Tag Archives: Blunt

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).

From the Desert, From the Green: The Imported Arabians of Lewis Payne

From the Desert, From the Green: The Imported Arabians of Lewis Payne

Copyright by R.J.CADRANELL

from Arabian Visions March 1992

Used by permission of RJ Cadranell

Of the Americans who imported Arabians from Crabbet, the name of Payne may not be as familiar as Brown, Kellogg, Selby, or Tankersley. Yet Lewis Payne probably spent more time making his selections, and became better acquainted with the horses and breeders in England, than did practically any other American buyer. In February of 1992 when I visited Lewis Payne in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I found him still at the same address listed for him in the 1966 stud book of the British Arab Horse Society. Also visiting that weekend was his daughter Penny Albright.

Mr. Payne’s first trip to Crabbet was in 1959. At that time Cecil Covey owned the Crabbet Stud. Lady Wentworth had died in 1957, leaving her horses to her former stud manager and tennis coach, Geoffrey Covey. As he had died a short time before she did, the horses passed to his son Cecil.

Mr. Covey was suddenly faced with owning a herd of approximately 75 head, on which he had to pay enormous death duties. Further, the Crabbet property itself had to be vacated; Lady Wentworth had left it to her youngest daughter, Lady Winifrid Tryon. Mr. Covey placed the stallions at Caxtons and the mares at Frogshole Farm, two properties he had inherited along with the horses, but it was imperative he reduce the herd to a manageable size. By the time of Lewis Payne’s 1959 visit, the dust was beginning to settle: large numbers of horses had been sold, and with a pared down herd Mr. Covey was continuing to breed.

Crabbet owned an impressive group of stallions in 1959. Although still photographs were not allowed, Lewis Payne was able to capture on movie film Oran and his sons Grand Royal and *Silver Vanity, as well as Indian Magic, Bright Shadow, and Dargee. Mr. Payne remembers that Indian Magic was considered probably the best ever bred at Crabbet. *Silver Vanity was also thought to be one of the best.

“There are many people who think that Dargee was probably the finest horse that ever walked at Crabbet Stud… he was just a picture horse.” he says. Dargee was bred by George Ruxton from mostly Crabbet lines. Lady Wentworth purchased Dargee as a yearling.

Lewis Payne did not buy any Crabbet horses in 1959. At that time he was still working for Aramco, the Arabian American Oil Company, and living on the east coast of Saudi Arabia at Dhahran. He had been living in Saudi Arabia since 1952. But it was several years after that when he and his daughter Penny began to participate in the equine activities at The Corral, originally known as The Hobby Farm, where a number of Aramco families kept horses and participated in the drill team or the gymkhana events, or simply enjoyed riding in the open desert. Lewis Payne bought his first horse in 1957, a bay stallion belonging to the Minister of Oil affairs. The mare he later imported from Saudi Arabia, “Johara,” was acquired in 1958 or 59. By approximately 1960, there were more than one hundred horses stabled at The Corral.

In 1961 some restructuring occurred within the company and Lewis Payne decided it was time to go back to America. Johara was shipped from Saudi Arabia in May of 1961. The trip took two months. In this country she was registered as *Hamra Johara, meaning “red jewel.” In America she produced nine foals, the last born in 1973.

Bringing horses back from Saudi Arabia was not difficult for Aramco employees. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Saudi Arabia imported goods, but had nothing to export on the cargo ships; oil left the country in tankers. Importing goods was expensive, because the ship’s return trip also had to be paid, in effect. Sending things back to America was therefore cheap. It cost about $350 to bring a horse home. Furthermore, the company covered the cost of building shipping crates and loading the horses on trucks and finally on ship, just as it did for furniture and other personal property an employee wanted to bring back to the States.

The year 1961 was also the year of Lewis Payne’s second trip to England. He had decided to breed Arabian horses, and after reading a magazine article had initiated a correspondence with Lady Anne Lytton, Lady Wentworth’s oldest daughter, about buying a young horse named El Meluk. Lady Anne replied that someone else had first refusal on El Meluk, but that she had a mare she would consider selling. Lady Anne invited him to spend a weekend with her at her home, Newbuildings, in Sussex.

Newbuildings lay about sixteen miles from Crabbet, and had been the final home of Lady Anne’s grandfather, Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Together with her grandmother, Lady Anne Blunt, he had founded the Crabbet Stud in 1878. Mr. Blunt had died in 1922, leaving Newbuildings to his adopted niece, Dorothy Carleton. When she died in the early 1950s, the house became Lady Anne’s.

Lewis Payne’s weekend stay at Newbuildings expanded to last three months. The mare Lady Anne offered him he bought and imported to the United States. She was *Mellawieh. Her dam Mifaria had been a gift from Lady Wentworth to her daughter on the occasion of one of their reconciliations. In 1951 Mifaria produced for Lady Anne *Mellawieh, by Lady Wentworth’s stallion Indian Magic.

Lewis Payne and Lady Anne Lytton would drive to studs in England so he could look at horses for sale. He visited Patricia Lindsay, where he was able to see some of the first Arabian horses to leave Poland since the end of World War II. He particularly admired the mare Karramba (Witraz x Karmen II) and the colt *Grojec (Comet x Gastronomia), a horse Lady Anne Lytton later bought and used for breeding. Another Polish mare Lewis Payne admired was H.V.M. Clark’s Celina (Witraz x Elza, by Rasim Pierwszy). He filmed Celina as she won her class at Kempton Park.

Mrs. Bomford showed him the old bay stallion Manasseh, sire of Dargee. She also had Dargee’s full brother, the bay My Man. At Mrs. Linney’s he saw the thirteen-year-old grey stallion Sahran (Rangoon x Sahmana, by Manak), the last grandson of Skowronek in England. She also had the Rissalix son Mikeno, who had inherited a full dose of the famous *Berk trotting action through *Berk’s daughter Rissla, dam of Rissalix. From Mrs. Linney he bought a two-year-old Mikeno daughter named *Micah Bint Mikeno, out of Myoletta, full sister to Dargee. Lewis Payne took movies at each of these studs.

Once he and Lady Anne went to a riding school to look at *Astran, a stallion belonging to a Miss Silberstein. Lewis Payne bought him and brought him to Newbuildings, where he was stabling his horses later exported to America.

In 1961 Lewis Payne also made a return visit to the Crabbet Stud at Frogshole Farm. At Crabbet, Lewis Payne bought one of the 1961 foals. He named her *Qasumah, after a pump station in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Covey congratulated Lewis Payne on being one of the few American buyers to spend time getting to know the English breeders and horses. In his experience, American buyers would look at the horses for sale, indicate which ones they wanted, write a check, and never be seen again.

*Mellawieh had produced one foal for Lady Anne Lytton, a 1957 filly by H.V.M. Clark’s stallion Champurrado. She was named Sahirah of the Storm, having been born during one. At the time of *Mellawieh’s importation to America, she was in foal to her half brother, Lady Anne’s stallion Manto. Manto was a chestnut born in 1956 by Blue Domino (Rissalix x Niseyra). The in-utero import was a 1962 chestnut filly, *Qatifah.

During the stay at Newbuildings, Lady Anne Lytton told Lewis Payne stories of growing up at Crabbet. She talked of the time she had spent living with her grandmother at Sheykh Obeyd Garden in Egypt, referring to it as one of the happiest periods of her life. She also told how Wilfrid Blunt used to drive a team of Arabs at a full gallop around a sharp turn and through a gate. When she was still quite young he tried to teach her to do this; she negotiated the turn at a full gallop, but crashed the carriage into one of the gate posts.

In America, Lewis Payne quietly went about his breeding program, utilizing the bloodlines he had obtained in England along with the Saudi mare *Hamra Johara. Today he has approximately nineteen horses. In addition to his own imported stock, the herd also carries the blood of *Ansata Ibn Halima. A few of the older mares are straight English or English/Saudi crosses, but all of the young stock and stallions carry lines to *Ansata Ibn Halima. Lewis Payne liked the horse and the way he moved. The blood of *Micah Bint Mikeno is not represented due to her death at the time she had her first foal, which was also lost.

An impressive horse is Qarlo, probably the only stallion in the world with Oran and *Ansata Ibn Halima as grandsires. Qarlo is out of *Qasumah and by Qartume, a son of *Ansata Ibn Halima and Qate (*Astran x *Mellawieh). Lewis Payne has built a unique herd combining some of the best horses ever to leave England with *Hamra Johara and *Ansata Ibn Halima.

In the following transcript, we are pleased to present an audience with Lewis Payne.

SAUDI ARABIA

I first got acquainted with Arabians in Saudi Arabia. Somebody said. “We have some horses out here, would you like to take a ride?” I went and looked and thought, “Those scrawny, hungry looking things!” They didn’t mean much to me. So I got on [one] and I was absolutely astounded they did not have to be coaxed to go. The minute you got on them, they moved… So I finally bought a horse from the Minister of Oil Affairs. He was a poor hungry old horse, and I bought him out of sympathy as much as anything else, to fatten him up. He was a stallion, a bay…

In 1951, this may sound hard to believe, but the Arabs were pretty hard up… They had all these horses over at Khafs Dugra, which was near an irrigated place called Al-Kharj…. the king would send a head herdsman [saying], “Give one of my good horses to Prince Ali.” So he just marked down in a book, “One horse to Prince Ali.” Well Prince Ali wasn’t interested in horses, he was interested in Cadillacs… He would never come see the horse, didn’t even want it, so they continued to feed it, and one day Prince Feysul, who later became king, who was also Minister of Economics, he was pretty level-headed, he decided that people should feed their own horses. That was practically unheard of.

Some of the company representatives found out we could get horses. We made arrangements so we could go over and pick twenty horses out of the whole herd. There were seven or eight hundred there, I don’t know exactly. We all put up $200 and we had a committee go over. They picked out several horses, and [*Hamra Johara was] the one they gave me. She was seven years old and had never been broken. She had never grazed in her life… When I brought her over and we put grain in the feed box it was there a week before she found out it was good to eat. She wouldn’t eat out of your hand. An apple or a sugar lump meant nothing to her. She would eat this grass they would give her and some alfalfa. All that herd was being fed on grass, and occasionally alfalfa, just thrown over to them. Apparently she must have lived her first year of life with the Bedouins, because she was crazy about Arab women. She’d see Arab women walking in the distance — they looked like little black tents moving along — she’d always nicker, or want to go over to them. And little Arab children, she was crazy about them, she’d run over to see them… so we know she must have had her nose in a tent, at least the first year she was alive.

