginia, a young Oberon daughter, so I arranged with a good friend to use my brand-new truck to collect the two new acquisitions. My trailer was a step-up aluminum 2-horse, on which the first of 48 monthly payments had just been made. It was expensive and certainly looked well made.

Tirf was picked up first, and it was soon clear that his knowledge of handling was minimal. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t be touched on his sides. Brushing against the trailer partitions made him squeal and kick. By the time we had reached Richmond, the back door on his side was bowed out enough so that one could slip a few fingers between it and the jamb. But it still held.

Katja, the filly, was somewhat alarmed by her traveling companion (as well she might be), but they settled in well for the drive home. Tirf’s emphysema had caught up with him by the time we arrived; he practically fell out of the trailer onto his knees, coughing up heavy green mucus. My vet was not impressed by his condition. In fact, she advised me that he might not survive.

It took Tirf about a year to settle in and adjust to his new hayless diet of bran mash and alfalfa cubes. His breathing became regular and he put on weight; his coat slowly achieved the gloss it has never lost, a deeply burnished dark copper with discrete dapples. As his health returned, his vitality increased, and soon he was one of the stallions on every visitor’s ‘must see’ list.

I should point out that standing in his stall he is not especially impressive, curvy, muscular and usually wearing an expression of extreme disgust. (He lives in a row with ten stallions, none of whom are the least bit taken in by his posturing. Two, in fact, are considerably older than he and flaunt their seniority by virtually ignoring his rude remarks.) Tirf has exeptionally large nostrils, and his favorite way of looking annoyed is to draw them up so they seem to reach just below his eyes. This expression, coupled with flattened ears, gives him an “heraldic dragon” sort of look. The effort is ruined, however, when one of us grabs his strong little ears, levers them forward, pushes his nostrils back into shape and tells him to be nice.

The truth, of course, is that he is nice, easy to handle and is a gentleman to breed. It’s just that he wants so desperately to be considered wild and tough. Turned out, he puts on the best show on the place, standing up absolutely vertical, then launching into a powerful springy trot with the curve of his neck and that of his tail in exact harmony with each other. He is breathtaking.

Before Ibn Tirf came to live at Upland, he had sired one registered foal and several part-breds. I was told (but have not received confirmation of the fact), that one of his West Virginia babies is a winning Endurance horse. Given his bloodlines and personal vitality, I do not find this at all unlikely. The first mare Tirf bred at Upland, was Fred Mimmack‘s lovely Saklawi Davenport, Mae West (Kamil Ibn Salan x Maefah). His 1987 filly, Daisy Mae UF, is therefore bred in the Saklawi strain more than five generations.

Ibn Tirf had two more daughters born in 1989, the Al Khamsa filly, Iolanthe UF (x CH Fairy Flight, a Kuhaylan Davenport of pronounced Saklawi characteristics), and the CMK filly, Araba Chimera, (whose dam Kataali, one of my first and most beloved mares, is a non-Al Khamsa mare bred Saklawi in the strain; her sire Aalzar tracing to Bint Helwa and her dam Tsarou to Basilisk). Iolanthe greatly resembles Daisy Mae, like her a bold, strapping chestnut; wheras Chimera is a petite and winsome bay.

While my first loyalty is to my Davenport program, Ibn Tirf has had influence on my buying as well as on my breeding. The Saqlawi al-Abd (*Wadduda) filly, Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta), was bought for his future harem; an Al Khamsa filly combining “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt, Davenport and Hamidie Society bloodlines.

Tirf’s biggest adventure recently has been learning to be a riding horse. Because of his age, heaves, and lack of handling, I had not thought it worthwhile to bother him with training; but one of the girls who works for me fell in love with Tirf and began giving him special attention. After a few weeks she threw on an old western saddle, and started riding him around in a halter with reins attached. He was absolutely delighted. Now he has learned to carry a bit too, but even with just the halter he was perfectly obedient (if a little bouncy), when ridden in company with other stallions and mares.

It is hard to say what the future holds for Ibn Tirf. Physically, he is a springy, handsome 18-year-old stallion, green broke to ride with a few lovely fillies to his credit. In strain and pedigree he is a felicitous example of the complementary blend inherent in “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt and Davenport lines, a combination suggested by Carl Raswan both in The Arab and His Horse, and in The Index. His problem is that he lives on a farm filled with Davenport horses and dedicated to their breeding. In short, there is too much competition for Ibn Tirf to be showcased in the way he deserves.

Still, at Upland we are all grateful for his presence. His beauty and nobility have won many new friends for the Al Khamsa horse, and in the years to come the “Doyle” Egypt/Blunt component in our breeding, as it slowly increases, will be Ibn Tirf’s ultimate legacy.

Despite any past or present offices held in Al Khamsa, Inc., by the authors, the views expressed in this article are the personal views of the present authors, and do not represent any offical policy of Al Khamsa, Inc..

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Indian Magic: A Master Breeder’s Masterpiece?

INDIAN MAGIC at age 26, with his long-time handler Fred Rice, in a Parade of Progeny and Personalities at the 1970 British Nationals. Note that one of the judges seated at left, the late Lady Anne Lytton, appears to be unable to keep her eyes off “the prince of horses.” Photo by Photonews, © Alexander Heriot & Co.

In an article reprinted in the Arabiana anthology, Lady Anne Lytton wrote: “Indian Magic was, I think, Lady Wentworth’s masterpiece…” Bred at Crabbet in 1944, INDIAN MAGIC became a legend in his own time. He was one of the most famous Arabians in England in the post war era, and an important sire for both Lady Wentworth and later Cecil Covey when he inherited the Crabbet Stud. INDIAN MAGIC was the last horse Cecil Covey retained when external influences forced him to give up the rest of the Crabbet Stud.

