The Crabbet Lawsuit (part I)

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series The Crabbet Lawsuit

221b Baker Street: The Crabbet Lawsuit

As reported in The London Times

ANNOTATED BY R.J.CADRANELL

Copyright 1991 by R.J.CADRANELL

from Arabian Visions June 1991

Used by permission of RJCadranell

 

Most books and articles about the Crabbet Stud mention the famous lawsuit fought over the horses after Lady Anne Blunt died. Her husband and daughter each had claims to the horses. The material written in recent decades has the benefit of hindsight in assessing the situation.

The London Times covered the Crabbet lawsuit as events were taking place. Although newspapers are rarely the best source of information about long ago happenings, and although one suspects the paper of choosing for publication the most sensational aspects of the case, the account has an immediacy lacking in more staid historical works.

The first article appeared in the issue of February 11, 1920, on page 4:

The Ownership of Arab Horses

The case in which Lady Wentworth and the Public Trustee are claiming horses of the Crabbet Arab Stud from Mr. Wilfred [sic] Scawen Blunt, the breeder of Arab horses, came before Mr. Pollock, the Official Referee, in the High Court yesterday.

The stud was started many years ago as the outcome of the travels in Egypt[1] of Mr. Blunt and his wife. In 1906, by a deed of partition between Lady Anne Blunt and her husband, each took a half share in the stud, and this arrangement was continued down to 1916, when the Public Trustee, who represents beneficiaries[2] under Lady Anne Blunt’s will, alleged that Mr. Blunt transferred his half to his wife.

Mr. Storry Deans said that Mr. Blunt wrote to his wife in September, 1915, “I have no wish other than to make over to you the whole of the ownership and management of the stud, retiring altogether from it.” In 1916 Lady Anne Blunt appeared likely to be leaving Crabbet Park.[3] and he (counsel) suggested that if all that Lady Anne Blunt took over in 1915 was the management of the defendant’s half of the stud, it was incredible that Lady Anne Blunt should write to Mr. Blunt proposing to rent stabling from him in which to keep horses which she was only managing for him. After she had gone to Egypt she wrote to Holman, the stud groom, proposing to get rid of a considerable number not only of her own horses, but of those which Mr. Blunt now said belonged to him. Lady Wentworth’s case did not depend upon that of the Public Trustee at all, and assuming that the deed of partition between Mr. Blunt and Lady Anne Blunt in 1906 were held to be still in existence at the time of Lady Anne Blunt’s death, Lady Wentworth’s case rested upon the three heads of purchase, exchange, and gift.

Lady Wentworth, in the witness-box, said that she succeeded to the title[4] on the death of her mother, Lady Anne Blunt. Her mother used to find the money for the stud, and when her father paid anything he got it back again from her mother.

Lady Wentworth said: –Since this case has begun I have received an anonymous letter saying that if I mentioned a certain name some very startling revelations would come out. I want to say they can come out with their startling revelations. The person who wrote that anonymous letter can come on. I don’t mind.

Mr. Hughes, K.C. (for Mr. Blunt). –As far as I can see the letter has about as much to do with the case as the binomial theorem.

The hearing was adjourned.

 

The next installment appeared on February 12:

The Ownership of Arab Horses.

Lady Wentworth’s Claim

The hearing was continued before Mr. Pollock, the Official Referee, yesterday of the claims by Lady Wentworth and by the Public Trustee to Arab horses which were bred by Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt at the Crabbet Park Stud.

Lady Wentworth was again in the witness-box. She produced a diary kept by her, and read the following extract from an entry which was made after a visit to her father in December, 1915:–“The mares are looking rather wretched now. H.F. (her father)[5] told me he had resigned the stud to M. (Lady Anne Blunt) and that the silly partition is finally scrapped. R.I.P. Good riddance of bad rubbish.”

Mr. Hughes, K.C. (for the defendant).–I don’t know whether the lady means that as a reference to Mr. Blunt, or whether it is merely a general comment.

Mr. Storry Deans (for Lady Wentworth). –We will take it as a general comment.

Counsel mentioned a letter written to Mr. Blunt by Lady Wentworth on April 28, 1916, and said that owing to the nature of its contents he proposed to hand it in without reading it aloud.

Lady Wentworth. –I have no objection if you want to read it.

Mr. Houghes. –What this lady wrote to her father, offensive as it was, does not seem to have any importance in the case. It is a very offensive letter for a lady to write to her father.

Mr. Deans.–I think that it has some bearing on the case. There is an expression which I propose to read. What she said was never contradicted.

Mr. Grant, K.C. (for the Public Trustee). –This is an unfortunate family quarrel and the less said about it the better.

Mr. Hughes formally objected to the reading of the letter, and the Official Referee upheld the objection.

Lady Wentworth then said that her father had declared that the quarrel between Lady Anne Blunt and himself was entirely about the estate, whereas the letter would show that that was not the case. In 1916 [?] she heard a rumor that her father intended to [original damaged] the horses, and she therefore instructed Holman, the stud groom, not to let them go. Holman replied that he daren’t disobey “the Squire.” She found afterwards that all the horses had been removed from her stables. Some were taken at night, and they were always removed when she was not on the spot. First of all they were shifted about, and when she asked where a particular horse was she was told that it was in another box. Holman explained that it was “the Squire’s orders.” When she found where the horses had been sent, she went with her son, Anthony, to get them back. The groom seized her by the neck to prevent her, and her son “went for” the groom. She did not think that the groom was much the worse, and she regarded it as merely a “comic encounter.” Her father had sold some of the stud horses at absurdly low prices. He told her that he would rather shoot them than let her have them.

A number of letters written by Lady Wentworth about the stud were read by Mr. Deans. In February, 1914, Lady Wentworth was in a liner approaching New York, and she wrote that she had been too wretched on board to talk about stud affairs. In another letter there was a passage about Philadelphia, which, in the present state of public feeling, he (counsel) would forbear to read.

Mr. Deans said the horses comprising the stud were catalogued, and against some of the names there appeared an asterisk, and at the bottom the words in Lady Anne Blunt’s handwriting, “To go to Judith (Lady Wentworth) at my death.”

One of the catalogues was handed to the witness, who identified the writing as her mother’s.

The witness said that among the greys which she was claiming was one of five which Mr. Blunt, in 1913, threatened to shoot if her mother did not take them. She explained that the partition deed provided that an animal before being destroyed by either of the parties should be offered to the other.

In reply to Mr. Grant, K.C., Lady Wentworth denied the suggestion which counsel said Mr. Blunt had made that she and her mother had been given of conspiracy in withholding information on stud matters from him.

The hearing was adjourned.

 

The next installment appeared on February 13:

The Sale of Arab horses.

Mr. Pollack, Official Referee, resumed yesterday the hearing of the actions by Lady Wentworth and the Public Trustee.

Lady Wentworth and the Public Trustee, the latter representing beneficiaries under the will of Lady Anne Blunt, are claiming from Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt a number of horses from the Crabbet Park Arab Stud.

Lady Wentworth was cross-examined by Mr. Hughes, K.C.

Learned counsel asked her what her attitude had been towards Mr. Caffin, who held a responsible position at the stud, and she denied that she had tried to get her mother to discharge him.

A letter written to Mr. Caffin by Lady Anne Blunt, in May, 1917, ran:–

“Don’t let yourself be interviewed or accosted as it were by accident which I am inclined to think might be attempted with the intention of drawing you to reply so that what you say might be twisted as something supposed to be an insult to those by whom eight pages of invective have been sent.”

Mr. Hughes.–Were those eight pages of invective a letter of yours?–Certainly not.

Perhaps you quarrel with the word invective. Did you write a long letter to your mother about Mr. Caffin?–If it was invective I should think that it was from him.

Mr. Hughes read a further letter written by Lady Anne Blunt to Mr. Caffin November, 1915. She referred to an agreement which she promised to read “with the greatest care and in quieter surroundings than I did the old agreement, which, I suppose, holds meanwhile.”

Mr. Hughes. — That is the old partition agreement?–I suppose so.

Mr. Hughes.– Were there differences of opinion between yourself and Lady Anne Blunt over the stud at one time? You treated it rather as a hobby, and she regarded it as a national duty?

Lady Wentworth agreed that that was her mother’s view of the stud, at any rate.

Counsel read the following letter by Mr. Blunt to his wife in Egypt shortly before her death–

“Now that there seems so little chance of the war being over this year and of your being able to return to England, I feel something ought to be done about the future of the stud. Though yours is probably the better life than mine, in spite of my advantage of two years, it might be that I should have to take over the stud as your survivor, and as things are I should be very much at a loss how to find a suitable way of continuing it.”

The letter, Counsel added, mentioned the necessity that something should be done then instead of the stud’s being left “for heirs to quarrel about.”

Lady Wentworth. — Rather prophetic, wasn’t it? It shows how he was trying to prevent her from leaving the stud to me.

Counsel.–I should not be surprised if he was.

Mr. Hughes then asked whether Lady Wentworth really adhered to her statement that her father removed the horses by night.

Lady Wentworth.–I said some of them. I am not in the habit of telling lies.

Counsel read a letter written by Mr. Blunt’s solicitors complaining of an alleged assault by Lady Wentworth and her party on Holman, the stud groom, when Lady Wentworth removed some of the animals from his custody.

Lady Wentworth.–I did not assault Holman. He assaulted me.

The hearing was again adjourned.

To be Continued in July…

  1. [1]James H. Skene, H.B.M. Consul in Aleppo, was responsible for giving the Blunts the idea for the Crabbet Stud, and the first horses acquired were either bought through Skene or were the outcome of the Blunts’ travels in the desert regions near Aleppo. More than a decade after the arrival at Crabbet of the initial stock, the Blunts began to import horses representing the breeding program of Ali Pasha Sherif of Egypt. This perhaps accounts for the newspaper writer’s confusion.↩
  2. [2]2. The beneficiaries mentioned were Lady Anne Blunt’s granddaughters, Anne and Winifrid Lytton, ages 18 and 15. Lady Anne Blunt’s will had left most of her estate, including her Arabian horses, in trust for her granddaughters. Lady Wentworth, daughter of the Blunts and the mother of Anne and Winifrid, claimed for herself about fifteen horses. Some she said were gifts from her mother. Others she claimed to have purchased from her. The Trustees recognized Lady Wentworth’s claim, but claimed all the rest of the horses for the beneficiaries. Mr. Blunt maintained that he had never transferred his horses, known as “the Newbuildings Half” of the stud, to his wife. Blunt claimed not only the Newbuildings half but also Lady Anne’s “Crabbet Half” since he alleged the 1906 partition agreement was still in effect. This agreement had stated that on the death of one of the Blunts, the deceased party’s horses were to become the property of the survivor.↩
  3. [3]Lady Anne Blunt habitually spent her winters in Egypt, at her property near Cairo known as Sheykh Obeyd Garden. She left England for the last time in October of 1915, not 1916. Unable to return due to wartime activity, she spent the rest of her life in Egypt and died December 15, 1917.↩
  4. [4]Six months before she died, Lady Anne Blunt had inherited the title of Baroness Wentworth, becoming the 15th holder since the barony was granted in 1529. At her death the title passed to her daughter, Judith. Blunt commented that this would make Judith “more arrogant than ever.”↩
  5. [5]Wilfrid Blunt was known as H.F., “Head of the Family”.↩

Thoughts on the Evaluation of Historical Material

by R.J. Cadranell

copyright 1995 from “Scholar’s Corner” in CMK Record, XI/3: page 8 & 24

(Preface: This paper [originally written to be read at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Arabian Horse Historians Association] is confined to commentary on Western writers, since this author is not familiar enough with Eastern writers to include them.)