She was absolutely crazy about little kids, and people in general. She finally learned to eat apples, which were a rarity [in Saudi Arabia], we had to ship them in, and sugar. I could take a small cube of sugar and hold it between my two fingers. She’d reach over and very gently bite it in two, and never touch my fingers. She didn’t drink much water there… Even when I’d ride her out in the desert when it was terribly hot, I’d bring her in and give her a bath and put her in her stall, she never went to water. I’d catch her drinking water in the middle of the day sometimes, but she’d just barely sip it… When she came to this country she drank more water than she ever did over there, and she put on more weight. And she learned to graze. I would go down into this irrigated place and take her with me with a scythe and a basket. She’d stand there knee deep in this grass and watch me cut a basket full. Then I’d take it back and dump it in her box and she’d eat it.

How did the horses get to Al-Kharj? Ibn Saud just gradually collected horses, and they were put there because it was an irrigated area, and they could raise grass… None of them ever got to full build or promise, because they just didn’t have [the feed]… All the horses I had here were bigger than those there. A horse at Crabbet at a year old was bigger than a two year old desert horse, and it was feed, pure and simple…

The Arabs fed dates. One time we thought at the farm that dates were the thing to feed the horses, until it dawned on us the only reason they fed dates was because it was that or nothing.

…Horses at Khafs Dugra just accumulated. At that time all the ruling people lost interest in the horses because they got automobiles. The head herdsman had a book in which he’d write things down, I don’t know how accurate, I won’t make any promises on that. He pointed out the sire of my horse, a big red stallion, I don’t know his name, so we just called him “Big Red,” or Kabir Ahmar, big red horse. [Ed. note: this is not the same horse owned at the Corral and referred to there as “Big Red.”] What his breeding was, nobody knows. That man may have known, but it’s lost… My mare, I just list her as “D.B.” and consider her a foundation horse. She was accepted by the way for our registry, and I had her with these Crabbet horses, and when [Thompson] came [from the registry] to look [he] fell in love with her. She had a lot of good qualities, temperament more than anything else. Least head shy horse I ever saw; you could do anything with her.

RJC: Was any breeding done at Khafs Dugra, or was it just a place where they kept horses?

Lewis Payne: I don’t think they bred too much because they had all the horses they needed, and more.

Penny Albright: Feed was at a premium, too.

Lewis Payne: That’s not to say it wasn’t done, because it was. I know we got one quite young one, I think less than two years old, maybe two. Also we had a stallion from over there that had been chained to a stake and stood in one spot for five years. That’s why they didn’t breed any more. They didn’t know what to do with them. They had more than they could use, and nobody was interested in them.

BUYING HORSES IN ENGLAND

I was in Saudi Arabia from 1952. I spent nine years there…[then] there was a reduction in force… so I thought well, I’ll go home. But I stopped off in England to pick up horses. Of course Lady Anne Lytton was kind enough to invite me to stay at her place, and I spent some three months there gathering horses… She and I would go around and visit different studs… When we would leave she would say, “What did you think of this or that horse?” I didn’t really know too much, but I’d give my opinion and she’d tell me what was wrong with the horse. So the next time I’d look for a little more. When I heard [*Astran] was for sale… we went to look at him, and she told me, “He’s just a perfect horse.” I never heard her say that about anything. I asked the people there if I could bring a veterinary to come look at him. They said… “If you find something wrong with him, maybe we can buy him,” because they were merely boarding the horse. I brought the vet over… he would take care of the horses at the national stud, which really wasn’t far from Newbuildings Place. He went over and looked at him, and on the way back I said, “What did you think?” and he said, “That’s a nice horse, but the thing that puzzled me was I looked in his stall and he didn’t look very big, and I thought, ‘Why does this man want such a small horse?’ But he stepped out to the paddock and he grew four inches. I never saw such a thing.” He was only 14.2, but he said you would swear he was over 15 just by the way he stood. When Lady Anne and I were leaving after looking at him I asked her, “What’s wrong with him?” She said, “Absolutely nothing,” She said, “If he was here in the spring, I would use him on everything I have.” She said, “There’s a rumor around that he’s infertile, but nobody knows because he’s never been used.” When I had him checked for fertility after I got him to this country… we found he was highly fertile… He produced some pretty nice looking horses, to the third generation… [*Astran] was a direct descendant of Skowronek, but on that same level he had three crosses to Rasim, and that’s what made him….

[*Astran] was a very good riding horse, and I had the shock of my life when I put him in a show here, what they call English Pleasure… and he didn’t even place. I had him entered in a Park class. I said to the girl riding, “Go ahead and enter, but you’re not going to get anywhere,” and bingo, he won first. I went to the judge later and said, “What was wrong in the other?” He said, “I picked him in the first class to win the second class, because I thought he was too animated for a pleasure horse.” I don’t know why a pleasure horse should be a deadhead, but apparently that’s what they preferred….

*Micah bint Mikeno… strongly resembled the mare I brought out of Saudi Arabia. From across the pasture I’d have to look pretty close to tell the difference. Now that’s from two parts of the world, yet the type had so fixed…. I must admit the English mare moved better and she had a better shape of shoulder. There was also in Lady Anne Lytton’s box of photographs a picture of a mare that looked just like those two… *Micah was two years old. I bred her a year later, and unfortunately before she foaled about three or four days, I noticed her standing separate from the other horses…. I brought her in to another place to foal, and about four days before that she collapsed. She had a stroke. This place was right next door to the Oklahoma state veterinary school, so I had the vets over, and they couldn’t figure it out. It was definitely a stroke, and they had isolated it down to the third vertebra because she could move her head, but her body was inert. Her tail you could move over to one side and the next morning it would be exactly where you’d left it. After four days she tried to foal. The foal had no particular will to live. It had a beautiful head and four stockings, a lot like Mikeno, really. So I lost her. We finally had to put her down. …What caused it we don’t know.

The mare *Mellawieh was in foal to Manto; he was her half brother. She had been sent off but didn’t settle, so in sheer desperation Lady Anne Lytton bred her to her half brother Manto, by Blue Domino. She had a filly [*Qatifah]…

COLOR AND MARKINGS

At Crabbet, nobody worried about any white markings. I don’t see why people worry about it. I have seen horses in the Middle East, some with stockings clear over the knees, some with a big white splash on their bellies, and none of that that I could see ever affected a horse’s way of going, metabolism, threw them off their diet, or made them lame. If it did something of that nature, it would be a fault. But if it’s just a color or marking I just can’t see that it would make any difference….

[The Blunts] kept a stud [in Egypt], which was called Sheykh Obeyd, where they kept a good many horses that never came to England. One of them was a roan. I mentioned to Lady Anne that I’d never seen a roan Arab, and she said her grandmother had one and she showed me a photograph of [Kerima]. It’s a rarity, but don’t say it never happens. I’ve seen one horse in this country that was almost roan…. The people that owned it were so ashamed of it they kept it where nobody would see it. I snuck around and saw it and it was the best horse they had. Whatever the horse’s color is, or his markings, makes no difference…

It’s quite possible that colors do accompany other genes. I don’t know this for sure…. When Lady Wentworth died, Cecil Covey fell heir to about 75 pretty nice Arabian horses. There was hardly a single bay in the whole stud, if there was one at all. It had nothing to do with the color. It was merely that Lady Wentworth was looking for certain characteristics the bays didn’t come up with. Now this is not to decry a bay at all. It was merely what she was looking for. Lady Anne Lytton later bought a bay, a Polish horse, *Grojec, and was quite pleased to have him because of his color, because she said, “I remember we had some beautiful bays at Crabbet, and I’ll be awfully glad to get some back. I just think we need a little more variety.” And that is not to say one is better, or one is less than the other. It’s variety. Trying to get all Arabs to look precisely alike is a waste of time….

ACTION

The Blunts, and of course Lady Wentworth, were quite insistent on a horse’s being able to move, because their introduction to the horse was in the desert where action and movement with efficiency is of paramount importance, which seems to have been lost now. If he’s flashy right now they think he’s good….

Probably the finest moving horse in 1961 or that era was Mikeno, who was by Rissalix and had the Rissalix action, which he got from Rissla, which she got from *Berk. Lady Anne Blunt told her granddaughter, Lady Anne Lytton, one time as they stood and watched *Berk moving, “Anne, that is the way an Arab is supposed to move.” It’s a reaching stride. It takes good slope of shoulder and it takes strong quarters…

When the Blunts founded Crabbet, horses were a means of conveyance, not just a hobby. They had to move from here to there in an efficient manner. I don’t know of anybody in the present day who would have the same background as the Blunts, because time is against you. The Blunts were artists, both of them, so they appreciated the beauty of a horse, the balance, the conformation… They rode their horses in the desert, and they knew that the horse had to make it there and back, so consequently they were quite critical of efficient action….

Here, you ride a horse around the ring for ten minutes or so and that’s it. There’s nothing wrong with that, and you can do anything with your horses you want to, but it is unfortunate that this flashy action, the high knee action — ladder climbing I call it — has come intto vogue so much that a reaching horse, like an Arab should be, is penalized. There’s nothing of course we can do about that, but if you want a horse to move across country, you better get one that reaches, and never mind how high they pick the feet up; it’s how far forward they go.

…I think perhaps the true characteristic of the Arab is moving from point A to point B. That’s not well presented in a show ring. It’s just impossible. So I think perhaps cross country racing is the best, and they have in England now a cross country race… I can see something to that. As for racing on the track, I see nothing wrong with that. And I understand there’s a new program out now: chariot racing, and that strikes me as quite interesting. And I would see nothing wrong with a sulky race trotting, because some of these Arabs can trot….

CONFORMATION

It is better when you have a horse with good conformation, but unfortunately in the desert, or that part of the world, there are very, very few good horses, but seldom do you find a horse with enough good points to say that it’s a first class horse. Occasionally it does happen, but it’s rare….

I personally prefer a horse with length of neck; some are shorter than others, but I prefer the length, because a horse’s head and neck is what helps his balance, and they can’t move gracefully with a short stubby neck.

I like strong quarters. I’ve seen Arabs that people rave about the high tail set, which doesn’t mean a thing in the world if there’s no quarters beneath it.

…Most Arabs have no heels to speak of on their hoofs. They’re rather short. I hadn’t paid much attention to this. One of the veterinarians working on our horses asked me, “Do all Arabs have low heels like this?” I got to thinking, “Why yes, they do.” Some of these Arabs that are kept to imitate the American Saddle horses, they let the feet grow out, and put shoes on them to get a longer heel. I don’t care for that action at all….

LADY WENTWORTH

Geoffrey Covey had been a tennis coach, and Lady Wentworth had quite the thing with tennis. She purported to be world champion at royal tennis. They were quite friendly, so she appointed him to head the stud…. You must remember the nature of this woman. She was headstrong, strong-willed, opinionated. When she decided something was something, that was it. If she said it three times… it became a fact.

