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Arabians at the Big Apple Circus

Why Young Stallions Run Away to Join the circus…

Arabians at the Big Apple Circus

Copyright 1993 by R.J.CADRANELL from Arabian Visions Sept/Oct 1993 Used by permission of RJCadranell  

        Katja Schumann cannot imagine a circus without four essentials: clowns, acrobats, elephants, and horses.

            ”Horses do anything you can ask them. They are like an empty canvas. Each has its own talents to develop to the fullest. Some will be great, others good.”

Katja Schumann, a fifth generation circus equestrienne, came to America from Europe more than ten years ago. She performs with the Big Apple Circus. Because of transportation, insurance, and labor costs, permanent circuses do not keep many horses. Katja has 12, including Saddlebreds, Arabians, a Palomino, and a Shetland pony. She says her horses need to be versatile and work hard.

        The Big Apple Circus performs in the northeastern corner of the United States: shows take place in New England, New York, Ohio, and Washington D.C. [and Chicago Ill. in 1997 and ’98]. The circus performs in one ring under one tent, accommodating an audience of 2,000 in summer and 1,500 in winter. It takes four to five hours to raise the tent, four hours to create the footing in the ring, a day and a half to prepare for a show, and eight hours to take everything down. There are horses and elephants, aerialists, clowns, jugglers, and acrobats. The program changes every year, and there are two shows a day.           The basic training of the horses Katja does on an individual basis. Each horse has a name and must respond to it. She uses the horse’s name to ask it to come to her, or to get its attention.

            ”And if they know their names, later you can get an individual’s attention when they are in a group,” Katja explains. “They must come when called, and respond to the long whip, which is an extension of your hand and arm.”

        Circus horses performing at liberty, however, do not rely on voice commands.

            ”The music is so loud the horses must respond to whip and body movements,” Katja says. “When the whip is behind, it means go forward. When in front, it means stop. But cues must be applied differently because all horses are individuals, and when communicating with one you cannot disturb the others. If I show the inside of my wrist one horse knows to speed up. There are other commands for a turn in place or a change of direction. To turn five to eight horses at once, they must all be on track. Later they learn to rear. That’s the basics.”

        Work is done with a longe line and halter,

    “not jerking on the mouth,” Katja says. “Sometimes the horses are ridden after they learn the basics, and sometimes before.”

        Katja has a few geldings, but she prefers stallions for circus work because they show themselves better. She comments,

            ”The inexperienced grooms and people who don’t know what they’re doing get along better with geldings. The horses live outside my window so I can watch. The inexperienced grooms want to learn, but they make mistakes.”

        Katja prefers Arabians for circus performance, explaining that circuses have used Arabian and part-Arabian horses for centuries because of their looks, durability, and trainability.

            ”Arabians will do anything as long as they understand what you are asking,” Katja says. “That sounds simple, but from one day to the next the same aids may not work. Sometimes you need to ask one way, sometimes another. The Arab will respond to what he thinks you’re asking. Understand that principle. If you get on someone else’s horse, the key might be to raise your hands a little. Books don’t tell you that, but the horse responds.”

          Katja finds her horses though the grapevine, following hunches, and reading magazines. Her needs are specific as to color and age. Currently she is assembling a liberty act of eight grey stallions.

        When Katja came to America she had to leave her horses in Europe. She knew she wanted Arabians, but the prices in America were prohibitive in the early 80s.

            ”Some of those high-priced horses should have been donated to circuses.” Katja comments. “They were just not as good as the price might make you think.”

A friend suggested she consider Saddlebreds, but Katja had never seen any. She went to Kentucky and then bought some. She now has three Saddlebreds and likes them.

            ”They have been bred as show horses, and the slightest noise makes them jump. But you can use that to your advantage.”

        New horses cannot be younger than age three. For her team of eight, Katja needed white Arabian stallions with minimal handling:

            ”That way I can be sure no one has messed them up.”

The horses also had to be accustomed to living with other stallions. She found a source of such stallions at Craver Farms in Hillview, Illinois. The young Davenport stallions Angevin CF, Thespian CF, and Bohemian CF have all joined the circus, where they are known by their stage names Abiyad, Yussef, and Pasha. Two more Davenport stallions may follow shortly.

        The horses go back in all lines to the 1906 Davenport importation of Arabian horses from the Anazeh and Shammar tribes. Davenport blood is present in an estimated 90% of American Arabians. The Davenport horses have also been bred as a closed herd since 1906.

        Yugoslavia used to be a primary source of large groups of horses for the circuses of Europe. Purebred Arabians were available and also horses “of Arabian breed,” meaning Shagyas and warmbloods. The Bertram Mills circus in England used horses with Crabbet lines, known in the circus trade as “English Arabs.” They were known for being bigger, often more beautiful, and more pampered. Polish Arabians are popular today in European circuses because they are plentiful and tough.

            ”Many of the Polish Arabians performing in circuses wouldn’t make show horses, but they are very good circus horses”

Katja says of them.           Katja sees herself carrying on her family tradition and trying to keep alive her inheritance. Her ancestors were circus proprietors who rode and trained and put together shows.

            ”One day the circus might be looked on like the Spanish Riding School or the American Ballet Theater. It’s something people need: to sit two feet from circus horses roaring past.”

        Commenting on the durability of the Arabian horse Katja says.

            ”If you spend five to ten years training a horse, you want to keep him around. A circus horse is not a product for resale.”

Her horses are in many ways like the members of a dance troupe.

            ”They are our colleagues, not our pets. We and the horses depend on one another. I think the bedouins and cowboys did the same.”

     

The Big Apple Circus is a nonprofit performing arts organization.

Northwest CMK/Al Khamsa 1999 Symposium

It has been said that folks who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Preservation breeders love to make a study of history and then have great fun getting together to repeat it.

1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition, Portland,OR. *Nejdran is the horse in the photo. Homer Davenport is standing on the porch.

1994 Northwest CMK Symposium. Aly Binis is the horse being admired by Charles Craver and RJ Cadranell among others who were unable to attend the ’05 exposition. They do plan to be back in ’99 for the

NORTHWEST CMK/AL KHAMSA 1999 SYMPOSIUM August 20-22, 1999 McMinnville, Oregon (45 min. SW of Portland)

For information contact

Ardi Allnoch 12560 Moores Valley Rd Yamhill, OR 97148-8013   or Rick Synowski at: rsynowski@iname.com

Strained Relations

Copyright by Michael Bowling used by permission

“Strain” is defined courtesy of Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls as follows:

“1. Line of descent or the individuals collectively in that line; race; stock; also, a variety, especially when artificial and but slightly differentiated.

“2. Inborn or hereditary disposition; natural tendency; trace; an element or admixture; as, to have an heroic strain in one’s character.

“3. A special line of individuals belonging to a certain race or species and maintained at a high standard of perfection by selection; said of animals or plants.”

There are further definitions which do not relate to our animal breeding context.

The standard text, Genetics and Animal Breeding (Johanssen and Rendel, Stockholm 1963; English translation 1968) has this to say: “Very often a breed can be divided into different strains which from a breeding point of view are more or less isolated from each other due to geographic conditions or when in some respects the aim of breeding is different.”

An amazing amount of confusion has been generated on the Arabian scene by the fact that Bedouin breeding has been described in terms of “family strains” when no two speakers seem to have defined “strain” in quite the same sense. For that matter, “Bedouin” seems to have been used in a number of senses and it is not surprising that contradictions have arisen. “The horse breeding tribes” are not and as far as we can tell have never been a monolithic entity with entirely uniform horses or ideas on horse breeding. Since different travelers spoke with different tribes, different ideas as to the importance of the “family strain” concept and totally different ideas as to what the “strains” were like and which were more important or desirable have come down to us.

The only real certainty out of it all seems to be the fact that the Arabian horse was bred in the desert with attention to tail-female descent (this is all “family strain” in the Arabian breeding sense is; it  is the eastern equivalent of the Western idea of placing emphasis in breeding on the tail-male line).

When the Bedouin Said “Strain”, What Did the Europeans Hear?

Before considering what the implications of emphasis on matrilineal (just another word for tail-female) descent might be, it could be instructive to consider the background from which the early European travelers were coming when they encountered the Bedouin. In some ways our experience is as foreign to theirs as theirs was to that of the desert raiders, so we can learn by trying to understand the differences.

The history of Europe is the story of small countries—often of individual tribes—warring among themselves for control of circumscribed areas which they felt to be especially valuable. The great empires which unified the scene were by comparison short-lived and even during their heydays they did not unify the people in the sense of producing a homogenized culture throughout their areas. This is the background from which the many local varieties—isolated from intercrossing by wars and war’s aftermath, suspicion and rivalry—developed into “nations” of humans and “breeds” of livestock, each closed among themselves.

Travelers coming from this history were not prepared to understand that the Bedouin “tribes” were nomads who wandered over vast areas in the course of a year, their paths crossing and sometimes running together. Even when individual tribes held themselves aloof from their neighbours they were not physically isolated like the citizens of little European countries barricaded behind their rivers and mountain ranges. Each tribe doubtless held that its warriors were the fiercest, its women the loveliest, its horses the swiftest and most enduring—they were nomadic, not inhuman—but they were saying and believing these things in a different context from the European experience.

When the Europeans heard the Bedouin describing the different lines of horses which they maintained, it did not occur to them to ask whether they could be, or ever were, inter-crossed. Such things were foreign to their ideas of stock breeding which could not conceive of a single breed spread over the Arab countries. Indeed, we are lucky that the terminology did not become set at the earliest stage for it would have us referring to Kehilan, Seglawi, Maneghi etc, as different breeds; even the Blunts made this error at first though they learned better soon enough.

There may be some significance to the fact that the American, Homer Davenport, when he journeyed with the Arabs buying horses for his 1906 importation, did not come home with the idea of strain separation or of “good” or “bad” strains. He recorded the strains of his horses and the information he was given on them but when reading his accounts one does not get the feeling he thought of this as anything but a source of knowledge of their background. Certain strains are spoken of as being prized in certain areas or by certain tribes but it is not with the feeling of metaphysical superiority. Rather, these became celebrated through the fame of celebrated individuals which happened to belong to them.

In summary, the Bedouin seem to have used a word which may be translated “strain” in the first sense of the dictionary definition at the beginning of this article. Perhaps it would have been better in a number of ways to have called these entities just “families” rather than “family strains” as we have come to do. European travelers who encountered this idea interpreted it more along the lines of definition 3 and of the animal breeding sense of Johanssen and Rendel. By questioning the Bedouin and sometimes by their own observation of such horses as they saw, the Europeans developed their own concept of “strain” or even “breed” and took it home with them because the Bedouin sense of “female family line” did not make sense to them. Only a few long-term observers carried their ideas beyond this preliminary level.

Because the casual observers outnumbered the careful ones and because even the careful ones could be misled by thinking one tribe had examples of strains that were like those of all tribes, the descriptions of “the breeds of Arabians” became current in Europe. In fact, what they were describing was not “the Seglawi breed” but “the Seglawis of this tribe” and interpreting this in light of their own experience (in which a breed name would not be used by two different groups for their stock unless the stock were indeed the same in type and by descent).

Implications of the Matrilineal System

Emphasizing tail-female inheritance is foreign to our Western way of doing things but indications are that it used to be rather general among the human family. It is the more primitive system and is based of course upon the fact that even members of groups which have not quite worked out yet how offspring are fathered are pretty clear on the fact that they have mothers (the women are anyway). At a slightly later period of cultural development, it still remains possible to wonder about paternity while maternity, until the era of embryo transplants, was a fixed and certain quantity defined by the legal phrase, “born from the body of”.

In our horse breeding example, it clearly must have appeared to the hard-headed Bedouin that the thing to do was to place emphasis on what you knew for certain. It may be going farther than the evidence warrants to suggest that at an early point in their tradition sires were not known or at least not recorded. Even had this been the case at some time, of course they were too sophisticated not to have come to the realization eventually that emphasis on sires was important in horse breeding. After all, aside from any traditions of maintaining “the right Arabian breed,” their success in raiding and at times their lives depended on the horses they bred. There is surely no question of ignoring sires in historical times—strains of both parents are almost always given on desertbreds that have come into our knowledge through being sold to Westerners.

It seems that as far back as we have any record, the Arabs used and emphasized the mares; stallions were a noisy but necessary encumbrance and the great majority of colts was sold. This implies that, with few stallions in each tribe, most of the young stock of any generation would be shared out among relatively few male parents. And it follows necessarily that much of the visible variation among the youngsters would be attributable to their dams. This would tend to reinforce the matrilineal emphasis.

We are told in the records of the Abbas Pasha purchases that certain strains (in particular one Seglawi family) were uniform when the mares were bred to stallions of the same strain but varied more in shape when the sires were of other strains. This is often quoted to show that the Bedouin crossed strains and as often used to show that they bred them within themselves to fix type. I think a much more interesting implication emerges if you consider the scarcity of stallions maintained for breeding in the desert along with this description of strain behavior when outcrossed or not. If much of the breeding of a tribe’s mares was done within the tribe, then a small choice of sires was available. If out of this small number a Seglawi was to be picked for the Seglawi mares, it was highly likely that all the Seglawi mares would be bred to one and the same horse. Naturally, if the mares were related by female line and they were bred to the same sire, the offspring should have been uniform. Since, further, the Seglawi stallion(s) of a tribe must have come from that tribe’s Seglawi mares, it suggests that mares were bred to their own near relations in female line if they were bred within strain within the tribe.

I sometimes get the feeling that modern Arab breeders think of “strain” almost in the sense of definition 2 of this article, as a mystical or metaphysical quality. I think it is important to keep in mind that if a strain type were fixed in any given situation, it was done so by the straightforward and comprehensible action of inbreeding and selection.

Maternal Inheritance

We have considered mammalian sex determination any number of times. Recall that sex is determined by chromosomal constitution. Normally XX individuals are female and XY individuals are male (where X and Y refer to the sex determining chromosomes). Recall too that chromosomal segregation is random. Genes from the other chromosomes of the individual do not travel with any particular sex chromosome. It is also completely a matter of chance whether a fertilized egg is XX and will be a female or XY and will be a male.

Figure 1 shows the consequences of this mode of sex determination on the sex chromosome make-up of sons and daughters of sires and dams. Only the sex chromosome are indicated as the others all assort at random compared with this pair. Note that the Y chromosome follows a patrilineal mode of inheritance; the Y chromosome of any male came from his sire, his sire’s sire, and right on back.

FIGURE I. Chromosomal Consequences of XY Sex Determination Mechanism in Mammals

Note that a male offspring always receives his sire’s Y chromosome and never receives the sire’s X chromosome. The female, of course, must receive one X from each parent. This means that the Y chromosome, because it is male-determining, always follows the “tail male” line. There is no such necessary pattern with the X chromosome; a female must receive an X from her own dam, but she need not receive one from her maternal granddam. (The numerical subscripts serve to distinguish one chromosome of the same type from another—they are not meant to have genetic significance.)

There is no comparable matrilineal pattern. Since each individual has at least one X chromosome, it is possible in as few as two generations to lose both X chromosomes of the original female founder. (NB: mitochondrial DNA is not mentioned because this was written about 20 years ago.)

In other words, any tail-male Skowronek stallion has Skowronek’s Y chromosome. A tail-female Bint Helwa mare is no more likely to have Bint Helwa’s X chromosome than she is any other chromosomes.

Two points here: firstly, there is little crossing over between X and Y and thus we can speak of the Y as being handed on as a unit unlike other chromosomes; secondly, the Y has little or no known function beyond sex determination. Having Skowronek’s Y chromosome implies only that his descendant will resemble him in being male, not necessarily in any other traits.

Something can be said for maternal inheritance in the sense that the egg is a much larger cell than the sperm and thus contributes much more mass to the earliest developmental stages. This becomes a case of splitting hairs in defining “inheritance” for it is just as true to say that the maternal parent has more environmental influence on the offspring than the sire. This begins from the moment of fertilization and continues at least until weaning. It might be best to formulate this as “the dam being the single most important influence in the offspring’s environment up to the time of weaning” rather than trying to define “maternal inheritance”. Chromosomally of course the two parents make exactly equal contributions to the offspring’s genotype.

“Family Strains” in Modern Breeding

Every modern Arabian has a strain except for a few whose strains were lost because early-day records were not kept as we might have liked before the founding of the various Studbooks. Of course those, the knowledge of whose strains is lost, still have them; we just don’t know what they are beyond the generic “Kehilan Ajuz” or “Old Thoroughbred”. It is interesting to speculate about the significance of strain names today, especially when there are relatively few sources of a particular strain name (as the Kehilan Dajani which seems to trace back in all cases to just two 19th century foundation mares, Dajania in England and Mlecha in Poland). As we understand the family strain system, this must mean that a Kehilan Dajani of one country is related to an individual of the same strain in another country. The question of course is, “How closely related?” and the answer is, “Probably not very.”

“Strain breeding” in a more specialized sense is practiced by those who attempt, by working within a limited group, to reconstitute separate strains by close breeding among the descendants of each foundation mare, or small group of mares of the same strain. This certainly is “strain breeding” according to the sense of Johanssen and Rendel—”the aim of breeding is different,” in this case in meaning to separate the strains—and it also agrees with all senses of the dictionary definition 1. We would like to hope that definition 3 would also be applicable here but of course the key is that the “high standard” is “maintained… by selection,” and that differs with the individual breeders involved.