Pedigree of INDIAN MAGIC

INDIAN MAGIC gr s 1944	Raktha	Naseem	Skowronek
			Nasra (Daoud x Nefisa)
		Razina	Rasim
			Riyala (*Astraled x Ridaa)
	Indian Crown	Raseem	Rasim
			Rim (*Astraled x Ridaa)
		Nisreen	Nureddin II
			Nasra

Pedigree extended to Crabbet Foundation Animals:

*ASTRALED by MESAOUD out of QUEEN OF SHEBA
DAOUD by MESAOUD out of BINT NURA
NARGHILEH by MESAOUD out of NEFISA
NASRA by DAOUD out of NEFISA
NEFISA by HADBAN out of DAJANIA
*Nureddin II by RIJM out of NARGHILEH
RASIM by FEYSUL out of RISALA
RIDAA by MERZUK out of *ROSE OF SHARON
RIJM by MAHRUSS out of *ROSE OF SHARON
RISALA by MESAOUD out of RIDAA
*ROSE OF SHARON by HADBAN out of RODANIA

Though no breeder can predict exactly where his or her great successes will come, INDIAN MAGIC did not happen by chance. Lady Wentworth did not buy an Arabian mare about which she knew little or nothing, take her to the nearest or most heavily advertised or most expensive champion she could find, and expect to produce a world beater. Rather, INDIAN MAGIC represented twenty-four years of Lady Wentworth’s own breeding, on top of a prior forty years of watching his ancestors breed for her parents. INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree shows eight generations of Arabian horses owned by the Crabbet Stud. With the exception of Skowronek’s antecedents and the possible exception of FEYSUL’s dam, EL ARGAA, Lady Wentworth knew first hand every single animal in INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree as far back as his great-great-great-grandparents, as she or her parents owned them all.

In type as well as pedigree, INDIAN MAGIC represented the combination of Skowronek and *Nureddin II of which Mrs. Archer has written as a key to much of later Wentworth breeding. Miss Ott, writing in an article reprinted in Arabiana, characterized some of the animals representing this combination as being “a Nureddin Type with Skowronek details.”

Skowronek contributed a prettier head, arched neck, broad and level croup, high set and carried tail, and a certain ethereal beauty combined with good stout bone. *Nureddin II provided extra size, a loftier, more upright carriage, higher withers, better shoulders, and a lankier frame. Lady Wentworth began combining the two of them as soon as she had a *Nureddin daughter old enough to breed to Skowronek, but it was some years before any of the Skowronek daughters went to *Nureddin. Instead, Crabbet’s first foals from Skowronek daughters were inbred to Skowronek: *Raffles (Skowronek x *Rifala, Wright’s coefficient of inbreeding 25%) and *ROSE OF FRANCE (*Raswan x Jalila, inbred to Skowronek at 12.5%). (A third Skowronek daughter, SHELIFA, produced in the same year an Anglo-Arab colt named BLACK TOM, by CHEVALIER.) *Nureddin II later had a chance to sire his own “Raffles” when Lady Wentworth bred him to his daughter RISHNA, producing the filly RIFWA.

Most of Lady Wentworth’s more successful combinations of the two stallions came from breeding Skowronek-line sires to *Nureddin-line dams. This perhaps illustrates Carl Raswan’s oft-repeated tenet that the dam gives to her offspring size and frame, while the sire contributes muscling and detail. Anyone can name myriad exceptions to this rule, but animals like INDIAN MAGIC, GREY ROYAL, and *SERAFIX adhere to it.

Raktha (Naseem x Razina) photo from the Newbuildings collection.

The pedigree of INDIAN MAGIC’s sire RAKTHA is almost a mirror image of the pedigree of his dam INDIAN CROWN, but where one has Skowronek, the other has *Nureddin II. In the cases of both Skowronek and *Nureddin, the vessels carrying their blood to INDIAN MAGIC were NASRA foals. Lady Wentworth apparently recognized at an early point that of all the mares she had from her parents, NASRA would become one of the cornerstones of her breeding. NASRA’s *Nureddin II daughter NISREEN became the dam of the “Indian” family; her Skowronek son NASEEM was an important sire; her daughter NASHISHA was to produce SHARIMA, of great importance to post-war Crabbet breeding; while her son NAZIRI was perhaps Lady Wentworth’s favorite of all the Skowronek colts.

In INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree, both of the NASRA foals were crossed with horses “strain bred” to RIDAA before the final doubling to NASRA to produce INDIAN MAGIC. RAZINA and RASEEM were full siblings in blood, the result of Lady Wentworth’s breeding RASIM to mares that were three-quarter sisters to his own dam. RASEEM’s and RAZINA’s coefficient of inbreeding was 10.57%. (Lady Wentworth had also tried breeding RASIM back to his dam RISALA, but no foal resulted, apparently.) The cross of RASIM on RIM and RIYALA concentrated the blood of MESAOUD and RIDAA, while FEYSUL and QUEEN OF SHEBA functioned as outcrosses.

Quite different factions have maligned one or the other of the latter Crabbet foundation animals. Criticizing FEYSUL denigrates the judgment of Lady Anne Blunt, who used him at stud both in Egypt and in England. His foals RASIM, KARINA, IBN YASHMAK, and RAS EL HADD had a flair not seen in other lines of Crabbet breeding, though after his first few foal crops in England FEYSUL was used rather sparingly.

QUEEN OF SHEBA might not have matched Carl Raswan’s idea of the classic Arabian, but the mare contributed something to her descendants which must have pleased the Blunts immensely. They used two of her sons as sires, put into the mare band her only daughter to live to maturity, and by the end of the Blunt period of breeding they were using a double QUEEN OF SHEBA stallion at stud (SOTAMM) and producing triple QUEEN OF SHEBA foals (SILFA, by Rustem out of Selima). QUEEN OF SHEBA might have contributed any or all of the following: fire and presence, more wither, a good shoulder, a longer neck, the ability to move well, high tail carriage.