…When Lady Wentworth saw *Mellawieh, she ordered Anne to give her back to Crabbet. Anne said, “I’m not going to give you back that horse, I want her myself.” So her mother in a huff wasn’t even speaking to her. When I left England the last of October, she told me, “The last big argument I had with my mother was over that mare.” [At the end of Lady Wentworth’s life] she hadn’t seen her son in thirty years…. The only one speaking to Lady Wentworth was her daughter Winifrid. I had lunch with a family friend… who had been a school chum. She told me Lady Winifrid was to come over to her place for lunch, and she got a call from her: “I have to go… my mother is dying, and I’m the only one she’ll speak to.”

LADY ANNE LYTTON AND CECIL COVEY

[Lady Wentworth] left her horses to Geoffrey Covey, but he died… before she did. So Cecil Covey… fell heir to 75 beautiful horses…. He told me there was no way he could take care of that many horses. So they began selling horses. He told me… there were some very fine horses that sold for less than 100 pounds, which would be at that time around $300.

…I had talked to Lady Anne about breeding a mare to Dargee, and she had said, “Well, I’m not too sure about sending a horse over there.” There was a feeling between her and Cecil Covey, although they had grown up together at Crabbet, a feeling of estrangement… he told me… “I always felt that the family resented my getting the horses. I can understand that. But had any member of that family come to me and asked for a horse, any horse, they could have had it… because I feel that blood is thicker than water…” Lady Anne told me “well, we meet sometimes at horse meetings and are very cordial, but we just don’t have the comradeship.”

…I picked [*Qasumah] out of Mr. Covey’s herd because of the way she stood and looked…. She had a lot of white markings on her [and] he told me, “Americans don’t like white on horses.” I’d come out of Arabia and had seen white on horses and I didn’t see that it made any difference, so I said, “Well ‘Americans’ aren’t buying this horse, I am.” so I took her and I’ve never regretted it. I had talked to Lady Anne about what I’d picked out to buy there, so I asked Mr. Covey, “Would you mind if I had Lady Anne come over and look at this filly?” He said, “Why no.” A day or two later I spoke to her again…. I said, “Would you like to go over to Crabbet and look at this filly?” She was very eager… so we went over and in a few minutes they were just chatting…. He later told me, “I want to thank you for making it possible for Lady Anne to come over,” and this was when he told me he’d always felt that the family resented his having the horses.

I remember one time Lady Anne and Cecil were talking about something, and I thought, “I’ll just sit over here and listen and maybe learn something.” And they’d been talking thirty minutes or so about different horses when she turned to me and said, “Well what do you think? You haven’t said a word.” I was flattered those two people who had such a history with horses — she at that time was about sixty years old and he was approximately the same — they had all of those years of experience with the good horses, and I was amazed that they wanted to know my opinion on something. Yet I never once heard either one of those people say, “I’ve got the finest Arabs in the country.” Yet I’ve heard Americans say time and time again, “I have the finest Arabs in the country.”

At Crabbet, if a horse had something that they didn’t think was quite right… they would tell you…. They never tried to hide anything. They were looking more than anything else for the improvement of the horse.

Web cmkarabians.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHRONOLOGY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Photos this page courtesy of the American Genetic Foundation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Son of the Nobly Bred… Ibn Tirf

Son of the Nobly Bred… Ibn Tirf

copyright 1990 by Joyce Gregorian Hampshire

Upland Farm

Holliston, Massachusetts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Web cmkarabians.com

Davenport Bloodlines in CMK Breeding

by Charles Craver
All rights reserved
(Copied to this web page by permission of Charles Craver)

By long-standing usage in the United States, the term “Davenport,” as applied to Arabian horses, is used to describe the horses registered by the Arabian Horse Registry of this country as having been imported in 1906 from the Arabian desert by Homer Davenport. By extension, the term is also applied to those horses which are entirely descended from those horses. The original importation consisted of twenty-seven head, of which twenty-five were registered. When they arrived in the United States, there were few other Arabian horses here. As the years went by, crosses were made with other bloodlines as they were imported. At present, almost all Arabians having several generations of American breeding trace to the Davenports to the extent that probably 90 percent of Arabian horses in the U.S. have in the neighborhood of 10 percent Davenport ancestry.

At the same time as this dissemination of Davenport bloodlines has gone on, a few Arabians have continued to be bred exclusively within the bloodlines of the Davenport importation. These horses are almost entirely of breeding stock which passed through the Kellogg Ranch. There are presently (1982) about 325 living Arabian horses of this sort in the ownership of about 75 individuals. This group of horses is one of the oldest breeding groups of Arabians anywhere to have been maintained on a closed pedigree basis: that is, without outcrossing to other bloodlines. As a group, their major distinctive feature is the similarity in type which they bear to the pictures and descriptions which we have of their imported, desert-bred ancestors of 1906. A few of them even bear marked resemblance to specific individuals in the importation. This is particularly noticeable in some descendants of *Muson #27, but people who know these bloodlines are also able to recognize features from others of the imported horses such as *Abeyah #39, *Deyr #33, *Farha #42, and *Hamrah #28.

The horses registered as imported by Davenport were as follows: *Haleb #25, *Houran #26, *Muson #27, *Hamrah #28, *El Bulad #29, *Wadduda #30, *Gomusa #31, *Azra #32, *Deyr # 33, *Mowarda #34, *Kusof #35, *Euphrates #36, *Antar # 37, *Reshan #38, *Abeyah #39, *Urfah #40, *Werdi #41, *Farha #42, *Hadba #43, *Jedah #44, *Haffia #45, *Enzahi #46, *Moharra #47, *Masoud #64, *Abbeian #111. All of these horses, having living descendants, are represented in pedigrees from Maynesboro (*Euphrates #36) or the Kellogg Ranch. The “Davenport” Arabians were personally obtained by Davenport through direct purchase from their bedouin owners who were required to establish their purebred status by oath taken before their sheikhs and fellow tribesmen. Davenport was proud that these horses were representative of the animals which were used in daily bedouin life.

The Davenport influence came into the CMK context with the stallion Jerrede #84 who was out of the Hamidie mare *Nejdme #1 and by the Davenport stallion *Euphrates #36. W. R. Brown was interested in using this horse as a sire at Maynesboro, but initially he was disinclined to do so because the sire, *Euphrates, like the other Davenports, was not registered with the Jockey Club, although he was, of course, registered with the Arabian Horse Club of America. Brown was able to arrange acceptance of *Euphrates by the Jockey Club through statements by Lady Anne Blunt of the Crabbet Arabian Stud authenticating his pedigree. This opened the way for registration by the Jockey Club of Jerrede and for use of that horse at Maynesboro by W. R. Brown. Jerrede’s role there is minor, and it is difficult to evaluate how successful he was as a sire.

In living CMK horses, practically all Davenport influence derives from the extensive use of Davenport related breeding stock at the Kellogg Ranch, where in early years, the Davenport bloodlines were very strongly represented.

Among the Davenports which were especially known as Kellogg breeding stock were the stallions Hanad #489, Antez #448, Letan #86, Jadaan #196, and *Deyr #33. Well-known mares were Adouba #270, Babe Azab #567, Fasal #330, Hasiker #268, Poka #438, Saba #437, Sankirah #149, Sherlet #339, and Schilla #419.

The Kellogg Ranch bred a few horses which were entirely Davenport in pedigree. The more frequent utilizations of the bloodlines, however, were in combination with horses of other background. Quite a number of these crosses were of foundation quality and provided the bases from which some of the most popular current American Arabians derive. Horses such as Khemosabi, Ferzon, The Judge, Fame, Ibn Hanrah, Fadjur, Galan, Garaff, and Saki all have strong Davenport elements in their pedigrees and would not be the same if there were to be replacement by ancestors of a different background.

When their numerical representation at the Kellogg Ranch was substantial, the Davenport bloodlines appear to have been well appreciated. From pictures of public record, foals produced by them were of excellent quality and helped to establish the reputation of the ranch as an Arabian horse nursery. In presentations at the Kellogg exhibitions, the Davenports were among the noted performers, with Hanad doing a trick and dressage routine he had learned as an older horse, Pep performing as a trick horse, and Jadaan being exhibited in costume. They were used successfully in a number of movies. In competition at public horse shows, they did well against other Arabians in California, including some of the most attractive and highly publicized of the Kellogg Crabbet imports.

As time has passed, a certain amount of partisanship had developed both towards and against the Kellogg Davenport bloodlines. From a distance in time it is difficult to understand the reasons for this, but partly, they may have had origins in the fact that the Davenports sometimes represented a different tradition in Arabian breeding from some of the other Kellogg bloodlines. These traditions were and still are reflected in the horses themselves. The Davenports were close to their desert origins. *Deyr #33 was actually a desert import. Others were only one or two generations removed. Such horses represented Bedouin values in Arabian breeding. Other fine bloodlines at Kellogg’s were quite different in their origins, some of them descending from long lines of Arabian breeding in Europe, England, and Egypt: perhaps these bloodlines tended to show the influences of the countries which had served as intermediate hosts for the several generations which transited the distance from Arabia to the Kellogg Ranch.

Actually, there was no good reason why one bloodline should be valued and another ignored among the Kellogg Ranch bloodlines, of which the Davenports were one. There was sufficient good in each that a lover of horses could be grateful they had been brought into a juxtaposition of some harmony and then passed on to private breeders as a contribution to the development of the Arabian horse in America.

The question naturally comes up as to what Davenport bloodlines added to CMK breeding. The answer breaks down into two parts, the first concerning those horses which are entirely Davenport in origin. This is a group of horses which is still quite representative of the desert imports of 1906. They tend to be of moderate size, athletic inclination, fine-skinned, large of eye, and wide between the jaws. Dispositions are comparatively quiet, and they adapt well to the owner who wants to give plenty of personal attention to his horse. Out of the small number which have been shown in recent years, there have been good successes in dressage, distance riding, halter, pleasure, costume, and park exhibition. One of the interesting things about this group of horses is that certain of them preserve the identity in type and strain of two of the major bedouin strains among the horses imported by Davenport, which were the Seglawi and the Kuhaylan. In recent years, the effort has been made to intensify this aspect of their breeding.

The other aspect of the contribution of Davenport bloodlines to CMK breeding has to do with how they have blended with bloodlines other than their own. For the most part, Davenport elements in CMK pedigrees are significant but certainly not overwhelming in terms of the percentage of total ancestry represented. In many instances their main contribution is probably in the form of background influences which facilitate the expression of desirable characteristics from other, more immediate pedigree sources. Where the percentage of Davenport ancestry becomes higher, of course, the influence of specific Davenport horses becomes more recognizable, and the vitality and muscularity of Letan, the long, upright neck of Hanad, the fine coat of Hasiker and the other identifiable characteristics can sometimes be picked out. Some years ago a study was done of the pedigrees of horses competing at our national show. It turned out that the more successful horses being exhibited in performance categories tended to have higher percentages of Davenport ancestry than the average horse winning at that show in halter classes. A frequent comment of trainers is that their horses having higher percentages of Davenport blood tend to be more easily trained. Usually the overall influence of Davenport blood in a horse is towards a smoother, more harmoniously built individual. This may be traceable to *Hamrah #28 who was a great brood mare sire and whose blood was very strongly present in the Kellogg Davenports.