Whether or to what extent modern “strain bred” Arabians resemble the original Bedouin versions of their named strains is a trickier question. We have seen that it is at least open to discussion whether the strains ever were uniform and bred to a certain general type in the desert. It is certainly difficult to accept that all the characteristics of the members of a given strain, as they existed 200 years ago in the desert, can be recaptured by inbreeding one family deriving the strain name from one or two mares and containing contributions from many other strains along the way. To risk being repetitious, this absolutely is “breeding a strain” or “strain breeding.” The questions are whether the Bedouin practiced “strain breeding” in this sense—and if they did how closely modern horses bred within a named strain resemble their desert progenitors.

What Strain Breeding Means to Me

I’m for it, every time, in the 3rd dictionary sense. If you aren’t trying to develop “a special line of individuals … maintained at a high standard of perfection by selection” then I don’t want you breeding Arabian horses. If thinking in terms of strains helps you to reach this goal, then go to it. On the other hand, of course, if confusion over “family strains” gets in the way of emphasis on the “selection” aspect, then give up family strains by all means.

The Bedouin seem to have done just fine without them until at least the 14th century when the Arab type was already numbering its age in the thousands of years.

The Founding of the Crabbet Tradition: Appendix: Minor Pedigree Lines from Imported Blunt Mares

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series The Founding of the Crabbet Tradition

Copyright 1990 by Michael Bowling, used by permission
Originally published in Arabian Visions March/April 1990

Minor Pedigree Lines From Imported Blunt Mares

Hagar, a dark bay without markings and with a “strange, wild head,” distinguished herself as a riding mare on the Blunts’ first desert journey: she was not considered a first-class mare at Crabbet but came to have first-class descent. Her great-granddaughter Howa was the foundation mare for Miss May Lyon’s Harwood Stud, still maintained today by Miss Lyon’s heirs, the Calvert family. Hagar was among the mares sold by the Blunts to the Hon. Miss Ethelred Dillon and she produced at Miss Dillon’s Pudlicote Stud *Hauran, sire of *Nessa and for Spencer Borden of Bazrah’s dam Bathsheba; *Hail, sire of Riad; and Zem Zem, whose daughter Zimrud is widespread including a tail female branch in the important modern British family of Bint Yasimet. The Zimrud line later returned to Crabbet in the person of *Nurreddin II’s show-jumper son Jeruan, sire of *Rishafieh and *Jerama before his sale to Tersk. Another Zem Zem branch descends from Hilal, sire of *Ibn Hilal.

Jerboa, bright bay with three white feet and a star, was the first of several mares to attempt to found a “J” family at Crabbet, where initial J did not prove a lucky letter. Jerboa is in modern pedigrees through her son and daughter Jeroboam and Jerud, full siblings by Pharoah. Jeroboam got Rodania’s daughter Rosemary and so is a widespread influence. Jerud produced at Crabbet and for Miss Dillon and from the latter connection is responsible for Jamrood by Maidan, sire of Hagar’s son *Hail and of Zem Zem’s daughter Zimrud.

Wild Thyme, bay with a star, was purchased because it was thought her strain, Kehilan Ras el-Fedawi, was also that of the Thoroughbred founder the Darley Arabian; the Blunts also imported a Ras el-Fedawi colt, called Darley. They later found that the original Darley had been a Maneghi; the Blunt Darley was a washout at stud and Wild Thyme was not much more highly regarded. She produced for the Blunts and for other owners, and her daughter Raschida (originally Wild Honey) was another to produce for Miss Dillon. Raschida produced Riad and has a substantial family in this country through her daughters *Nessa and *Mahal, imported by Borden before the Darley connection was disproved.

Sherifa, a white mare, was the senior individual of the first importation and probably the most highly esteemed, for the beauty of her head and for her character. She lived to an estimated age of 30 and left an active family at Crabbet, but the line trailed out around 1907 and she is represented in modern pedigrees only through her daughter Shemse by Pharaoh. Shemse had been sold from Crabbet in foal to Azrek and produced a grey colt, Ben Azrek, who got two registered daughters; Ruth Kesia from the non-Crabbet Borak [(Boanerges x Kesia II) and so blood sister to Borden’s import *Imamzada]; and Sheeba, whose dam Riad was 87.5% Blunt breeding. Ruth Kesia is widely influential through Shahzada by Mootrub and *Nuri Pasha by *Nureddin II; the latter’s sister Krim left a family in England. Sheeba breeds on through the mare sire Nuri Sherif, also by Nureddin II.

Dahma, a dark bay with star, snip, some white on all four feet, though not a familiar name in England or America, cannot be dismissed as a minor influence internationally for her daughter Dahna’s is one of the most extensively branched families in Australian breeding.

Jedrania, a bay, was the second J mare; she and her daughter Jebel Druz produced for the Blunts but she breeds on only through her Dillon son Jezail by *Imamzada, the sire of Hagar’s son *Hauran.

Meshura, a bright bay with four white feet and a blaze, was a distinguished individual and half-sister to the Blunt sire Pharaoh; their half-sister was dam of Azrek and Basilisk was from the same immediate family. Meshura founded a female line which reached several generations at Crabbet and outside, but is present today only through indirect lines. Her daughter Mansura (only offspring of Ashgar in pedigrees) produced Mareb by Mesaoud and he left descent through one daughter, Mareesa. Mabruka by Azrek produced Marhaba, dam of the Selby mare sire *Mirzam. Maisuna by Mesaoud was responsible for the male-line founder Joseph, sire of Rosh and Manasseh and of good mares.

Jilfa, again a bay with a star, was the third of the J mares. Her influence persists only through Jamusa, sold to the Hon. R.E.L. Vaughan Williams along with Mareb. That pair had a string of offspring in GSB but the line was founded by the filly Mareesa, who visited *Berk and Rasim at Crabbet to produce the glamorous Alfarouse and the less noticeable but more productive Yaquta respectively. Alfarouse breeds on through her sons Almulid, Ajeeb and Azym; there is a thin modern female line from Jilfa via Yaquta (thanks to Nyla Eshelman for pinning this line down).

Fulana, a dark brown with off hind sock and near fore coronet, was another who seemed for a time to be founding a Crabbet family. Her English branches all failed, and Fulana’s only descent today is through her very handsome Mesaoud son Faraoun with two important daughters in Australian pedigrees.

Johara, chestnut elder sister of the “broken legged” Bint Helwa, was marked with blaze, near hind sock and a small mark outside off hind. Two daughters produced at Crabbet but the thin lines from Johara today all descend from her great-granddaughter Jawi-Jawi.

The Founding of the Crabbet Tradition (Part II)

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series The Founding of the Crabbet Tradition

Copyright 1990 by Michael Bowling, used by permission
Originally published in Arabian Visions March/April 1990

Full Steam Ahead: 1899-1906

The 1898 Crabbet foal crop, which had jumped by 10 over that of 1897, marked a new peak in numbers and initiated an era of sustained production. The smallest foal crops at Crabbet would now hover around the pre-1898 record high of 14. In this period the new Ali Pasha Sherif mares were active, and the Mesaoud fillies came into serious production. The Rodania family was clearly established as the most numerous at Crabbet, achieving distinction in the 1906 season as the first to be represented by five breeding mares, even though Rose of Jericho, *Rose of Sharon and Rose Diamond had been sold; Dajania, Basilisk and Meshura were roughly tied for second. On the sire side activity was dominated almost entirely by Mesaoud and his sons although Ahmar and Nejran closed out the Azrek era, Mahruss GSB got one very significant foal and the newly-arrived Feysul sired his most important offspring in his first Crabbet crop. No one sire dominated the stallion battery in any year and the average foals per sire fell slightly to 11.5. The shape Crabbet breeding would take in the future was largely defined in this period, when Daoud, Rabla, *Astraled, Risala, Ajramieh, Rijm, *Berk, Riada, Riyala and Rasim were foaled. The number of Crabbet foals which would influence future breeding rose sharply, perhaps largely because stronger international demand was developing for stock to found stable new programs. The Crabbet foals reported dead in GSB fell to 10% of this era’s 149, and 33 made it into modern pedigrees.

The Blunts worked at maintaining tail-male descent from Azrek; when Ahmar was exported to Java they bought back Nefisa’s Azrek son Nejran and used him for three seasons, but he was to breed on through just one daughter. *Rose of Sharon had also produced a top-class Azrek colt in 1890; this was Rafyk, the foundation sire of Australian Arabian breeding and whose name is extensively repeated at the back of most traditional Australian mare lines. According to the 1924 Crabbet Stud Catalogue Lady Wentworth in her turn meant to reintroduce the Azrek sire line through the double Rafyk grandson Minaret, but if that horse actually reached England nothing came of the venture.

The remaining Ali Pasha Sherif mares proved uncertain producers at Crabbet; in no more than three seasons did as many as five or six of the 10 produce, although a few straggled out to 1910. Astonishingly, the crippled Bint Helwa overcame her broken leg to be the most reliable broodmare of the lot; she shares honors with Rodania as the only Blunt imported mare to leave family branches through three different daughters–hers Hilmyeh, Hamasa and *Ghazala, with the last-named bred by Ali Pasha Sherif but used at Sheykh Obeyd. Ironically this family did not persist at Crabbet though the Sheykh Obeyd and American daughters of *Ghazala, plus *Hazna, *Hamida and *Hilwe, all founded highly influential lines. When *Rose of Sharon went to Spencer Borden in 1905 she was in foal to Bint Helwa’s son Harb and produced *Rodan. That horse was to be the only link to Harb in modern pedigrees but he proved a strong one, siring such mares as Gulnare, Bazrah, Niht, Fath and Fenzileh and leaving a male line through Ghazi.

Makbula GSB left a branch through her daughter Kibla; this became an essentially American family when Kibla’s granddaughter *Namilla and great granddaughters *Kiyama and *Kareyma transplanted the line wholesale to the Selby Stud. Bint Helwa’s elder sister Johara left a small international family. Indirect lines breed on from Makbula’s imported daughter Kasida, Lady Anne Blunt’s favorite riding mare, in the important Egyptian mare sire Kasmeyn; from Fulana in her very handsome son Faraoun, another far back in Austalian mare lines; and from the magnificent Bint Nura GSB who had no fillies to live but produced the imported stallions Abu Khasheb and Mahruss GSB and the Crabbet colt Daoud. Daoud gave his dam indirect mare lines in spades; one Daoud son, Redif, survives in pedigrees through his own influential daughter Bint Ranya.

Mesaoud established his male line more firmly before his 1903 sale to Russian Poland, though not via Daoud; *Astraled, Nejef, Harb and Nadir joined Seyal among the future sire branch founders. *Astraled, half-brother to Ahmar and Asfura, was the last foal of Queen of Sheba, who had become the most highly regarded of the Blunt desert mares. She lived to 25 and produced 10 foals but had only two daughters of record. Queen of Egypt died as a yearling; Asfura’s daughter Ajramieh did establish the family as a respected one that has always been small in numbers. Queen of Sheba has strong indirect influence; besides the Ahmar daughters already named, *Astraled and his sons Rustem, Razaz, Sotamm and Gulastra all were top sires of broodmares. Queen of Sheba’s name is another to be repeated in pedigrees with remarkable frequency, and the most international Mesaoud sire branch, that of *Astraled via Sotamm to Riffal and Oran, was notable for its Queen of Sheba reinforcement. Mesaoud had one major son outside Crabbet; the beautiful Azrek mare Rose Diamond was sold to the Hon. George Savile in 1903 and duly presented him the next year with Lal I Abdar (*Abu Zeyd), another from whom the male line persists.

Two new Ali Pasha Sherif sire lines were established at Crabbet in this phase. Mahruss GSB, chiefly a riding stallion, bred just four Arab mares in England; he sent *Ibn Mahruss to America en utero and got one Crabbet foal: *Rose of Sharon’s mighty son Rijm. That massive chestnut was admired for his scope, presence, freedom of stride and excellence of shoulder, back and loin. Before his sale to Spain Rijm contributed to the Crabbet tradition as sire of the breeding stallions *Nasik, Fakreddin and *Nureddin II; of the widely influential daughters Nessima, Fejr, *Noam, Belka and *Rijma; and of the great early endurance gelding *Crabbet. *Noam and Belka also distinguished themselves under saddle. Feysul came from Sheykh Obeyd with his son Ibn Yashmak late in 1904 and promptly sired the impressively smooth 1906 chestnut Rasim. Rasim served as a riding stallion for his first 11 years and narrowly missed going off as a charger with Neville Lytton in the First World War. His two eldest daughters were key figures of the Kellogg importation and Rasim became extremely influential in the Wentworth years.

The important mares foaled in this era included Ahmar’s Hilmyeh and Namusa, Rish by Nejran, and good daughters of the Mesaoud sons Rejeb, Seyal and Narkise, but if this was the dawn of a new day the sunlight radiated from superb daughters of Mesaoud and *Astraled. Feluka, dam of the Rijm siblings Fejr (to produce *Felestin; *Sulejman’s and Rasim Pierwszy’s dam Fasila; Faris, sire of Rissalix; Ferhan, sire of Indian Gold; and Fayal) and the Australian sire Fakreddin; of the greatest Kellogg foundation mare, *Ferda; and after her sale to H. V. Musgrave Clark of Fasiha, established the Ferida line with a vengeance. If Narghileh was not the greatest Mesaoud daughter then that honor must go to Ridaa’s 1900 filly Risala, dam of Rasim, *Rijma, Rissla, Razieh (Bint Rissala), Risfan (South America) and Rafina, a line foundress in Australia; few sires have ever had the equivalent of an *Astraled and a Risala in the same crop, as Mesaoud did in 1900. Rosemary produced two full sisters, the bay Rabla and brown Riada; the former founded an exuberant family still noted for action horses and the latter died of twisted gut, leaving just one breeding offspring, but that was Rayya, dam of *Raseyn. The records of the handsome grey Kibla, Ajramieh and Hamasa look pale in this company but each founded a major line in the breed.

A case could be made that Daoud and *Astraled, with fewer daughters, were better mare sires than Mesaoud. It must be remembered that all three were extensively used on mares of, by this time, highly selected Crabbet families; and above all that their daughters profited from a coherent, established context in which to operate. Riyala, the most important *Astraled mare of this period, produced Ranya, dam of Bint Ranya and the persistent Spanish influence Razada; Rafeef, sire of Nezma, *Rasafa and the superlative Risslina; the prolific Risama (Bint Riyala); the Hanstead matron Razina, the broodmare of her generation in England, granddam of Indian Magic, *Serafix, *Silver Drift, *Iorana, Bright Shadow, Namilla, Oran, Sala and *Count Dorsaz just to start the list; Ramayana, sold to Poland with Fasila and represented by Polish and Russian families today; Ruellia, who sent a son Riyalan to Australia and then went to Tersk; and Raftan, sire of Naseel, Ariffa and Doonyah. Rokhama by *Astraled bred on through just one daughter but that was *Rokhsa, who founded one of the greatest Maynesboro and Kellogg families.

Partition and The War Years: 1907 – 1918

The first foal crop for the partitioned Crabbet and Newbuildings mares arrived in 1907. Wilfrid Blunt’s chief sires in the Newbuildings half were to be *Astraled, Rijm, Harb, Ibn Yashmak and Rustem; Lady Anne at Crabbet had Feysul, Daoud, *Berk, Razaz, Sotamm and *Nasik (not all these were active as early as 1907). Blunt breeding presents a considerably more complicated picture from this point. Under the terms of partition, Crabbet and Newbuildings mares could be sent to sires standing in the alternate half, and no breeding animal (current or potential) could be sold without approval of the other side. In practice it developed that when Blunt needed money, Newbuildings horses which Lady Anne would be unwilling to see sold appeared on his sales list; and when Lady Anne wished to use a Newbuildings sire she bought or traded for him or one of his sons.

The foals reported dead in GSB for this period fell to just over 8% (14 out of 167) and 54 of the remaining 167 are in modern pedigrees–some of them very prominently indeed. Rodania now reigned supreme; Dajania’s family was a distant second while the Seglawi Meshura and Basilisk lines were fading as Sobha picked up speed. Average number of foals per sire at this period was still about 13. With substantial numbers of mares in production and some of the great sires of its history at their peak of activity, and with the individual geniuses of the two Blunts operating independently from a base of nearly 30 years’ observation of Crabbet breeding trends, it would be surprising if this period did not turn out some of Crabbet’s greatest products. Do not expect to be surprised.

One major sire exported in this period was *Astraled, who went to Lothrop Ames in Massachusetts in 1909; American Arabian breeding was not ready for a sire of this caliber and *Astraled landed in Oregon as a Remount sire, leaving just a handful of foals in New England. *Astraled became a legendary sire of crossbred using horses in his new home only to be called back to the place that had been prepared for him by W.R. Brown in 1923, in time to sire the great Gulastra in his last crop. Note that for the Blunts *Astraled got Riyala, Rustem, Rim and *Ramla from *Rose of Sharon’s daughter Ridaa; the only breeding *Astraled offspring from his early New England years was Kheyra, out of Ridaa’s half-sister Rosa Rugosa; and at Maynesboro Gulastra came from a daughter of Ridaa’s half-brother *Rodan.

It was during the years of partition that *Astraled got his important Crabbet sons, Razaz, Rustem and Sotamm. Rustem remained at Newbuildings where he got Rustnar, *Ferda, Arusa, Rayya and *Simawa. Rayya produced *Raseyn and *Ferda is in a class by herself among the Kellogg matrons, while *Simawa proved one of the best mares of the Maynesboro importation. Lady Anne used Razaz and Sotamm; the former sired important mares while the latter got the Australian mare sire Rief and Kasmeyn, a mare sire in his own right in Egypt (maternal grandsire of *Bint Bint Sabbah and Nazeer just for two), and Naufal who sired other foals beyond Riffal though that was his great success. Riffal left the important sire Oran in England along with the good mares Samsie, Nariffa, Quaker Girl (herself exported to Australia), Rubiana and *Mihrima (Canada); his sons The Chief and *Victory Day II bred on in the Netherlands and Canada respectively while the Riffal influence through his Australian get is incalculable.