INDIAN CROWN (Raseem x Nisreen) photo by Lady Wentworth

Breeding the key ingredients (Skowronek and *Nureddin) to NASRA, crossing those foals with strain bred Crabbet “R” horses, and finally combining the two influences produced INDIAN MAGIC. Lady Wentworth must have realized she had discovered something special: the RAKTHA to INDIAN CROWN breeding she did more frequently than any other cross in her entire history as a breeder. INDIAN CROWN’s production record, extracted from the GSB, is a follows:

1939 ch f *CROWN OF INDIA, by Rix (sent to U.S.A.)
1940 barren to Radi
1941 gr c INDIAN GREY (died 1944), by Raktha
1942 gr c (destroyed) by Raktha
1943 barren to Raktha
1944 gr c INDIAN MAGIC, by Raktha
1945 ch c INDIAN GEM, by Raktha (sent to South Africa)
1946 barren to Oran
1947 gr f by Raktha
1948 ch c INDIAN CRESCENT, by Oran (sent to Brazil)
1949 gr c by Raktha
1950 barren to Raktha
1951 ch f by Grand Royal
1952 barren to Dargee
1953 ch f SILVER PARADISE, by Royal Diamond
1954 ch f INCORONETTA, by Dargee
1955 ch c SUMMER CROWN by Oran
1956 not covered in 55, sold, and put out of Stud

Once Lady Wentworth had discovered the successful “nick” with RAKTHA, she repeated it frequently, but not every year. In the same way the Skowronek-NASRA cross was very successful, but in between NASRA’s first foal by Skowronek (NASEEM) and her last (NASIEDA) she also produced to RAFEEF and NADIR. Had Lady Wentworth bred NASRA to Skowronek year after year, she could have had as many as eight offspring from the cross. But in creating them she would have limited severely the future possibilities for the use of NASRA blood. She would not have made the best use of one of her most important mares. Instead, she used in her breeding program NASRA foals by five different sires. This gave her a much broader range of options to continue breeding with the NASRA influence.

Lady Wentworth did not foresee INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree twenty-four years in advance and then create it. It took many years of trial and error, combining everything she had with everything else she had, taking note of which mare lines were producing her favorite horses, or her best breeding animals, and taking each step as it presented itself for taking. Before breeding INDIAN GREY, Lady Wentworth had experimented with many combinations of the horses which produced him and his famous full brother. She had tried Skowronek on NISREEN, producing NASIRIEH and *INCORONATA, both of which produced to RASEEM. *INCORONATA produced INDIAN GLORY to this cross, a favorite colt struck by lightning and killed as a yearling. With NASIRIEH Lady Wentworth tried doubling the *Nureddin influence by breeding her to *RAHAL and SHAREER. Lady Wentworth also tried combining Skowronek and *Nureddin while doubling NASRA by breeding NASEEM to NISREEN, producing INSILLA and INDIAN LIGHT. This combination lacked the perhaps crucial elements of RASIM and QUEEN OF SHEBA.

INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree contains more crosses to HADBAN than to MESAOUD, although people generally think of the latter as the more pervasive Crabbet foundation sire. All seven of INDIAN MAGIC’s Crabbet bred great grandparents were from HADBAN influenced mare lines. *Nureddin II was doubled to him. Lady Wentworth began to focus on the tail-female descendants of the HADBAN daughters, NEFISA and *ROSE OF SHARON, very early in her breeding. Lady Anne Blunt credited the HADBAN influence with producing animals of greater height, meaning well over 15 hands. Lady Wentworth made no excuses about her own preference for the taller sort of Arabian, although she also used and appreciated the smaller ones like RASIM, Skowronek, and DARGEE.

INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree is not sire dominated, except perhaps by MESAOUD and HADBAN. Instead, Lady Wentworth has done rather consistent line breeding to two successful mare families. NASRA and RIDAA have special prominence. Using Raswan’s system of strain analysis, INDIAN MAGIC is bred three generations in the Kuhaylan strain.

INDIAN MAGIC’s pedigree is not the result of outcross upon outcross, but is instead rather tightly linebred. The five different Crabbet bred great-grandparents were all closely related through MESAOUD and HADBAN, while RODANIA and DAJANIA were also key ancestors. From this point on the pedigree only gets tighter. From 1904 until the tenure of Lady Wentworth the Crabbet horses were bred as a closed herd. INDIAN MAGIC’s ancestry represents a very small sampling of that herd, augmented with one line to Skowronek, Lady Wentworth’s outcross of the 1920’s. RAKTHA and INDIAN CROWN were roughly three-quarter siblings in blood.

The Blunts saw in *ASTRALED, RIJM, *Nureddin II, DAOUD, and RASIM, as Lady Wentworth saw in NASEEM and RASEEM, colts they wanted to retain as future sires rather than sell. The Blunts decided to keep for breeding the fillies *ROSE OF SHARON, NEFISA, RIDAA, NASRA, NARGHILEH, RISALA, RIM, and RIYALA, as Lady Wentworth kept NISREEN and INDIAN CROWN. A farm which sells every foal it breeds, and then starts over with new foundation stock, is returning time and again to “square one.”

Other than the Crabbet foundation animals, all of INDIAN MAGIC’s ancestors tabulated in the pedigree above were bred by Crabbet except his sire, RAKTHA. RAKTHA illustrates another principle which successful livestock breeders have employed: the use of “satellite” farms. Place with another breeder some of your best stock, and it might be combined in ways which never would have occurred to you, eventually producing something which you might want to use. By buying ASTRELLA and RAZINA and bringing RAZINA back to Crabbet for breeding to NASEEM and NAUFAL (sire of RIFFAL), Lady Yule provided Lady Wentworth with two of Crabbet’s greatest post 1940 sires: RAKTHA and ORAN (Riffal x Astrella). (Like INDIAN MAGIC, ORAN was by a RAZINA son and out of a RASEEM daughter.) Lady Wentworth purchased both of these stallions as younger animals with an eye to using them at stud.