The CMK movement offers an opportunity for increased appreciation of some of the older values in Arabian breeding. Davenport bloodlines have contributed very strongly to the expression of these values.

CMK Mare Families

The original Crabbet/Maynesboro/Kellogg mare families: Foundation of a unique North American gene pool one hundred years in the making

Rick Synowski © Copyright 1992

Used by permission of Rick Synowski. First published in the CMK Heritage Catalogue Volume III

This treatment reflects the CMK dam line picture before the 1993 revision of the CMK Definition. — MB

While CMK Arabian horses have come to represent a minority breeding group today, CMK foundation mare lines hold fast to their international domination of lists of leading dams of champions. Their production records, some accomplished by mares now deceased, may never be equalled. The character, type and breeding of such celebrated mares must inevitably be diminished and disappear when outcrossing to stallions of other breeding groups predominates.

Veteran horsewoman Faye Thompson, whose father Claude Thompson introduced the Arabian horse into Oregon nearly 60 years ago, observes that “modern Arabian horses are good horses, but they’ve lost that classic, desert look that used to excite me so. Modern horses don’t get me excited the way the old ones did” [CMK Record, Spring 1989].

It is to be hoped the classic desert look which so excited the observer does not disappear, but may be perpetuated on some scale as CMK mares produce within the CMK breeding group. Perhaps the realization of the unique history behind these mares will contribute to this end.

Imported in 1888: *Naomi

THE FIRST ARABIAN MARE TO come to North America and leave modern descent, and the oldest mare in the Arabian Horse Registry of America, is *Naomi, foaled in England in 1877. Her sire and dam YATAGHAN and HAIDEE were brought from the desert by Capt. Roger Upton. Randolph Huntington, America’s earliest breeder of Arabian horses still represented in modern lines, imported *Naomi in 1888. In 1890 *Naomi foaled the fine chestnut colt ANAZEH, the first Arabian bred and born on American soil to leave modern descent. ANAZEH was sired by *Leopard, the grey Arabian stallion presented by Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Turkey to General U.S. Grant in 1878.

A mare with many firsts to her credit, though perhaps not of the show ring variety, *Naomi was photographed here at age 18, standing behind the strapping 13-day-old Khaled, her eighth of ten foals. As an individual *Naomi must have pleased Randolph Huntington, who by this time was enjoying no small recognition as one of America’s leading breeders of light horses. Huntington would build his entire Arabian program around this single mare, and thus *Naomi would make a far-reaching contribution to the development of a North American Arabian gene pool via her high-quality descendants.

Perhaps the most important of *Naomi’s tail-female descendants was to be the Manion-bred IMAGIDA, dam of the illustrious *Raffles daughters GIDA and RAFGIDA and two sons also by *Raffles, IMARAFF and RAFFI. Another distinguished female line was founded by the straight Maynesboro MADAHA. *Naomi’s descent from both sons and daughters also included the likes of RAHAS, GHAZI, RABIYAT, GHAZAYAT, Abu Farwa, ALLA AMARWARD and Aurab, just to name a few of the famous ones. *Naomi’s sons and daughters were among the finest horses of their time, and their descendants continue to be so regarded.

1893: *GALFIA and *NEJDME

IN 1893, BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT with Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 45 Arabian horses were brought from Syria for exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair. The Hamidie horses, so named for the Hamidie Hippodrome Company which sponsored the exhibition, were beset by a series of disasters. Financial ruin of the company and a fire left 28 horses to be auctioned off.

Only three mares of the entire group would be given the opportunity to breed on. In 1894 Peter Bradley purchased the mares *GALFIA and *PRIDE. The third mare, *NEJDME, was purchased by J.A.P. Ramsdell. *GALFIA would be the first of the three to produce with her 1895 colt, MANNAKY JR. by the Hamidie stallion *MANNAKY. The following year *GALFIA again foaled to *MANNAKY and the filly ZITRA was to establish *GALFIA’s tail female line into modern descent.

In 1898 *NEJDME established the third American mare line with the birth of NONLIKER, sired by Ramsdell’s Ali Pasha Sherif stallion *SHAHWAN. Unfortunately NONLIKER was the only foal of the magnificent *SHAHWAN to breed on in America. That *SHAHWAN left scant descent at Crabbet prior to his importation was to be regretted by the Blunts as well, given the breeding performance of his daughter YASHMAK. NONLIKER was joined by younger half-sisters NANSHAN (1902) and NANDA (1905); the *NEJDME lines of DAHURA and LARKSPUR came to be particularly highly prized.

The third Hamidie mare bred on but not in tail female. *PRIDE produced just one registered foal, the 1902 mare SHEBA sired by MANNAKY JR. SHEBA would leave an important mark on the breeding program of Albert W. Harris in her sons NEJDRAN JR (by *NEJDRAN) and EL JAFIL (by *IBN MAHRUSS), sire of Harris’ noteworthy EL SABOK.

Much of the identifying information on the Hamidie horses, including the original authentication, has been lost, presumably in the fire. Bits and pieces of information from letters and newspaper articles have surfaced over the years. Some of the information coming down is conflicting regarding strains and birthdates, if not the outright identities of some of the horses. What we do know is that the horses which bred on did so extremely well.

1900: BASILISK

IN 1900 THE FIRST CRABBET MARE came to America in the person of the BASILISK granddaughter *BUSHRA. She is registered as imported from the Crabbet Stud by “Mr. Eustis” but almost certainly went directly to Randolph Huntington’s ownership and produced her American offspring for Homer Davenport.

Wilfrid Blunt considered the family of BASILISK to be one of the best of their early desert importations. Later, the American breeder Spencer Borden noted the BASILISK mare line as the “best blood in the world.” The BASILISK family would be well represented among the early imports. *BUTHEYNA, *BARAZA and *BATTLA followed *BUSHRA.

The BASILISK female line died out at Crabbet, though it continued to England from the line established by BELKA at the Courthouse Stud. In America the line flourished notably from the Maynesboro mare BAZRAH.

1905: WILD THYME and RODANIA

SPENCER BORDEN CAME UPON the scene at the turn of the century. His contribution to the Arabian horse in America as an importer, breeder and author during these early days was to be monumental. In 1898 Borden had imported *SHABAKA from England, a mare by the desertbred MAMELUKE and out of KESIA II, imported en utero from the desert. *SHABAKA was not to establish a female line but her influence was realized in a highly valued son, SEGARIO. The KESIA mare line would in fact never become established here, but was represented again in Borden’s 1905 import, *SHABAKA’s half-brother *IMAMZADA, and in the 1924 Harris import *NURI PASHA [ex RUTH KESIA].

In 1905 Borden imported two fillies from the Hon. Miss Ethelred Dillon and introduced the WILD THYME mare line to breed on in America. Borden’s yearling *MAHAL and weanling *NESSA were both daughters of the Crabbet mare RASCHIDA (Kars x Wild Thyme). Like BASILISK’s, WILD THYME’s family died out early at Crabbet, but it was ably perpetuated by both *MAHAL and *NESSA in this country.

It was a stroke of genius that, also in 1905, Borden introduced the RODANIA female line to America with his importation of the dowager queen mother of Crabbet, *ROSE OF SHARON. Borden’s coup in obtaining the most celebrated of Crabbet’s early matrons must be considered in light of her unparalleled international influence.

The RODANIA daughters spread the influence of Crabbet breeding to virtually every other Arabian horse breeding base in the world. *ROSE OF SHARON’s mare line would carry forward in American breeding by her tail female descendants imported later from Crabbet. Her uniquely American contributions to the breed came via her son *RODAN and daughter ROSA RUGOSA, dam of the important Maynesboro sire SIDI.

The two remaining branches of RODANIA’s family were brought to America later and also became firmly established here. The RODANIA daughter ROSEMARY is represented by *ROKHSA, imported in 1918 by W.R.Brown, *RAIDA, imported in 1926 by Kellogg, *RISHAFIEH, imported in 1932 by Selby, and *KADIRA, imported 1939 by J.M. Dickinson. The ROSE OF JERICHO branch was established by the 1926 Kellogg imports *ROSSANA, *RASIMA and *RASAFA, and the 1930 Selby ones *RASMINA and *ROSE OF FRANCE.

1906: *WADDUDA, *RESHAN, *ABEYAH, *URFAH, *WERDI, *HADBA

IN 1906 HOMER DAVENPORT imported 27 Arabian horses directly from the desert. This importation would be the largest genetic contribution unique to American Arabian horse breeding. Six of Davenport’s desert mares would establish mare lines, and each would be represented on the leading dams of champions lists. For many years the leading dam of champions, BINT SAHARA, and her runner-up daughter FERSARA, are of *WADDUDA’s line. SAKI, whose champion produce record would come to equal BINT SAHARA’s, was of *WERDI’s family.

As in the case of each of these mares, Davenport breeding blended wonderfully well with that of other early CMK sourcess, the result being realized in some of the best representatives of the breed in history. Interestingly, some of Davenport’s desert sources were the same breeders from whom the Blunts had purchased foundation stock nearly 30 years earlier. The success Davenport, and later W.R.Brown, Harris, Kellogg, Hearst and Selby realized in combining Davenport and Crabbet breeding represented in some cases a recombining of lines derived from the same desert sources.

Davenport mare lines survive both in straight Davenport breeding programs and inextricably within the larger CMK breeding group. Their contribution of classic desert type and quality can still readily be identified.

1909: BINT HELWA

APART FROM HOMER DAVENPORT, there was no one to compare to the spirited patronage of Spencer Borden for the Arabian horse in America at the turn of the century. Borden’s visits to the Crabbet Stud and his lively correspondence with Lady Anne Blunt were to gain him respect and favor in securing some of the best individuals of that Stud. And so in 1909 Borden would again bring a grande dame of Crabbet to American shores, the Ali Pasha Sherif bred *GHAZALA, daughter of the Crabbet family foundress BINT HELWA.

BINT HELWA’s line was a third to take hold in America but die out at Crabbet. And take hold it did in the two illustrious *GHAZALA daughters, GULNARE and GUEMURA. Two other branches of the BINT HELWA family would later provide foundation mares to American CMK breeding in *HAMIDA, *HAZNA and *HILWE.