*Astraled could have sired no colts and done very well for himself through daughters; his post-partition Newbuildings fillies included Rim and Selima, two of the breed’s dynastic matrons. Rim produced the likes of *Ramim, dam of Rehal and Ramghaza; *Rifla, dam of *Rifda, Rifnas and Shemseh; the ill-fated *Raswan, sire at Crabbet of Ferhan, *Rose of France and Star of the Hills (his only get), “World’s Champion” Raseem, one of the great mare sires of British history, though at Tersk he was surpassed by his daughter Rixalina; Naharin’s dam *Rimini; the Selby import *Rahal; *Rimal, a colt of remarkable beauty, gelded after his Kellogg importation; Rix, sire of *Ashan, *Crown of India, Radiolex and Shimrix; and *Nizzam’s and Niseyra’s sire Rissam. Selima’s noted foals do not match Rim’s for numbers but their influence spread extravagantly; all her breeding offspring were exported but her British influence remained substantial. Shareer, another “World’s Champion,” left Rythal, Rytham, Rythama and Sharima behind when he went to Russia accompanied by his great daughter Rissalma (in fact Rythal already was in Holland and Rytham went along on the Tersk trip but left the tremendously influential Sharfina, his only British foal, at Crabbet en utero). Shareer’s sister Sardhana produced *Crabbet Sura in England and founded a mare line in Poland when she accompanied Rasim, Fasila and Ramayana to Baron Bicker’s stud. Star of the Hills left Starilla to represent her in England (which she did ably through her son Saladin II) when Star traveled to Russia, where she founded one of the most important Tersk families. The Selby colt *Selmian was not used in England – he was sold at age three – but he got Selfra, Selmiana and Ibn Selmian among others.

(Appendix: Minor Pedigree Lines from Imported Blunt Mares)

The Founding of the Crabbet Tradition (Part I)

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series The Founding of the Crabbet Tradition

Copyright 1990 by Michael Bowling, used by permission
Originally published in Arabian Visions March/April 1990

“The great tales… never end… But the people in them come, and go when when their part’s ended.” — J.R.R.Tolkien

We see the names of such Crabbet founder animals as Azrek, Mesaoud and Skowronek so often at the backs of extended pedigrees, it is difficult to appreciate the expanse of time stretching from the purchase of the filly Dajania on Christmas Day, 1877 to March, 1990. It may help to consider that Crabbet history breaks naturally into three major periods. Blunt breeding begins in 1878 and runs (with minor ambiguity over the break point) to 1919. Lady Wentworth’s firm hand is on the helm from 1920 to her death in 1957 when Cecil Covey inherits. The Crabbet Stud continues until 1971 but the reduction of stock necessitated by 80% death duties completes the transformation, begun in the earliest years and accentuated during the Wentworth phase, of Crabbet breeding into a world community. Long before 1971 “Crabbet” has larger implications than any individual breeding program can contain; nearly every modern breeding tradition has been enhanced by contributions from Crabbet and a robust Crabbet heritage maintains its own identity, as straight Crabbet or–like a varietal wine–blended yet retaining predominant Crabbet character.

The exuberant and expansionist Blunt period laid the foundation for all that was to follow at Crabbet and internationally. The Blunt imports were chosen over the course of nearly 20 years from hundreds of horses that might have been bought. The criteria for selection were authenticity of origin and individual quality; to remain in the Crabbet pool an influence had also to demonstrate compatibility with the breeding group. The scope of the pedigree base at Crabbet in the Wentworth years was continually reduced; many lines, lost at Crabbet and even in England, were to remain active in Australia and North America and so of major importance to the Crabbet tradition. An important development of the modern international era of Arabian breeding has been the genetic reunion of previously sundered Crabbet branches. Lady Wentworth’s introduction of the Skowronek outcross and its overwhelming success particularly in America can color one’s appreciation of what went before, but Her Ladyship made it plain that

“Skowronek was mated exclusively to mares of pure Crabbet blood so that the fame of his illustrious progeny is exactly halved by Crabbet mares, from which his blood cannot be divorced.”

The Partition Agreement

Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt were essentially disparate personalities; their grandson pictured the partnership “as though an eagle had wedded with a turtledove,” describing Blunt as a man of vision and enterprise and crediting his wife with immense attention to detail and mathematical precision. They held individual and frequently contradictory views on most aspects of life and not least on horse breeding and stud maintenance. The Blunts agreed in 1906 to live apart, and with the importance of the horses in their lives it is not surprising that they also chose to partition the Crabbet Stud. Not all details of the division are precisely recorded but we can follow in a broad sense. Thus in terms of their influence on Crabbet history, beginning with the foal crop of 1907 we can distinguish in most breeding decisions the planning of Blunt or of Lady Anne (toward the end of the Blunt period the distinctions become fuzzy). The record shows that both “Crabbet” and “Newbuildings” bred individuals of the very highest distinction; if today’s students of Crabbet breeding would like to have seen more use of Newbuildings sires with Crabbet mares and vice versa, still we would not choose to give up the results of either program.

Crabbet and Newbuildings were ancestral properties in Wilfrid Blunt’s family; Blunt lived at Newbuildings and Crabbet was the home of Judith Blunt Lytton (later Lady Wentworth) and her young family. Lady Anne chose to settle in Egypt at the garden of Sheykh Obeyd, near Cairo (historical note on the Victorian position of women: In order to have a home of her own it was necessary that Lady Anne buy from her husband land originally purchased and improved with her money). The Blunts had founded a stud at Sheykh Obeyd about 1890; it was reorganized in 1897 and provided a rallying point for the remmant of the famed breeding programs of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sherif. The original intent had been to exchange stock between the English and Egyptian studs, but when the stallions Rataplan and Jeroboam died at sea on the way to Egypt the enthusiasm for two-way transfers was greatly reduced; late in her life Lady Anne introduced two stallions and four mares at Sheykh Obeyd directly from Arabia. Her Egyptian stud came to have its own importance to Lady Anne Blunt and though it had no influence at Crabbet after 1904, it remained an aspect of Blunt breeding and horses bred there have been internationally significant through Babson and EAO Egyptian breeding.

The Crabbet Foundation

My objective here is to outline 40 years of the Blunt breeding program as recorded in England’s General Stud Book (GSB). There will be space to do little more than touch on general trends; the treatment will follow approximate chronological order.

Table 1: Mares imported by the Blunts
Year Name (Alternate names in parentheses) color year foaled key, see below
[Mares of the line to produce at Crabbet by 1920, counting the imported mare herself, in brackets]
“//” indicates no registered descent
“F” indicates a female line persists
1878 Babylonia (“Blot”) b 1875 [died 1878] //
Dajania (Jasmine, Lady Hester) b 1876 [8] F
Damask Rose ch 1873 [1] //
Hagar b 1872 [3] F
Jerboa b 1874 [5]
Purple Stock b 1874 [2] //
Sherifa gr 1862 [6]
Tamarisk ch 1867 [1] //
Wild Thyme (“Darley Filly”) b 1876 [2] F
Zenobia (Burning Bush) ch 1869 [1] //
1879 Basilisk gr 1875 [8] F
Francolin gr 1875 [1] //
Queen of Sheba br 1875 [5] F
1881 Canora ch 1874 [1] //
Dahma b 1876 [4] F
Jedrania b 1875 [2]
Meshura b 1872 [7]
Rodania ch 1869 [18] F
Zefifia gr 1873 [1] //
1888 Jilfa b 1884 [2] F
1891 Ferida b 1886 [5] F
Khatila ch 1887 [3] //
Safra gr 1885 [2] //
Sobha gr 1879 [10] F
1897 Badia ch 1884 //
Bint Helwa gr 1887 [3] F
Bint Nura GSB (Bint Nura es Shakra) ch 1885 [1]
Fulana br 1893 [4]
Johara (Bint Helwa es Shakra) ch 1885 [1]
1898 Jellabieh gr 1892 [2] //
Kasida ch 1893 [3]
Makbula GSB gr 1888 [5] F
1909 *Ghazala gr 1896 [Imported for Borden] F
1910 Azz gr 1895 //

Table 1 lists the imported Blunt mares and summarizes their breeding opportunity; only those whose influence persists are mentioned in the narrative. The GSB records 34 mares imported to England from 1878 to 1910 by the Blunts. Of these 21 were of desert origin; 13 came from Sheykh Obeyd and represented the historical programs of Abbas Pasha I and Ali Pasha Sherif. Thirty-one can be considered Crabbet founders (Babylonia died soon after her arrival; *Ghazala was in transit to Spencer Borden in Massachusetts; Azz had proved barren at Sheykh Obeyd and was sent to England in the vain hope of returning her to production with more sophisticated veterinary attention). Of the 31 mares, four left no live foals; among the remaining 28, 18 are desert imports and 10 are Egyptians. Eight of the desert mares and five of the Egyptians have left tail-female families in world Arabian breeding; six more desertbreds and one from Ali Pasha Sherif are still represented through indirect lines.

Table 2: Stallions imported by the Blunts
Year Name color year foaled key, see below
[Males of the line in use at Crabbet by 1920, counting the imported horse himself, in brackets]
// indicates no registered descent
M indicates a sire line persists
1878 Kars b 1874 [3]
Darley b 1876 [1] //
1879 Pharoah b 1876 [2]
1884 Hadban b 1878 [1]
Proximo b 1875 [1] //
Rataplan b 1874 [1]
1887 Ashgar ch 1883 [1]
1888 Azrek gr 1881 [3]
1891 Merzuk ch 1887 [1]
Mesaoud ch 1887 [12] M
1892 *Shahwan gr 1887 [1]
1897 Mahruss GSB ch 1893 [4] M
1898 Abu Khasheb gr 1894 //
Ibn Mesaoud ch 1892 //
1904 Feysul ch 1894 [3] M
Ibn Yashmak ch 1902 [1]
Ibn Yemama b 1902 //

Table 2 similarly treats the imported Blunt stallions of which GSB records 17, a ratio of one sire prospect for each two mares. Abu Khasheb, Ibn Mesaoud and Ibn Yemama were sold without being used; Proximo left no live foals and neither of those by Darley bred. Jedrania was bred once to the gift stallion Abeyan; Makbula and Jellabieh came from Sheykh Obeyd in foal in Ibn Nura and Antar; none of these matings had long-term influence. Only three direct male lines persist from Blunt breeding; these lines are outlined in Table 3.

 

Table 3: The Sire Lines Persisting from Blunt Breeding
Sueyd ->Sottam ->Ibn Nura ->Feysul ->Rasim ->Sainfoin ->Rheoboam
->Bahram
->Raseem ->Grey Owl
Zobeyni ->Wazir ->Mahruss ->Mahruss II ->*Ibn Mahruss ->El Jafil
->Rijm ->*Nasik
->*Nureddin II
->Harkan ->Aziz ->Mesaoud ->Nejef ->Firuseh
->*Abu Zeyd (Lali Abdar) ->Bazleyd
->Gharis
->Sher-i-Khurshid
->*Astraled -> Sotamm
-> Gulastra
->Harb ->*Rodan
->Nadir ->Joseph
->Rishan
->Seyal ->*Berk

Crabbet: The First Years: 1879-1888

More than half the eventual imported sources (20 mares and eight stallions) were introduced at Crabbet in this first decade. The Blunts were in and out of England and horse care was not given sufficiently close attention (attested to by the fact that up to half the foals in some of this period’s small crops, and 23% overall, died before registration). This period saw 60 live foals registered, of which 12 mares and only one stallion are still in modern pedigrees. Kars and Pharaoh were the most used sires and were assisted by Darley, Rataplan, Hadban, Proximo, Abeyan and the home-bred colts Faris, Jeroboam and Roala. The average number of foals per sire was just over eight (counting dead foals); apart from Kars the other nine averaged only about five apiece.

An observer would have accounted Basilisk’s and Rodania’s the most successful of the mare lines in terms of numbers. Eighteen of the 20 mares imported in this period produced live foals at Crabbet; fully half of those (and the unlucky exported Tamarisk) were sold on and only 11 were to leave registered descent. Dajania and Basilisk were used for crossbreeding after they left Crabbet; Damask Rose, Canora and Dahma had no further report after producing the foal each was carrying at time of sale. Hagar and Jedrania were among the mares sold to the Hon. Miss Ethelred Dillon and left no straight Crabbet descent though they are represented in Crabbet/Old English lines. Sherifa’s daughter Shemse, and Wild Thyme with one daughter Raschida, are similarly placed in modern pedigrees.

The record shows that Kars and Rataplan were to breed on through a few mares (four daughters for Kars and two for Rataplan, both his out of Kars daughters), and Pharaoh through a son and three daughters. The Sherifa female line would fail by 1907 leaving her just one thin presence in Crabbet/Old English pedigrees. The Basilisk family, while a major one in the world context, would not survive at Crabbet in the long term. Dahma’s influence persisted only through two mares sold to Australia, though hers became a successful and extensively branched family down under. By far the most influential individuals bred at Crabbet in this decade have proven to be *Rose of Sharon (Hadban x Rodania), Nefisa (Hadban x Dajania) and Rosemary by Jeroboam (Pharaoh x Jerboa) out of Rodania.

Rodania, the only Blunt desert mare with female lines through three different daughters (and they by three different sires), has proven far the most influential foundation mare of the stud and is generally accepted as having the most extensively branched family in the breed. Her line is the most numerous in modern Egyptian breeding and is also strongly represented in Russia and Poland, apart from its obvious dominance in England, Australia and America. That does not even touch on the multiple ties to Rodania stallions.

Dajania, Lady Anne Blunt’s 1877 Christmas present to us all, left just one producing daughter at Crabbet but the incomparable Nefisa was dam of 21 foals and founded a mare family still widely sought after, and responsible for some of the greatest sires of Crabbet–or world–Arabian history. No breeder has ever made a more serendipitous first purchase; the repetition of Dajania’s name in modern Crabbet-derived pedigrees reaches astronomical proportions and the thought of what she might have achieved had she remained at Crabbet boggles the mind.

The Transition 1889-1898

The greatest record of all the Blunt desert stallions was achieved by Azrek, a horse imported in 1888 who stood at Crabbet just four seasons and got almost as many foals as had Kars in eight. How much of his success was luck–due possibly to more experienced management and certainly to the fact that the Blunts had fillies from the previous decade ready to go into production–and how much must be attributed to appreciation of Azrek’s own unquestioned excellence is difficult to judge. Azrek has more than twice as many sources in modern pedigrees as does his predecessor Kars, and he got the only major home-bred Crabbet sire of desert breeding in male line. This was the impressive bay Ahmar, who has no sons in pedigrees himself but is responsible for a notable lineup of daughters: Selma, Siwa, Bukra, Bereyda, Hilmyeh, Namusa.

Azrek’s brief tenure as head sire came to an end with his sale to Rhodesia in 1891, a year of major transitions; the last of the Blunt desertbred mares, Ferida, arrived at Crabbet in company with the first of the Egyptian transplants from Sheykh Obeyd: the young stallions Merzuk and Mesaoud and the mares Khatila, Sobha and her daughter Safra. Ferida had two Mesaoud daughters to produce at Crabbet but in the end only the branch from Feluka bred on. Khatila and Safra did not leave descent but Sobha, sold at an advanced age to Russia, left at Crabbet the line foundresses Selma (dam of Sotamm and Selima, and second dam of *Selmnab); Siwa who produced Sarama (dam of *Simawa) and Somra, dam of Safarjal, Seriya and Silver Fire; and the good colt Seyal, sire of *Berk, *Butheyna and *Selmnab’s dam Simrieh.

The record of Mesaoud already has been touched upon; he is one of the key founders of modern Arabian breeding, leave alone the Crabbet tradition. Merzuk was promptly exported to South Africa but he left *Rose of Sharon in foal with her greatest daughter, Ridaa, dam of the good sires Rustem (England and Egypt) and Rief (Australia) and of the tremendously successful mares Risala, Riyala and Rim, major architects of the Crabbet heritage. *Shahwan got 10 foals at Crabbet and departed without lasting influence there; his Sheykh Obeyd daughter Yashmak would later send a son to England. Ashgar, who had played second fiddle in the Azrek years, managed to leave a thin line through one of his five get. Even setting aside the prolific Mesaoud and Ahmar, whose tenures at stud overlapped into the next decade, the number of foals per sire rose to nearly 13.

The second decade of Crabbet breeding produced 122 foals; only 19 of them (just under 16%) were reported as dead in GSB. Of the surviving 103, 21 are in modern pedigrees. Ahmar and Rafyk were the most widely influential stallions. Nejran, Rejeb, Mareb and Seyal each left three or fewer breeding offspring, but Seyal achieved distinction as the first colt foaled at Crabbet whose tail-male influence persists to the present day. Fifteen mares from this period are still in pedigrees. Besides Ridaa and the Sobha daughters already noted, important dams include Rose Diamond (she produced *Abu Zeyd and Rose of Hind); the Bozra daughters *Bushra, Bukra (dam of *Berk and *Battla) and Bereyda (dam of *Butheyna, *Baraza, Miraze and Belka); Narghileh, possibly the greatest of all the Mesaoud daughters, whose sons included *Nasik, *Nureddin II, Naufal and the lesser known Rustnar (South America) and Najib, who got *Hilwe and the Tersk line foundress Ruanda. Narghileh numbered among her daughters the likes of the Australian dynasty builder Namusa; *Narda II, dam of two famed early endurance Arabians, the gelding *Crabbet and his sister *Noam who produced in turn the Maynesboro and Kellogg matron Nusara; and Nessima, dam of *Nafia and Nax and foundress of the mare family responsible for Naseel, General Grant and Masjid.