One problem facing writers interested in Arabian horse history — and I seldom hear it mentioned — is how to evaluate a source. Much of the time a source is simply taken at face value, but historical writers nearly all had motives of one kind or another, and not all of them were benevolent motives. There might even have been a few crackpots at the turn of the century.

Nearly all of the writers whose work we read had Arabian horses for sale, and if they didn’t, their friends did. When someone sent a letter to the editor of the Rider and Driver criticising the Arabian horse, and Spencer Borden and Homer Davenport rushed to the breed’s defense, it was partly because their feelings were hurt and the Arabian was being treated unfairly. How fortunate that their own horses — among others — could provide examples of the virtue of Arabians. To use Borden and Davenport again as examples, when Davenport produced a detailed catalogue of his stock, and Spencer Borden wrote a couple of books, it was only partly to record photographs and information for posterity. Lady Wentworth in her Authentic Arabian Horse dismisses Davenport’s book [My Quest of the Arabian Horse] as an “advertising stunt.” Undoubtedly that was one reason for the book, but My Quest was far more than just that, as you all know. And let us not forget that Authentic Arabians includes a whole chapter on the Crabbet Stud as it existed at publication time, with a long list of champions bred.

Both Borden and Davenport had a flair for publicity. Two very different flairs, to be sure, but they each had one, and I am glad they did. We would know far less about these men and their horses if they, like Peter Bradley of Hingham Stock Farm, had been the type to stay out of the public eye. We must keep in mind that the books, newspaper and magazine items, catalogues and letters were not written entirely for our benefit and enjoyment. Multiple motives were involved, and the items were aimed at multiple audiences. Entertaining a group of horse history buffs 90 years later was probably not the primary motive. This use of their material is often simply a byproduct of the intended use — a byproduct of which the writers may have been aware, but a byproduct all the same.

Other categories of writers provide their own set of problems. When a writer claims to know all about someone else’s horse, how much credibility is he or she to be given? Perhaps none. Perhaps full credibility. Or somewhere in between? Then there are the writers who left pages of invective. Dismissing it as the ravings of lunatics may be extreme, but personalities and motives must be taken into account in evaluating any of this material. If taken at face value, there is potential for it to do great harm.

Although it becomes less true as more examples of diaries, herd books and correspondence of early breeders become available, frequently what we are left to evaluate is only what was designed for public presentation. Slick catalogues, carefully written books, ads in periodicals and letters to the editor put a veneer on a historical person or program. All that material has its place — without it we might be hard put to understand how the breeders wanted their horses or themselves to be perceived. But it frequently leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what was happening on the inside.

Using published stud books is essential, but I have to credit Charles Craver for saying that to understand a breeding program fully, one must know what was attempted and failed as well as what succeeded. And knowing what happened to every foal is important. Was an animal sold as a youngster, or kicked at three months and subsequently put down? It makes a difference.

I will take a few examples from the breeding program of Alice Payne at the Asil Arabian Ranch. AFARA was an Asil Ranch foundation mare and dam of the important broodmares CELESTE, TRITY, DESTYNEE and ASIL LYRA. AFARA’s last three registered foals were all by RAFFERTY, in 1958, ’59 and ’61. Yet she was still at the Asil Ranch when Alice Payne died in 1969. Was she retired from breeding, did her foals die, or did she become a problem breeder as an older mare? If she was bred, did she go to RAFFERTY or to another stallion? Asil Ranch records show that AFARA aborted a colt in 1962 and was treated for infection off and on over the next several years, during which she was bred not to RAFFERTY but to his sons SYZYGY and ASIL ECLIPTIC.

Another question. From 1962 to 1969, were there any stallions used who have no foals registered to them, or does the stud book record accurately reflect the full extent of the Asil stallion battery? The answer is yes, it does, with the exception that ASIL HARB did cover one mare before he left for Connecticut.

Another crucial perspective is the context of when something was written and what was happening at the time. If Lady Wentworth or Musgrave Clark writes a letter to the editor regarding the height of Arabian horses, particularly in the show ring, perhaps a divine muse suddenly inspired them to expound on the subject, and we have an opportunity to learn from their selflessly expressed knowledge and opinions. Or maybe the letter dates from the period when a violent debate on the subject was taking place within the Arab Horse Society. Clark may have felt that his drive to limit the height of Arabian horses in the show ring served some lofty purpose — but might it also bar from the ring many successful show horses owned by his competition, even some owned by Lady Wentworth? Undoubtedly.

Aiding in the evaluation of a writer is intimate knowledge of the biography and personality. I will go out on a limb and say that to understand the motives behind, and properly evaluate, any written material, one cannot know too much about the writer. This knowledge is gained by reading — and re-reading — everything he or she ever wrote, reading everything written about them by people who knew them, by a study of what they did, and by reading scholarly biographies if available. Newspaper and magazine accounts also help. If the person in question was also a breeder of Arabian horses, much can be learned from published stud books.

Take nothing at face value, and evaluate it only in the context of everything else known about the person.

Basilisk Defended

by R.J. Cadranell II
from The CMK Record Spring 1992 X/I, Copyright 1992

BUSHRA (Azrek x Bozra), the eldest of BASILISK's three granddaughters still represented in pedigrees. (Note that the background of this photo is Randolph Huntington's front porch.)
BUSHRA (Azrek x Bozra), the eldest of BASILISK’s three granddaughters still represented in pedigrees. (Note that the background of this photo is Randolph Huntington’s front porch.)
BUKRA (Ahmar x Bozra), a personal favorite of Lady Wentworth, and dam of *BERK and *BATTLA.
BUKRA (Ahmar x Bozra), a personal favorite of Lady Wentworth, and dam of *BERK and *BATTLA.
BEREYDA (Ahmar x Bozra), shown as an old mare, was the most prolific of the BOZRA daughters; it is her branch of the BASILISK family which persists in England, and also in North America in the Maynesboro lines of BAZRAH and *BARAZA.
BEREYDA (Ahmar x Bozra), shown as an old mare, was the most prolific of the BOZRA daughters; it is her branch of the BASILISK family which persists in England, and also in North America in the Maynesboro lines of BAZRAH and *BARAZA.

Photos courtesy AHOF and the late Lady Anne Lytton [BEREYDA]; captions by the editor.

Ever since the beginning of modern Arabian horse breeding in the English speaking world, it has been customary to question the origins of other people’s stock. Among the foundation horses of the Blunts, probably the one attracting the most attention over the last thirty or forty years is a fine-boned little mare named BASILISK.

BASILISK was a grey mare, foaled in 1876 according to Crabbet records, although the GSB states 1875. H.B.M. Consul at Aleppo, James Skene, purchased her for the Blunts at Deyr in February of 1878. He bought her from Abd el Jadir, a resident of that town, for £75. BASILISK’s history prior to this has been the subject of much commentary over the years. The story is told in brief in her entry in the General Stud Book, and with a little more detail in the reference pedigree section of the second volume of the stud book of the Arab Horse Society. The Crabbet herdbook, which has a more complete account than either published stud book, says that her dam was a white mare

“stolen by Faris Assaat from the desert. Neddi ibn ed Derri had sold the mare on shares to an Abadat (Sebaa Anazeh) and it was from him that she was stolen. Sire said to be a bay Seglawi of same strain. Faris Assaat sold the dam to Abd el Jadir of Deyr on the Euphrates in whose possession Basilisk was foaled.”

Since neither published stud book mentioned her sire, and since BASILISK was born in a town rather than with the Bedouin, for years BASILISK’s provenance lacked enough information that some people in America connected to “purist” breeding movements regarded her with suspicion. Animals acceptable for “purist” breeding often traced to foundation animals with backgrounds more murky than BASILISK’s. Some dismissed these with the explanation that the lines had passed through the hands of breeders known (or believed) to have insisted on verifiable stock.

That the Blunts also fell into this category escaped them. Ever since the appearance of Borden’s The Arab Horse in 1906, American breeders have known that Lady Anne Blunt wrote that it was

“a fundamental principle at the Crabbet Arabian Stud that no stallion, however individually excellent, [was] eligible for service if there [was] any doubt or lack of information as to a true Arabian descent…”

Lady Anne Blunt’s use of *BERK as a sire should have been enough to validate the BASILISK line.

The year 1978 saw the publication of Archer, Pearson, and Covey’s The Crabbet Arabian Stud, Its History and Influence. Lady Anne Blunt was quoted on the subject,

In one instance, that of Basilisk whose dam had been stolen from Ibn ed Derri by one of the Abadat tribe [sic], authentication was not obtained for three years not until we visited Ibn ed Derri in the desert—if we had not succeeded her descendants would not have counted as pure-bred, and no stallion of her or of her posterity could have been used as a sire.

Excerpts from Lady Anne Blunt’s journals were published in 1986. According to the journals, the visit to Neddi ibn ed Derri was in April of 1881:

We have enquired about Basilisk. Neddi says that eight years ago a white mare, of his Seglawyehs, was stolen by people from Aleppo, from a Sebaa one of the Abadat to whom Neddi had sold her in shares, and there seems no doubt that Basilisk is her daughter.

The exact date of BASILISK’s arrival in England is difficult to fix. Crabbet herdbook records quoted by Archer, Pearson and Covey, and by Peter Upton in Desert Heritage, give 1878. This seems to be incorrect. The first Arabians arrived at Crabbet in two batches during the summer of 1878. Archer et al. list the animals included in both batches. BASILISK was not one.

In December of 1878 the Blunts sent for a number of horses Skene was keeping for them in Aleppo. In explanation, footnote 24 in the published version of Lady Anne’s journals reads,

“The previous April, the Blunts had left with Skene the mares Pharaoh and Queen of Sheba as well.”

In October Skene had purchased PHARAOH for the Blunts. He notified the Blunts “late in the autumn” that he had acquired QUEEN OF SHEBA on their behalf. Lady Anne Blunt wrote in Crabbet records that since QUEEN OF SHEBA “could not be safely left in Aleppo we had her sent (with Pharaoh, Francolin and Basilisk) to Egypt for the winter.” According to the GSB, FRANCOLIN’s 1879 colt FARIS (by Kars) was foaled in Egypt. GSB volume XIV lists PHAROAH, QUEEN OF SHEBA, BASILISK and FRANCOLIN as imported in 1879. When the 1879 imports arrived at Crabbet, the Blunts were on the trip which included their pilgrimage to Nejd and “nightmare journey,” as well as a visit to India. In August of 1879 they saw the horses at Crabbet again.