1910: DAJANIA and *LISA

THE NEXT YEAR A FIFTH Crabbet family line would reach America in the DAJANIA mare *NARDA II, imported by F. Lothrop Ames. *NARDA II, a daughter of NARGHILEH, was purchased in foal to RIJM and the next year foaled *NOAM, a three-quarters sister to *NASIK, *Nureddin II and NESSIMA.

The DAJANIA family would be greatly distinguished at Crabbet and in America as producers of some of the greatest sires in the history of the breed: the aforementioned *NASIK and *Nureddin II, and NASEEM, INDIAN GOLD, *NIZZAM, INDIAN MAGIC, *SERAFIX, ELECTRIC SILVER and *SILVER DRIFT. In America the DAJANIA line sires included INDRAFF, RAPTURE and AARAF.

Later *INDAIA was imported by Roger Selby and *INCORONATA by Kellogg, bringing the imported family of DAJANIA mares to just four.

Also in 1910, the mare *LISA was imported by C.P.Hatch. She was listed as having been “bred in the desert” and registered as black. *LISA’s family line survives via one daughter, ALIXE by *HAURAN. ALIXE’s breeder was Warren Delano of Barrytown, NY. ALIXE in turn produced three daughters by JERREDE (*Euphrates x *Nejdme), and of these JERAL and NARADA bred on.

1918: FERIDA and SOBHA

THE MAYNESBORO STUD IN Berlin, NH was founded in 1912 by William Robinson Brown. Brown’s foundation stock was acquired in the beginning from other American breeders. It was, in fact, via Maynesboro that key links with some of the earliest CMK bloodlines were to be carried forward.

In 1918 Brown made an importation of 17 horses from the Crabbet Stud. Brown’s purchase would be a timely one for CMK breeding in that advantage was taken, purposely or not, of the legal feud between Lady Wentworth and her father Wilfrid Blunt, after Lady Anne Blunt’s death. Certain Crabbet horses were acquired by Brown which might otherwise never have left the Stud. This was especially true of the phenomenal *BERK.

The 1918 Maynesboro importation introduced the FERIDA family to North America in the two-yr-old chestnut filly *FELESTIN. *FELESTIN’s dam FEJR (Rijm x Feluka) also produced the stallions FARIS and FERHAN, sires in turn of the important English breeding horses RISSALIX and INDIAN GOLD.

A second, more prolific, branch of the FERIDA family was established eight years later with the importation of the celebrated FELUKA daughter, *FERDA, by W.K.Kellogg. Ten years after her importation, half the horses at the Kellogg Ranch would be descended from *FERDA, such was the value of this FERIDA line mare.

The 1918 Maynesboro importation also brought a seventh Crabbet family to America in the SOBHA representative, *SIMAWA, a mare who would later become important to the breeding program of Albert Harris. Selby and Kellogg would each make astute importations of SOBHA line mares in *SELMNAB (imported 1930) and *CRABBET SURA (imported 1936).

The most acclaimed branch of the SOBHA family did not reach America until the 1950s. This was the line of Lady Wentworth’s unforgettable SILVER FIRE.

1921 and 1922: *BALKIS II and *KOLA

W.R. BROWN WAS A U.S. ARMY Remount agent, and it was a major purpose of his breeding program that Arabians be bred as suitable mounts for cavalry. It was probably with this in mind that in 1921 and ’22 he imported Arabian horses from France, a country long esteemed for breeding cavalry horses.

Brown’s French importation was in keeping with the tradition of Huntington, Borden, Bradley and Davenport, who touted the utilitarian supremacy of the Arabian horse, promoting the Arabian for American cavalry use.

Two of the French mares would establish mare lines at Maynesboro. The *BALKIS II granddaughter FOLLYAT and the *KOLA daughters FADIH and FATH were broodmatrons which especially earned respect for the contribution of French breeding to the CMK foundation.

1924: QUEEN OF SHEBA

THE SOLE REPRESENTATIVE of the Crabbet family of QUEEN OF SHEBA to breed on in CMK founder lines was *ANA (Dwarka x Amida), imported to America in 1924. *ANA would produce two daughters for her importer Albert Harris. She was later sold to Philip Wrigley for whom she was to produce four more daughters including the notable ADIBIYEH.

*ANA was full sister to *ALDEBAR, bred by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and imported by Henry Babson.

1928: *NOURA and MAKBULA

AMEEN RIHANI OF NEW YORK imported three Arabians from the desert in 1928, a stallion *SAOUD and two mares, *NOURA and her daughter *MUHA. A thin but well-regarded line was to come from these mares. *NOURA’s family would be famously represented by Margaret Shuey’s elegant matron MY BONNIE NYLON.

Roger Selby’s Crabbet importation of 1928 introduced the MAKBULA family to America in the small-statured, exquiste *KAREYMA. *KAREYMA would prove to be one of Selby’s best purchases from Crabbet, judging by the excellence of her produce. Selby would bring three more representatives of the MAKBULA line to Ohio in 1930 with the importation of *KIYAMA, *JERAMA and *NAMILLA.

1929: *MALOUMA

IN 1929 HERMAN FRANK of Los Angeles imported *MALOUMA, the first of two Egyptian lines to be incorporated into the foundation of CMK breeding. *MALOUMA was purchased by Kellogg for whom she produced the four daughters which carry on her line.

1931: *LA TISA

IN 1931 THE CHICAGO INDUSTRIALIST and philanthropist Charles Crane made a trip to the Middle East and came back with some Arabian horses, gifts from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul Aziz, who had not met an American before Crane. Crane dispatched a geologist engineer to Arabia in search of oil and water.

This exchange of favors between Crane and the Saudi ruler resulted in ARAMCO’s being established as Saudi Arabia’s petroleum exploration and development partner–a partnership which only too obviously has shaped American foreign policy to this day.

Crane’s two fillies, *LA TISA and *MAHSUDHA, reportedly were of quality and beauty in keeping with the rest of his venture. *LA TISA would establish a family which has carried forward into CMK breeding.

1932: BINT YAMAMA

W.R.BROWN INTRODUCED A second Egyptian mare line to CMK breeding with the 1932 importation of seven Arabians bred by Prince Mohammed Ali of Cairo. All were of the BINT YAMAMA family line, which was perpetuated by the four mares: *RODA and *AZIZA, daughters of NEGMA; *H.H. MOHAMMED ALI’S HAMAMA and *H.H. MOHAMMED ALI’S HAMIDA, both out of the famed NEGMA daughter MAHROUSSA. The Maynesboro Egyptian importation had been made at the same time as Henry Babson’s importation of six horses also from Egypt.

Interestingly, the origins of the Egyptian horses can be traced back in part to Abbas Pasha/Ali Pasha Sherif stock of the Blunt’s day. The exact origin of BINT YAMAMA and her relationship to early Blunt horses is a mystery yet to be solved.

1934: ZULIMA

IN 1934, JIM AND EDNA Draper of Richmond, California brought home five Arabians from Spain. Four of the five were mares, and all of the same female line, that of the Spanish ZULIMA through SIRIA. The elegant grey *NAKKLA was purchased by Kellogg’s and incorporated into that breeding program. The Drapers retained the SIRIA daughters *MECA and *MENFIS (dam of *NAKKLA) and *MECA’s daughter *BARAKAT, breeding them to CMK stallions.

The Draper Spanish mares produced admirably, gaining a place of pride within the CMK tradition. Edna Draper holds the distinction of being the last importer of CMK foundation stock still living.

1947: *NAJWA, *LAYYA, *KOUHAILANE, *LEBNANIAH, *RAJWA, *NOUWAYRA

THE LAST DESERT CONTRIBUTION considered a part of CMK foundation breeding was the Hearst importation of 1947. This was the largest group of Arabians brought directly from the Arabian desert countries since that of Homer Davenport.

The Hearst Ranch had been established with the purchase of Maynesboro stock upon that farm’s dispersal, which included the Maynesboro sires RAHAS, REHAL, GHAZI and GULASTRA. Hearst had also purchased Kellogg stock, bring about a parallel breeding program to that Stud’s.

The Hearst importation included eight mares (*RAJWA was accompanied by her daughter *BINT RAJWA), all but one of which contributed to the CMK breeding tradition.

1953: HAGAR

HAGAR, THE “JOURNEY MARE,” was the Blunts’ second acquisition in the desert, but it took 75 years before her female line reached America to stay. HAGAR was purchased to carry Wilfrid Blunt from Aleppo to Baghdad and back to Damascus on the Blunts’ 1878 journey. She proved admirably up to the task and earned praise from Lady Anne in her journals.

HAGAR was sent to England as part of the foundation of the Crabbet Stud. She was sold to the Hon. Ethelred Dillon for whose Puddlicote Stud HAGAR proved a foundress. The first HAGAR breeding reached America in 1905 via the important Dillon-bred *NESSA’s sire *HAURAN and another HAGAR son, HAIL.

There was still no HAGAR female line in America when hers became another family lost to Crabbet. The line persisted through Miss Dillon’s ZEM ZEM and through HOWA, foundation mare of the Harwood Stud. ZEM ZEM and her daughter ZOBEIDE were left to Borden by Miss Dillon’s will, but left no further registered progeny.

It was not until 1953 that the HAGAR family would reach American shores and be carried on into CMK breeding. This came about when seven mares from Holland’s Rodania Stud (Dr. H.C.E.M. Houtappel) were imported to New York by T. Cremer. The mares were *CHADIGA, *FAIKA, *LATIFAA, *FATIMAA, *RITLA, *LEILA NAKHLA and *MISHKA.

With HAGAR’s line, American breeders had 10 mare families to carry on the Crabbet breeding base.

THESE, THEN, ARE THE ORIGINAL CMK MARE FAMILIES. They have been combined in American horse breeding history to form one genetic legacy uniquely American–CMK. The timeless quality of CMK mares should be obvious to all fanciers of the Arabian horse, but it would appear to fall to a few to recognize that an effort must be made to conserve the identity of these irreplaceable lines for posterity.

This treatment reflected the CMK dam line picture before the 1993 revision of the CMK Definition. — MB

Excerpted from THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series The Arab: the Horse of the Future

by Hon. Sir James Penn Boucaut

The Khamsat Vol 10 Num 4 Nov 93

The author, in Australia at 73 years old on his beloved stallion Rafyk (1890) by Azrek x Rose of Sharon.