1898 marks the end of the transitional period; all the Blunt foundation mares had reached England, and all the stallions had been purchased though Feysul was still at Sheykh Obeyd.

Sources and Further Reading

History and Biography:

The Sheykh Obeyd Studbook in The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt, Colin Pearson with Kees Mol, Heriot, Cheltenham 1988

Lady Anne Blunt: Journals and Correspondence 1878-1917, Edited by Rosemary Archer and James Fleming, Heriot, Cheltenham 1986

A Pilgrimage of Passion: the Life of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Elizabeth Longford, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1979

The Crabbet Arabian Stud Its History & Influence, Rosemary Archer, Colin Pearson and Cecil Covey, Heriot, Cheltenham 1978

M. Bowling articles giving more detail on the influence of individual Blunt animals:

Rose Diamond, The CMK Record, VIII/2 Fall 1989

*Berk 343: A heritage of “magnificent action” (two parts), The Crabbet Influence, March/April and May/June 1989

*Nasik 604, The CMK Record, VII/3 Winter 1988

Rosemary, four-part series, The CMK Record, IV/I-IV/4 1984

Arabian Blood For Stamina part II

Articles of History:

ARABIAN BLOOD FOR STAMINA

Keene Richards’ Own Account of His Two Desert Expeditions and His Arabian Importations.

Edited by Thornton Chard

With illustrations and notes collected by him from The Horse Jan/Feb ’35 Part I Part II (Concluded frm preceding issue)

NO WRITTEN PEDIGREES IN THE DESERT

Then, Mr. Richards explains that in the desert no written pedigrees are kept of the lineage of their horses. —

“the blood of their best horses is known to all of the tribe traditionally; and when a stranger takes a horse from the tribe, he may get a certificate of the animal’s blood, written out by the Sheik’s scribe, and certified to by some of the old men of the tribe, who know well his pedigree and history.”

“When a colt of high blood is foaled, several men of the tribe are called in, with some degree of ceremony, to witness the fact – – – -. The best family of horses is never crossed with any inferior blood. there are many horses of inferior blood (36) in the tribes, but a stain in the stock of any family of horses is as well known as a flaw in the pedigree of any of our distinguished winners.”

BEDOUINS KNOW WHERE THE BEST BLOOD IS

    • ‘In the throng we met Shoiman, the elder of Suttum. He was riding on a bay horse, whose fame had spread far and wide amongst the tribes, and whose exploits were a constant theme of praise and wonder with the Shammar. He was of the race Obeyan Sherakh — a breed now almost extinct, and perhaps more highly prized than any of the desert. (37) He had established his fame when but two years old. Ferhan, with the principal warriors of the Khorusseh, (38) had crossed the Euphrates to plunder the Anayza; they were met by a superior force, and were completely defeated. The best mares of the tribe fell into the hands of the enemy, and the bay colt alone, although followed by the fleetest horses of the Anayza distanced his pursuers. (39) Such noble qualities united with the purest blood, render him worthy to be looked upon as the public property of the Shammar,and no sum of money would induce his owner to part with him. With a celebrated horse belonging to the Hamond a branch of the same tribe, he was set apart to propagate the race of the first horses in Mesopotamia. In size he was small, but large in bone and of excellant proportions. (40) On all sides I heard extraordinary instances of his powers of endurance and speed.’ “

“Layard relates the following of an Arab horse, he saw in Mesopotamia, which fully illustrates how the Bedouins know the speed and bottom of their horses, and how a horse possessed of these valuable qualities becomes known to those who wish to breed their high-blooded mares to a sire worthy of them.

Then, Mr. Richards says:

“No author is considered more reliable than Layard and the facts that he states are worth more than all the fancy legends of tourists. As we have probably given as much attention to the subject as any one who has gone to the East. (41) to select well-bred Arabs, these statements might be sufficient; but we will introduce from Burckhardt’s notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, (42) one of the pedigrees which he gives of a highly- bred horse after stating that they are kept by tradition.” (48)

“When the horse Fysal was purchased in the desert, Mr. Keene asked for his written pedigree. The Bedouins replied that every one in their tribe knew well the horse and his pedigree. When he told them, however, that the horse would leave the tribe, the usual form of pedigree was written out by one of the Sheik’s scribes,and certified to by the old men who knew well the horses’s family and history.” (43)

MODERN ARABIAN CROSS A FAILURE FOR THE TURF

“Those who are informed on the subject, know that it is the opinion of some of the most intelligent writers in England and in this country, that the modern Arab cross is no improvement for the turf. Could all breeders know, however, the difficulty of getting a purely bred and highly formed Arab from the desert, they would not be surprised at the failure of the modern Arab cross to compete with the best English or American blood. The failure of the modern (44) in beating the English lately in Egypt, is no test whatever as the Arab entered was by no means the best one in the possession of the Pasha. He was a ‘Kadish’ (of common stock) and no high blood was claimed for him. It is well known that Abas Pasha had Anayza mares that Charles Augustus Murray, British Consul General at Alexandria, thought could not be beaten a long distance by the best English horses. Mr. Murray was the only European who had seen these favorite mares of the Pasha.”

“Layard states that Abas Pasha’s agents had paid as high as five and six thousand dollars for well known Anayza mares. The speed of the English horse has never been tested with any of these high-bred mares. It must be remembered that the former Pasha’s challenge to run against the English, for ten thousand dollars, never was accepted.”

DISCOURAGING DIFFICULTIES OF GETTING HIGH-CASTE EASTERN HORSES

Then, Mr. Richards describes some instances of the enormous difficulty of obtaining pure-bred Arabians and Barbs, and quotes from Drummond Hay’s “Morocco,” the failure to obtain, even for Queen Victoria, the purest bred Barb, — such a horse was found, but no amount of gold would buy him so a second best was accepted. (45)

“A similar instance occurred to Mr. Keene, while among the Beni Zahr. (46) He was pricing a mare, when the owner told him, ‘that if he would load her with gold, the gold would still be his, and he would keep his mare’.”

The failures of Captain Nolon and Lieutenant Burton, (47) on separate quests, are described. Mr. Richards show how these officers were well versed in the habits, customs and language of the tribes; Burton being so well equipped that he was able to gain entrance to the Holy Cities of Medinah and Mecca

“which no ‘Frank’ has dared to attempt since Burckhardt.

“If such men as Hay and Burton should find it difficult to procure the best blood in the interior, is it not strange that Consuls on the coast, who cannot speak a word of Arabic, should be so fortunate in getting Arabs, as they say, of the highest caste? ” (48)

HEIGHT AND FORM OF THE PURE-BREDS

“I think I may safely say that there are not fifty pure-bred horses in the desert over 15 hands 1 inch high. Layard saw only one mare that exceeded 15 hands; and not one of the Arabs, from whose loins sprang the English horse, was over 15 hands; yet their progeny were of good size and could pack heavy weights through four-mile heats, if not in as good time, certainly with less injury to their lungs and legs, than the present winners over the flat at Newmarket. The Arab in the desert is no smaller now than he was centuries past. The bas-reliefs at Nineva, the painted walls at Thebes, and the equestrian statues of the Greeks centuries before Christ, clearly prove this.” (49)

“As to the form, no degeneracy has taken place in the high-bred Arab. The heads of the horses (from Arab models) on the frieze of the Parthenon, from the chizel of Pheidias, more than four hundred years before Christ, are superior in beauty and blood-like outline to the best Derby winner, flattered by the pencil of Harry Hall, or Herring; and yet they are true to the type of some horses that may now be found in the desert.” (50)

DEGENERACY NOT ARABIAN BUT ENGLISH

“As some of the tribes of Bedouins have never been conquered [written in 1857], not even by Alexander, Napoleon, or Ibrahim Pasha, and their laws of breeding have been the same for centuries, there is no reason to suppose that a degeneracy has taken place since the Darley Arabian was taken from Aleppo, something over one hundred and twenty years since; about the life time of some old Bedouin Sheiks like Hussein of Akabah. (51) We think if any degeneracy has taken place it is amongst the English horses; they have become more gross and leggy than their ancestors; they may stride a little longer, but their strides are at the expense of their long legs, which not unfrequently give way (53) and is so forced in his growth that in his two-year-old form, he is larger than any of his oriental ancestors. We question if this system enables them to carry more weight in better time than Childers and Eclipse. We are aware that the wonderful exploits of Childers and Eclipse, are not generally credited by the admirers of the present race of English thoroughbreds. It is a little strange that watches should have been so slow, and horses so fast in those days. We should imagine that if the English horse has been continually improving since the days of Childeers and Eclipse, the farther we have a remove from these two horses the better; but it is a remarkable fact, that the horses of the present day [1857], that can go back with the fewest crosses to Childers and Eclipse, are always pre-eminent, over others of longer pedigree, both in speed and bottom.(54) We are not one of those who believe that a horse ever ran a mile in a minute, yet if Childers and Eclipse were entered for the next Derby, we think they would come in first and second, and the modern leggy flyers would be where Mr. O’Kelly once placed all the horses that started against Eclipse, — ‘no where.’ ”

“If the English horse is degenerating, is it too late for us to do what England did not two centuries since? Are not our Thoroughbred daughters of Glencoe, Margrave and Sovereign, as good as those of doubtful origin (55) which were sent to the Darley and Goldolphin (56) Arabians?”

“In the pedigree of English Eclipse, there are thirteen mares of unknown blood.” (57)

“We make allusion to these facts and arguments, merely to show-forth the reasons we have for thinking that the modern (58) Arab cross will be successful if proper selections are made. We do not wish any one to try the experiment without knowing the facts.

TYPE OF THOROUGHBRED INTENDED FOR CROSSING WITH THE ARABIAN

Under a separate heading in the “Catalogue” is a “list of some of my stock” already mentioned above, except the Barb mare Zariphe [Zareefa]; and Mr. Richards continues:

“Glencoe has recently been added to my stud for the purpose of breeding to mares of my own selection, knowing his stock to be the best suited for crossing with the Arab, on account of being more heavily muscled than any other. He is in vigorous health, and his colts this spring give proof that he is still able to compete with the best stallions in this country as well as England.”

“One of the best, if not the best brood mare now [1857] in England, is by Glencoe; I mean Pocahontas, the dam of Indiana, King Tom, Stockwell, Rataplan, and the thousand guinea yearling by Nutwith. Mr. Ten Broeck’s Pryor is by Glencoe; and Lecompte and Pryoress are out of Reel, (59) One of the first of Glencoe’s get in this country. The performance of Vandal is a proof that Glencoe gets colts to win as well as fillies. Bonnie Lassie, the three-year-old filly by Glencoe, out of a Medoc mare, recenty sold by Mr. James K. Duke for $5,000 cash, would now sell for more money than any racer in the United States.” (60)

“The selection of such stock is the best proof that I will give this experiment a fair test.”

After reading the foregoing reasoned account of his study of the breeding problems; of his acquisition of pure desert-bred Arabians and of the best and most suitable Thoroughbreds, who can doubt that Mr. Richards was fully justified in his belief that his experiment would have produced, in time, as much speed, more stamina and less unsoundness in the Thoroughbred?

The Civil War is a fair and honest excuse, in this particular project, for what Mr. Richards was unable to prove. (61)

***

(36) Italics are mine. T.C.

(37) “Authorities now concur that the accepted five strains of the Al Khamsa [the Kuhaylan five pure strains] are Kuhaylan, Saqlawi, ‘Ubayan, Hamdani and Hadban ——. To be properly authenticated all of these names must be followed by a suffix denoting a family: as, using most common strains — Kuhaylan “Ajuz, Saqlawi, “Jidrani, “Ubayan Sharrak, Hamdani Simri, Hadban Inzihi.” W.R.Brown, “The Horse of the Desert,” p. 98. Italics are mine. T.C.

(38) Herese (Khurasa). W.R.Brown.

(39) The Bedouins’ test fro speed and bottom: a matter of life and death. T.C.

(40)Italics are mine. T.C.

(41) Mr. Richards was the first American to go to the Desert to procure horses. T.C.

(42) “Notes of the Bedouins and Wahabys.” J. L. Burckhardt, 1831.

(43) The flowery pedigree which Mr. Richards copies is omitted here. T.C.

(44) In using the term “modern” Arab, Mr. Richards undoubtedly had in mind the inferior importations subsequent to those of the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin barb. T.C.

(45) Both the English and the French had a hand in making the high-bred Barb scarce: “George III presented the Emperor of Morocco with a dray horse stallion, and this horse played the very devil with the Barb mares.” “In Algeria the French with their clumsy Normans have ruined the breed [Barbs].” Capt. W.A.Kerr V.C. to Randolph Huntington, May 25, 1894. Also, see English Sporting Magazine, March, 1813, pp. 285-6, for George III presentation. T.C.

(46) Banu-Sahr (Sakhr). W.R.Brown.

(47) Later Sir Richard Burton, translator of the Arabian Nights. T.C.

(48) In 1863 M. Guarmani, an Italian geographer, who had traversed several times the Syro-Arabian Desert and who knew well the customs and language of the tribes, was commissioned by the French Government and the King of Italy to purchase stallions. Although on this quest he made a dangerous journey form Jerusalem to Northern Nejed, occupying six months’ time, he succeeded in buying only four horses, and one of these was secured through the favoritism of a Scheik. From the “Report of a Journey from Jerualem to Northern Nejed. 1863-64.” by M. Guarmani.

(49) “——amongst the Bedouin Arabs 15 hands is the normal maximum for the pure-bred. Anything over that is a phenomenal posability. The valuable and useful horse is normally 14.3. I stress that and ————any horse exceeding 15 hands can only be found in conditions inconsistent with Bedouin life.” From a letter December 20, 1933 to T.C. from Dr. A.E.Branch, Senior member of the Egyptian Jockey Club and late President of the Classification Committee.

“—-The carefully finished bas-relief of Egypt, of Babylonia, of Chadea, show strains of horses and breeds of cattle almost as fine as those of the present day. Every important domestic animal and cultivated plant was, in fact, taken from the wild, and improved almost beyond recognition long before the dawn of history. —-” Edward M. East. “Heredity and Human Affairs.” p. 31.

(50) Mr. Richards was an eye-witness of the Desert horses. T.C.

(51) Writing of the constancy of some races Emerson said “The Arabs of today are the Arabs of Pharaoh.” “English traits,” Edition 1876, p. ??

(52) Among instances that the race track follower may have seen are two that occurred at Belmont Park the season of 1934. Chase Me broke his leg in full stride while running in the Metropolitan Handicap. Dark Secret broke his leg immediately after passing the wire a winner in the two mile Jockey Club Gold Cup, September 15. T.C.

“Camden, S.C., Feb. 22. More than 5,000 persons enjoyed a day of excellent racing. The program, however, was marred by a series of accidents in the fourth race, the Mulberry, for non-winners over brush, at about two miles. The young horses set too fast a pace and three fell and injured themselves so badly that two had to be destroyed and the fate of the third is still in doubt. ” — N.Y. Times, February 23, 1935.

(53) The best verbal characterization of this hot house plant is one by major Henry Leonard, who, referring to the difficulty of getting Thoroughbred mares in foal writes of their “exceedingly exciting and nervous life superimposed upon a very immature and underdeveloped structure, brought to size, but not maturity by forced feeding them from birth.” — The Horse, March-April, 1935, p. 8.

(54) Italics are mine. T.C.

(55) The late Randolph Huntington writing me. August 22, 1910, about his Clay-Arab family said that they were “Equal as Americo-Arabs to the best of England’s creations as Anglo-Arabs — the foundation for the English Thoroughbred, which latter was built upon Arab and Barb bloods from mares of really unknown bloods—.” T.C.

(56) “–having seen ourselves almost every type of Arab, we believe the Godolphin to have been a Barb from Morocco, judging from his form; for we have seen horses in Morocco of precisely the same type.” Foot note, page 1 of the “Catalogue.”

(57) McKay speaks of blanks in the pedigree of English Eclipse and says that each one of these blanks sould contain the name of a native English mare which he refers to as Mongrel. Stewart McKay. “Staying Power of the Race Horse.” p. 67, p. 71.

(58) Mr. Richards uses the word modern here in a different sense from that in which he refers to the modern Arabians as lacking high caste. T.C.

(59) Reel, a grey daughter of Glencoe and Gallopade, was one of the great race mares of the forties. She was beaten in only one race, her last, in which she broke down. Her produce also made turf history; one of her sons was Lecompte, who in 1854 triumphed over Lexington, and another was War Dance (for which Mr. Richards paid $5,000 as an untried two-year-old) by Lexington. Reel’s portroit, by E.Troye, which hangs in the New York Jockey Club, bears a striking resemblence to Troye’s portrait of Mr. Richard’s Arabian mare, Lulie. T.C.

(60) Bonnie Lassie, b.m.f. 1854, bred by James K. Duke of Ky.: owned by Gen. R.S.Taylor of La. Sire imp. Glencoe. 1st dam Mafdalen by Medoc. 2nd dam Keph’s dam by Sumpter. 3rd dam by Lewis’ Eclipse. 4th dam Maria by Craig’s Alfred. Bruce A.S.B. Vol. I, p. 254.