As of August, the three or four year old BASILISK was already under saddle. One day that month, six year old Judith Blunt was put on her back. This was likely the first Arabian she ever rode. By the time Judith was eleven, the mare was such a favorite of hers that Judith could “bring tears into her eyes for Basilisk at any moment.”

PHAROAH, QUEEN OF SHEBA, FRANCOLIN, and BASILISK apparently arrived late enough in 1879 that they all missed the breeding season, Crabbet’s first. BASILISK’s first foal at Crabbet was the 1881 filly BOZRA. BOZRA has the distinction of being Crabbet’s earliest foal to have influence in the long term breeding program.

BASILISK’s complete production record at Crabbet, extracted from GSB, is as follows:

  • 1881 gr f BOZRA, by Pharoah
  • 1882 no produce
  • 1883 gr f BALSAM, by Kars
  • 1884 gr f BUSTARD, by Kars

In August of 1884 the Blunts sold BASILISK to the Duke of Westminster. She left Crabbet Park on the first of September, after her foal was weaned. Her subsequent production follows:

  • 1885 c by Kars
  • 1886 ch f by Bend Or (TB)
  • 1887 b c by Newton (TB)
  • 1888 ch f by Golden Cross (h.-b.)
  • 1889 barren
  • 1890 gr f by Downpatrick (TB)
  • 1891 barren and shot

Crabbet records as published in Desert Heritage state that BASILISK died of liver disease.

The writer does not know whether BASILISK blood is found in modern Thoroughbreds. Lady Wentworth wrote in Thoroughbred Racing Stock that BASILISK’s 1886 filly was the dam of ALFRAGAN, and that “Alfragan in 1894 won the Dee Stakes and also the Drayton Handicap at Goodwood by six lengths” (2nd ed. p. 303).

Although BUSTARD did produce two foals at Crabbet, BOZRA became BASILISK’s link to modern Arabian breeding. This was through BOZRA’S three daughters to live to maturity. The first of these, *BUSHRA (by Azrek), is important to American breeding through her son *IBN MAHRUSS and daughter SIRA. At Crabbet the line was to develop through *BUSHRA’s younger three-quarter sisters, BUKRA and BEREYDA (both by Azrek’s son Ahmar).

Wilfrid Blunt’s famous 1897 memorandum ranked the breeding influence of the foundation mares imported from the desert. It treated the BASILISK line well:

“the strains which have hithero proved themselves the best are 1. Rodania’s 2. Dajania’s through Nefisa 3. and 4. Meshura’s and Basilisk’s…”

The Blunts seem to have regarded MESHURA and BASILISK as of the same line, since they were both of the Seglawieh Jedranieh strain of Ibn ed Derri.

The 1917 Crabbet catalogue, prepared about a year before Lady Anne Blunt’s death, lists the mares BUKRA and BEREYDA with their daughters *BATTLA and *BARAZA as representing the BASILISK family. At that time BUKRA’s son *BERK was one of Lady Anne Blunt’s senior sires, and the 1917 catalog lists eleven of his get, including *RAMIM, SAFARJAL and RYTHMA. Among the 1917 foals was to be RISSLA, the most famous of all the *BERK daughters.

BASILISK was a small mare, standing 14.1 hands. Lady Anne Blunt described her as having “wiry legs… not large below the knee”and a “good head and small muzzle.” Lady Anne Blunt commented that BASILISK had “something of the compact wiriness of a wild animal.” BASILISK was likely fine-skinned; through her coat were visible some patches of pink skin. Grey horses with fine skin frequently exhibit some loss of pigment. Small as she was, Michael Bowling has noted that BASILISK “seems to have bred still smaller, since BOZRA and BUSHRA were both noted as standing 14 hands even” (see CMK Record V/3). In its early generations, the BASILISK family seems to have produced an abundance of pretty, delicate-looking “deserty” little grey mares which very often turned flea-bitten as they aged. According to notes on the back of a Maynesboro photo of *BATTLA (Razaz x Bukra), published in the October 1972 Arabian Horse News, at the age of five years she stood 14.2 and weighed only 850 lbs.

Two people, both of whom have attracted not insignificant followings, have presented alternate views of BASILISK. Carl Raswan printed a photo of BASILISK on p. 80 of his book, The Arab and his Horse. He describes BASILISK as a coarse mare with an ugly head, and states that she had Syrian blood. He seems to have based his description on the photograph alone. A far clearer reproduction of the same photograph appears between pages 104 and 105 of Archer et al. In the photograph, BASILISK exhibits the fine bone and small muzzle Lady Anne Blunt described.

The entry in the Raswan Index for BAHRAM, a horse with two crosses to BASILISK (one in tail-female), touts him as “[one of] the last true and outstanding CLASSIC TYPE Arabians of the old Lady Anne Blunt, ‘ALI PASHA SHARIF and DESERT ARABIAN breeding.” However, BASILISK’s own entry in the Index says that she, like TAMARISK and PURPLE STOCK, was “another one of the early SYRIAN BLUNT importations (which were improved in later years with the incomparable ‘ALI PASHA SHARIF blood).” Among these Ali Pasha horses was WAZIR, sire of MAKBULA GSB, MERZUK, *SHAHWAN, and SOBHA. WAZIR’s head, wrote Lady Anne Blunt, “in shape reminded me of… Basilisk.”

Jane Ott has written that BASILISK possessed and handed on “extra bone and substance,” that “Basilisk type” horses are “robust” and “larger, bigger boned, and more substantial” than some other lines of Arabian breeding. No one can deny that Crabbet bloodlines have on occasion produced animals matching Miss Ott’s description. That someone should trace the origin of these characteristics to the fine boned 14 and 14.1 hand BASILISK mares is rather startling. Crabbet’s “enormous Rijm” topped 15.3 hands and would have towered over “little Bozra” and her compact, wiry dam. The NEFISA family bred a series of horses in excess of 15 hands. Hanstead’s RIFFAL (Naufal x Razina), of pure Blunt breeding, grew to stand over 16 hands without a drop of BASILISK blood.

Miss Ott states that *BERK “in spite of his too-slender legs and body… transmitted [the] extra bone and substance of his third dam as faithfully as any of her other progeny.” A Maynesboro photo of *BERK’s daughter *RAMIM (published with that of *BATTLA) had notes on the back stating *RAMIM’s height at age five years to be 14.1 hands and her weight 825 lbs, not a large horse by anyone’s standards. Mr. Covey writing in Archer et al. described *BERK’s daughter RISSLA as having “a lovely head and refined body,” and in his booklet Crabbet Arabians:

“Beautiful head with fine muzzle…a rather delicate mare and had to be brought in earlier than the other mares in the autumn.”

Photographs of RISSLA show a fine boned mare with the appearance of fine skin as well. If some lines of Blunt breeding are capable of producing “larger, bigger boned, and more substantial” Arabians it is far more likely due to the influence of horses like RIJM and NEFISA than BASILISK and BOZRA.

*Aziza & *Roda

Copyright 1996 by R.J.CADRANELL
from Arabian Visions Nov/Dec 1996
Used by permission of RJCadranell

The stories of *Aziza and *Roda run parallel. They were bred by Prince Mohamed Ali of Egypt, daughters of his mare Negma, and imported to the U.S. by W.R. Brown in 1932. From Brown’s Maynesboro Stud they were sold to General Dickinson of Tennessee. Both mares later had foals by *Raffles, and both ended their lives with breeders who were part of Jimmie Dean’s wide circle of influence. Since both also appear in the pedigrees of black Arabians, they seemed a natural choice for this issue.

*Aziza. Foaled in 1926 and sired by Gamil Manial, *Aziza was the elder of the two. When Jack Humphrey selected the horses for W.R.Brown’s importation from Egypt, he wrote, “Aziza has wonderful quality in conformation and a wonderful head, in structure fully as good as her mother’s.”[1] *Aziza was imported along with her foal:

  • 1932 grey colt *Silver Yew 891, by Ibn Rabdan. He died soon after arrival.

W.R. Brown began dispersing his Maynesboro Stud not long after the 1932 importation. Many of the horses, including the entire Egyptian importation, were sold to General J.M. Dickinson of Traveler’s Rest in Tennessee. W.R. Brown bred only one foal from *Aziza. This was the

  • 1935 grey colt Azkar 1109, by Rahas.

Azkar accompanied his dam to Tennessee. Herbert Tormohlen related that *Aziza and Azkar were the last horses to leave Maynesboro. Dickinson’s stud catalog states Azkar was sold to Louisiana from Traveler’s Rest; the 1937 stud book gives his owner as J.S.Serio of Ferriday, Louisiana. According to an article on Azkar, from there Azkar was sold

“to a ranch in West Texas where he was branded and turned loose with a band of stock horses to fend for himself for the next six years. Hearing of this stallion that was to be sold, Mr. Babson, on a ‘hunch’ decided that a son of Aziza and Rahas was not to be overlooked and purchased him ‘sight unseen’ regardless of injuries and condition. Many admired Azkar at Mr. Babson’s and many wanted him. The Tormohlens at Ben Hur Farms were fortunate in first leasing him, then purchased him.”[2]

Azkar’s first registered foals were born in 1947, all bred by Tormohlen. During the 1950’s Azkar’s 65 registered foals included many successful show and breeding horses, among them Aalzar and Aazkara.

*Aziza spent more than ten years at Traveler’s Rest, where she became a fixture of the herd. The Traveler’s Rest catalog describes her as 14.1 and 1000 lbs. and states,

“By many she is considered to represent the ultimate in the classic type of Arab for which the great studs in Egypt became famous.”

*Aziza produced ten foals bred by Dickenson, but five died young and two were sold to homes where they left no registered progeny. *Aziza’s Traveler’s Rest foals were

-> 1936 black filly Black Auster 1211, by *Zarife. Listed dead in the 1937 stud book. The Traveler’s Rest catalog states simply, “Died young.”

-> 1937 grey colt Abyad 1389, by *Nasr, died young.

-> 1938 grey colt Asad 1478, by *Nasr. Sold to Arizona in 1938. The 1944 stud book lists him as gelded.

-> 1939 grey colt Julep 1678, by Gulastra.

Julep was a three-quarter brother to Azkar, since Gulastra was also sire of Rahas. The Dickinson catalog states Julep was sold to Texas and described by a Nebraska rancher as

“a very stout looking horse, plenty of bone, good straight legs, extra good quarters and back also a fine looking horse, one of the best horses I’ve seen in a long time. A top cow horse.”

Elliott Roosevelt bred 2 foals by Julep, a 1943 colt and a 1944 filly. Dr. LaRue of Illinois later purchased the horse. Julep stood his first season at stud in Illinois in 1954, siring foals for Dr. La Rue and the Warren Buckleys, including Synbad, the 1959 National Champion Stallion. The LaRues sold Julep in about 1957 to Buckley’s Cedardell Stud. Julep sired 42 registered foals, the last born in 1964. Along with Synbad. Julep’s son Julyan (out of Bint Maaroufa) also deserves mention.