Lady Wentworth started using INDIAN MAGIC at stud when he was three, breeding him to NEZMA (Rafeef x Nasra). Thereafter she used him every year, but he does not seem to have covered more than six Crabbet mares in a single season. INDIAN MAGIC completed for mares with stallions like ORAN, DARGEE, RAKTHA, INDIAN GOLD, GRAND ROYAL, *ROYAL DIAMOND, and later *SILVER VANITY, ROYAL CRYSTAL, and *SILVER DRIFT. Lady Wentworth always maintained a large stallion battery. With a few years as exceptions, no one stallion dominated a foal crop. Again, this allowed her greater flexibility as a breeder than the alternative method of maintaining only one or two stallions and breeding all the mares to one or the other year after year.

Lady Wentworth bred INDIAN MAGIC very frequently to mares of the SHARIMA family, and also to INDIAN FLOWER (Irex x Nisreen) and her daughter *INDIAN DIAMOND (by Oran). SILVER FIRE (Naseem x Somra by Daoud) produced her last two foals by INDIAN MAGIC. The “R” family had already seen its greatest days at its parent stud by the time INDIAN MAGIC came into use, but he sired foals from ROSALINA (Indian Gold x Rissella) and her daughter ROSINELLA (by Oran).

INDIAN MAGIC’s foals for Lady Wentworth were all born during the last nine years of her life, making it difficult to discern which she might have used for breeding and how. The only one she appears to have used was the SILVER FIRE daughter SILVER MAGIC, dam of SILVADORIS (by Oran) before her exportation to Australia.

What INDIAN MAGIC’s long term impact on Lady Wentworth’s herd might have been we shall never know. However, he proved himself an outstanding sire and major influence on other breeding programs around the world.

The grandsires of INDIAN MAGIC, photos courtesy Rosemary Archer

NASEEM (Skowronek x Nasra)

RASEEM (Rasim x Rim)

Rafyk and Sir James Penn Boucaut: The Arabian Foundations in Australia

by Michael Bowling
from The CMK Record VIII/4 Spring 1990 used by permission of Michael Bowling

RAFYK (Azrek x *Rose of Sharon) at Quambi Springs in 1903, age 13. (Photo by “The Critic”, courtesy Coralie Gordon; for the record, this is a screen of a copy photo of a photocopy of a 90-year-old newspaper cutting!)

RAFYK was a three-quarter brother to ROSE DIAMOND, featured in Record VIII/2; for information on RAFYK’s and ROSE DIAMOND’s wonderful sire AZREK see p. 20 of that issue. RAFYK was the first major stallion produced by what was to become the breed’s most internationally influential female line. The difference between the pedigrees of ROSE DIAMOND and RAFYK was the replacement of KARS with HADBAN as maternal grandsire of the latter. HADBAN was a bay imported from an Indian racing stable to Crabbet, partly with the idea that he should take part in a highly promoted Arab race. The race was not a notable success and the Arab cause was further embarrassed when its winner was soundly trounced by a moderate TB in a match race. Arab racing in England took a hundred years to recover from its fumbled start, but the 1884 race can claim an important contribution to breed history as it was the occasion for HADBAN’s coming to Crabbet.

HADBAN: the quintessential broodmare sire

Lady Anne Blunt’s manuscript stud book describes HADBAN as

“An imported bay horse, foaled in 1878, a Hadban Enzeyhi, bred by Jakin Ibn Aghil, Sheykh of the Daafini tribe of Oteybeh, from whom he was purchased by Ali Ibn Amr of Bussora and Bombay and exported to Bombay in the autumn of 1883. Purchased of Ali Ibn Amr soon after being landed at Bombay. Imported in 1884. A bright bay with three white feet, hind feet and near fore feet (mutlak al yemin) and star. Splendid head with prominent forehead (jebha), small muzzle, neck a trifle short but well placed, good shoulder, pasterns rather too long. Fine carriage of tail, fine trotter in harness, grand mover gallopping[sic]. Hadban was the sire of Nefisa, Rose of Sharon and Bitumen [this apparently written in 1885, before the arrival of the 1886 colt MAJID].”

He stood 14:2 and 1/2 and measured 7 and 3/4 inches below the knee, “rather over than under“- in other words measured just under 8 inches of bone.

“Hadban was sold in June 1885 to D. Mackay Esq(re) of New South Wales for 120 gs for exportation to Australia. In view of the excellence of the mares by Hadban, it is to be regretted there were so few of his stock.”

Wilfrid Blunt, quoted by Peter Upton, later made a stronger statement:

“Hadban is, next to Mesaoud, the most important sire we imported, being numerously represented in the Stud Book through Rose of Sharon and Nefisa, his two best daughters and our two most valuable brood mares.”

HADBAN got just four foals at Crabbet, MESAOUD had over 25 times as many; HADBAN must have been the better sire even without considering the inextricable contribution of the HADBAN daughters to the success of MESAOUD. Those incomparable matrons *ROSE OF SHARON and NEFISA produced 34 foals between them and numbered some of the breed’s great progenitors among their offspring, so it is little wonder the name of HADBAN is “numerously represented” in modern pedigrees.

The hazards of travel

Lady Anne Blunt described HADBAN in India as

“a splendid horse–magnificent head–has had an accident which caused near foreleg to swell and swelling went down but left lump on fetlock joint–doubts as to possibility of training so that price came within our reach. Horse not lame now–but might not stand gallopping[sic]. Defect stands slightly back [at knees] also bone lighter than some but quality of sinews appears wiry and shape and style show perfect blood. Mazbut in the tribe… we get him very cheap… hardly over £100.” The next day the Blunts “Saw our own Hadban mounted. W.[ilfrid] also got on him but found his mouth very awkward, he wants teaching, seems to have had only a reshmeh [bitless Arab bridle], looks like Jerboa when trotting but would not settle, would play. The lump on fetlock better. He has a fine temper.”