“Kate Hunter, another Glencoe filly, won a race at Savannah, Ga., after running seven heats on the 8th.” [A few days before]. “Porter’s Spririt of the times.” January 23, 1858. Mentioned by Porter to show the stamina of the glencoe get. T.C.

(61) “We had a man in this country, the late A.Keene Richards, who had the means and the courage to bell the cat, but, unfortunately, the Civil War arrested his work. It robbed him of his fortune and indirectly shortened his life, and now people point to his failure as proof of the worthlessness of the Arab cross. Had Mr. Richards been blessed with the income after the Civil War which he enjoyed before the War, the result of his breeding venture would have been far different. The man who wold demonstate to the average breeder the virtues of Arab blood must have the courage to face criticism and disappointments for a series of years. A family cannot be created in five or ten summers:* and he who works and waits in this field, therefore, should have a long purse.” “The Turf, Field and Farm.” August 18, 1882.

Quoting the “London Field” in the same issue, “The Turf, Field and Farm” says: ” ‘There is no doubt that the future generations of our race horses would be benefited by an outcross, and the Arab is the only source from which it is possible to derive it’.”

“It is preposterous to attempt to mend bad forelegs by bad hind legs — chalk and limestone will not do it. The flint of Arabia must be restored to impart firmness and density to the bone, toughness to the sinews, and strength and elasticity to the muscles.” Crofts, in “Porter’s Spirit of the Times,” February 20, 1858. ______________

*It takes twenty years to build a foundation, then such fixed type will reproduce itself; will increase in size, substance and mentality by never introducing outside blood; always breeding within the family. Randolph Huntington to T.C., March 7, 1911.

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illustration: BAS-RELIEF FROM NINEVEH

These bas-reliefs referred to by Mr. Richards were on both sides of an inclined passage in Sennacherib’s Palace. Note the deep jowl, large eyes, short ears and high crest. Of the fourteen horses included in this series of sculptures there are different types of face profiles and tail sets. The tail set of the horse in this picture suggests that of a Barb. The elaborate treatment of the mane and tail and of the hair and beard of the attendant indicate a high state of civilization. This horse is the result of many years of selective breeding; in fact, as the date of this Assyrian palace on the River Tigris is given by James Fergusson as B.C. 704, and as archaeological finds prove the horses to have been domesticated as early as B.C. 5000 (Wolfgang Amschler, “Journal of Heredity,” Vol. 26, No. 6) he had back of him innumerable generations of selectively bred ancestors.

Assuming that the man is 5 feet 8 inches high, the proportionate height of the horse is about 14 hands 2 1/2 inches.

Photographed from an engraving in Layards’ “Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh,” in the New York Public Library.

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image: “GLENCOE”

” ‘Glencoe’ was bred by Lord Jersey and foaled in 1831. His sire was ‘Sultan’; his dam ‘Trampolin’ by ‘Tramp.’ ‘Glencoe’ was much inbred to ‘Herod,’ ‘Eclipse’ and Matchem’.” He won 2.000 Guineas and was the second three-year-old that ever won the Goodwood Cup, besides he left distinguished progeny in England before he was imported in 1835 to America where he sired many high class race horses. At twenty-six years of age he joined the Richards’ stud. He died at twenty-seven and was buried, beside his daughter, “Peytona,” at Blue Grass Park.

This picture shows “Glencoe” as a young horse before he was brought to America.

From a photograph of an engraving in Tattersall’s “Pictorial Gallery of English Race Horses.” in the New York Public Library. The engraving is from the original painting by C. Hancock.

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image: CUP WON BY “LIMESTONE”

The cup bears the inscription

Members Cup Jerome Park June 8th, 1874 won by L.A. Hitchcock’s “Limestone” Ch. C. 4 yrs. old Rode by Robt. Center

Mr. Richards bred “Limestone” and imported his Arabian grandsire, “Massoud.”

Reproduced here through the courtesty of Mr. Richards’ daughter, Mrs. John Park.

Keene Richards’ Arabian Importation

Articles of History:

Keene Richards’ Arabian Importations Conclusion

By Thornton Chard

from The Horse Jan/Feb ’35 Part I   Part II            Speed says:

               ”What gave the Arab horse a kind of disrepute in America was the experiment of A. Keene Richards. Mr. Richards was a man of wealth and education and a breeder of race-horses in the Blue Grass section of Kentucky. In studying the history of the English Thoroughbred he came to the conclusion he would like to get fresh infusions of the original blood. He went to Arabia and personally selected several stallions. These he mated with his Thoroughbred mares, and when the colts were old enough he entered them in the races. They were not fast enough to win even when conceeded weight. He went again, this was about 1855, taking with him the animal painter Troye. They took their time, and came back with a superior lot. Mr. Richards tried over again the same experiment with the same result. The colts did not have the speed to beat Thoroughbreds. … If Mr. Richards had waited seveeral generations and then injected the new infusions of the Arab blood, the result probably would have been quite diferent. The Civil War came along about this time, however, and the experiment ended in what was considered a failure. But the blood taken to Kentucky at that time by Mr. Richards has been valuable in an unexpected way, for it has been preserved in the half-bred horses in the horse-breeding section, and it crops out all the time in those wonderful saddle-horses of the Denmark strain, which are sent all over the ountry to delight the lovers of horseback exercise as well as to monopolize the ribbons in the horse shows.” (35)

           Then, Huntington following his own successful Arabian breeding principles, comments that the Richards Arabian mares should

               ”have been bred to thoroughbred or trotting bred horses, and the stallions to trotting bred or Thoroughbred mares; then the produce of both Thoroughbred sides brought together; then inbreed the produce separately.” (36)

           Also, Huntington observes, regarding a direct infusion,

               ”that when a Thoroughbred mare is bred to an Arab horse, the produce is a disappointment to the race horse man: but when a pure Arab mare is bred to a Thoroughbredhorse the results are a very great success.” (37)

           No doubt the comments quoted from Speed and the methods of using the Arabian blood suggested by Huntington are sound. Besides there is du Hays’ authoritative treatise (38) on how to infuse the Eastern blood into a fixed breed, already built on it, in order to improve and not to retard temporarily, such breed. At the same time there are individual examples where a more direct infusion has produced high class race horses. One of them was Limestone, whose dam, Transylvania, was by Richards imported Arabian Massoud, 15 hands high.

           To those who admire height and weight in the Thoroughbred Limestone will definitely appeal, for he grew to be 16 1/4 hands high and to weigh 1240 pounds; but those are the least of his characteristics for he developed into one of the greatest hurdle-racers of his day, repeatedly winning, over the best horses of all ages, at one and two mile heat races. At New Orleans April 16, 1875, then five years old, in his last race, a handicap hurdle race at two miles, over eight hurdles, he lapped out Tom Leathers who carried only 117 pounds, beating the fastest time on record by 4 1/2 seconds. These data are taken from his stud-bill on which Dr. Feris has written

               ”Has any horse ever before [run] two miles in 3.47 1/2 with 150 pounds up even in a flat race? Limestone did it and jumped eight hurdles 4 feet high.” (39)

Dr. Feris’ further comment will be relished by those who believe that the Arabian transmits a good disposition.

               ”Limestone although very spirited has been driven in single harness by a Lady and is a splendid trotter.”

           Another successful example of the more direct infusion of Arabian blood was the trotting mare May Queen who had a record [1877] of 2.20.

               ”[She] has the cross of one of Mr. Richards’ Arabians which he imported with Massoud.” (40)

           Still another example; and this one written on the margin of the Limestone stud-bill in Dr. Feris’ own hand, reads:

           ”Sonnie G., one of the best young trotters in Ky. is by Almont out of a thoroughbred–Mokhladdi [Richards Arabian] mare bred in Louisiana.” (41)

           The above examples of the more direct infusion of the Arabian blood bear out Mr. Huntington’s experience

               ”that results by an Arab horse were according to blood of the mare used, though which the second remove was very decidedly affected.” (42)

           Dr. Feris had already sent to Mr. Huntington a stud-bill (illustration No. 13) of two of his horses Moor and Shepherd. On the back of this he wrote:

               ”Mocha, the dam of Moslem, (43) (Sire of Moor) was got by the great four miler Woodpecker–2nd dam the 3 mile mare Leopardess by Medoc, the best son of American Eclipse.

               See Bruce American Stud Book Art, Leopardess (44)

               Read and judge for yourself.“

           In acknowledging this stud-bill Huntington comments on the value of the blood and what it shoud do, as follows:

               ”Your two stallions, Moor and Shepherd are certainly bred as well as horses can be, and should be invaluable in any portion of our country if put to the right class of mares. Moor should have got both trotters and runners of the highest type, and Shepherd, if bred to the right mares, should get the very best trotters, saddle horses and coachers.” (45)

           So, here were actual descendants of the Keene Richards importations, lost sight of for years, but still doing service in the stud to carry on the blood lines.

           However, there is a sad sequel to this last Texas remmant and it brings the story up to date. It is related by a surviving daughter of Dr. Feris in a letter to me dated January 20, 1934. In it she writes that she inherited her father’s love of the Arabian blood; that the two stallions, Shepherd and Moor were the last they had; that they were bred by her father and died in his possession; that their horses were “Oked” by S. D. Bruce. Then she continues,

               ”We lived in a community that only cared to raise a cow-pony that would respond to the dig of a spur and the swish of a raw-hide quirt. Competent help could not be procured so the herd was turned on the open range and soon nearly all were lost.”

           In another letter to me (Feb. 10, ’34) Miss Feris writes what will interest those who believe in the traditional docility of the Arabian, that

               ”the horse Moslem [stallion] was ridden by the girls of the family; [and] I almost lived in the stable with Abd-el-Kadir; his stall was large. I rode him up and down in it. Whe he tired of my company he would toss me in the manger where I would sleep until my mother would find me.”

    “My love for the Arabian horse will never by shaken,” In the same letter (Mch. 8, ’34) she writes: “My father loved the Arabian horse next to his wife and children.”

           One phase of the picturesque result of the Richards importations is shown in the following except from a letter to me (Jan. 18, ’34) from Mrs. John Pack, a daughter of Mr. Richards:

               ”Among the oldest residents of Georgetown [Ky.] the beautiful Arab horses with the picturesque figure of the dragoman Yousef in native costume at Blue Grass Park, my father’s stock farm, is still a tradition–as well as the dromedaries which he brought over with the idea of using themo his Louisiana plantation for cotton planting.”

           It is difficult to give too much credit to Feris and Richards, both practical horse breeders, for after realizing through experience the superior value of the Arabian and Barb blood as an improving factor in the breeding of the Thoroughbred, they had the courage against opposition, to go through with the difficult problem of obtaining it, both as to the expense involved and the actual physical hazards to which Richards personally subjected himself. For in the 1850’s it was no light matter to undertake two expeditions to the near East, nor was it less than hazardous to have made the desert excursions against the advise of resident missionaries and consuls.

           So much for a review of the narrative of the expeditions and the importations: and now for a few paragraphs about the value of the Eastern blood and Mr. Richards purpose in using it.

           It is not to be supposed for a moment that Mr. Richards’ main purpose was a great increase in speed for the first or second remove. Speed was already, through a hundred years of specializing, the prerogative of the Thoroughbred; but in Mr. Richards’ time the sprint was little thought of, two and four mile heat races were the order of the day so that the breeder who could produce a fast stayer won the honors; and this word is used advisedly because in most cases, in those racing days, the money was secondary.

           The breeders problem was to balance speed with stamina; and Mr. Richards was experimenting. If the Civil War had not interrupted his efforts no doubt experience would have taught him to introduce the Eastern blood less abruptly; that is, not to use the first remove or cross incompetitive races.

           There must have been even in those days, when the Thoroughbred was much closer to the source, a feeling that he was over specialized; otherwise it is hard to explain the worthy English importations and the one like the Richards, to America: all involving much time, great effort (46) and large expense.

           And as for the present-day need of the purest Arabian blood, — of which so extremely little has ever left the Desert, — to bring back soundness and endurance, witness the following:

               ”I venture to fear that what is commonly accepted as the Thoroughbred is today not as good as he was yesterday.”

               ”To return to the foundation after about a centruy’s lapse would be the re-uniting of blood which has made the British breed the foremost in the world, and its fresh transmission might, in the fullness of time, give us yet another Ormond, St. Simon, Persimmon, and a legion of others, the prototype of which are not discoverable in this year of grace.” (47)

               ”That the English horse of the present day is inferior to what he was in the days of Eclipse, no one will doubt who examines the performances of that day. The present race horses are fleet and many can carry their weights; but how few remain on the turf; and one hard race of four miles would injure the best horse in England.” (48)

               ”I have been giving a good deal of attention to the Thoroughbreds lately and I am afraid–indeed I am sure–that he is deriorating, and in considerable mesure owing to the sprint (49) racing which is so popular. We have nothing now of the “Alice Hawthorne” or “Beesway” or “Doctor Syntax” type. It has struck me several times lately that the time has come for another direct Arab cross. The difficulty is how to bring it about. Of course it is the place of the Government to do it for it is not fair that a private individual (50) should undergo the certain loss which will take place, in the early stages, for the public benefit.” (51)

               ”We have been breeding race-horses for more than one hundred years;–does any one familiar with the facts imagine that we have ‘improved the breed of horses’ in that variety in one single particular? Does he realize, on the contrary, that while they have improved in no detail, they have ‘gone back’ in many? Walk into any of our paddocks on a race day; look over the animals as they present themselves for their respective races; and consider the average, not the few good specimens. Bad constitutioned weeds, most of them, almost staggering under the hundred pounds, less or more, they are asked to carry; cravens at two years, rogues at three and wrecks at four…; [they are] so light and frail in make-up that it is almost impossible to find any thing thoroughbred, sound enough, big enough, and quiet enough to use as steeplechasers, cavalry horses, hunters or hacks …” (52)

           But why weary the reader with more quotations of the same kind, by authorities on the subject, numerous enough to fill a book? Enough has been said to show the trend and to show that Richards, contrary to the prejudiced (53) general belief, was justified in his Arabian enterprise.

           Mr. Richards undoubtedly had in mind the breeding of Thoroughbreds that would “improve the breed of horses” for in his stud-bill for Limestone for the year 1880 he inserts in italics in a conspicuous place, this:

           ”An old turfman, writing up his experiences of fifty years, in the Turf, Field and Farm, said of Limestone: ‘He has speed to win races, strength to carry a dragoon and size to draw a carriag‘.” (54)

           At all hazards the breeding of the racing Thoroughbred must be continued for the good of all the present and future light horses of the country. This arguement is used whenever an appropriation bill for breeding comes up in Congress; whenever a threat appears in any state legislature to abolish racing by making race-track betting illegal; or where legal race-track betting has been abolished – to bring it back. But it is not the over specialized scurry-race Thoroughbred, often unsound, weedy, a “roarer,” subject to periodic opthalmia and of bad disposition that will “improve the breed” of horses of the country at large, but the type that, with speed, has the stamina, soundness of wind and limb as well as the even temper of the rare purebred Arabian.

           Any account of the Keene Richards Arabian importations without mention of the talented painter Edward Troye would be distinctly incomplete, for, while the horses have undoubtedly gone to their heavenly grazing fields, the protraits of most of them have been recorded on canvas, for all time, by a too little known painter, but one whose aesthetic expressions place his paintings as high class works of art. And this can be said of very few so called sporting pictures.

           Troye (1803-74) was born near Geneva, Switzerland. His grandfather, a French nobleman, de Troy, was a politcal exile from France. His father was an eminent painter and is represented in the Louvre by the “Plague of Marseilles.” Edward, as well as his brothers and sisters, was well educated and very talented. (55)

           After residing for some time in England, Troye made his home in the United States where he painted portraits of famous race-horses, both runners and trotters, as well as farm animals–mostly in the South. Since some 240 of his paintings have been located, largely through the commendable efforts of Mr. Harry Worcester Smith,–it is astonishing that so large an output of such decided merit should have had such limited recognition.

           Of course, Troye owned much to Mr. Richards’ friendship and patronage of his talent, for he not only lived and died at Blue Grass Park, where he painted numerous pictures for Mr. Richards, but was engaged by him for one of the expeditions to Arabia, in which event we have the unique situation of a horseman enlisting an artist’s eye in selecting types of desert horses. That Mr. Richards was justified in his choice of Troye for this work as well as that of painting the portraits of his horses, is attested by the character of the Richards Arabians as we see them in the Troye paintings. (56)

Image notes and footnotes:

35) “The Horse in America.”: John Gilmer Speed, pp. 32-33.

“The Bagdad [imported to Tripoli from Aleppo; to New York, 1832, by way of England] stock were in great demand in Tennesee at one time, on account of their legs standing the hard pikes better than any other stock. Massoud, Mokhladdi; and Sacklowie, are remarkable in this particular, as their legs did not swell any, during the long sea voyages, on different vessels to America.” A bona fide quotation from an author whose name I have lost. T.C.

36) From a letter of the late Randolph Huntington to Dr. Geo. A. Feris, Dec. 6, 1887. Probably these are the details of the breeding principles that Speed had in mind when he writes: “If Mr. Richards had waited a few generations——–“

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Image:

PORTRAIT OF ALEXANDER KEENE RICHARDS WITH “MOKHLADDIE”

This is a very rare and interesting picture for several reasons. Besides being an authentic portrait of Mr. Richards, it shows him in authentic Arab costume of those days and at the same time is a portrait of the horse that was the sire of “Abd-el-Kadir,” shown in the previous issue.