-> 1940 grey filly Wafra 1852, by *Czubuthan. Killed by lightning as a yearling.

-> 1942 grey filly Aparri 2276, by *Czubuthan, was sold to Texas in 1946. Her 1947 foal was bred by Dickinson, but registered at the beginning of a string of foals bred by Texan W.S.Jacobs, who bred Aparri’s next three foals. Aparri’s last was a 1963 filly bred by Tish Hewitt of Friendship Farms in Illinois. Of Aparri’s five registered foals, two left registered progeny.

-> 1943 grey colt Argao 2551, by *Czubuthan, Died of pneumonia.

-> 1944 brown colt Azual 2931, by Kenur. Sold to New Mexico.

-> 1945 chestnut colt Abjar 3201, by Kenur. Died young.

-> 1947 grey filly Azyya 3952, by Kenur.

From 1952 to 1967 Azyya produced 13 registered foals for the Lodwick family of Ohio, of which the best known is probably Azzaraf (by Imaraff). As an old mare Azyya went to Albert Guilbault of Canada.

In September of 1947 Alice Payne, then of Whittier, California, purchased *Aziza from Dickinson. Mrs. Payne wrote that *Aziza was in foal to one of the Traveler’s Rest stallions, but that *Aziza lost the foal. This fills the 1948 gap in *Aziza’s production record.

*Aziza was 21 when she arrived at her new home. Although she herself had become an institution, none of her produce had yet made a mark as breeding animals — Julep’s two get were still young. Aparri’s and Azkar’s first foals had just hit the ground, and Azyya was only a weanling. Reading Alice Payne’s notes, she apparently admired *Roda’s 1947 filly by *Raffles – it may be that she hoped for something similar from *Aziza. Carl Raswan probably also steered her toward *Aziza. His letter of October 6, 1947, to Alice Payne makes it clear he had admired *Aziza since she was a young mare in Egypt, and recommended crossing her with Mrs. Payne’s horse Rasraff. Raswan later came to stay with *Aziza in Whittier when she foaled.

Alice Payne bred *Aziza twice to her *Raffles son Rasraff. In November of 1949 she acquired *Raffles himself, so *Aziza’s last foal was by *Raffles. *Aziza’s last three foals were:

-> 1949 grey colt Aziz 5388, by Rasraff.

Aziz was transferred in July of 1958 to J.G.Coleman of Los Angeles. Aziz sired 13 registered foals, born from 1960 through 1970.

-> 1950 grey colt Ibn Rasraff 6134, by Rasraff.

Ibn Rasraff does not appear to have been transferred out of Alice Payne’s ownership. He sired just nine registered foals (one of which was bred by Mrs. Payne), all born in 1955 and 1956.

-> 1951 grey filly Bint Aziza 6997, by *Raffles.

Alice Payne bred one foal from Bint Aziza (the filly Asil Bint Bint Aziza, by Rafferty) then in September 1959 sold Bint Aziza to Tish Hewitt of Friendship Farms in Illinois. Bint Aziza was carrying a 1960 foal, named Asil Rafziza. Bint Aziza then produced four more foals for Mrs. Hewitt, the last born in 1966. Back at the Asil Ranch, Asil Bint Bint Aziza was sold to Bill Munson in 1959.

Thus, much as Alice Payne had admired *Aziza herself, the *Aziza line did not produce what she wanted from it and was dropped from the Asil Ranch program. Across from the *Aziza entry in her copy of the Raswan Index, Alice Payne wrote *Aziza was

“a disappointment to me. She produced a filly by Raffles & 2 studs by Rasraff. (The younger stud was good & produced well.)…B.B.Aziza produced one nice filly for B. Munson…by Garaff.”

*Aziza was recorded dead as of April 25, 1952.

*Roda, by Mansour, was foaled in 1931. When Jack Humphrey selected the Maynesboro importation in 1932 he described her as

“just a baby, but to me represents the best thing you are getting as a combination of individual Arab character (at this time) plus the blood that has produced their true Arab quality.[1]

From Maynesboro *Roda was sold to General Dickinson, apparently by 1933. Billie McCutcheon later recalled *Roda as

the first Arabian I ever rode – and I lost my heart to her on sight – back in 1934 – I showed her in the costume class for Gen. J.M.Dickinson. At the time it was said that she had the most perfect head of all Arabians in the U.S. … She was a very beautiful thing indeed. Especially when she went into the strutting trot.[3]

*Roda is described in the Dickinson stud catalog:

“This was the Reserve Champion Mare in a strong class of twelve entries in the National Arabian Show of 1933, second in Arab saddle class at Belleview, Tenn… The head of *Roda has been described by one of the most distinguished breeders of Arabs in the United States as perfectly representative type.”

Going to the stud books, the first of *Roda’s foals was:

-> 1937 black or brown colt Hallany Mistanny 1315, by *Zarife.

The Dickinson catalog reads,

“this young horse is most striking in appearance. He promises to mature as a powerful horse of moderate height and supreme breed type.”

At age six months he was a wedding gift from Dickinson to his daughter. When her husband entered the military, it was time to sell the colt. The catalog states,

“Sold 1940 to California and there a 1st prize winner. His owner described him as having ‘the most exquisite rein, is as fast as he can be on his feet,’ and described by a visitor as ‘most beautiful black stallion I have ever seen.’ ”

During first 18 years of his life, Hallany Mistanny sired just one registered foal, a 1943 colt. Like *Aziza’s sons Azkar and Julep, Hallany Mistanny was nearly lost to the breed. In March of 1955 the Arabian Horse News was asking if anyone knew where he was. At least two California breeders did know where he was – he sired two 1956 foals. That year, Howard Marks acquired him and started using him for breeding. He quickly became a cornerstone of the Howard Marks Ranch breeding program. Among his early foals for Marks was the 1957 filly Habina (x Binni), by age two already a successful show filly for the Lasma Arabian Stud, and named a U.S.National Top Ten Mare in 1960 and 1961. Hallany Mistanny died October 15, 1965. He sired 139 registered foals.

-> 1938 grey colt Rodasr 1591, by *Nasr,

“Used 1941. Sold to California and there used on coast patrol during World War II. He has been described as ‘one of the finest horses I have ever handled… He obeys most of my commands when he is being ridden by word of mouth.’ ”

Rodasr sired just one registered foal, a 1942 filly bred by Dickenson and named Shangi-La. Through her he has a presence in pedigrees.

After producing the two colts for Dickinson, *Roda was sold, apparently in 1938, to L.V.Simons of Allendale, South Carolina. Simons bred her to Agwe (*Mirage x *Hilwe) for her next foals:

-> 1939 grey colt Apollo 1687, by Agwe.

Apollo began his breeding career in South Carolina for Neil Trask. He sired a total of 36 foals.

-> 1940 grey filly Rodetta 1972, by Agwe.

Rodetta accompanied her dam to ownership of Margaret Shuey, for whom she produced the *Raffles fillies Cassandra, Rose Marie, and Julie. Rodetta and her 1948 daughter Julie were sold to Federico Castellanos of Cuba in the fall of 1948. After Joye was weaned, the Shueys trucked Rodetta and Cassandra to Selby’s in Ohio; Cassandra was on her way to R.B.Field, and Mr. Castellanos had Rodetta bred to Image. In August of 1949 Rodetta was trucked to Florida with a stop to pick up Julie. From Florida the horses were flown to Cuba.[4]

-> 1941 g/ch filly Shemma 2150, by Agwe, left no recorded progeny.

-> 1943 grey filly Weda 2734, by Agwe.

From 1951 to 1955 Weda produced four foals for Bob Tarr, then from 1961 to 1966 another four for Jimmie and Thelma Dean.

The year after Weda was born, *Roda was sold to her last owner, Miss Margaret Shuey of Asheville, North Carolina, who later wrote,

“I will always remember that day in June 1944 when my father said I could buy Roda. She was the first Arabian I ever purchased. It was quite a venture for me, but when my father approved I was walking on air. I had wanted her for eight years and so at last my dream came true. At the same time I bought her daughter Rodetta. Roda was in foal to Agwe…”[5]

From that mating she produced:

  • 1945 grey colt Jaspre 3190, by Agwe.
    In May of 1947 the Shueys sold Jaspre to Bob Tarr, who showed him successfully. Late in 1953 or early in 1954 Jaspre moved to Illinois and the ownership of Martin Loeber. In 1961 Loeber sold Jaspre to Dr. and Mrs. Mangels of New York, who advertised him as standing at their Just So Farm from 1962 until 1967. Jaspre stood the 1968 season in New Jersey with his last owner, Gail Hoff of Princeton Arabians. He died December 16, 1968. Jaspre sired 64 registered get.

For her next foal, *Roda went to the Selby Stud in Ohio for breeding to *Raffles. Over the next three years, three foals were born from this cross:

  • 1946 grey colt Tut Ankh Amen 3830, by *Raffles.

    The Shueys sold this young stallion to Mrs. Morrill of the Bear Claw Ranch in Wyoming late in 1950. He left one 1951 foal in North Carolina. Tut Ankh Amen became a key sire for Mrs Morrill. After several foal crops she sold him to R-Farm of Buckley, Washington; the horse moved to his new home in May of 1958. Tut Ankh Amen sired 103 registered foals, the last born in 1965.

  • 1947 grey filly Star of Egypt 4167, by *Raffles.

    From 1951 to 1969 Star of Egypt produced 15 foals, all bred by Margaret Shuey. They include one by Image (Pamela), four by Ibn Hanad (Egypt, Sunny Acres Misty, Sunny Acres Prometheus, and Sunny Acres Cherie), and one by Shalimar Teke (Sunny Acres Easter Star).

  • 1948 grey filly Joye 4803, by *Raffles.

    Joye was the dam of nine registered foals born from 1953 to 1967, all bred by Miss Shuey. They include the Ibn Hanad daughters Sunny Acres Papaya and Sunny Acres Lovejoye, as well as the Sunny Acres Aeneas daughter Sunny Acres Genevieve.

The Arabian Horse News reported that *Roda was bred to Image for a 1950 foal.[6] No foal was registered; Margaret Shuey wrote that *Roda was

“barren for a number of years after a bout with enteritis,”[5]

but finally produced:

-> 1954 chestnut filly Sunny Acres Katydid 9142 by Ibn Hanad.

From 1959 to 1963 Katydid produced four foals for Miss Shuey, including Sunny Acres Gigi (by Rapture). Katydid’s last foal, born 1964, was bred by R.W. and L.A. Van Hoose.

-> 1955 bay filly Sunny Acres Fantasy 9886, by Ibn Hanad.

Fantasy was the dam of six foals for Margaret Shuey, born from 1959 to 1967. They include the Rapture son Sunny Acres Tarzan, and three fillies by Sunny Acres Darius.

*Roda spent the rest of her days at Sunny Acres and died in 1960. To quote Miss Shuey once more,

“She became ill on the afternoon of April 13 and by 9:00 p.m. on April 14 she was gone. She had an impaction, with which we were making progress when her old heart gave out. It was a shock even though she had just passed her twenty-ninth birthday in March because she had come through our rough winter looking better than she had for the last three years. There will never be another Roda. How she will be missed. One thing helps, she was happy here… Roda meant a lot to me.”[5]

Additional sources:

Arabian Horse News, September 1958, p. 34.