Ed. note: While this book is very old and hard to find, it is much enjoyed by those who have the opportunity to own it. It primarily focuses on the value of Arabian blood within the equine species. It was published in 1905 (before the founding of the Royal Agricultural Society and before the Davenport importation) and sounds a call of alarm to the Western and European world regarding the importance of preserving the qualities of the Arab horse – the war-horse qualities, the athletic ability, the intelligence, the disposition, and the hardiness, and so forth. I have always enjoyed this book and thought it best to share this chapter with you as it gives numerous accounts from many varied sources regarding what was most valued about these war horses of the desert. Mr. Boucaut was prime minister of South Austrialia and owned and imported some of the first Arabians to come to Australia (1891) among which was the 100% Blunt stallion Rafyk (1890) by Azrek x Rose of Sharon. He was a great admirer of the Arab and shares some useful information here with us. The scope of this chapter is rather broad in that is also includes mention of other middle eastern Arab derivatives such as Barb and Turkoman, but most often he distinguishes. The important point of his chapter is to illustrate what a magnificent horse was created by the Arab culture and to remind us in Al Khamsa what oriental qualities we are obliged to preserve.

CHAPTER VII

SUNDRY ENCOMIUMS ON THE ARAB TAKEN AT RANDOM, AND INSTANCES OF THE LOVE OF THE ARAB BY GREAT SOLDIERS

BISHOP HEBER, in his “Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India,” says:

‘My horse is a nice quiet, good-tempered little Arab, who is so fearless that he goes without starting close up to an elephant, and so gentle and so docile that he eats bread out of my hand, and has almost as much attachment and as coaxing ways as a dog.’ My guests frequently notice the strange coaxing ways of my stallions, and my unbroken mares love to be petted, coming up around you for that purpose in the paddock. although unbroken, and only handled when being weaned, they eat thistles out of the hands of the children of one of my men.’

Captain Shakespeare, in his “Wild Sport in India,” says that the Arab is the very best horse under the saddle that can be had in India for all general purposes.

Mr. H. Chichester Hart, in ‘Scripture Natural History,’ writes of the Syrian horses of to-day, that, no matter what the nature of the country, nothing comes amiss to them, and there is probably in the world no more sure-footed beast of burden to be found; that they are docile and spirited and willing to the last extremity. Certainly these are Eastern horses, truly Arabs, though not the very best of Arabs, not being of the pure desert breed. They are often spoken of as Syrian Arabs.

Mr. Sydney Galvayne, in his article ‘War-Horses, Present and Future,’ says of Arab ponies that there was not a very large number of these valuable ponies sent from India to Africa, but what were sent made a great name for themselves and fully maintained their reputation for endurance and strength.

The Rev. E.J.Davis, in his ‘Life in Asiatic Turkey,’ writes that even hard work and starvation cannot tame his spirited little horse, which, in spite of being in bad condition owning to hard work and insufficient food, has never once stumbled, never been sick, and has borne the longest and most difficult marches with the utmost fire and spirit.

Mr. A.G. Hulme-Bearman, in his ‘Twenty Years in the Near East,’ refers again and again to the excellence of the Syrian pony upon which he crossed Lebanon, 8,000 feet, through snow up to the girths, then Anti-Lebanon, 6,000 feet, and after a few days’ rest the pony took him back just as readily. A writer on the retreat from Moscow speaks of the Cossack pony (Eastern) as living on what it could get by scraping the snow with its feet, in pursuit ‘indomitable, not to be fatigued, relentless.’

Mr. Adye writes that it was, of course, the Arab descent of the little animal so much in vogue in India which accounts for its excellence; and truly wonderful were the capabilities of the little hunters (some of them only 13.2) on which the redoubtable sportsman Major Shakespeare speared hog, bear, and even leopards, over broken and rocky ground intersected by nullahs and other obstacles, which render pigsticking in certain parts of India the most difficult and exciting of all forms of hunting from the horseman’s point of view. This corroborates what General Tweedie says, as above mentioned, in referring to which I have mentioned other instances of this wonderful capacity of turning and twisting, which alone could render such sport safe and possible. Mr. Ker, in his book ‘On the road to Khiva,’ says that the Khirgiz, with Eastern horses, sit motionless on their saddles, aligned ‘as if on parade.’ Suddenly the foremost darts off at full gallop, and then, wheeling in mid-career, comes like a thunderbolt, all in one mad whirl of flight and pursuit.

‘Bruni,’ in the Astralasian (September 6, 1902), testifies that the (Indian records abound in proofs of the marvellous services rendered by the small horse, and notably by the Arab, and that on every hand the evidence was strongly in favour of the Arab and Arab cross for army purposes, and that of the value of the Arab cross we have had ample proof in Australia, because for endurance they had no equal.

Dean C. Worcester, of Michigan, U.S.A., writes of the Philippine ponies as having originated from the Andalusian horse or Barb, and, being well formed, sure-footed, and remarkable tough, making excellent saddle-horses.

Mr. George Flemming writes of the wonderful endurance of the Tartar pony; he gives one instance of the Russian courier, who used to ride from Pekin to Kiakta — 500 miles — in twelve days, rest two days, and return in fifteen, and quotes a book by the Emperor Kienloong, published in Paris in 1770, translated by a Jesuit Father, alluding to those for racing as having a swiftness beyond comprarison. These Tartar horses have been crossed again and again with Arabs.

Mr. Adye says that General Walker, Military Attache to Berlin some years ago, when probably English cavalry were better mounted than now, was much exercised to account for the superior endurance of the Prussian troop-horses over the English. He was given as the chief reason the nearer affinity to pure Arab blood. He says that, when favouring the Arab, he was asked, Why go to the Arab when the English thoroughbred was a perfected Arab? To which he replied that the Arab was much hardier, that the thoroughbred was a more useful animal a hundred years ago than he is now, and he expressed his regret that the Arab was not properly appreciated in England; and then he prophetically added:

‘Some day, perhaps in some future campaign, in which he happens to be brought into direct comparison with our present trooper, and is found to be going on for months after the latter is hopelessly done up or dead, we may have our eyes opened to his extraordinary merits.’

This was written before the Boer War. Alas that he should have been so accurate! To say that the English thoroughbred is a perfected Arab is nonsense, the jargon of the bookmakers; he is an Arab deteriorated — deteriorated by his being bred for sprinting, and spoiled by base blood.

In the Leisure Hour (May, 1902), W.J.Gordon, in ‘The Horse-Supply of the World‘ writes that in the Napoleonic wars the Russian horse (an Eastern horse), lived while the French horse died; that the only others that stood it were the little Arabs from the islands of the Levant. And he says that in the Austrian army much of the quality of their horses was due to careful breeding, especially in those from Hungary, which had a strong infusion of the Arab. And he shows the excellence of the Arab as a sire by the fact that the small Burmese tat, sturdy and sound, is, since the introduction of Arab stallions, developing into that useful but larger breed, the Indo-Burmese. And he adds that the riding-horses of Persia and Syria (allied races to the Arab, if not pure Arab, for the Arabs conquered all those countries) are better in quality than even the rough customers like Burnaby’s wonderful Arab, which he bought for 5 Lbs.

Chamber’s Journal (September, 1901, p. 609) says that the Connemara ponies are geatly indebted to the infusion of Arab blood, as also are the Orloff trotters and the Achil pony.

Mr. Wilfred Blunt stated to his purchasers at his sale at Crabbet Park, in July, 1901, that the British Government had at last entered its name on the list of his customers, that the Scotch Breeding Commission had taken three of his best stallions to improve the ponies of the western Highlands, and that the Government of India had decided on reorganizing its military studs, and true Arab stallions were to be used.

The Register (August 14, 1901) states that at this sale the Dutch Jockey Club of Java bought some Arab stallions.

Mr. C.B.Fisher states that he believes that the Arab and Timor are the only two pure breeds there are. Where comes in the purity of the boasted thoroughbred if this belief of one of the most experienced and respected breeders of horses in Australia is well founded?

The Australasian (July 6, 1901) states that the breed of ponies which originally existed in Basutoland are supposed by the settlers to have been brought thither by Arabs from the northern regions of Africa, which is corroborated by a writer in the South Australian Register of June 10, 1901 on the Boer ponies, who says that, ‘as most of them are descendants of Arab stock, they are unrivalled for hard usage‘; and ‘Bruni’ writes (September 6, 1903) that ‘Boer ponies are said to be half-bred Arabs.’

These newspapers might have been more positive as to the Arab blood in these celebrated ponies, for Professor Wallace of Edinburgh, in his book on ‘The Farming Industries of South Africa,’ published 1896, after his official visit on the invitation of the Cape Government to report upon and advises as to those industries, show that these wonderful South African horses are for the most part of Arab blood. He states that the first horses at the Cape were imported, soon after 1650, by the Dutch East India Company, and consisted of Arabs and Gulf Arabs. Note that he distinguishes between Arabs of the pure breed, like Mr. Wilfrid Blunt’s, and the inferior breeds of the Gulf, such as are occasionally palmed off on India. Then he continues that, when inbreeding led to deterioration, the same company introduced Persian Arabs about 1688, that these became crossed with other stock, including Spanish horses (which, as I have shown, have a good sprinkling of Barb blood), and that recently the breed has been improved by crossing with Arab stallions.

On October 11, 1902, ‘Bruni’ writes:

‘Since I wrote on the Arab as a sire, I have received several letters from horsemen in widely different parts of Australia, bearing testimony to the value of the Arab as a sire calculated to improve the value of the Arab as a sire calculated to improve the stamina of our horse stock. The most interesting of these letters is one received from Mr. R.R.Hogarth, a resident of the north-west coast of Tasmania. He gives the following instance of the poweres of endurance of the high-class Arab:

“In December, 1900, my brother, weighing about 10 stone 7 pounds, rode a pony standing 12.2 hands from this place to Evandale Junction in one day. The distance is ninety-two miles. He left here at 4 a.m., and arrived at Evandale Junction at 8 p.m. He stayed an hour at Latrobe for breakfast, and another hour at Dunorlan for dinner, leaving the main-road a maile to call on Mr. W. Wyatt.”

To show that the pony was not injured by his long journey Mr. Hogarth rode him into Launceston and back — a distance of twenty-two miles — the next day. The road Mr. Hogarth describes as macadamized, and exceptionally hilly in parts. The pony was taken out of a grass paddock the day before he did the journey, having been running there for some time. The pony was by Dagobeirt, imported from New South Wales from a three-quarter-Arab mare by Maharajah, an Arab horse well known in the Evan dale district. The feat performed by this pony far exceeds the European military race of seventy miles, in which no less than thirteen of the competitors were killed. Of the pony himself Mr. Hogarth says:

“His walk and canter were perfect, while as to his trot — well, it was indescribable.”

An article in the South Australian Register, September 9, 1898, after quoting various favorable opinions, observes that in Febuary, 1862, at Calcutta, the Arab Hermit, though defeated, gave Voltigeur’s daughter such a stretching that the following day the mare had to be kept home, and the Arab proved the winner. Their hardiness was such that many an Arab has continued year after year to add to his laurels in spite of a thickened suspensory ligament.