The Blunts purchased three stallions in India; the other two were RATAPLAN and PROXIMO and they were shipped to England along with two other entries for the Arab race.

“On Friday evening a queer accident happened to Hadban, he got his near hind leg over the sling and also tumbled down…[it developed that] the horse had a stoppage and was in violent pain, it was frightful to see the agony. They got a syringe and so I went away, but I heard that before they could do anything to relieve him he had in his plunges got his forelegs out one in front of the other through the side bar of the box and thus hanging on had purposely banged his head from side to side against the iron hoop above as if trying to kill himself. When got out he seemed to be dying and was indeed reported dead. However, they managed to relieve him and he pulled through and was better on Sunday…”

The mind boggles at the gap in the ranks of the modern breed which would have resulted had HADBAN succumbed to the rigors of 19th century horse transport (as RATAPLAN and the younger JEROBOAM were to do in 1887 on their way to Egypt). Incidentally, RATAPLAN’s purchase price in India had been £250; his slim contribution, to Crabbet and the breed, has not justified the difference over HADBAN.

KARS and HADBAN departed together for Australia in 1885; KARS commanded the higher price (£250). He was the original Crabbet sire and had been for years a major figure in Lady Anne’s life, she not unsurprisingly noted his loss more than HADBAN’s in her journal:

“The central figure of the stud has disappeared; the glory of it seems to be put out with Kars absence.” His companion received only the comment “Hadban going too.”

Still Lady Anne came greatly to regret the sale of HADBAN after just two seasons and four foals, as reflected in later journal entries:

“This [Ashgar offered to Count Potocki by Wilfrid for £150] would be the third horse parted with in too great haste–Pharaoh, Hadban and now Ashgar.” “Perhaps Mahruss [sold to J. Hamilton Leigh] will be more valued now he is out of reach. It was so with Hadban and Merzuk, the losing of both of which–or rather the wanton throwing away of them–was a great misfortune, judging from the produce, alas too few, we did get of theirs.”

[MERZUK and MAHRUSS GSB each left one breeding foal at Crabbet–both proved influential beyond all expectation and both were out of HADBAN’s daughter *ROSE OF SHARON; we will encounter RIDAA and RIJM in later chapters of her saga.]

The foundation of Australian Arabian breeding

Australia proved an important early market for the Blunts; unfortunately Australian purebred breeding was not ready for such potential foundation animals–the Australian Arabian registry was not founded until 1956, any horses which were registered up to that time being recorded in England with the Arab Horse Society. FRANCOLIN and PURPLE STOCK, KARS and HADBAN, NEJRAN (Azrek x Nefisa) and ROSE OF JERICHO were among the Crabbet Arabs to leave no descent Down Under. Dwelling on might-have-beens is generally a waste of space; fortunately there is a positive Australian breeding tradition from these early years to be recorded. Sir James Penn Boucaut maintained a flourishing stud at Quambi Springs, near Mt. Barker in South Australia, from 1891 to 1908 and publicized the breed through his writings. When the Boucaut horses were dispersed two successor programs took over, adding new Crabbet sires and bringing the influences of RAFYK and other Quambi founders (save ROSE OF JERICHO) down to the edge of modern times. Their names, in every possible permutation and combination, are at the back of most modern Australian pedigrees.

The Quambi Springs program was founded in 1891, when Sir James bought through his London agents the yearling RAFYK and the broodmares DAHNA and ROSE OF JERICHO. Lady Anne Blunt had noted, on returning from Egypt in 1891, her pleasure with AZREK’s sons, “the beautiful colt Ahmar who exceeds my expectations. The Rose of Sharon one too. Rafyk has grown well.” The Boucaut sale was recognized as a particularly important one, and every effort was made to present the best available prospects: “Rafyk…is really far the best…I still much prefer Rafyk to represent the Stud.”

Ten years later Boucaut added another top young stallion, FARAOUN, a MESAOUD son who was to be the only representative in modern pedigrees of the Ali Pasha Sherif mare FULANA; and two mares perhaps of lesser distinction: NAMUSA and EL LAHR. NARGHILEH’s first foal NAMUSA by Ahmar, described by Lady Anne as “small but lovely mover,” had been less charitably used by Wilfrid to illustrate his thesis that first foals were undesirable compared to a mare’s later produce; Lady Anne thought this an unwarranted generalization. Whatever NAMUSA’s excuse was for standing just 13.3–and perhaps she was less distinguished than such later NARGHILEH offspring as *NASIK and *Nureddin II–she bred on in keeping with her brilliant pedigree. Small size did not stop her from founding one of the most noted families in Australia, which has achieved international recognition and still produces “lovely movers.”

EL LAHR was a granddaughter of the earlier Boucaut purchased DAHNA and possessed a complicated biography. DAHNA’s Crabbet daughter DINARZADE by RATAPLAN had changed hands several times in England, returning at last to Crabbet with this filly by Miss Dillon’s *IMAMZADA. DINARZADE was then sold to Russia, which was to prove an even more effective sink for early Blunt breeding than Australia. Lady Anne recorded in her stud book

“Note: Miss Dillon sent with the mare a filly foal by her horse ‘Imamzade‘

[sic; this spelling has persisted in the Australian stud book. Lady Anne seems to have had a mental block about the names of the Dillon horses, referring to El Emir consistently as Amir and to Jamrood as Jamrud]

which foal I should much prefer not to have had, as it will have to be got rid of whatever good qualities it may possess, for these could not make up for its being half of a strain one cannot vouch for; moreover, if sold from this Stud, it will be counted as of our breeding, no matter what precautions be taken to contradict statements to that effect. A.I.N.B.”