Arabian Horse News, April 1969, p. 73.

notes of Alice Payne in margins of books and on backs of photos.

notes of Margaret Shuey on backs of photos sent to Alice Payne.

“Hallany Mistanny,” by Robert E. Doherty Jr., repr. Arabiana.

  1. [1]Jack Humphrey to W.R.Brown, quoted in Carol Lyons, “Egypt 1932,” Arabian Horse News, December 1973.↩
  2. [2]Arabian Horse News, May 1952, p. 7.↩
  3. [3]“Remembers *Roda,” Arabian Horse News, July 1960, p. 11↩
  4. [4]Arabian Horse News, February 1950, p. 11.↩
  5. [5]“Green Pastures,” Arabian Horse News, March-Apr-May 1960, p. 40.↩
  6. [6]Arabian Horse News, February 1950, p. 16.↩

Fortunate Outcross: *Azja IV

Fortunate Outcross: *Azja IV

Copyright 1992 by R.J.CADRANELL

(champion research and statistics by Arlene Magid)

from Arabian Visions October 1992

Used by permission of RJCadranell

Though her most famous son, living legend Azraff, as well as through her other foals, *Azja IV has bred on phenomenally well. *Azja IV has national winners tracing to her through all her progeny. She has countless thousands of descendants. Who was this uniquely bred mare, an outcross to virtually all of the Arabian horses in America at the time of her importation?

Arabian stud book registration number 1543 for *Azja IV provide a starting point, *Azja IV was a bay mare bred in Poland at the Bezmiechowa Stud of J. Czerkawski. Foaled in 1935, she was imported to the United States at the age of three by Henry B. Babson of Illinois. Also in this importation were *Kostrzewa, *Kasztelanka (granddam of Fadjur), *Rybitwa, and the stallion *Sulejman. The in-utero imports *Zewa and *Warsaw were born in 1939, the year Hitler’s invasion of Poland altered history and Polish Arabian horse breeding forever.

Looking Back

Although *Azja IV was bred in Poland, her parents were not. Her sire Landsknecht was the product of more than a century of Arabian breeding at Germany’s Weil Stud, founded in 1817 by King Wilhelm I (d. 1864) of Wurttemberg. Imported to Poland in 1928, Landsknecht had a successful race career, and was used for purebred breeding in Poland from 1933 to 1945.

Landsknecht’s dam, Soldateska, was from the Murana I mare line, one of the oldest in the breed. Soldateska is said to have been ridden as a cavalry horse in World War I, after which she became a Weil broodmare, and later a cornerstone of Marbach breeding when the Weil stock was transferred to Marbach in 1932. Soldateska died in 1935. Her sire Souakim was an in-utero import to Europe, his dam Smyrna having been purchased in foal in Damascus. Soldateska’s dam Sylphide I was a daughter of Amurath 1881, probably the most influential sire bred at 19th century Weil. After standing at Weil he went to the Austro-Hungarian state stud of Radautz (now in Romania) in 1895 and sired 315 foals, both purebred and partbred Arabian. His get are found in Arabian, Shagya, and various European Warmblood pedigrees the world over. Through foundation stock obtained from Radautz, Amurath blood has been part of Polish state Arabian breeding since the end of World War I. Sylphide I’s grandsire Djerid had been imported to Germany from Egypt in 1876 as a gift during the time of King Karl, son of King Wilhelm I. The rest of Sylphide I’s pedigree represents the lines of original Arabians imported to Weil from 1817 to 1861 during the time of King Wilhelm I, with the addition of Mehemed Ali, bred at Babolna in Hungary and added during the time of King Karl. Soldateska is the female line ancestor of Plum Grove Farm foundation mare *Sanacht, granddam of 1978 U.S. National Champion Stallion Amurath Bandolero.

Landsknecht’s sire Koheilan IV was bred at Babolna and stood at stud there as a senior stallion. After World War I, Weil and Babolna found themselves lacking stallions they could use on their mare bands without inbreeding too closely, so an exchange was arranged in 1924 or 25. Princess Pauline zu Wied of Weil sent a stallion named Sven Hedin to Babolna, where he was renamed Kemir (Arabic for “hope”) and bred to daughters and granddaughters of Koheilan IV. In return Babolna sent the old stallion Koheilan IV to Weil, where he covered mares closely related to Sven Hedin, including Sven Hedin’s younger full sister Soldateska.

Koheilan IV was the result of nearly a century’s Arabian breeding at Babolna. His grandsires Koheilan Adjuze and O’Bajan had both been imported to Hungary from the desert in 1885. Through Koheilan IV’s son Koheilan VIII (Koheilan I in PASB), this sire line is prominent in both Russian breeding carried on at Tersk and Polish breeding.

*Azja IV’s dam Asra was bred at Prince Odescalshi’s stud Inocenzdvor in Yugoslavia near Ilok. Prince Odescalchi was from Poland’s Branick family, and inherited the family interest in Arabian horse breeding. The stallion 436 Gazal-1, used at Inocenzdvor, had been bred at the government stud in Bosnia. Both of his parents were desert bred horses imported from Syria. Adshwa was probably also bred at Inocenzdvor. Her sire Siglavy Bagdady-11 was bred at Babolna and stood at Inocenzdvor. Siglavy Bagdady and 219 Aida had been imported from the desert in 1902.

More than one foundation horses for Inocenzdvor came from Baron Pfeiffer’s stud of Visnjevci, also in Yugoslavia. Baron Pfeiffer went twice to Weil for his foundation stock. Among his Weil-bred horses was a son of Amurath 1881 known as Amurath 1892 or Amurath “Dukaten.”

Britta Fahlgren’s The Arabian Horse Families of Poland presents a pedigree for *Azja IV’s sixth dam Dyra going back another seven generations. It is stated that Dyra was bred by Baron von Nizshwitz at Konigsfeld in Saxony from parents bred at Weil.

Asra was imported to Poland in 1930. She produced five foals in Poland, and was lost during World War II. Her only line of descent is through *Azja IV.

Looking Forward

Arriving in America in 1938, *Azja IV was covered during the 1939 season and produced her first foal at the Babson Farm in 1940. This was a grey filly named Bint Azja, by Babson’s Egyptian import *Fadl. Following this *Azja IV is said to have become a problem breeder, going some years without another registered foal. The Babson Farm finally sold her as a riding mare to Walter W. Ross of Kansas City, Missouri, along with her daughter Bint Azja. Walter Ross was a friend of Daniel C. Gainey, in whose breeding program the blood of *Azja IV would one day play a significant role.

*Azja IV became a favorite riding mare for Ross’s son Jack. At some point in her life *Azja IV sustained a serious knee injury. Whether from race training in Poland or being jumped in the U.S. is not known.

In 1947 Walter Ross took *Azja IV to the Selby Stud in Ohio for breeding. He wanted to breed her to the famous Selby import *Raffles, bred at the Crabbet Stud in England. Ross found out *Raffles’s book was full. Instead *Azja IV went to his half brother Image, with a breeding to *Raffles to follow the year after. On June 1, 1948, *Azja IV had a bay colt named Miraz, born at Selby’s. After foaling Miraz, *Azja IV was bred to *Raffles.

Toward the end of May in 1949, Marj Boyt of Iowa called her friends Joe and Garth Buchanan to discuss an Arabian mare for sale, stabled with some horse dealers named Butler and Bond near Lincoln, Nebraska. Her name was *Azja IV. The Boyts were concerned she was priced too high for a 14-year-old mare with traumatized front legs, despite being in foal to *Raffles, and asked Garth’s advice about buying her. “If you don’t, I will,” Garth replied, having seen and admired *Azja IV at Selby’s.

Garth and Joe together with Marj went to Nebraska to get *Azja IV over the Memorial Day weekend. *Azja IV was past her foaling date, and Joe remembers being told the mare could foal at any time. “like maybe right now.” Garth and Marj made him stop “what seemed like every ten miles” to check on her. The trip was completed without incident, and Azraff was not born until June 4. As soon as Azraff was born the Boyts called Garth, who went down to see him that day. She admired him from the beginning. Azraff’s first registered foals were born in 1953 and 1954, and bred by the Boyts. His first registered foals with Garth Buchanan listed as breeder were born in 1955. Several years later when the Boyts retired and moved, Garth got her choice of their horses, and was able to acquire Azraff.

*Azja IV produced three more foals for Mr. and Mrs. Boyt, the last of which was born in 1954. *Azja IV was put down about two years later because of arthritis in her front legs.

Production record of *Azja IV: 3/3/1940 gr. f. Bint Azja 1897, by *Fadl (Ibn Rabdan x Hahroussa) 6/1/1948 b.c. Miraz 4949, by Image (*Mirage x *Rifala) 6/4/1949 gr. c. Azraff 5596, by *Raffles (Skowronek x *Rifala) 6/10/1952 b. c. Razja 8075, by Ramage (Image x Rafina) 6/13/1953 gr. f. Arachne 8620, by Desmoin (Image x Rafina) 6/29/1954 gr. C. Bagdad 9573, by Desmoin

To look at her, “*Azja IV was obviously a well bred mare.” Garth Buchanan says. She remembers *Azja IV as having a level croup and a lovely neck and withers. Her head was different in type and not “fancy,” being a little longer and with a straighter profile, but she had huge eyes and fine skin and coat. The lower part of her face was almost bare of hair in the summer. Garth Buchanan mentions that Dan Gainey knew and admired *Azja IV too. According to Garth, Dan Gainey said she was a quality mare and an excellent ride.

As a breeding influence through Azraff, *Azja IV has provided good length and fine shape of neck, good shoulder and withers, and a short back. Azraff is one of the key components of the Azraff-Ferzon cross. When asked about how the cross came about, Garth Buchanan replies that she first thought of using Ferzon blood in her program when she saw a picture of Ferzon as a foal. She wrote to Ferzon’s breeder, Frank McCoy, but at that time the horse was not for sale. It was later, when Ferzon was under the ownership of Dan Gainey in Minnesota, that the lines were crossed. Dan Gainey and Garth Buchanan, whose farms were only about 150 miles apart, were able to establish a good relationship. The blood that was exchanged was to the benefit of both and many breeders who have followed. Jimmie Dean, longtime manager of the Selby Stud and friend and mentor to both Dan Gainey and Garth Buchanan, also deserves credit for the continued development of the Azraff-Ferzon breeding stock.

Azraff became the top-siring *Raffles son, with 87 champions and 23 national winners including U.S.National Champion Stallion Galizon and Canadian National Champion Stallion and Reserve National Champion Western Pleasure Comar Bay Beau. Azraff has 41 get which have produced national winners. These Azraff grandget include U.S. National Champpion Mare Jon San Judizon and U.S. National Champion Stallion Gai Parada.