The picture is taken from Ed. Troye’s painting signed and dated by him 1854, and now in possession of Mrs. E.G.Swarta.

Reproduced here through the courtesy of Mr. Richards’ daughter, Mrs. E. G. Swartz.

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Image:

“MUSCAT”

Horse breeders, attention! Did the British, the greatest breeders of livestock in the world,know th value of Arabian blood when the Thoroughbred was still called the Anglo-Arab? Here is what the Sporting Magazine (English) of March, 1832, has to say of “Muscat.” “We have the honor to present–an exact protrait of the Arab horse ‘Muscat,’ which all must allow is at once creditable to the masterly hand and correct eye of the younger Marshall [a painter], as well as to the beautiful scientific graver of Mr. Romney; but, above all, to the Hon, Col. Finch, for a display of his superior judgment in procuring such a subject; and we have no hesitation in saying, being backed up by judges from whom there is no appeal, the ‘Muscat’ is the only Arabian imported in the present generation calculated to improve, or rather renovate, the English Race-horse, being of good size, perfect symmetry, fine temper, and the purest blood; besides there is in him, bone, muscle strength and action to improve the breed of horses of every grade.”

“Muscat ran three times at Calcutta in 1829, and his performances there were quite creditable to him as a racer, having won two out of the three engagements, and he came in second for the third, carrying 11 st. 7 lbs [161 lbs.]; when eight of their best horses started. His first prize was the gold Cup, given by the Royal Club, two mile heats, 9 st. [126 lbs.] each. He also won the Little Welter stakes, carrying 10 st [140 lbs.], the Round Course (one mile and three quarters), six subscribers.”

Photograph and legend quotation (from the Sporting magazine, March, 1832) reproduced through the courtesy of Miss S. Lavinia Feris, only surviving child of Dr. Feris.

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37) R. H. notes at the time of sending horses to Wisconsin. Dec. 9, 1800.

38) Charles du Hays. “The Percheron Horse.” (1868). Translated from the French by W.T.Walters. (1886)

39) Records for 2 miles on the flat: Pradella, 7 years, 116 pounds, 3.19 2-5, at Ascot, June 19, 1906. Exterminator, 5 years, 128 pounds, 3.21 4-5, Belmont, Sept. 15, 1920. World Almanac, 1933.

40) Stud-bill of Limestone; yar 1880. Mokhladdi was imported with Massoud. T.C.

41) There are many other classic examples. T.C.

42) Randolph Huntington to U.S.Grant, Jr., Sept. 27, 1888.

43) Moslem was sold to Canada. T.C.

44) Leopardess ch. m. f. 1836. Bred and owned by Chas. Buford of Ky. By Medoc, 1st dam. (Randolphi dam) by Haxall’s Moses. Produced nine foals. Bruce. A.S.B.

45) Letter to Dr. Geo. A. Feris. Nov. 25, 1887.

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image:

“LIMESTONE” NOTICE

The grandsire of “Limestone” was Richards’ imported Arabian “Massoud,” a horse 15 hands high, yet “Limestone” grew to be 16 1/4 hands high. The 10th dam of “Limestone” was Imp. “Selima” (by the Godolphin Arabian who in 1752 at Gloucester, Va., defeated Col. Byrd’s “Tryall” and Col. Taylor’s “Jenny Cameron” at four miles for a purse of 500 pistoles. Note that the 12th, 13th and 14th dams were by Arabian and Barb Horses.

This rare old stud-bill reproduced through the courtesy of Miss S. Lavinia Feris, only surviving child of Dr. Feris.

Data about the race given by Maj. C.A.Benton.

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Image:

The above is a rare old stud-bill of descendants of Richards’ Arabian importations. These part Arabian horses were still alive in the 1890’s. On the back of the original is a letter in Dr. Feris’ own handwirting which reads in part as follows; “Richmond, Texa, Nov 20-’87,—‘Mocha,’ the dam of ‘Moslem,’ (sire of ‘Moor’) was got by Imported (Arabian) ‘Mokhladdi.” Her dam was got by the great four miler ‘Woodpecker’–2nd dam the 3 mile mare ‘Leopardess’ by ‘Medoc,’ the best son of ‘American Eclipse.’ See Bruce’s American Stud Book, Art. Leopardess.’ “

“Read and judge for yourself.——“

Reproduced from the letters and papers of the late Randolph Huntington.

________________

46) It was only through the influence of President Pierce that Richards was able to take his horses out of Arabia. N.Y.Evening Mail, June 7, 1906.

47) Robert S. Sievier, in London Sporting Life. Reprinted in Rider and Driver, April 25, 1931.

48) this a bona fide quotation from an authority whose name I have lost. T.C.

49) “This was one of the most enjoyable days of the season hereabouts. The Hawthorne management had arranged a program unusual in its charactor. Is it because there is a real reaction against the eternal demnition grind of five and six-furlong sprints, and an swakening to the fact that the public really wants to see the horses race? Or what? At any rate, there were no less than four events programmed at distances over a mile, two of them being at a mile and a furlong and two of them at a mile and a quarter—something almost unheard of these days——” “Salvator” in the Thoroughbred Record, August 27, 1932.

50) That Richards undertook it as an individual without the assistance of the New Orleans Jockey Club is verified by a letter to me from Mrs. John Pack, March 9, 1934. T.C.

51) The well known English writer William Scarth Dixon in a letter Jan. 1, 1926, to Major C.A.Benton.

52) Francis M. Ware. Collier’s, June 11, 1910.

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TITLE PAGE OF EDWARD TROYE’S BROCHURE ON THE DEAD SEA

On the back of the original title page of this brochure which proves Troye to have been a scholar as he was also a talented painter, is printed the following: “To Keene Richards, Esq., whose pilgrimage to the Eastern lands afforded him a well improved opportunity of visiting the scenes, which are the subject of these strictures, and of whose generous worth the friend and artist cherish a living recollection; these speculations, as a token of gratitude, and in the hope that their crudeness will not detract from the sincerity of the tribute, are inscribed, with affectionate respect, E. Troye.”

The last part of the brochure, dated 1858, describes a painting which Troye made on one of Richards’ expeditions in search of horses and which found its final resting place in a European gallery.

Reproduced here through the courtesy of Mr. Richards’ daughters, Mrs. Edward G. Swartz and Mrs. John Pack.

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53) In a letter dated march 24, 1934, to T.C. Miss Feris, who was brought up with Arabian horses, says: “I want every one to know and appreciate the royal blood of the Arabian; it may be criticised by those with ignorance, so we will ignore their opinions and cherish ours.”

In many other cases prejudice against the Arabian is well founded because of the very inferior Eastern blood used. The high-caste Arabian has seldom been seen outside of the Desert. T.C.

54) Note similar comment under illustration of “Muscat.”

55) Arts and Artists of the Capitol of the United States by Charles E. Fairman, 1929, pp. 319-320.

56) Unfortunately the photographic reproductions cannot show Troye’s beautiful colors. T.C.

Keene Richards’ Arabian Importation part I

Articles of History:

Keene Richards’ Arabian Importations

By Thornton Chard

from The Horse Nov/Dec 1934 Part I Part II “After God, the horses” Thus Cunninghame Graham, in his “Horses of the Conquest,” interprets the chroniclers of the Cortez Mexican conquest as to the victorious part played by the horses. (1) And if you will afford yourself the entertainment of reading his book you will be convinced that it was more than the physical prowess of the eastern blood that evoked the above exclamation.

Over three hundred years later there was to be another spontaneous eulogy, born of battle experience, by another soldier and again in Mexico. It runs thus: —

    “During the war between the United States and Mexico I rode a horse by Medoc–1st dam by imported Amurath (Barb), 2nd dam by imported Stamboul (Arabian).“

    “For style, courage and endurance he took the palm from all others but was unfortunately killed by a lance thrust at battle of Buena Vista.”

Who this soldier was will appear later; but enough has been said, aside from the title of this article, to show the trend, so the story may as well begin here.

Back in the 1880’s when the late Randolph Huntington (2) sought to develop a national horse for the United States he was well aware of the vital part that the eastern horse had contributed in the foundations and creation of the national horses of fixed type of England, France, Hungary and Russia. Accordingly he interested himself intensely in the Arabian and the Barb to futher his laudable purpose. He knew that at various times, from 1750 to the arrival in 1879 of General Grant’s Leopard and Linden Tree, quite a number of eastern horses and mares had been imported to North America, so he decided to investigate those importations that were not too far in the distant past, to get information as to the result, if any, of such eastern blood on the American horses and to find out if any descendents of such importations were still alive that might be available to assist him in his objective.

It was common knowledge among horsemen, for example, that Secretary William H. Seward had had presented to him, in 1860, two Arabian horses (3); and after a search of eight years Huntington traced them through the efforts of Hon. John E. Van Etten of Kingston, N.Y., to find that there was just one descendant there, a mare bred by the late Judge Westbrook; also that a man in Ohio named Meyers had a granddaughter of one of the Seward horses; “and she proved the blood.”

Not discouraged by so meagre a result both as to information and to the fact that the Seward Arabians had been practically lost through ignorance of their blood value as a benefit to the American horse, Huntington always kept his eyes and ears open and his pen active in hopes that, at some time, more information might be obtained about the Seward and other importations.

So it was that Huntington tried for several years to get exact and useful information from Kentucky about the A. Keene Richards Arabians, which were, by far, the most important importations of eastern blood, both for quality and quantity, that had ever been made in the United States; “but they knew absolutely nothing. All efforts failed.” As Huntington wrote to a friend in 1888, “There is a great difference between knowing facts and telling stories. I gave it up.”

This failure is the more remarkable because the arrival of the Richards Arabians was an event which provoked wide discussion among racing men, in hte public press, and there were contemporary relatives of Richards still living in Richards’ own town in Kentucky.

Evidently this Arabian blood, like that of the Seward Arabians, had not been conserved or used to advantage, though, if only one excuse is offered, it is enough and is the one usually given for the loss of the Richards Arabian blood–the Civil War–for this North and South upheaval began so soon after the importation (1853-56) of the horses that there was hardly time to form a settled plan of breeding to test out, in the right way, their benefits.

Now, it often happens that the most energetic search for information, as in this case, will result in finding none; yet, without effort, the information was finally obtained, also the fact that some descendants of the Richards horses were still alive in 1888 and that their blood had done good service in Kentucky, in Canada and in far-off Texas and Mexico.

Since the unexpected manner in which this information came to light reads like an Arabian Night’s dream, it will be set down verbatim as written by Huntington to a friend in Chicago. (4)

Before beginning to quote it should be stated that Huntington had, at Rochester, N.Y., a number of colts and fillies, the result of breeding his selected Clay mares — strong in the Arabian blood–to Gen. Grant’s Arabian horse Leopard and Barb horse Linden Tree. This young stock naturally had eastern blood characteristics that made them stand out markedly from the regular run of American horses. It was the observaton of these blood traits that led to the information. But this anticipating the story so I will quote Huntington:–

    “Colonel G —-, who is my neighbor, was, all through the (Civil) war, stationed in Louisiana and (in) that district during the Butler, Banks times and later, His servants, male and female are from that country. My Arabs stood at his farm on our Lake —- (to take care) of his mares and mine, also one or two others.

    “His colored groom and special servant, said to me one day, “Massa Huntington, your Arab stallions make me feel as though I was down in my old home in Texas.” (He was born and grown there, but got away during the war.)

    “I asked him how so? and he replied that ‘Old Dr. Paris, one ob de bes men in Fort Bend (where he was raised), had de finest horses’ he ever saw in his life, ‘and dey call em Arabs’; that my horses ‘look jes like dem and act jes like dem.’

    “Well now, ‘Dr. Paris’ and ‘Fort Bend’ were pretty blind information; but I knew there was fire where there was smoke. I spoke to the Colonel about it, but he could not help me. He said that Tom had been for years telling about some wonderful Arab horses in Texas where he was raised, but that he could never get any starting point.

    “I questioned the negro (and he is a light yellow man with a good head) until I gathered from him that he was born near a place called Richmond, ‘but dat Fort Bend was de name ob de place.’

    “I turned to my postal guide, and found Richmond in Fort Bend country; then opened correspondence with the Postmaster.

    “In due time I got a .. reply in pencil, from a man signing Keene Feris, saying ‘he supposed I referred to his Father.’ I could feel a bitterness in the lines; but no man in the South suffered more from the war than I did, so I knew how to take them.

    “I now had the initials and proper name of the man I wanted, so wrote a long … letter to Dr. Geo. A. Feris. I was educated in a military school where all but six were from S.C., N.C., Va, Ga, and Ala. (Later) I was put into a Drug house in New York City.

    “It was purely a Southern house with branches in (the south) …; so that my association from boyhood up to the breaking out of the war, had been exclusively Southern; and there was no portion of that country I was not familiar with; also her institution of slavery. I let Dr. Feris know me. I let him know that all the property of that old New York House was confiscated by the Confederacy. I let him know how friends of the South had suffered here at the North and this broke the ice. … He has confidence in me and that is sufficient.

    “No man in Ky. or elsewhere at the North knows what I do about A.Keene Richards importations.”

What Huntington learned was from the Feris letters that follow: —

    “Richmond, Texas Nov 30th [18] 77 [1887] Randolph Huntington, Rochester, N.Y.

    Dear Sir

    Yours of 25th inst. just read–In answer thereto–I am the veritable old Dr. Geo. A. Feris for whom you enquire–still living, (but rather shaky as you will see in my chirography) at the advanced age of 78 years–

    You ask how I became interested in Arabian horses?…My Father born in France–my Mother a Frazer-Bruce from Scotland and I born in Lexinton-Ky. in 1810: with this pedigree and raised in an atmosphere vibrating with the neighing of the Blood horsee and the discussions of Horsemen I became saturated, (by inhalation and absorbtion) with love of the grandest gift of God to man, the thoroughbred Horse–and he has been my constant and ever faithful companion from childhood to the present time– At this moment an orphan filly of the Blood Royal–thrusts her head into my window and asks for her rice and syrup which she claims of me as a tribute to her beauty and love of myself–I must go for her plate of dessert at once–All right now, and as it was not my autobiography which you desired but the “History of the Arabian Horse in Texas,” you shall have it–During the war between the U.S. and Mexico I rode a horse by Medoc (5) 1st dam Imported Amarath [Amurath] (6) (Barb) 2nd dam by Imported Stamboul (7) (Arabian).

    For style–courage and endurance he took the palm from all others, but was unfortunately killed by a lance thrust at the battle of Buena Vista. Being an early Texas settler (50 years ago) and always a soldier engaged in repressing Indian and Mexican incursions I knew how to appreciate the value of my lost comrad and conceived the idea of supplying my country with the same noble race–

    This was the germ of the Richards importations (8)– An interview was arranged between A.K.Richards and myself at New Orleans to discuss the matter and took place [1855(9)] (10) during race week of the old Mettaire (Metairie) club.

    Present at the meeting — Richards — Buford and Viley of Ky. — Bingaman and Minor of Mississippi — Wells — Kerner and Lecompte of Louisiana. What memories of the grand olden South are evoked by barely writing these names —

    But I am writing to a Northern man and dare not trust my pen farther in my present mood.

    If I could reconstruct astronomy I would make place in a conspicuous portion of the Heavens for a constellation–call it “Equus” and christen the largest star that composed it in the name of the above mentioned gentlemen —

    I can say no more today but merely add, that if you knew you were corresponding with a broken down Southern officer and a classmate of Jefferson Davis, perhaps this letter would be burnt.

    Yours respectfully, Geo. A. Feris.”

Fortunately, the above letter and those that continue the narrative were never burnt for, of the scores of references to the Richards Arabians, by many writers, I know of none but this that is as full and authentic. Furthermore, it is written in the time when racing was a sport and not a business, by a successful breeder and a participant in the events narrated.

“(Continued” [Postmarked Richmond, Texas, Dec. 1-1887]

    The abrupt break in my letter of yesterday was caused by the visit of an aged gentlemen who before the war numbered his acres by the thousand and his slaves by the hundred. he came to rent a small house for himself and wife with a lot of ground to cultivate–“

[Some observations about the social results of the Civil War have been omitted.}

    • “(Continued) [Postmarked Richmond, Texas, Dec. 2- 1887]

    • “We will resume the Arabian Horse as more interesting and agreeable than reminiscences of rapine and carnage or forebodings of their repetion.

    At the conference of horsemen in New Orleans all present except Richards and myself vigorously opposed the fresh importion of Arabians and cited English writers to prove the failure of oriental lines since the Godolphin and Darley era.–We met this by showing that all importations of modern date (English) were mere commercial speculations and managed by unscrupulous men who knew no more about horses than I do about Federal politics–‘Hine illae lachrymae’ (11)

    Nevertheless, the expedition to interior Arabia was planned and carried out successfully–with results which I will state in my next as I am again interrupted and compelled to close.

    Respectfully Geo A Feris.”

    After my rambling Tristram Shandy introduction I at last reach the horse and will mount him and gallop away from all interuptions.

    The expedition to Arabia was composed of A. Keene Richards and Morris Keene of Ky, and the great horse-portrait painter Troye [Edward Troye] of England [also of France and America]–of their journey and adventures we will not speak now but will deal with the successful results: After an absence of 14 months they returned with the following prizes viz:

    (1st) Hamdan (Dr. Feris owned him. R.H.) Gray colt 2 years old–from Nesjd, of the pure ‘Koheyl” [Kuhaylan] race–purchased from the Sheik of the Rouibah tribe of Bedouins, in whose family the stock had been kept pure for more than 300 years (12)

    2nd Massoud Chestnut horse–fifteen hands high, purchased of the Anayza [Anazeh] tribe of Arabians. (13)

    3rd Mokhladdi Gray horse fourteen and 1/2 hands high, bought of the Zarabine tribe of Bedouins in Arabia Petra [Petraea(14)]

    4th Saklowie Bay horse–fifteen hands high–bred by the Anayza [Anazah] Bedouins.