Mr. De Vere Hunt cites with approval an authority which asserts that none but a people long possessed of numerous and well-trained chargers could have planted the victorious banners of Islam on the Pyrenees as well as on the banks of the Ganges. He might have added — ‘and carried them to China.’ He then sets out a letter from Lord Gifford, who was for twenty years a master of foxhounds, wherein the writer says that his little Arab was worth fifty of the gray, he rode him cub-hunting with Mr. Greaves, and he was active as a cat, and could put a leg anywhere. The horse was apparently not? an Arab.

In the South Australian Advertiser. it was lately stated that the Arabian horse has been used in developing the military horses of all the European countries, and that the thoroughbred had deteriorated to a mere shadow, while the Arab had remained the same and was increasing in popularity in Grat Britain.

‘Cecil,’ whom I have mentioned above, while supporting Mr. Day in supposing that the Arab could not improve the racehorse — as a racehorse — admits that: ‘For riding-horses, however, it is another affair.’ For the army and the general public that is the whole question.

Major Arthur Griffiths, in an article in the Fortnightly, September, 1898, writes that another great merit in the Egyptian cavalry is their horse-flesh, sturdy little Syrian Arabs which have done an immense amount of hard work, and, although small for their loads, are so strong and full of spirit that they have never been sick or sorry all the year.

At the Battle of Omdurman the Egyptian cavalry, mostly Arabs and Arab crosses, were out all day on September 1 from daybreak on August 31, and not in till 3 p.m., and on September 2 they were heavily engaged wih the Dervishes for several hours. They then advanced on Omdurman, and were sent in pursuit of the Khalifa; and the writer adds that it is really wonderful wht the Arab pony will do.

The passage from Mr. G.W. Steevens’ book above quoted as to the cavalry march to Omdurman shows the weight-carrying power of the Arab horse; for the ‘little Syrian’ is three-parts Arab — often, indeed, called Arab. This little horse with a light rider carried 18 stone on his back; with a heavy rider he carried 20 stone. I also cited the passage because it shows to demonstrat the utter inferiority of the English horse, ‘which had to be left behind at Cairo.’ Mr. Stevens was only describing what he saw. He does not appear to have had any idea of lauding the Arab. It does not appear that he knew how nearly Arab the little Syrian is, nor does it appear that he had any idea of disparaging the English horse. He was describing a picturesque scene, and the reference to the English horse seems to have been quite an aside. ‘Their own big, hungry chargers had to be left behind at Cairo!’

Dinah Sharp, in the New York Times, November 14, 1891, shows that the Arab has not deteriorated. She relates that Omar (who afterwards belonged to the late Empress of Austria, the finest horsewoman in Europe), travelled three days and nights over the hot and barren plains of the Arabian desert, with but 2 quarts of barley for food, and an occasional tuft of Sahara clover.

Miss Ella Sykes, in her recent work ‘Through Persia on a Side-saddle,’ writes that the horses they usually had were wiry little Arabs, about 14 hands high, plucky, enduring, and very easy to manage by their riders.

The Vienna correspondent of the Mail, recently wrote that the Hungarian horse had special qualities of endurance, which he attributed to his dash of the Arab blood, and that it was a great matter to have a certain strain of Arab blood in the troop-horse; for the Arab horse and the horse with the Arab blood will feed on indifferent forage which the English horse will not look at, and would retain condition when the latter was reduced to a bag of bones. The Hungarian horse had extremely hard bone, like the Arab, and consequently was seldom troubled with spavin, which was but too common among our own horses, whose bones are softer.

The Windsor Magazine, January, 1903, has it that the horses which are common to Hungary and Roumania are famous for their extraordinary strength, pluck, and sure-footedness. They both have a strong Arab dash.

In the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica‘ art. ‘Arabia,’ it is said that trained European racers would easily distance a thoroughbred Arab on any ordinary course, but for perfection of form, symmetry of limbs, cleanness of muscle, beauty of appearance, for endurance of fatigue, for docility, and for speed maintained for distances so long as to appear incredible, the Nedjie horse acknowledges no equal.

Mr. Harold Leeney, M.R.C.V.S., in the Live Stock Journal Almanack for 1898, writing a scientific article on the castration of horses, showing its desirablity, says that if exception — i.e., noncastration — could be made to any particular breed, he would say that the Arab was the one with fewest objections as an entire. No other reference is made to the Arab in the article, and this incidental reference of course testifies in an unusual manner to his docility. It is said that if they have never been at the stud they are perfectly quiet; and I believe that they are not usually gelded in Egypt. I often show off the docility of the breed to my guests by mounting — I ought to say, at seventy-three, by climbing on to — my old sire, now twelve years old, in the paddock, without either saddle or bridle, and I have done this though close to him on the other side of the fence was another stallion. I have riden him in great crowds and tents and shows and sports at Glenelg on Commemoration Day, and when he has got excited I have only had to speak to him to calm him down. This after several years at the stud.

Mr. W.G.Palgrave says that it is well known that in Arabia horses are much less frequently vicious or refractory than in Europe. Why, that is in the breed! Then he adds that this was the reason why geldings there were so rare. Miss Sara Linard, in her recent book on the horse, 1902, quotes a horse – parade described in the Daily Graphic of October, 1896, where four young ladies rode four Arab stallions, which, she says, before going to the stud are entirely safe, and which she also says is the case with Arabs only, ‘who know how to behave themselves as gentlemen.’ Many young ladies, visitors at my farm, from six or seven up, love to give my stallions sugar. But they are pure-bred. They are ‘gentlemen.

I have read that the docility and the cleverness of the breed are such that, in Arabia, they lead the animal to bite and keep in the path those which stray. Now, it so happened that, when the grass began to spring, the horses, working bullocks, and cows, at Kingsford, where I used to be stockkeeping in the forties, used to wander — there were no paddocks — and it was my duty to go out in the morning and bring them home, sometimes a distance of three or four or more miles. There was always a tendency in cattle and horses under these circumstances to edge off from a man on foot, and so surely as any of the other horses, or any of the cows or bullocks, did this, my old stock-horse, half Arab, as I have said, was as prompt as a cattle-dog to rush out and bring them back by a nip. I often used to wonder how he acquired the habit. This was, of course, when he ‘wasn’t on‘ himself for a gallop. Occasionally some of those uncanny creatures which entered the Gadarene swine possessed him, and at such times he was the ringleader. that was when the ‘old Adam‘ came out; but he would not ordinarily allow any of the others to lead or to depart from the right path.

In Dr. Liddon’s ‘Tour in Egypt and Palestine in 1886,’ a description is given of a Bedouin Sheikh, a worthy descendant of Sir Walter Scott’s Saladin. When he struck his spear into the ground, his horse stood and watched him like a dog. When he returned after his rounds, his horse lay down and gave a low whinny, then the Sheikh lay down by his side, making a pillow of the horse, and they both slept, apparently, for half an hour. The Sheikh again went his rounds, and the horse, finding his master had no further intentions of going to bed, got up and stood by the spear all night. My groom often lies down between the legs of my stallions, which then walk round him inquiringly and caressingly, apparently pleased at his confidence.

Mr. R. Fitzroy Cote, a considerable author, in his ‘Peruvians at Home,’ says that at the Lima bullfights all the horses permitted to enter the arena must be of pure Arab blood, and owing to their sagacity and the agility of their riders they seldom fail to escape the bull’s horns. Mr. Cote was not writing up the Arab horse, and only mentions him incidentlally; but doubtless the Peruvians had discovered his wonderful powers of twisting and turning, which have been illustrated in his boar-hunting in India.

The great traveller J.S.Buckingham, who at one time commanded a ship which made a long stay at each of the great marts of trade in the Persian Gulf, in giving an account of the trade there to India, and explaining the easy mode in which horses might thence be shipped, says that it was the usual thing for Arab horses to sleep standing, and to do so for years in succession, without ever lying down except when sick.

‘Bruni’ points out, on the authority of Mr. W.G. Hughes of Texas, that the foundation stock of the celebrated Mexican mustangs was the Moorish horses (Barbs) turned loose by Cortes. Desiring to breed from these mustangs, Mr. Hughes travelled over a large part of the United States, and finally found the horse he wanted in Nimrod, by a pure Arab sire, Nimr.

As showing the growing favour of the Arab, the racing gentlemen notwithstanding, the Ladies’ Field, October 28, 1902, has an advertisement that ‘a perfectly-shaped child’s pony 11.3 hands, rising five, like a miniature Arab, jumps high,’ was for sale. A racing man would probably laugh at this, but even supposing the man or woman who inserted this advertisement had been impressed by some drawing-room or fashionable novel, none the less does it show that the present general trend of opinion towards the Arab which ‘Bruni’ testifies to. It shows a belief that Arab blood is a recommendation, that there is a growing recognition of the excellence of the breed, a belief that it is the best that can be obtained in horse-flesh, and breeders who want to sell will be wise if they note it. If it be only a straw, it is the sort of straw which shows the way the wind is blowing. It demonstrates, in fact, that belief in the Arab is ‘sinking in.’ Can anyone wonder at it when he reads the facts collected in this little book?

‘Faneargh,’ in the Sidney Mail, writes that the old stockhorse of the overlanders of the early forties and fifties were largely bred from Arabs, that these old horses were of wonderful stamina, and their staying powers were marvellous.

The Register, September 7, 1901, reminds the public that the Arab horse stands cold as well as heat, and will eat anything that is given to him; that on half-rations or less his brave heart carries him through almost all imaginable difficulties; that it is difficult to overweight him, and he has always been more appreciated by foreigners than by Englishman — of course because of sprinting.

Professor Watson writes that the African horses were smaller and shorter in the body than those bred in Australia, and, as most of them were descendants of the Arab stock, they are unrivalled for hard usage.

At Waterloo the Emperor Napoleon was mounted on Marengo, a beautiful little Arab, only 14.2 hands, and when wounded Napoleon mounted his white Arab mare Marie; and in another sketch of Napoleon it is stated that Marengo was brought by Napoleon from Egypt in 199 (sic), and riden by him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, in the Russian Campaign, and at Waterloo, and that his skeleton was still in the Royal United Service Institution.

The German Emperor at the army manoeuvres in 1902 led the cavalry ‘mounted on his Arab charger.‘ He may be a poet, but he is no dreamy simpleton. He is probably the hardest-headed man in Europe.

Lord Roberts at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was mounted on ‘his celebrated Arab.’ Lord Roberts is not a drawing-room General, but, as stated by Lieutenant-Colonel Maude in Macmillan, May 1, 1902, ‘a perfect horseman– one of the best in India — a man of the widest experience as to what hores can do in the field.’ Colonel Maude states that General Roberts rode his Arab all through the Candahar forced march — ‘a type of the highest class of Arab.’ By special permission of Queen Victoria, this horse, Voronel, wears an Afghan medal with four clasps, and the Cabul-Candahar star.