Of *Azja IV’s other foals, Bint Azja’s son Jasul (by *Sulejman) sired 1980 Canadian Top Ten Formal Driving Horse Jaskom. Miraz, himself a halter champion, is the grandsire of Doraza, one of the breed’s all-time leading broodmares with nine champions. Razja, through his daughter Azja, is the grandsire of U.S.Top Ten Native Costume Twin Brook Azlad.

Bagdad is a sire of champions, and his daughters have produced national winners in halter and park. He is the maternal grandsire of Taffona, dam of U.S.Reserve National Champion Futurity Stallion and U.S.Resere National Champion English Pleasure Huckleberry Bey. Arachne is the dam of four champions. Two of her daughters, Galicassatt and Gai Gay Ferzona, have produced national winners.

References

Other articles with information on *Azja IV include:

“Azraff,” by Dixie Ryan, Arabian Horse World, November 1977, p. 228.

“Azraff, the Pedigree and Record of a Self-Made Man,” by Sarah A. Wax, and “Comar Arabians, the Garth Buchanan Story.” by Anne Brown, both in September 1983 Arabian Horse World.

“Walter W. Ross, A Man of Devotion,” by Sandy Rolland, Arabian Visions, April 1992, p. 40.

  Web cmkarabians.com

Excerpts from Points of the Horse (Asiatic and North African Horses)

Excerpted from: POINTS OF THE HORSE

Chapter XXXII, Asiatic and North African Horses

by Captain M. Horace Hayes, London, 1897

From The Khamsat Vol 5, Num 4, Oct. 1988

We learn from General Tweedie that although Arabs pay great attention to preserving purity of blood in their horses, they have no written pedigrees of their animals, because they are illiterate. They apply the general term, Kuhailan, to their pure-bred horses in a manner somewhat similar to our use of the word “thorough-bred.” We read in The Arabian Horse, that the parent trunk of Kuhailan, has produced four great branches (Saklavi, U’baiyan, Hamdani, and Hadban); and that they, and it, are known in Arabic as al Khamsa (The Five).

Palgrave (Encyclopedia Britannica) tries to make out that pure-bred Najdi horses are not exported. Tweedie shows that this idea is entirely wrong, and that a large trade is done with India via Kuwait (Grane). As the Najdi Arabs ride only mares, they are naturally glad to get rid of their surplus entires at a remunerative price. Although they have a strong prejudice against selling mares for export, liberal payment enables them to occasionally overcome that feeling. Experienced Arab dealers whose friendship I have enjoyed, have often assured me that many of the best and highest caste horses bred in the Desert are to be found among the Arabs sent to India for racing…

“We do not know of an easier method by which a European might see and buy Najdi horses prior to export than by stationing himself from June to September in the well-oasis of Barjasia, a three day’s journey out of Kuwait. He would then be on the caravan route which leads from Najd to the sea coast.” (Tweedie).

The port of Kuwait is about 150 miles south of Bussorah.

Palgrave (Narrative of a Year’s Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia), Skene (Sporting Review, March, 1864) and others have insisted that there is

“blood and stride in the desert which has never been seen out of it” (Skene).

“Not only do all the facts refute the argument that Arabia contains better colts than those which she distributes, but they go further. They show that every desert of which we have any knowledge is so extensively stripped of its best blood-horses, that not many likely colts of from three and five years old remain in the hands of their breeders. If England possesses too many stud-horses, Arabia retains too few. One may visit a considerable encampment of the Aeniza and see no unweaned colts, except a few reserved ones and those which dealers will not buy. The stock which these people always have with them chiefly consists of well-tried mares, aged stallions and the rising fillies.” (Tweedie)

My friend, the late Esa Bin Curtas, who was a large importer of Arab horses into Bombay, always maintained that the best Arabs did not, as a rule, exceed 14.1 to 14.2 in height. From an all-round point of view, this opinion is undoubtedly correct, especially with regard to the true Sons of the Desert, the Najdi Arabians… Judging by the Indian racing records of the past sixty years, the balance of galloping excellence is a little in favour of big Arabs (those over 14.3)… Yet during the respective times when Anarchy, Chieftain, Shere Ali, and Turkish Flag raced in India, there were no faster Arabs than those brilliant 14 handers. Consequently, I see no advantage in an Arab being over 14.1. The more an Arab exceeds, say 14.2 in height, the more inclined is he to be long in the legs, light in the loins, and flat-sided. We may infer from the foregoing remarks, that the typical Arab is, according to our Western acceptation of the term, a pony.

  Web cmkarabians.com

What’s In A Name? Counting Doves a Century After They Hatch (part 2)

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series What's In A Name?

Copyright © 1998 by Michael Bowling
(with particular thanks to Margaret Dickinson Fleming)
originally published in Arabian Visions Oct 1998
used by permission

(with added photos)

After the early 1930s the BINT YAMAMA horses were universally referred to as of the Kehilan Jellabi strain. In later editions of PASB the strain of KAFIFAN was changed to Kehilan. No hint of a connection between Prince Mohammed Ali’s [BINT] YAMAMA and YEMAMEH, the dam of MESAOUD, was ever suggested, and a substantial tradition grew up that BINT YAMAMA was a daughter of the Sheykh Obeyd YEMAMA, sometimes even to the point of suggesting BINT YAMAMA had been bred at Sheykh Obeyd.

Speculation is fruitless but also inevitable. Perhaps BINT YAMAMA was known to be half-sister to, or from the family of, “Lady Anne Blunt’s horse” and this came to be taken as a reference to one of the Blunts’ several Jellabi horses from Ali Pasha Sherif (besides YEMAMA there were MERZUK, KHATILA, MAKBULA, KERIMA, KASIDA, FEYSUL, JELLABIEH and MANOKTA), rather than to MESAOUD. Possibly the existence of a “BINT YEMAMA” daughter of the Sheykh Obeyd mare had become known in some circles, although access to Lady Anne Blunt’s stud records was strictly limited after her death. That name belongs at Sheykh Obeyd to a bay mare without a grey parent, foaled in 1904, who left Egypt for Greece in 1906; she cannot have had anything to do with a grey mare some 10 years older who appeared in 1908 in the Manial Stud.

Prince Mohammed Ali also commented that [BINT] YAMAMA “was a beautiful mare and produced till her age of 25.” If her last foal was the 1918 colt *NASR—there is no record of a later one—then this implies she was foaled in 1893, the same year as YASHMAK, so they could not have been out of the same dam anyway. If BINT YAMAMA produced a foal after *NASR then she was foaled later than 1893, when the bay YEMAMA was in the possession of the Blunts and her time is fully accounted for. The bay mare had some unnamed colts between YASHMAK and IBN YEMAMA, but no fillies until the BINT YEMAMA of 1904.

This was where matters stood on the 1986 publication of Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence. Lady Anne’s writings make it clear that she and Prince Mohammed Ali were on visiting terms and she repeatedly listed the mares, with their strains, that he possessed. Not only is no animal of the Kehilan Jellabi strain mentioned, but it is flatly stated that among his best mares is “the Seglawieh Yemama (daughter of the old Yemama, dam of Mesaoud),” and again that her dam was “Yemama owned by the Khedive.” These statements contradict over 50 years of accepted pedigree tradition, but it is worth noting that Lady Anne Blunt’s is the only contemporary reference we have to the matter. Not only was she writing at the time these horses and breeders were living, but she took particular interest in Arabian horses of Ali Pasha Sherif ancestry, in horses related to her own, and in the strains and origins of the horses which her contemporary breeders showed her.

Table: Yemama Bay and Yemameh Grey
Name Color DoB Breeder Produced for
Yemameh gr pre-1880* Ali Pasha Sherif Ali Pasha Sherif, Abbas Hilmi II
Yemama b 1885 Ali Pasha Sherif [?Moharrem Pasha], Lady Anne Blunt
*her first known foal was a full brother to Mesaoud, aged 4 in January 1884

In 1998 it became possible to address this pedigree relationship with the techniques of molecular biology (see Sidebar: The Science). Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) had already been used to reject the hypothesis that the coat color incompatibility in DOMOW’s registered parentage could be explained on the basis of a foal switch in 1913. Sequences from the mtDNA of tail-female descendants of DOMOW matched those of other *WADDUDA descendants, and were different from those of *BUSHRA and *ABEYAH descendants, these being the other dam lines from which fillies were available to be switched with DOMOW.

Addressing this Ali Pasha Sherif question demonstrates how the technique can be applied another 20 years or more back in time. It was possible to compare mtDNA from the three relevant families: direct female line descendants of 1) BINT YAMAMA; 2) BINT HELWA (attributed to the female line of MESAOUD and so of his dam YEMAMEH); and 3) MAKBULA, of Ali Pasha Sherif Jellabi origin (only one source of this family is recorded, the mare known as JELLABIET FEYSUL from Ibn Khalifa of Bahreyn, although the exact interrelationships among the Jellabi horses are not clearly stated).

In short, the mtDNA of the BINT YAMAMA descendants matched that of the BINT HELWA horses, and both were different from the MAKBULA descendants. Based on this testing, the conclusion is that BINT YAMAMA was indeed half-sister to MESAOUD, and not from the dam line which produced MAKBULA.

Postscript: Names and Identities

It is important to remember that the nature and identity of Prince Mohammed Ali’s mare have never changed; she has throughout been the same horse she always was. What has “evolved” over the decades is our knowledge about her.

Both Prince Mohammed Ali and Lady Anne Blunt refer to our subject mare and her dam by the same name, but the export pedigrees uniformly give her as “BINT YAMAMA,” and her dam as “YAMAMA,” a daughter of “WAZIRIEH” or “WAZIREH” from the stud of Abbas Pasha. This YAMAMA now appears to be identical with the dam of MESAOUD, the mare Lady Anne Blunt refers to in her stud records as YEMAMEH.

Since the 1920s YEMAMEH’s dam has been known as BINT GHAZIEH, but it may be that she had what might be called a “personal” name (BINT GHAZIEH is a description, “daughter of Ghazieh,” as much as it is a name, and as with the Banat Nura, might have been a generic term for any mare of the GHAZIEH family). In fact MESAOUD’s second dam’s name may actually have been “WAZIRIEH.”

This could be a reasonable name for a sister to WAZIR, as this mare was; further, this gives a possible origin for the confusing reference in Lady Anne Blunt’s journal to MESAOUD’s dam as sister to WAZIR, which seems improbable on chronological grounds (Peter Upton, personal communication): on a hasty reading, the dam’s name WAZIRIEH might look like a reference to YEMAMEH herself as sister to WAZIR. Unfortunately the relevant page of the document in question apparently has not survived for comparison with the journal entry.

The Science

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) codes for some of the proteins of the mitochondria, the “energy furnaces” responsible for cellular respiration. Mitochondria reside in the cell’s cytoplasm, not in its nucleus, so mtDNA is transmitted independent of chromosomal inheritance. In the nature of mammalian reproduction, the sperm cell’s mitochondrial contribution is swamped by that of the vastly larger egg cell, and so mtDNA is inherited for practical purposes through the female line, uninfluenced by the sires used over the generations.