As if to illustrate the perversity of things in general, Lady Anne records in her journal a

“Discussion with W.S.B. about blunder I find in the catalogue [of the 1901 sale] where ‘Dinarzade filly’ is described as by Himyarite whereas Miss Dillon stated that the sire was her horse Imamzada. [In 1895 JERUD had been repurchased from Miss Dillon in foal to HIMYARITE, perhaps this had caused the confusion.] I wish the filly was not in the actual list at all but might be lead in at the end of sale (as was Barakat last year) but as it is W.S.B. now thinks our best — indeed only — course is to draw a red pen stroke through ‘Himyarite’ and write above it ‘Imamzada’.”

EL LAHR overcame her early vicissitudes to fund a major line in Australia–indeed traditional Australian breeding is unique in the world Arabian community for its preponderance of the Dahman strain, owed to the DAHNA family, which includes extensive EL LAHR descent.

Quambi Springs: an eyewitness account

The balance of this RAFYK feature is based largely upon information generously supplied by Coralie Gordon. In July 1903, “The Critic,” in The Advertiser, an Adelaide, South Australia newspaper, wrote:

“At Quambi Springs, near Mt. Barker, is located the famous stud of Arabian horses belonging to His Honor Sir J.P. Boucaut. In former years there were importations of Arab stallions into Australia, but these all came from India with at least a shadow of suspicion as to their purity of origin. So enthusiastic was Sir J.P. Boucaut’s admiration of the Arabian horse that importation of Arab stallions for grade raising purposes did not by any means satisfy his ambition, and he determined to establish the pure breed in Australia. For this purpose he took the greatest precautions to secure none but animals of the purest race, and his importations were from the world known stud of Mr. Wilfred [sic] Blunt, of Crabbet Park, England [see Lady Anne’s prophetic comments above about EL LAHR’s identification with Crabbet].”

“The Critic” quoted some colorful and fairly imaginative difficulties associated with the importation of purebred Arabians from the desert: of greater interest are his wonderful photo of RAFYK and the circumstantial commentary on the Quambi Springs horses as individuals.

“The handsome Rafyk” was “a beautiful blood-red bay, he stands 14 3/4 hands high, girths 5 ft. 9 in., measures 8 1/2 in. below the knee, 20 in. on forearm, and 21 in. from pin to pin across his loin.” FARAOUN was “dark brown and a different type to Rafyk. His beautiful wither could not be excelled by the best English Thoroughbred. Height 14 3/4 hands, girth 5 ft. 7 in., forearm 19 in., bone below knee 8 in., and 21 in. loin pin to pin. He is a magnificent horse.”

“With him were imported the two handsome mares, Elzaba [sic] and Namusa. The dimensions of the latter are 13 3/4 hands high, 52 in. girth, 14 1/2 in. forearm, 6 1/2 in. below the knee, and 18 in. loin. Both are handsome bays and are now heavy in foal. Great interest is centered around the two matrons, Rose of Jericho and Dahna. The former, a rich blood bay…shows quality combined with substance to a marked degree…Dahna is a beautiful brown…Both are admirable specimens of brood mares. The other noteworthy Australian mares are Sherifa, Keheilet, Labadah and Sadde [sic]. Sherifa is a beautiful molded mare by Rafyk from Dahna. Twice she has been to Mr. Austin’s imported stallions, Maboab [sic], and also to his latest import, Magistrate. The progeny of the latter mating is now a beautiful [mare in] foal to Faraoum [sic]. Owing to the mares being heavy in foal and in a condition more in keeping with good sense than show yard purposes, The Critic refrains for the present from presenting its readers with the photos of the female portion of the stud. When surroundings are calculated to establish and maintain constitution the beneficial course does not show out stock that run all winter with the sleekness of stable-fed animals.”

Another observer, the cattle-dealer A.H. Morris, wrote in a 1904 letter that “the Purebred Arab mares are a nice lot, but Rose of Jericho is quality all over.”

RAFYK in pedigrees

Plainly, “Elzaba” was EL LAHR and “Faraoum,” FARAOUN; no doubt “Sadde” and “Maboab” were the SAADE (Magistrate x Sherifa) and MAHBOUB (imp. India) listed as foundation animals in the Australian stud book. SAADE was bred to her grandsire RAFYK to produce MECCA; she did not leave a female line but MECCA’s son KHAMASIN and grandson ZARAFA made important contributions. KEHEILET was one of ROSE OF JERICHO’s lost daughters, but LABADAH (Mahboub x Sherifa) founded an extensively branched Australian line through her granddaughter DERYABAR, responsible for SENABRA, MINIFER, MUTRIF, TOU-FAIL and ELECTRIMEL, to name just a few branch founders. (Coralie Gordon writes “I am currently doing a story on a mare named DERYABAR, a great-great-granddaughter of Dahna and a very influential Australian mare, for the Australian Arabian Yearbook. The computer printout of her progeny is an inch thick!”)

EL LAHR and NAMUSA from the second importation also bred on with distinction through the nick with RAFYK; AL CASWA (Rafyk x El Lahr) had two fillies by KHAMASIN and both founded most extensively branched lines. This is the family of the classically-named New South Wales Department of Agriculture horses including CALISTO, CALLIOPE, MEDEA, PROMETHEUS and PSYCHE. NAMUSA’s daughters were AYESHA, RABI and SEKH; the first produced the important early sire RAISULI and the other two founded major families to which belong such mares as BARADA II, HAMMAMET, MOTALGA, TARNEY, ATALANTA, YENBO, RUHEYM, YUSUF and TAFILEH, not to mention any of the distinguished sires that might be named here.