    This horse was selected by Mr. Troye, the great painter, on account of his resemblance to the English racer of the present times. (15)

    5th Fysaul Chestnut horse fourteen and 3/4 hands high and of the ‘Koheyl [Kuhaylan] and Saclowie [Saglawi] race and bought in the Desert from the bedouin chief who bred him. (16)

    6th Lulie Grey mare of pure ‘Koheyl’ [Kuhaylan] race bred by the Anayza (Anazah) tribe of Arabians. (17)

    7th Sadah (Dr. Feris took. R.H.) Gray mare–bred by Anayza (Anazah) tribe of Bedouins. She was my favorite of the entire importtion. (18)

    7th (8th) Zurufa [Zareefa. (19)] Gray mare–a Barb from the desert of Zahara.

    This comprises the list of our importations. (20)

    On next page I will give you the produce of the pure stallions and mares if agreeable.

    Geo. A. Feris”

    “(Continued) [Postmarked Richmond, Texas, Dec. 3-1887]

    The produce of my favorite mare Sadah (Imported) was (pure Arab R.H.)

    1st (Dr. Feris) Abdel Kadir [pure Arab R.H.]

    Gray horse by Imported Arabian Mokhladdi.

    2nd [Dr. Feris R.H.] Boherr.

    Foaled at sea (on the Atlantic) and got in Arabia by a favorite stallion of the Wahube [Wahabi] tribe of Arabs and she [Sadah] had many other foals but they did not belong to me. (21)

    Abdel Kadir was my choice of all the stallions and I owned him and Hamdan, Boherr and Bazar who was by Imported Fysaul and out of the Imported Barb mare Zurufa [Zareefa], born in Kentucky and brought to Texas.

    Abd-el-Kadir–known as the ‘Feris Arabian’ is the horse who made his mark in Texas by his produce. He was ‘par excellence’ the grand gentleman of his race.

    The colts of this horse were sold at enormous prices to Mexican stockmen.

    Druse [Dreuse]–gray colt for $1600, he was out of Hagar (22). Two others, one out of ‘Betsy Hardin (23), the other out of Rehab (24) were sold together for $3600.00.

    The gray colt Sheik (25) 2 years old brought $3000.00 (26).

    I am compelled to cease writing by Rheumatism in hand and wrist.

    Will continue at some other time if desired

    Respectfull Geo. A. Feris”

Then followed a letter from Miss Sallie Feris saying that her Father had been injured by a fall but hoped to resume the correspondence. he did so in a letter dated

    “Richmond, Texas Jan 29-88
    Thanks for your last kind letter–I am still suffering from my R. Road ‘smashup,’ but am able to write with a pencil. I send you a brief notice of my relative A. Keene Richards deed compiled from his diary–It may prove interesting–If agreeable I will send you crayon drawings (27) of the Feris Arabians Hamdan and Abd-el-Kadir taken form oil paintings (destroyed by fire)

Respectfully Geo. A. Feris”

Enclosed in the above letter was the press notice which is so interesting and authentic, having been compiled from Richards diary, that it is copied here verbatim. (28)

    “Mr Alexander Keene Richards died of pneumonia yesterday at his farm, called Blue Grass Park, near Georgetown, Ky., in the fifty-fourth year of his age. He was born in Scott county, Ky., on the 14th of October 1827. Mr. Richards passed through all the scientific departments at Bethany College, Virginia, and a full term in the celebrated Alexander Campbell Bible classes. When through with his college course Mr. Richard’s grandfather gave him means to travel in foreign countries for his health, he having been an invalid almost from infancy. Instead of spending much time in the gay capitals of Europe young Richards adopted the idea of making a specialty of studying the different breeds of horses of every country. He went first to England, and no kind of horse escaped his notice, from the heavy draft animal used by the brewers of London to the Derby winner. The first Derby race that he saw was when Teddington won in 1851. (29) He timed this race, and was at once impressed with the idea that a first-class American-bred colt could win the Derby if the pace was made strong throughout and not a waiting race, as is usually the case for this great event. (30) After leaving England he went through France and examined the Norman horses. Then he journeyed over Spain, where he gave especial attention to the Andalusian horses, and examined a number of Arabian animals just then imported by Queen Isabella from near Bagdad. From Spain he crossed over into Morocco and rode through the country on some of the best Barbs. From Morocco he went nearly the whole length of Algeria on horseback, and as he traveled part of the time with a French passport he had every facility to inspect the different horse-breeding establishments then under the control of the French Government, as well as those horses owned by the native chiefs who had been long in service with the renowned Abd-el-Kader, then a prisoner in France. Mr. Richards then passed from Algeria to Tunis, where he made diligent search for any trace, in shape or quality, of the Numidian horses which Hannibal made so famous for cavalry. Mr. Richards afterward in a sailing craft went to Malta and from there by steamer to Egypt, where he made preparations to cross into Arabia Petrea by an entirely new route, and he was with the first party of Europeans that crossed directly through the Desert of Paran to the ruins of Petrou [Petra]. During this journey through the wilderness, Mr. Richards learned to break-in the dromedary to ride himself, and for amusement he frequently rode races on the regular “deloul” of the desert. The deloul is the swift dromedary used in the wars of the desert and for courier service, where great speed and endurance are required. From Petrou [Petra] Mr. Richards passed on to Hebron and thence to Jerusalem, where he made arrangements to visit all the interesting localities in Palestine and Syria, but especially those districts where good horses were to be found; for, by this time Mr. Richard’s experience with horses of Arab blood had given him an admiration for them. After spending some time in Damascus he sought an interview with the celebrated Sheik Midjuel, of the Aneysa [Anazah] tribe of Bedouins. Although the American and English missionaries and consular agents thought the attempt at the time a hazardous one, Mr. Richards induced the Sheik to take him as far east from Damascus as the ruins of Palmyra. The danger in this was that Midjuel had to pass near the Shammer [Shammar] tribe, with whom he had a feud, and had Midjuel been captured by them, his head would have been the forfeit. The journey was successful. Before leaving the East, Mr. Richards selected and purchased several stallions and a mare of the best Arab blood, (31) and shipped them by a careful groom to America, by the way of England, soon following them himself, stopping on the way and seeing what the Austrians and the Prussians called their best, including a look at the Orloffs of Russia. Mr. Richards, soon after his arrival at home, purchased some good mares to breed to his Arabians, and the famous mare Peytona (32) was one of his first fancies. he paid a high price for her, and bred her to Mossoud [Massoud]. He added many good mares to his list. Mr. Richards from this gave great attention to breeding and training, and every season–spring and autumn–had horses trained, and ran them in all parts of the West and Southern country. Mr. Richards made a second visit to Arabia, where he purchased more stallions and brood mares, but the war coming on in this country the last experiment was not much known to the public. During the war Mr. Richardards purchased the colt War Dance (33) for $5000, when a two-year-old, from Jeff. Wells, his breeder, and when the war was over the colt was taken to Kentucky to the Blue Grass Park, and since that time the horse has kept his produce before the public. Mr. Richards went early into the war, and later on was the friend who took Gen. Breckingridge out of Kentucky so fast behind his Arab team when the latter gentleman supposed he would be arrested. Mr. Richards afterward served on the staff of Breckinridge. Although Mr. Richards had been on the turf thirty-five years and was seen in the judges’ stand on every prominent race-course in America, no one can say that they ever heard him use an oath or make a bet of any description.

It is interesting to note and Americans should take pride in the fact that the two expeditions that Richards made to the desert preceded by ten years both the Upton and the Blunt journeys, both of these important to England through the high class desert horses purchased and sent there and because Lady Blunt in her “Bedouins Tribes of the Euphrates” and “Pilgrimage to Nejd” gave to the world one of the best modern accounts of the desert and its horses thereby creating a revived interest in the desert-bred horse upon which all worthy breeds are founded.

Now follows a letter, of more recent date, from another cousin of Keene Richards, commenting on the press notice clipping, the Arabian importations and verifying the well known Breckinridge incident.

    “Georgetown, Ky. 24th Mch 1900

    Mr. Randolph Huntington: Yours in reference to Arab horses &c recd–I am 83, with bad eyes, and memory–A. Keene Richards and Maurice [Morris] Keene were cousins of mine, both dead–Your memory of events as narrated, is correct–You will find a record of Mr. Richards importation of Arabs in Bruce’s Stud Book Vol. 1st pages 146-150–My impression is, the modern Arabian horse is a failure as a race horse–I know of not one animal bearing the blood of Mr. Richards’ Arab importation (34)–At his death they sold one by one and I know of none being tried for racing–

    Richards carried Breckinridge out of Ky. behind two beautiful white match Arab mares–They went out the fall of 1861–I believe I have answered all your questions as far as able–

    Mr. Richards as you suppose was a well informed and travelled gentleman, with pleasant manners, and a fine conversationist. He left a widow, and three daughters–all living–Two daughters married.

    He may have lost money in his experiment with Arabs, but undoubtedly the destruction of property in the South by reason of the war was the main cause of his financial ruin.

    Respt. &c S.Y. Keene

    (P.S.) Mr. Richards was at the battle of Shiloah, and was taken through the lines after the battle to identify the body of Geo. W. Johnson then provisional Governor of Ky.”

Considering the comment, in the above letter, on the Arabian experiment, an interesting rejoinder by Speed, a Kentuckian, helps to clear up some of the breeding principles involved and warns against a too hasty judgment on the apparent lack of success.

(Concluded in next issue)

Image notes and footnotes:

ALEXANDER KEENE RICHARDS (1827-1881)

Richards came of a long line of distinguished ancestors. His mother, Eleanor Keene, was a direct descendant of Richard Keene who in 1641 came from Surry, England, to Maryland. His father, Dr. William Lewis Richards, of the Virginia Richards, was through his mother a descendant of the Marquis de Calmes, a Huguenot emigrant to Virginia.

Richards was a man of exceptional culture, and conversational charm. Possessed of large means he was widely travelled and thus able to inform himself at first hand on the subjects that interested him, especially blood horses of which he was a successful breeder and racer, owning many of the most renowned sires and dams including “Glenco” and the famous mare “Peytona.” Realizing that the Eastern blood was the fountain head of all excellence in horses he determined to go to Arabia for pure desert-bred blood to strengthen that on which the Thoroughbred was founded.

From a photograph of a colored crayon drawing made from life in Rome. Reproduced through the courtesy of Mrs. Edward G.Swartz and Mrs. John Pack, daughters of A.K.Richards.

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1) Spanish horses were largely of Arabian and Barb blood. During the sixteenth century every important stud that could procure Andulusian stallions made use of them. T. C.

2) The late Randolph Huntington (1828-1916) was an internationally known breeder of horses. He saved the Clay blood from extinction; brought the Arabian blood to public attention by using the Grant stallions and by importing from England examples of the purest Arabian blood there. Descendants of his breeding stock are in almost every present-day Arabian stud in the United States. He created the American-Arab; and for more than fifty years he wrote profusely, advocating pure blood versus “time-standards,” for breeding. T.C.

3) Maanake Hedrogi; red horse 7-8 yrs. old, from Beyroot 1860, Siklany Gidran; 2 yrs. 2 mo. old, from Syria 1860. Bruce A.S.B.

4) Letter to J.W.Harvey, Feb 16, 1888.

5) Medoc, foaled 1829; by Eclipse. Died by accident at Col. Buford’s, Ky., 1839. Bruce A.S.B.

6) Amurath at one year of age was imported to New York in 1833 from Tripoli. He was brought from Nubia to Tripoli in 1832. Bruce A.S.B.

7) Stambul, Ch. h. of the Ugedi tribe was selected from Sultan Mahomoud’s stables inConstantinople and presented to U.S. Minister Rhind. The horse was sold [about 1831] for the benefit of the U.S. for $575. Bruce. A.S.B.

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Image:

GEORGE A FERIS, M.D. (1810-1891)

Dr. Feris of Huguenot stock was born in Kentucky and at eighteen years of age got his degree from the Kentucky Medical College. He was a Texas pioneer and a soldier, having fought in the Mexican War as well as in the Civil War in which he was medical director of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate Army. A man of courage, education and refinement, a true southern gentleman, beloved of his family and as a citizen. It was he who lent his moral support to the project of going to Arabia for fresh original blood to infuse into the Thoroughbred and who after Richards’ successful importations of Arabian stock took some of these horses and mares to Fort Bend and to Richmond, Texas, where for many years he was a successful breeder.

From a photograph reproduced here through the courtesy of Dr. Feris’ only surviving child, Miss S. lavinia Feris.

___________________

8) Italics are mine. T.C.

9) As nearly as I can find out. T.C.

10) There must have been a lapse of several years between Dr. Feris’ resolve to encourage Arabian importations and Mr. Richards’ expedition which was his second. T.C.

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image:

“MASSOUD”

This horse was foaled in 1844 and imported in 1853. He was the sire of a number of high class horses and of the mare “Transylvania,” the dam of “Limestone.”

“Massoud” with “Mokhladdi” and the mare “Sadah” were the result of Richards’ first expedition.

Edward Troye’s paintings of horses appeal to the horseman for he brings out the racial traits of the breed and the subject’s individuality. Note the angle of the hock which is not so wide as that of the thoroughbred but insures greater durability.

The original of this picture was painted in Arabia, and has the added interest of showing a portrait of Mr. Richards’ dragoman in authentic costume.

Note manner of tethering Desert horses, so that the head is free.

Reproduced here by permission of Mr. Walter M. Jeffords, who owns the painting, and through the courtesy of Mr. Harry Worcester Smith, who possesses the photograph.

________________

11) Note similar comment by an English writer is legend for illustraion No. 14, which will appear in next installment.

12) Foaled in 1854 and imported by Richards in 1856. Stood the season of ’59–at stable of Dr. Feris, Richard, Texas. R.H.

The finest that could be found in the tribe. Bruce. A.S.B.

13) Foaled in 1844. Imported by Richards in 1852 R.H.

The import date indicates that Massoud was the result of Richards’ first expedition. T.C.

14) Foaled in 1844. Imported by Richards in 1853. R.H.

The import date, 1853, indicates that Mokhladi was the result of Richards’ first expedition. T.C.

15) Dr. Feris is referring to the 1850’s when the English Thoroughbred was still thought of as the Anglo-Arab, although this title was officially discontinued after about 1830. T.C.

Sacklowie was foaled in 1851. Imported by Richards in 1856. Died in 1860. R.H.

16) Foaled in 1852. Bought and imported by Richards in 1856. R.H.

An Arab stallion from Nesjd. Bruce. A.S.B.

17) This mare was imported in foal to Ahzee Pasha’s chestnut Arab Bagdad. This colt foal was lost. Later she produced gr. f. Mahah by Fysaul; ch. f. by imp. Thoroughbred Micky Free; fr. f. Hopsie by Mickey Free; gr. f. Kaffeah by Fysaul. Bruce A.S.B.

18) Imported 1853. Bruce. A.S.B.

The import date indicates that Sadah was the result of Richards’ first expedition. T.C.

19) Imported in 1856. Bruce. A.S.B.

Zareefa’s produce: b.c. Bazar by Fysaul; b.f. Benica by Fysaul; gr. c. by imp. Thoroughbred Michey Free. Bruce. A.S.B.

20) Results of Richards’ two expeditions, which Dr. Feris lumps together giving the impression that all the horses were imported after the new Orleans meeting. But Mr. Richards had already made his first expedition and importation as will appear later. T.C.

21) Produce of Sadah: gr. c. Boherr; gr. f. Zahah by Mokhladdi; gr. c. Abd-el-Kadir by Mokhladdi; ch. c. Yusef by Massoud; gr. c. by Thoroughbred Knight of St. George; gr. f. Haik by Fysaul; gr. f. by Thoroughbred Mickey Free; —-by Thoroughbred Mickey Free. Bruce A.S.B.

—————–

Image:

“FYSAUL” WITH ARABIAN MARE (Probably “Lulie”)

“Fysaul” stood 14 3/4 hands high; was foaled in 1852; and with “Sacklowie” and “Hamdan” and the mares “Lulie” and “Zareefa,” was the result of Richards’ second expedition.

Edward Troye, who painted the original picture in Arabia, shows the horse to have been of beautiful conformation and carriage.

Reproduced here by permission of Mr. Walter M. Jeffords, who owns the painting, and through the courtesy of Mr. Harry Worcester Smith, who possesses the photograph.

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22) Hagar by Hamdan.

23) Hardin by Sultan (Son of Am. Eclipse).

24) Rehab by Hamdan

25) Sheik out of Rehab.

26) These horses were sold on their blood, though not for the purpose of racing. T.C.

27) Illustrations No. 9 and No 10, which will appear in next installment; photographic copies received from Miss Feris 46 years later. T.C.

28) There is nothing to indicate from what paper it was cut, but the date can be fixed as 1881, the year Mr. Richards died. T.C.

29) This date places the first expedition. T.C.