A part of the research program at the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory of the University of California at Davis involves the development of techniques for analyzing mtDNA. An advantage of mtDNA testing is that, in sharp contrast to nuclear genes, it can be applied even at many generations’ remove to address questions of maternity, provided direct female line descendants of the animals in question are available. A scientific manuscript surveying the usefulness of mtDNA comparisons for use in Arabian horse parentage testing is in preparation.

The march of science

Since 1998, it’s been shown that there is a specific enzymatic system which eliminates the sperm mitochondria from the developing embryo—the male contribution is not just overwhelmed by the numbers in the egg cytoplasm, as was believed then; there actually is none under normal circumstances. — mb, April 2004

The mtDNA identity of the descendants of BINT HELWA and BINT YAMAMA has one further very interesting direct implication. The pre-stud-book pedigrees of the Ali Pasha Sherif and Abbas Pasha Arabians are properly referred to as traditional beliefs. They are not documented pedigrees as would be the case for horses whose parentage is published in a stud book. It appears that the mtDNA results actually link the descendants of two GHAZIEH daughters: HORRA, second dam of BINT HELWA, and WAZIRIEH or BINT GHAZIEH, second dam of BINT YAMAMA. This strongly implies an actual existence for GHAZIEH and reinforces the reality of at least this particular set of traditional pedigrees.

Scientific papers:

  • Assignment of maternal lineage using mitochondrial nucleic acid sequence in horses, J.A. Gerlach, A.T. Bowling, M. Bowling and R.W. Bull. 1994. Animal Genetics 25: Supplement 2:31.
  • Mitochondrial D-loop DNA sequence variation among Arabian horses, A.T. Bowling, A. Del Valle and M. Bowling. Animal Genetics 2000 Feb;31(1):1-7.
  • Verification of horse maternal lineage using mitochondrial DNA sequence, A.T. Bowling, A. Del Valle and M. Bowling. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics, 115 (1998), 351-355.

Sources:

  • Unpublished pedigrees and other documents from the files of Traveler’s Rest Farm, courtesy Margaret Dickinson Fleming
  • The General Stud Book
  • The Polish Arabian Stud Book
  • The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt, Colin Pearson with Kees Mol
  • “The Banat Nura of Ali Pasha Sherif,” Robert J. Cadranell II (The CMK Record XI/2)
  • Egypt and Cromer, Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid
  • Journals and Correspondence 1878-1917, Lady Anne Blunt, edited by Rosemary Archer and James Fleming
  • My Diaries, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
  • Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

What’s In A Name? Counting Doves a Century After They Hatch (part 1)

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series What's In A Name?

Copyright © 1998 By Michael Bowling
(with particular thanks to Margaret Dickinson Fleming)
originally published in Arabian Visions Oct 1998, used by permission

(with added photos)

Names in 19th-century Egypt do not appear to have been the hard-edged entities we would like them to be; Ali Pasha Sherif himself first comes to our attention, buying horses at the auction put on by the heirs of Abbas Pasha, as “Ali Bey.” Who would realize at first glance that “Ibn Yemameh al-Saghir” on Ali Pasha’s own 1889 sales list is the same horse as the great Blunt sire MESAOUD?

(Bint) Yamama with Negma
*Nasr 1918 AHC 889 (Rabdan El Azrak x Bint Yamama)
Negma at age 32 (Dahman x Bint Yamama)
Jasir 1925 (Mabrouk Manial x Negma)
*Aziza 1926 (Jamil x Negma)
Khafifan 1916 (Mabrouk Manial x Negma) Imp. to Poland 1924 by Count Potocki
Mahroussa ca. 1920 (Mabrouk Manial x Negma)
*H.H.Mohamed Ali’s Hamama 1927 AHC 887 (Kawkab x Mahroussa)
*H.H.Mohamed Ali’s Hamida 1929 AHC 890 (*Nasr AHC 889 x Mahroussa)
Julep AHC 1678 (Gulastra x *Aziza)
Azkar 1938 AHC 1109 (Rahas x *Aziza)
*Zarife 1928 AHC 885 (Ibn Samhan x Mahroussa
*Fadl 1930 AHC 896 (Ibn Rabdan x Mahroussa)
*Maaroufa 1931 AHC 895 (Ibn Rabdan x Mahroussa)
Rodasr 1938 AHC 1591 (*Nasr x *Roda)

Not only did the same horse (or person) appear under different names, the same or very similar names could be used for different horses. Different names may be spelled similarly, or the same name may be Westernized differently; the potential for spelling differences of transliterated Arabic names is almost infinite. The convention used varies not only with the native language of the writer but with the scholarly tradition to which s/he subscribed, and with the brand of Arabic native to the speaker or writer being transcribed (Susan K. Blair, personal communication).

Arabian mares appear to have suffered from a particular lack of nomenclatural precision. The same name might routinely be used for several generations of a dam line, or for a set of full and half sisters, or indeed for mares even more nebulously connected (cf Cadranell, “The Banat Nura of Ali Pasha Sherif“). How many mares named with some variation on “Yamama”—”Dove”—actually lived in Egypt in the 1890s? There were at least two.

The Khedive Abbas Hilmi II was 17 years old and at school in Vienna when he succeeded his father Khedive Tewfik as ruler of Egypt in 1892. The story of Abbas Hilmi II and his relationship to British colonial power is a sufficiently complex subject to qualify in its own right as a historical specialty, but the last Khedive also figures in Arabian breed history. On his return to Egypt to take up the position of ruler of that country, he began to breed Arabian horses, in the tradition of his great-grandfather Abbas Pasha I. One of his first acquisitions, the Ali Pasha Sherif mare YEMAMEH, had already produced the Blunt sire MESAOUD. Wilfrid Blunt in his diary mentions that on 11 January, 1896 he “[t]ook Anne and Judith to Koubbah to see the Khedive. He… showed us his stud. He has got together some nice mares, but nothing quite first class, except two of Ali Pasha Sherif’s, one of which is our horse Mesaoud’s dam, a very splendid mare, with the finest head in the world. He has bred some promising colts and altogether the thing is well done.”

Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt also bought a mare named YEMAMA in 1892. According to the original GSB registration for her son IBN YEMAMA, she was “stated to be an Abeyah, a bay mare brought from a desert tribe, through a Tiaha sheykh, to Mohammed Thabit, Sheykh of the Sualha tribe, in the Sherkieh Province, for Ali Bey Shahin, son of Shahin Pasha, and purchased from Ali Bey Shahin.” YEMAMA produced at Sheykh Obeyd from 1893 through 1904, taking time off for adventure in 1897—she served as Wilfrid Blunt’s mount on his eventful last desert journey. YEMAMA’s named offspring at Sheykh Obeyd were the grey 1893 mare YASHMAK by *SHAHWAN, and the 1902 and 1904 bay full siblings IBN YEMAMA and BINT YEMAMA by FEYSUL. YEMAMA was given away in 1906, aged 21; her only link to modern pedigrees is through her grandson IBN YASHMAK, taken to England in 1904 and returned to Egypt in 1920.

In a 1907 journal entry Lady Anne Blunt records a visit from Moharrem Pasha and a discussion regarding YEMAMA, “that bay mare Moharrem Pasha sold to us—to which the Pasha replied ‘O! that mare, the Jellabieh I had from Ali [Pasha] Sherif!” Later in the same entry “Ghania’s long tale about Yemama having passed through several hands on her way from the desert is all a fabrication!!!” This reads as though Ghania had been Moharrem Pasha’s agent in the 1892 sale of YEMAMA. The answers to other questions that come to mind (eg, how Ali Bey Shahin comes into the story, and why Moharrem Pasha is not mentioned in the mare’s GSB provenance) are not clear at this time.

Abbas Hilmi II was deposed by the British in 1914 and from that time lived in exile and never returned to Egypt. Most Arabian horse enthusiasts today are probably more familiar with the name of the last Khedive’s younger brother. Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfik continued to breed Arabians at his Manial Stud in Cairo for nearly 20 years after Abbas Hilmi went into exile. The Manial Stud provided foundation stock to the Royal Agricultural Society, to the Inshass Stud of the Prince’s cousin King Farouk, and to breeders in Poland, Germany and the U.S. The Prince’s name is enshrined in our stud book as a prefix to two of the mares he sold to W.R. Brown. HAMAMA 418 and *HAMIDA 509 already were registered, so the two Egyptian imports with the same names became *H. H. Mohammed Ali’s HAMAMA 887 and *H. H. Mohammed Ali’s HAMIDA 889.

Prince Mohammed Ali’s most esteemed line of horses was founded by the grey BINT YAMAMA, bred by his brother. In a 1933 letter to General J.M. Dickinson of the famed Traveler’s Rest Farm in Tennessee, the Prince wrote that he had exchanged a black gift stallion from Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Turkey, plus 200 pounds, “to get [Bint] Yamama, wich [sic] was in the possession of one of my brother’s people.”

This exchange can be roughly dated to 1908; Lady Anne Blunt’s published Journals and Correspondence record that she saw the black stallion from the Sultan in December of 1907, while a year later a daughter of YEMAMA [sic] is among “the principal mares.” The same mare is mentioned in similar terms again in January of 1911; in February 1912 she is accounted the second best of the mares, and parenthetically “the dam Yemama owned by the Khedive is dead.”

Ten Manial Arabians of BINT YAMAMA’s descent in the direct female line were used for breeding in Poland, in Germany and in this country (imported by W. R. Brown and Henry Babson). This breeding element is a widely influential one in international pedigrees; to pick a few names at random, KONTIKI, BEN RABBA, KHEMOSABI and many horses of the Al-Marah and Shalimar programs carry this Manial breeding. It is behind the majority of horses bred from Germany’s Weil-Marbach lines. There is also a strong tradition of breeding straight Egyptian Arabians carrying more or less of BINT YAMAMA’s influence (see Sidebar: The BINT YAMAMA Influence Summarized).

General Dickinson, on buying four of the Manial Arabians imported by W. R. Brown, had noticed a discrepancy in their strain designations, compared to that of KAFIFAN, a stallion from the same family which Prince Mohammed Ali had sold to Count Potocki of Poland in 1924. The Brown imports were given as Jellabi or Kehilan Jellabi; KAFIFAN, in the original (first edition) Polish Arabian Stud Book (PASB), was registered of the strain “Saklawi Djedran.” General Dickinson later bought from Poland the KAFIFAN daughter *MATTARIA, and in the summary of her ancestry supplied by the Polish registration authorities (the source would have been the records of the Potocki family) KAFIFAN also appears as “of the Saklawi family.”

Asked to comment on this apparent contradiction, Prince Mohammed Ali stated, not that PASB was in error on the strain of KAFIFAN, but that “[t]he Kehilan-Jellabi are descending from the Seglawi-Jedran.” This is a somewhat ambiguous statement; an Arabian horse of any strain may “descend” from horses of any other strain if they are not in its direct female line. If this statement refers to the strain-determining dam line, it runs counter to the conventional descriptions of strain evolution, in which the other strains are said to arise from, and originally to be named as substrains of, the Kehilan Ajuz. Furthermore, strain designations are not expected to change in this way over the course of a few years (from 1924 to 1932) and outside the tribal breeding system.