SAMPLE PEDIGREE — DERYABAR, a major line foundress of the DAHNA family, typifying Boucaut sources from the Winter Cooke program in Victoria

DERYABAR	Khamasin	Fakreddin	Rijm: Mahruss II x *Rose of Sharon by Hadban
			Feluka: Mesaoud x Ferida
		Mecca	Rafyk: Azrek x *Rose of Sharon by Hadban
			Sadde: Magistrate x Sherifa by Rafyk
	Khadjad	Faraoun	Mesaoud: Aziz x Yemameh by Zobeyni
			Fulana: Ibn Nura x Bint Fereyha by Aziz
		Labadah	Mahboub
			Sherifa: Rafyk x Dahna

Back to The Critic:

“Sir J.P. Boucaut is justly termed the high priest of the Arabian cult. So far he has been the only one who has made a practical attempt to establish the breed of the Arab horse in Australia. That they are becoming exceedingly valuable to the Australian horse breeders is shown by the fact that in the two years of its existence the Quambi stud has made a name for itself for which it ought to be as justly proud as it is conspicuously famous. In producing the photographs, The Critic has departed from the stiff strained attitude generally depicted in illustrations, and adopted the free, easy, ordinary pose that is always more appreciated by true lovers of the Arab horse [emphasis added]. As a reward for his labors, Sir J.P. Boucaut will have the good wishes of every horse lover and every horse breeder throughout Australia.”

RAFYK had already left England when the question of selling AZREK arose; Lady Anne summarized the state of the AZREK sire line and had a good word for RAFYK’s grey brother who was to be named RASHAM:

“I am sorry to lose Azrek (if we do lose him) before next year, still as Shah will represent him well–having greatly improved and having quite equal style to Azrek–I do not object to selling him now. There are several colts, the Bozra one and the Dinarzade are the best at present and besides them there are the bay Nefisa colt and the Rose of Sharon and Sherifa ones, not to mention the one of last year, Ahmar–so that of Azrek we have Shah, Ahmar, and two first rate of this year besides three others and probably some colts will appear in 1892.”

Still, Lady Anne recorded in her stud book when AZREK went to Cecil Rhodes in Africa.

“it is impossible not to feel a pang of regret at the departure of a horse such as Azrek, whose stock are so satisfactory, while the Stud remains with yet untried sires. There should be a good many worthy sires to represent him, but they are still young, the oldest a two year old.”

In fact the AZREK male line was to vanish from Crabbet and from the breed; AZREK has only four sons (AHMAR, RAFYK, BEN AZREK and NEJRAN) in modern pedigrees and they bred only through daughters.

The absence of a male line of course does not imply the absence of genetic influence, particularly when you note the degree of AZREK linebreeding in some of the foundation Australian pedigrees. RAFYK did have distinguished male representatives, among them the handsome BADAWEEN, whose stud card (again thanks to Coralie Gordon) denotes him

“Grand Champion of the Commonwealth of Australia 1913-4-6-7” and further notes that he was “described by the Hon. Sir Jas. P. Boucaut, K.C.M.G, as ‘one of the best horses I ever bred.‘” BADAWEEN was “a very handsome horse, just in his prime, 14.3 hands, bright golden bay, standing on a magnificent set of legs, with good flat bone of exceptional quality, and is possessed of a massive, well-coupled frame. In movement, he displays his Arabian origin by that well-known carriage of head and tail, so peculiar to the breed, and, in his build, gives abundant evidence of quality, speed and endurance. His temper is all which could be desired; and, whilst he is full of life and activity, is remarkably gentle and docile.”

SAMPLE PEDIGREE–BARADA II, a key mare of the NAMUSA family, illustrating Boucaut influence through the Brown program in New South Wales

BARADA II	Raisuli	Rief	Sotamm: *Astraled x Selma by Ahmar
			Ridaa: Merzuk x *Rose of Sharon by Hadban
		Ayesha	Rafyk: Azrek x *Rose of Sharon by Hadban
			Namusa: Ahmar x Narghileh by Mesaoud
	Gadara	Harir	Berk: Seyal x Bukra by Ahmar
			Hamasa: Mesaoud x Bint Helwa by Aziz
		Zarif	Faraoun: Mesaoud x Fulana by Ibn Nura
			Rabi: Rafyk x Namusa by Ahmar Z

MINARET: unsolved mystery

One might-have-been which I can’t resist noting involves the mystery horse MINARET, a double RAFYK grandson listed in the 1924 Crabbet Stud Catalogue with a photo, 1916 foaling date and pedigree but no breeder or other provenance. Plainly, Lady Wentworth hoped at this transitional period to reintroduce the AZREK male line at Crabbet, but there seems to be no record of what happened to the horse. Coralie Gordon writes in two letters:

“Now, MINARET. We’ve all sat and pondered on this one from time to time. Now, luckily Sir James Boucaut was a prolific writer who produced all kinds of printed matter on his Stud. I am photocopying for you a page from his 1903 Stud Brochure which quotes an unknown buyer of [MINARET’s sire] the stallion Zubier (Rafyk/Rose of Jericho) a full-brother to the well-known Badaween, quoted in The Authentic Arabian as being ‘Champion of Australia.’ I believe this ‘horse-breeder of Northern Australia‘ was probably Mr. A.E. Morrow who returned to Sir James’ Stud in 1908 for the dispersal auction and bought the mares Sherifa, Labadah, Keheilet, Kaaba and Abdul. Abdul (Rafyk/Dahna) was the dam of Minaret, so Minaret was probably bred by Mr. Morrow, if he was indeed bred in 1916. Mr. Morrow appears not to have registered any horses, though I haven’t the time to pursue this at the moment. So how did he get to England, if he did get there? The reports of Sir James’ 1908 Sale give Mr. Morrow’s address as “Wyanda,’ Tolga, New South Wales — but the only Tolga I can find is in Far North Queensland, which is very tropical. This fits with the ‘Northern Australia’ vague address given for the buyer of Zubeir. In the 1924 Crabbet Catalogue, the landscape in the background of the photo is not like anything you’d find in North Queensland. It does look like England, or perhaps something you’d find in Central New South Wales or Victoria. Many early horses were lost because their buyers did not register any progeny in England. In Minaret’s case, there must have been a correspondence between Morrow and Crabbet. He wouldn’t have just suddenly ‘appeared’ in the 1924 Catalogue. I doubt if I’ve helped much, but perhaps I’ve managed to fill in a little of the background.”