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Image:

“HAMDAN”

“Gray Arbian stallion from ‘Neijid’ of the pure Koheyle race; foaled in Arabia, 1854; purchased in the desert from a Sheik of the Rouiba tribes of Bedouins & imported by A. Keene Richards in 1859 [56]; brought by me to Texas in 1859; died December of the same year at my place in Ft. Bend Country. I regard his death as a public calamity. He was 15 hands high, with the finest head, neck, shoulders, loin and legs I ever saw, but was too light in the quarters. I regard his premature death as a public calamity. His descendants should be crossed with the heavy muscled Glencoes.”

“Exact copy as my Father had it in his register. S.L.F.” [Daughter of Dr. Feris.]

Photograph from a crayon drawing by Guy F. Monroe and copied from a painting unfortunately destroyed by fire. Both the photograph and the legend are reproduced through the courtesty of Miss S. Lavinia Feris, only surviving child of Dr. Feris.

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30) The first American-bred horse to win the Derby was Lorillard’s Iroquois, in 1881. T.C.

31) Massoud, Mokhladdi and mare Sadah.

32) Peytona ch. m. f. 1839, by imp. Glencoe. In 1855 she produced ch. f. Transylvania by Richards’ Massoud. Transylvania produced the celebrated race horse Limestone by War Dance. T.C.

33) War Dance, ch. c.f. 1859 by Lexington out of Reel by Glencoe. T.C.

34) He did not know of those in Texas. T.C.

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image:

“ABDEL KADIR” (Known as the Feris Arabian)

“Gray stallion bred by A. Keene Richards, Scott County, Ky., 1856; was got by his Imported Arabian ‘Mokhladdi’; dam his imported Arabian mare ‘Sadah,’ and brought to Texas by me in November, 1860. He remained my property and stood in Ft. Bend Co. until his death, which occurred in June, 1866. He was drowned in the Brazos river; was 15 hands high, perfect in form & was ‘par excellence’ the ‘gentleman’ of his race. He won the love & admiration of all who knew him. We will never see another like him.“

“Exact copy as my Father had it in his Register. S.L.F.” [Daughter of Dr. Feris]

Miss Feris, who was in and out of “Abdel Kadir’s” stall daily, wrote me that the drawing is a perfect likeness.

Photograph from a crayon drawing by Guy F. Monroe and copied from a painting unfortunately destroyed by fire. Both the photograph and the legend are reproduced through the courtesy of Miss S. Lavinia Feris, only surviving child of Dr. Feris.

Jimmy Dean remembered: Excerpts from Taped Interviews

Jimmie Dean Remembered

Arabian Visions July 1991  Copyright 1991 Used by permission of Arabian Visions

        Jimmie Dean, long-time manager of Selby Stud, died in his sleep at his home in Kentucky during the night of March 21, 1991. In preparing this issue, we asked friends of James Parker Dean to send a few words of remembrance.

Bob & Ginger Detterman, Bo-Gin Arabians, Thousand Oaks, California

        I wish we had met Jimmie Dean 25 years earlier. We learned so much from him in the years we knew him – he was a great friend and source of both knowledge and information. Although I had heard Jimmie’s name ever since I was knee-high to a grass-hopper (my grnadmother had purchased her foundation mares from the Selby Stud in the 1930’s when Jimmie was in charge of the Arabians), it was Azy (Azraff x Poppy) who actually brought us together.

        As we visited breeding farms and horse shows in the late 60’s and early 70’s, we kept seeing individual horses that really appealed to us, and a great number of them were sired by a stallion named Azy, who was bred and owned by Jimmie and Thelma Dean. We decided we had to see this horse, so we gathered up our courage and telephoned the legendary Mr. and Mrs. Dean to make an appointment. The rest is history.

        They were such warm, hospitable and genuine people — you couldn’t help wanting to make them a part of your lives. I’ll never forget the first time we suggested the idea of bringing Azy to California. We had been sitting around after dinner, talking about Arabian horses, and when we approached him with the idea, his answer was an instantaneous and unequivocal “NO!” I believe the only reasons we were ultimately able to get Jimmie and Thelma to let us bring Azy to California three years later were that (1) we would not give up, and (2) we sent a mare back to Kentucky to be bred to Azy, and Jimmie was able to get an idea of how we handled our horses from this mare.

        Jimmie was one of the finest horsemen I’ll ever have the privilege of knowing. He was able to communicate with a horses with his voice and with his hands using great finesse. Horses responded to his gentle touch. The last time he visited us in California, both Azy and Azleta were here, and we wanted to get a picture of Jimmie with these two great old horses that he bred.         I put a halter on Azy and handed the rope to Jimmie, while I went to get Azleta. We decided to take the picture in front of a row of olive trees that are located halfway between Azy’s paddock and the breeding barn. Azy and I had made that trip many times, and Azy and I had an understanding — he would lead quietly until we went throuugh one particular gate, and then he could call the ladies and animate. I didn’t think about that as I headed Jimmie and Azy toward the olive trees — but when Azy went through the gate, he “turned out.” Jimmie simply spoke to Azy and hit him once in the flank with his hand, and Azy stopped, looked at Jimmy, and led the rest of the way to the olive trees quietly. We got our picture, and Jimmie and Azy walked back to Azy’s paddock, with Jimmie talking to Azy the whole way.

        For several months after that day, as Azy and I would walk through that gate on our way to the breeding barn, Azy would look at me as if to ask permission before calling to the ladies, and if I told him to keep quiet, he would! Incidentally, Jimmie told me that it was not necessary to use a stud chain on Azy — even in the breeding barn — and to this day, I haven’t used one on him.

        In all the years we knew him, I never heard Jimmie say an unkind word about anyone. He was the ultimate diplomat. Although we frequently asked for his advice, he never pushed his opinions on us. There is no doubt that his influence upgraded the quality of our breeding stock. During his lifetime, he put us in touch with a number of other breeders across the United States whose goals are similar to ours, and with this network of friends, we expect his influence on our breeding program to continue for many years.

 

Garth Buchanan, Comar Arabians, Story City, Iowa.

        Fifty years have passed since I made my first (of many) trips to the Selby Arabian Stud, then managed by James P. and Thelma Dean. Thus began what developed into a personal friendship, collaboration on horses and “cross-pollination” of breeding programs which endured the rest of their lives.

        As in years gone by Jimmie and Thelma are in my heart, and in loving memories they will remain inseparable — near impossible to think of one without reminiscing of the other and their ceaseless dedication to the Arabian horse.         Words poorly convey my gratitude for their interest and encouragement through the many years of precious association.  

Sandy Rolland, Sandell Farms, Macomb, Illinois

        I first met Jimmie and Thelma (“Buck”) Dean when I was researching my book, *Raffles, His Sons and Daughters.

        Jimmie and Buck were wonderful to me and they spent hours with me answering questions as I followed them around the farm, helping them feed horses or sitting in Buck’s kitchen peeling potatoes for dinner for her while she related fascinating facts and stories to me about the old foundation horses.

        My sons were about eight and ten when we first met the Deans, and their favorite memory of Jimmie is riding around the farm with him on the manure spreader!

        Jimmie Dean was truly “The Dean” of our Arabian horse world, and he has left a legacy that won’t be matched for generations to come, if ever. His great generosity to come, if ever. His great generosity in sharing his knowledge and his refusal to make negative remarks about others have made him, unfortunately for the rest of us, one of a kind.

        Jimmie and Thelma Dean, I salute you with love and sincere thanks.

Julie K. Smithson, Signature Stud Ltd., London Ohio

        I last spoke with Jimmie on March 14th, just eight days before he died peacefully, in his sleep. James Parker Dean would have been 88 years young had he lived until the 21st of April. I cannot conceive of him as ever being old, for he thought and lived on such a vital, optimistic plane. I remember his musing that he would have to find more recipes for asparagus (his favorite vegetable), because he had seen to it that there’d be more of it than ever to harvest this year from his generous garden.

        My knowledge of Jimmie Dean spanned five years of reading every scrap that I could find about *Raffles, and 51 months of cherished friendship and correspondence, enhanced by two visits to Sanders, Kentucky. Would that I had been blessed to know him for 51 years! The knowledge and appreciation of life, in general, and the Arabian horse, in particular, that I absorbed from Jimmie was priceless.

        Jimmie Dean was to me what he was to many: friend, mentor, father figure, brother, confidant and horseman par excellence. You could say anything to Jimmie; all would be heard by the kindest of ears, the biggest hearts. Jimmie never said an unkind word about, or to , anyone. He advised only with the utmost tact. Kindness, with honesty and integrity, was his forte.

        Once I asked Jimmie what it was like to have actually known *Raffles. He replied that *Raffles “can best be described as an experience without parallel.” He expressed regret that many of those who so admired *Raffles did not have the opportunity to experience him personally.

        To borrow his own words, this is how I feel about Jimmie Dean: I regret that many of you who so admired him did not have the opportunity to experience him personally. He can best be described as an experience without parallel. He was my friend, and I loved him. I miss him greatly.

 

Jo & Dick Ellis, Ellis’ GreenLea Arabians, Dallas Center, Iowa

        Jimmie Dean — a remarkable person and a great horse breeder and horseman — we feel extremely fortunate to have known him for 35 years.

        When we first met Jimmie he fulfilled the image we expected of “A True Southern Gentleman” and he continued to be that same person for as long as we knew him.

        Jimmie was a man of many talents. We think of him as being a geneticist, a nutritionist, an agronomist, and, although he was not a veterinarian, he was very well versed on horse medications as related to prevention and cure to what may afflict a horse. He had many other areas of expertise which were not directly related to the horse business. Most importantly, he generously applied his good logic to all circumstances. He as widely respected for this broad range of knowledge and was always willing to give advice to any serious Arabian owner or breeder. He liked to help others.

        Whenever we had a puzzling problem relating to the horses or horses business, Jimmie always seemed to be able to come up with good solid reasons, explanations, or suggestions as to how to go about solving them in an honest, business-like, and forthright manner. As some will recall, Jimmie pioneered the consignment auctioning of Arabians in this country. He was determined to operate ethical auctions whereby the buyer and seller had equal opportunity and information. Consignors to his auctions were bound by very strict terms. Some terms recalled were: no reserve bidding, no by bidding or any other kind of illegal or unethical bidding, honest veterinary inspections the day of the sale with all findings announced in the sale ring, and we can remember being required to furnish valid registration papers with our signatures in place as sellers. (The bidders knew that the horse would be sold to the person with the highest bid.) Wouldn’t it have been great if the Arabian horse industry had followed the lead of this brilliant, hones, and ethical horseman by conducting auctions that were a credit to the breed?

        This tribute is to Jimmie but a part of what he was was contributed by his very capable wife Thelma, who preceded him in death. They were a great team, as each supplemented the other so perfectly. They were an inspiration to all who knew them. We feel particularly blessed to have known Jimmie and Thelma Dean.

 

Ann Jo Hall, Hall Farm Arabians, Lexington, Illinois

        I am glad to have a chance to tell you about some of the feelings and memories I have of our great friend Jimmie Dean.

        I have a lifetime of memories, from early childhood to the very recent past. He was a dear and constant friend to me and so many others. Words like trusted advisor, counselor, the very biggest shoulders to hold me up in the tough times all tell who and what he was.

        When I was grown and ready to start a serious breeding program, I told Jimmie that I wanted to breed a few good horses. He knew what I meant. He took me seriously at my word. Through the years since, I have listened and watched and enjoyed our student-teacher arrangement.

        When I caught on to a principle of his breeding theory I always spoke up by letter, in person, or over the phone and let him know he had gotten another point across. This generally got him to say something like “I always knew you were smart” or “That’s my girl!” or “Glad I could be of help”

        He was a great student of human nature. He was able to make people feel good just by being around him. When I was at his farm or he was at mine we always worked hard fixing fence, building a new breeding set-up or breeding mares. I learned so much and he was so kind and generous with his valuable time.

        We drove thousands of miles hauling horses together. He said we had more fun than other people. It was a riot to be his friend!!! My memories will make me giggle the rest of my life. I will miss you, Jimmie!

 

Bill Munson, Shalimar Ranch, Harrison, Nebraska

        I first met Jimmie in 1942. At that time I was captain of the Iowa State polo team and a vet student working for Mrs. Garth Knox (later Buchanan). She had a stable of grade school horses and ran an organization for girls called Bit & Spur. Joe Buchanan was stationed in Texas, and in May of that year she went down there to marry him, leaving me in charge.

        The girls had planned a picnic at Boone, Iowa on the Des Moines River. This was in the spring when the river was deep and swift. I was riding Garth’s Arabian stallion Ragin (*Mirage x *Indaia). It was a warm day and we thought we’d swim the horses. It turned out Ragin couldn’t swim a stroke; he started to drown. I was horror-stricken. He had only a hackamore on and went down three times. I went down with him, afraid he’d get caught in the hackamore, which he did. Then I was hit in the head and knocked cold. Someone had to jump in to pull me out. When Garth came home, all she said to me was, “Thank God they got you out.”

        Regin was insured, so Garth gave me a trip to Selby’s to look for a replacement. Mr. Selby had said she could have her choice of the *Mirage sons. That was when I met Jimmie and Thelma. We were there for six days and picked out Ibn Mirage. When it was time to leave, Jimmie said, “Bill, Mr. Selby wants you to have a colt.” So I picked Selmage (Image x *Selmnab), who became a great show horse.

        That was the start of a friendship which lasted from 1942 to 1991. At first our friendship was very horse-oriented, but over the years it transcended that. We could go a week together without once mentioning horses. I always called him “Pappy.” He was the one person I always deferred to.

        Jimmie was the greatest P.R. man I’ve ever known. He could sell you a horse without you even knowing it.

        Jimmie was a very kind, thoughtful person. He wouldn’t say anything bad about anyone or their horses. Jimmie never said anything to hurt your feelings. It’s hard to describe how we felt about him. Bazy Tankersley, Garth Buchanan, Gina Manion, Margaret Shuey, R.B.Field, Dan Gainey, Tish Hewitt, Dick Lodwick, Lois Selby, and Alice Payne felt the same way. We bred our own horses our own way, but Jimmie was at the core of it. We all loved and respected Jimmie Dean.

        Jimmie made Selby’s what it was. Mr. Selby imported the horses, of course, but Jimmie made the Selby Stud a breeding force. For example, Jimmie and Thelma were the ones who started using *Raffles. At the time it seemed like a crazy idea to use a little stallion everyone thought was sterile, but they had faith in him.

        Jimmie probably had more influence on the Gainey program than anyone else. He encouraged Gainey to use Azraff, and he encouraged Garth to use Ferzon. It was Jimmie who bred his mare Azleta (by Azraff) to Dan Gainey’s Ferzon to produce the National Champion Gai Parada. This Azraff/Ferzon nick is one of the greatest in Arabian history.

        Alice Payne was greatly influenced by Jimmie. After she saw some of the *Raffles horses, she wanted to go after as many as she could get. Jimmie knew where they all were, and she used to phone him and pester him about them. One night she called to say where she’d found a certain *Raffles daughter. Jimmie asked why she wanted that mare, and Alice answered it was because she was by *Raffles. Jimmie told her that was the worst reason for wanting a horse he’d ever heard.

        Some of the mares bred to *Raffles were not good mares, so there were good *Raffles horses and bad *Raffles horses. It took Alice some time to learn this, but when she did she became even more particular than Jimmie about mare lines. Alice and I both took that to a further extreme than Jimmie did. But we still loved the man.

        After a certain point in time, Jimmie had no further influence on my breeding program, or for that matter Bazy’s or Alice’s, etc. Once the programs were established to a certain point, we went ahead and bred our own horses. But we all stayed close friends, and we still respected and loved him. Jimmies’s own preference in later years was for the Ferzon/Azraff cross, and he promoted those horses.

        Back in the 40’s Jimmie told me that nobody would ever live long enough to change the Arabian horse. But he was wrong. None of us foresaw the influence some people would have. In the show ring we’re going to a Saddlebred type that is not a true type Arabian horse.

        Many of the people interested in the Saddlebred type have left the breed. The people Jimmie Dean influenced are in the Arabian breed for the long haul. I don’t know of anyone else in the history of the Arabian horse who has touched more people or influenced as many programs as Jimmie Dean.

 

Carolyn Hasbrook, Twin Brooks Arabians, Ames, Iowa

        I first met Jimmie and Thelma 22 1/2 years ago after the IAHA Convention in Ohio. The last time I saw Jimmie as the 1990 U.S. Nationals in October. The last time I talked to him was two weeks before his death, and I received a letter from him the day he died. Every letter, conversation or personal contact was uplifting and rewarding. He was an inspiration to talk to and one of the most intelligent men I’ve known.

        Jimmie could be funny and mischievous but was always the “Kentucky” gentleman. He was a marvelous cook, knew a great deal about geology and could design and build, or have built, anything he needed. He was building on his house right up until his health gave out.

        When his health problems started, he read everything he could about vitamins, minerals and different foods that might help him, instead of just sitting back and feeling sorry for himself.

        I made a video type of horses and places I knew would be of interest to Jimmie. Upon the urging of Joe Meiman, I sent it with him. He and Joy shared it with Jimmie just four days before he died. It was a long tape, but I understand he watched it more than once, knew the horses and enjoyed it.

        We bought our first stallion from Jimmie and Thelma. He was Phleta’s last foal by Azy. All of our horses trace back to the Selby horses that Jimmie bred or back to horses Jimmie had a hand in crossing (Azraff and Ferzon). Without his influence we would not have the typey Arabians we admire. There are farms and ranches all over the world that feel the same about their horses and breeding programs.

        Almost from the beginning of Arabians in this country through the present and even into the future, James P. Dean has had more influence than any other person in maintaining the typey Arabian. He was a very special man with special talents and will be greatly missed.