Prince Mohammed Ali puts more emphasis on the fact that BINT YAMAMA “is a descendant of the stables of Ali Pasha Sherif, who bought his horses from my grandfather Prince Ilhami, son of Abbas Pasha I… the strain of these horses is in our family since 80 years…” It may not be reading too much into this to suggest the Prince is telling General Dickinson that, whatever their strain name, the origin of this family is unimpeachable. On the record which survives, Lady Anne Blunt’s efforts to record precise pedigree relationships among her Arabians of Ali Pasha Sherif origins may have been the exception rather than the rule. More often her contemporaries appear to have accepted a horse of named strain, “of Ali Pasha Sherif” or “from the stud of Ali Pasha Sherif,” as sufficient, and indeed unsurpassable, provenance.

The Prince added in the same letter that the stud records of his brother Abbas Hilmi II had been confiscated at the time the latter went into exile. While these records may well languish yet in some British archive, there has to date been no suggestion that they were ever recovered. If Prince Mohammed Ali changed his mind about the strain designation of this line of horses, his decision clearly was not based on information from his brother’s stud records. Still less can any subsequent ideas about the BINT YAMAMA pedigree have been based on the relevant stud records.

Preservation and Improvement

Breeders can have both in their programs

by Michael Bowling, Copyright © 1997

from Arabian Visions magazine Sept/Oct 1997

used by permission of Michael Bowling

I sometimes wish we had waited a bit longer in the preservation breeding community and used the terminology which has been developed by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy: ALBC refers to conserving breeds or genetic stocks, while they limit preservation to technological innovations such as cryopreservation of gametes and embryos. This might be a little easier to understand in terms of everyday language. It’s too late to change now that “preservation breeding” is an accepted term, though it’s still useful to remember that distinction: frozen semen preserves genetic contributions from individual sires. Breeding from their descendants does not constrain the individual ancestors’ genetic representation in the same way.

ALBC also distinguishes groups which have been subject to selection in the past from those (land races and feral stocks) whose value is precisely that they have not been influenced by much if any human control over breeding. Animals in the latter class have had a chance to retain ancient genes for things like prolificacy, or resistance to weather, diseases, and parasites, and should continue to be bred with as little selective pressure as possible for visual or production traits. Some maintain that, in order to allow natural selection to operate, such stocks should also be raised without worming, immunizations, foot care, and the like.

The modern “straight desert” programs, with which I am familiar only in the most general terms, may define an Arabian preservation movement which is very close to the land race model–in theory, and I daresay largely in practice, their foundation stock was at least close to horses which had been selected primarily for survival under desert conditions, not in terms of any show ring visual standard.

Most of us are working in traditions which have been highly selected in the past; what we are preserving is, as much as anything, a set of minority views of what the Arabian horse is about. This is quite in keeping with the relevant population genetics theory as it’s very well presented by ALBC [see A Conservation Breeding Handbook, reviewed in the January-February 1996 Arabian Visions]: the goal is to maintain selection as nearly as possible to the same standards employed by the historical breeders of each tradition. Most of the people I know and work with (I realize there are other people active in other preservation contexts who may see things differently) are acutely aware that, in a narrow breeding group, we run the risk of having difficulty in breeding away from faults of conformation, type, or disposition. We are just as acutely aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each individual as we are of the distinctive character which sets our animals off from the breed at large.

As to the notion sometimes encountered that preservation breeding is not compatible with selection for improvement or with breeding “quality horses,” I think there are two separate ideas here: we want to improve our individual animals, in the sense of breeding to combine more of the best features of our kind of horse in each individual. What we do not subscribe to is the conventional notion that one can “improve the breed,” which seems to mean, in practice, “make it look more like some other breed.” Most of us are breeding within specific pedigree limits precisely because in our experience they turn out specific kinds of good Arabian horses.

The “Mares at Grass:” A Photo of *Raseyn’s Second Dam

Copyright 1990 by MICHAEL BOWLING

used by permission of Michael Bowling

published in Arabian Visions Oct 1990

(left to right) RIADA, ROSE OF HIND, KIBLA, RISALA and KASIDA at Crabbet in 1913. (Photo from the Brown collection, courtesy Arabian Horse Owners’ Foundation.)

Those of us who study the historical Arabians are always looking to expand the range of knowledge: for foundation stock there’s documentation of origin to pursue; one always hopes they and their progeny might have been the subject of a contemporary photograph or written comment which has been preserved. Some of us particularly value photos as an aid to making the old horses more “real,” even though we are well aware that interpreting such photos may be fraught with danger. As frustrating a situation as we can find ourselves in, is having an old photo of Arabian horses in which individuals are not identified. Fortunately, when a photo’s provenance is clearly established, there are sources of information with which to compare its images.

There are many such photos to work with, within the Crabbet canon alone; this discussion will center on one which Lady Wentworth used on page 27 of her 1924 Crabbet Stud Catalogue, and captioned, “Mares at Grass.” As luck would have it, there is an original Rouch print of this photo in the Brown collection at the Arabian Horse Owner’s Foundation, presumably one of the items W.R. Brown recieved from Spencer Borden when he bought out Borden’s Interlachen Stud. The Brown print is labeled “Arab mares at Crabbet – 1913” in what appears to be Lady Anne Blunt’s handwriting: Spencer Borden corresponded extensively with Lady Anne. This original print is of course much clearer and sharper than the reproduction in the Catalogue. The photo, which accompanies this article, shows five mares without foals; one group of four is in the foreground, two of them facing the camera and two looking away; a fifth is some distance behind them to the right.

One obvious resource for identifying horses in old photos, is to ask someone who might have been there at the time. I had the good fortune to be present nearly 13 years ago, when the late Lady Anne Lytton identified the foreground mares as Riada, Rose of Hind, Kibla and Risala. Either Lady Anne did not identify the mare on the right, or I did not remember the identification long enough to make a note of it.

The mares are in slick coat and at least four of them are in high condition; they are swishing flies, the trees are in full leaf and the pasture fairly short, all suggesting mid to late summer as the time the photo was taken. The foreground mares all appear to be in the prime of life, while the mare at the right is down in the back, has a big left knee and, under magnification, shows possible scars on her left cheek and point of hip. The mark on the cheek is ambiguous and may be a flaw in the negative, though it seems a lot to ask that such a flaw should accidentally fall in this position.

This photo clearly seems to show a group of dry mares on pasture in the summer of 1913; none of the mares named by Lady Anne Lytton has a 1913 foal in The General Stud Book (GSB). Known photos of Rose of Hind and Risala are consistent with the markings visible on the two mares facing away from the camera, and this pose of head and neck seems to be characteristic of Risala in other pictures. It is more difficult to be certain about a grey mare; Balis, Belkis and Bukra all were Crabbet (as opposed to Newbuildings) mares of the appropriate vintage, and all were barren in 1913. As a first approximation, I see no reason not to think Lady Anne had it right, and a photo of Kibla as a yearling seems consistent with this judgement, in terms of the general shape of her face and the distinctive cut of her nostrils.

The most interesting identification, from a historical standpoint, is that of the mare on the left as Riada. That 1904 brown daughter of Mesaoud and Rosemary had been Lady Anne Lytton’s favorite riding horse as a girl at Crabbet; the mare died of twisted gut in 1920 at age 16, and bred on into modern pedigrees through just one offspring, but that was Rayya by Rustem. Riada, in other words, was second dam of the internationally influential Kellogg sire *Raseyn, and this is her only known photo. Lady Anne certainly should have been able to recognize her favorite mare; if any confirmation be needed, Riada’s markings as recorded in Lady Anne Blunt’s manuscript studbook are, “near fore foot, narrow blaze like prolonged star, & spot between nostrils.” That fits this dark mare to a “T.”

That leaves the mare in the background. Comparing the original print with the version in the Catalogue suggests that, for publication, Lady Wentworth retouched the scarred cheek to show a white marking running up from under the mare’s chin. This apparent marking confuses the issue, as it calls to mind the distinctive face marking of Amida, and suggests that this mare might have been her dam Ajramieh, described by Lady Anne Blunt as having a “blaze all over muzzle.” Ajramieh would have been at Newbuildings in 1913 (this was during the partition phase of the Crabbet story), and furthermore possessed leg markings which should have been visible here. Peter Upton recently published a photo of Ajramieh (Arab Horse Society News. Winter 1989), which shows a different mare from this one, and confirms her leg markings.

I listed the Crabbet Stud’s producing mares in GSB between 1906-1916, just to get a base to start from; GSB does not distinguish between Crabbet and Newbuildings, but one can judge which half a mare was in by the sires to which she was bred. One way and another (the other candidates died, were sold, or disappeared from GSB before 1913; or their known markings don’t fit), the choices narrowed down to Abla, Betina, Kantara, Kasida, and Rahma. Abla, Kantara and Kasida all qualify on markings; the other two I can’t find markings on. All but one of these were producing to Newbuildings sires around this time, so were unlikely to have been photographed at Crabbet. Betina and Rahma were a generation or so younger than the rest of our group; Kantara and Abla would have been 12 and 14 in 1913, which would have made them roughly the same age as Kibla and Risala, while our subject is clearly an older mare. Further, Kantara has a 1913 foal in GSB, so would not have been running out with the dry mares even if she had been at Crabbet.

Kasida was definitely a Crabbet mare, and in fact was one of Lady Anne Blunt’s personal favorites. She would have been 20 when photographed here, and according to Peter Upton (The Arab Horse, p. 147) “aged before her time… was shot September 12, 1913.” There is a look of other Kasida photos in this mare, about the eyes and in the awkward conformation. I sent an enlarged copy photo to the Baker Street Irregular, R. J. Cadranell, who pointed out the “pale mane” referred to in Kasida’s published description and visible in her other photos. Based on this and other resemblances to known Kasida photos, and on his reconstruction of Crabbet history, he wrote “I’ve convinced myself that the mare in the photo you sent could not be other then Kasida.”

Thus it is possible, by combining sources, to go from “Mares at Grass” to a photographic record of Riada (Mesaoud x Rosemary), age 9; Rose of Hind (Rejeb x Rose Diamond), age 11; Kibla (Mesaoud x Makbula II) and Risala (Mesaoud x Ridaa), both 13; and Kasida (Nasr I x Makbula II), age 20. All five of these mares are widely represented in modern pedigrees and their photo should be of great interest to many students of the breed.

Sources:

  1. Crabbet Stud Catalogue, 1924.
  2. W.R.Brown photo collection, in possession of the Arabian Horse Owners’ Foundation
  3. Personal communication from Lady Anne Lytton, daughter of Lady Wentworth, and granddaughter of Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt.
  4. Notes from Lady Anne Blunt’s manuscript studbook.
  5. Breeding records published in The General Stud Book (GSB)
  6. “‘Worth a King’s Ransom’ — Queen of Sheba,” by Peter Upton (Arab Horse Society News No. 73, Winter 1989).
  7. The Arab Horse, by Peter Upton (Crowood Press 1989).