“Since I wrote to you I had reason to be looking through my copy of Sir James Boucaut’s book, “The Arab Horse of the Future, published in 1905, and find that it was not Mr. Morrow who purchased Zubeir. At least not originally, anyway. The relevant passage occurs on p. 245 of the book and reads as follows — ‘Mr. Warburton, a horse-breeder in Northern Australia, who purchased Zubeir, writes:

“Will you allow me to congratulate you on being the owner of such a horse as Rafyk? I can only say that words fail me to express my admiration for him. I could have spent hours looking at him. There is not such another horse in Australia; he is perfect in every way.” Again in May 1904: “Zubeir is growing very like Rafyk, and is in good trim. He has not had an ounce of stable feed since he has been up here. He is doing good work, and it would take a big cheque to buy him.”

The more I look at MINARET’s photo the more its background looks like England, if not Crabbet. I wonder whether MINARET was not taken to England more or less incidently by a returning traveler and found by Lady Wentworth–as were Skowronek and *MIRAGE at the same period–but for one reason or another never got registered. Perhaps it was as difficult then as now to figure out who bred him, in the absence of an Australian Arabian stud book.

The little more which is known of the Quambi Stud is summarized in the following quote from Colin Pearson.

“Shortly before his death in 1908, Boucaut sold his entire stud except for two mares. He was then aged 77 and unable to cope any longer with the management. ‘I miss dear old Rafyk very much.’ he wrote to Blunt, ‘he was more kindly in his nature and much more sensible than many Christians.’ Boucaut had not been wholly successful in upgrading local stock with his Arabian blood. ‘You may more satisfactorily preach to a horse box than a farmer.’ he wrote–although some of Rafyk’s get were making people think, ‘or rather I should say, beginning to think.’ Rafyk’s influence on the pure Arabian stock in Australia has been considerable…but it has been somewhat overshadowed by the importance of the Boucaut mares Dahna and Namusa [at least in terms of reading charted descent tables; in fact RAFYK has six offspring in pedigrees while DAHNA has two and NAMUSA three] … Among the buyers at the Quambi sale were the Hon. Samuel Winter Cooke of Murndal, Victoria and Mr. C. Leonard Brown of Gurlargambone, N.S.W. In 1911 Cooke imported from Crabbet the Rijm son Fakreddin [ex Feluka] and two years later Brown bought Berk’s son Harir [ex Hamasa}. Another Crabbet importation of this period was the stallion Rief [Sotamm x Ridaa].”

The Boucaut influence

The Boucaut mares with those three Crabbet sires provided the basis for an active tradition which lasted into the 1920’s and provided one important element of modern Australian breeding. The Tehama Stud of A.J.Macdonald and sons played an important role in maintaining these lines.

The next phase came in 1925 when the 25% Crabbet stallion SHAHZADA (Mootrub x Ruth Kesia by Ben Azrak), with the mares NEJDMIEH DB, her en utero daughter NEJD SHERIFA (48% Crabbet by NURI SHERIF, another BEN AZREK grandson) and the straight Crabbet MIRIAM (Nadir x Ranya by *Nasik), were imported to New South Wales by A. E. Grace. These horses were bred among themselves and blended with the Winter Cooke, Brown and Tehama breeding to produce what came to be known as the Colonial Australian or Crabbet-Colonial Arabians. They will be the subject of a future Australian Record treatment, and then the background will be in place for the story of “The Lady Wentworth of Australia,” the late Mrs. A. D. D. Maclean of the Fenwick Stud in Victoria–this seems the best way to organize the series though in fact her first Crabbet imports had come on the scene a year before the Grace horses. Fenwick breeding pervades the Australian Crabbet tradition, and Fenwick is still active in the hands of the Maclean family. A fourth Australian chapter will summarize the influence of non-Fenwick later imports which were of Crabbet breeding in whole or in major part. ***

Sources

Lady Anne Blunt Journals and Correspondence

The Crabbet Arabian Stud its History and Influence

The Arab Horse

The Arabian Horse in Australian

published by the Arab Horse Society of Australia The Australasian Arabian Horse Stud Book

Descent Table: RAFYK Sources in Pedigrees

It may seem strange conceptually but this charts tail-female descent from RAFYK daughters (names in bold); colts as they appear in the female line are in ALL CAPS

Saade (Magistrate)

Al Caswa (El Lahr)

- - - - DIOMEDES (Prometheus) FEISAL (Sirdar) Aphrodite (Sala) Iris (Sala) Mira (Kataf) Tarfa II (Sirdar) Venus (Sala) Hebe (Sala) THESSALY (Razaz)
    Sir Aatika (Sirdar)
    - - ALADDIN (Kataf) Rufeiya II (Kataf) DEISHA (Kataf) ATLAS (Sala) Juno (Sala) Hera (Sala) Iona (Sala)
    Mishal (Sirdar)
Mecca II (Khamasin)
- Cazada (Sirdar)
  Salome (Ishmael)

Ayesha (Namusa)

Rabi (Namusa)

Sekh (Namusa)

- - - - ANOUK (Rakib)
    Tatima (Shahzada)
    - - Zazouri (Mameluke) Motalga (Indian Light) ZATIM (Zarafa) Tazar(Zarafa) Tarney (Zarney)
    Hilwa (Prince Nejd)
Salaam (Harir)
- Salama (Raisuli)
  Yenbo (Raisuli)
  Yussef (Raisuli)

The chart shows descent from six RAFYK daughters. LABADAH and SAADE are out of SHERIFA; MECCA had a son KHAMASIN and a daughter ZEM ZEM. KUFARA and MECCA II are out of AL CASWA; RAISULI is a son of AYESHA; RABI has one daughter, ZARIF. SEKH has a son ANCHOR and two daughters, SA-ID and SALAAM.

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.

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]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]“(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]From “Fasal 330” by Carol W. Mulder in Arabian Horse World Feb. 1976: “(Markada) dying in her prime.”↩

CMK Arabian Horses

The Arabians of written record