Abdur Rahman, late Amir of Afghanistan, writes in his autobiography (one of the most remarkable books of the day, 1900):

‘At the end of our march both men and hroses were well-nigh exhausted. I myself cooked some meat and distributed it among the men, who were almost fainting; the horses meantime lay down, unable to rise again. Only one horse, my own Arab, remained standing.’

Abdur Rahman was fighting for his life, and, like the Bedouin, had to rely on his horse for his preservation. The odds on the Cup and the Stud book were nothing to him. A racing sprinter would have been destruction to him. He wanted fact, not fancy; solid work, not delicate prettiness; and it can be hardly suggested that the German Emperor did not know a good horse. Why did they ride Arabs when the pick of the whole world was at their service?

Web cmkarabians.com

The Case of the Blunt-Davenport Correspondence

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Blunt-Davenport Correspondence

Copyright © 1991 by Debra L. and Jerald F. Dirks

Used by permission.

Originally published in the September 1991 Arabian Visions

Introduction

Homer Davenport and Lady Anne Blunt were two major pioneering figures in early Arabian breeding in the Western world, both having taken the time and made the effort to secure horses directly from the Arabian desert. Lady Anne’s contributions to Arabian breeding were of major importance in both England (Crabbet Arabian Stud) and in Egypt (Sheykh Obeyd Garden), while Homer Davenport’s 1906 importation of 27 horses and mares from the desert of Arabia has left a giant imprint on subsequent Arabian breeding in North America.

Unfortunately, the early relationship between these two pioneering giants was uneasy, primarily because of the interference of Colonel Spencer Borden. Borden, an early American breeder of some renown, had based his breeding efforts largely on horses secured from the Blunts. Unknown to Lady Anne, Borden and Davenport’s relationship as two of the then preeminent breeders of Arabian horses in North America was somewhat bitter and antagonistic. She was not well-armed with caution when Borden communicated with Lady Anne by mail regarding the Davenport importation. Borden misrepresented the Davenport horses and the importation journey to Lady Anne, and had subsequently published out of context and in a distorted manner Lady Anne’s private comments and questions about Borden’s version of the Davenport importation. This put an early chill on subsequent Blunt and Davenport relationship. However, the early chill did thaw, as attested by three previously unpublished letters: two from Blunt to Davenport; and one from Davenport to Blunt. All three letters are published here in total for the first time.

(Editor’s note: the letters uncovered by our sleuths were not handwritten originals but rather typewritten transcripts made by U.S. Government personnel. Where their readings of the originals seem improbable, alternate readings are suggested in square brackets.)

Blunt to Davenport

Sheykh Obeyd Garden

December 28, 1906

Crabbet Arabian Stud

Crabbet Park

Three Bridges Sussex

Dear Sir:

“I must begin by thanking you for your interesting letter, which unavoidable business has prevented my answering sooner, and for the newspaper extracts, forwarded to me by W. Arthur Corfe Caffin, present Manager of the Crabbet Arabian Stud at Crabbet Park.

“In replying I will deal first with the assumption in one of the newspapers of a desire on the part of “the Blunts” to have a monopoly of importing the Arabian horse. This is sufficiently disproved by their book of travels, in which, as you remark, advice is given as to how to procure him. Further, as “the Blunts” have not ceased ever since to preach the cause of the Arabian horse, — alas how often to deaf ears in a land where such doctrine has been held to be unpatriotic, — surely it is abundantly evident that by them any bona fide efforts to follow in their track must be keenly appreciated. More than one such effort has been caused by their book, but on the part of Russian and other readers of it; none hitherto that I know of had been made by persons to be counted kith and kin from across the Atlantic. And that was after nearly thirty years such an expedition as yours has been carried out is particularly gratifying. You have my best wishes for the success of your importations.

“This may be the moment to remark how much I should deplore the continuance of that sort of antagonistic rivalry amongst advocates of the Arabian horse which has been started in the American press. It can but injure the true interests of the breed and its breeders with the general public. Emulation by all means, but not hostility.

“Therefore with regard to the un-authorized publication of passages from letters of mine it is peculiarly repellent to me that words of mine should have been quoted (some correctly and some incorrectly.) though doubtless unintentionally, in order to contribute to a controversy between persons desirous to breed Arabian horses. On hearing of this I wrote at once to remonstrate with my correspondent, and I am expecting the expression of his regret, which I am certain will be all the greater when he has received a letter I am now sending him setting forth that I have heard direct from you, and the views I am now expressing to you on the subject. As his name had not been given I leave it to him to come forward as he may think fit, and I have no doubt that on learning the facts about your expedition, he will be with me in congratulating you on it.

“As to my remarks in themselves, they were perfectly justified in respect of the absurd report about the new importations on which they were founded, the only one which had reached me, — no one could have read that report without amusement, and in the case of one having knowledge of Arabians, annoyance. The tone of it not only put the whole thing in a ridiculous light, but foreshadowed disappointment in the form of importations that could do no good to the reputation of the breed. But while freely criticising in private, I should have depreciated the publication of adverse views of mine on anyone else’s well meant efforts, however disappointing these might be, for in my position — regarding myself as one of the pioneers of Arab breeding in the West — I should count that as an ungenerous act.

“Speaking generally, I may remark that your own observations fully bear out all that I have ever said about the difficulty of getting at pure bred Arabian horses even on the borders of their native land, and about the risk of the desert. Most certainly such terms as “dangerous”, and even “inaccessible” to travelers, are applicable at the present moment to the Peninsula of Arabia — Bedouin dealers cannot penetrate it but have to go round by Bagdad and the Euphrates, — and from your account the former work [sic: probably “former word” was written, referring to “dangerous”] appears to be not inapplicable to its northern borders and to the neighborhood of Aleppo (emphatically the “coast Town”, but of the desert, not the sea), for it is clear that your having been able to visit those borders and to see there certain Anazeh tribes was through a fortunate combination of circumstances of which you had the energy and pluck to avail yourself, first the nearness of the tribes owing to the summer season, and secondly the efficient protection of a prominent tribesman duly authorized by the Turkish Government to act as an intermediary between it and those tribes which enabled you to go in safely, unhandicapped by an escort.

“Here I must observe, as to the claim of any single individual to be “Sheykh of Sheykhs” over all the Anazeh tribes, that the thing is in itself an impossibility. Imagine that vast wars of scattered tribes, several of them at chronic war with one another, some periodically in arms against the “Dowla”, others absolutely independent, never going near Ottoman territory; imagine these all accepting one chief? Moreover the mention of a camel tax restricts the reference to those Anazeh tribes within reach of Turkish authorities; such a tax is unheard of among the independent tribes. The “Dowla” may bestow what titles it likes on anyone it chooses, but it cannot confer on that person any authority outside its own districts. What it can and does do is from time to time to appoint as its agent a member of one of those tribes whose interests bring them within its grip, giving him the rank of “Bek”, — this as I have stated is no recommendation with any Bedouin (I am misquoted as saying “women”) but it establishes his official status as negotiator for the summer treaty. The present holder of such an official position in the Aleppo district is your friend Hashim Bek, his name correctly written is El Hakim Ibn Mehed (“Hashim” is a mispronounciation), he is a very well known personage, — only last night an Arab lately arrived from Aleppo was talking about him. I take it that by an interpreter’s exaggeration he has been made to claim the lordship over all the Anazeh tribes, instead of over a section of them, a quite sufficiently important position. In the Bagdad district a similar rank is held by Fahad Ibn Haddal, Sheykh of the Ibn Haddal Anazeh — these by the way are at hereditary warfare against the Sebaa group whom you visited. Fahad comes of very distinguished lineage and commands universal respect, but his authority extends only to those Anazeh and other tribes who come within the Bagdad district. Those tribes who need to be within Government boundaries have long been in the habit of making a treaty each year for that season with the Waly, at Aleppo, Damascus, or Bagdad as the case may be, thus securing for themselves free passage to and fro for the time being.

“Not to lengthen my letter unduly, I subjoin notes on the various minor points calling for remark.

“I write to my as yet unnamed correspondent to the same effect as to you. I should like to say to each what I say to the other, but in each case I beg that my letters may be treated as private communications, not that I mind their contents being repeated to friends, — and if need were I would stand in public by all I say in private, but I dislike publicity, expecially controversial, where needless, and here I could see no need whatever for my name to be brought forward in print.

“In conclusion, if the result of the unauthorized publication which has caused me so much annoyance should be not only a friendly correspondence with you, but through that correspondence the promotion of friendly instead of antagonistic rivalry amongst those on both sides of the Atlantic, who desire to preserve the Arabian breed in its purity, I shall cease to regret it. With renewed good wishes, I am

“Yours faithfully, A.W.Blunt[sic]

[Lady Anne often signed herself A.I.N.Blunt. When placed closely together, the “I.N.” could be mistaken for a “W” which apparently happened in this case.]

Notes

1. In the report that first reached me about the new importations, an average height was indicated of 15 hands, which would have been suspicious of a cross, as though tallness occurs now and then in the desert where the breed is kept pure, it is as an exception, as at this stud. When we came across it amongst Bedouins otherwise than as exceptional it was evidently the result of crossing; this was expecially the case in one of the Anazeh tribes where at first I was quite taken in by the beauty of the mares as well as their size; the cross does not necessarily show at once except in the increased height.

2. The word “chubby” puzzled me till I discovered that it was an attempt to render the Arabic verb “shabba”, signifying “is” or “would be used at the stud”, which of course does not imply a separate breed but only that in the individual referred to there is no admixture. It is a word often heard among the tribes that frequent the northern borders of the Arabian desert, who own so many horses of doubtful blood. The small percentage you quote of less than 600 of acknowledged pure blood to a presumed total of 6000, more than confirms anything said by me as to the need of caution in making purchases.

3. The Kehilan Heyfi strain is indeed an excellent one, but not superior to others you have.

4. Mr. (not “Sir Wilfred”) Blunt was aware of the death of Faris the Shammar Sheykh, as also of the death of another desert brother of his belonging to one of the Sebaa tribes.

5. As to Angora goats, what passed between Mr. Blunt and Mr. and Mrs. Sewell I do not exactly know, but I do know that amongst our acquaintance the circumstances that an exchange of goats for horses has been suggested, — I think by your representative — became a source of great amusement, for here no monetary value could make any sort of goat appear to be an appropriate equivalent for Arabian or other horses.

6. I do not know whence came the legend that “the Blunts cut communication with Mr. Davenport.” Any cutting of communication originated with you, who, after sending letters and cablegrams became suddenly silent, we now know why.

7. There has always existed a prohibition to export horses from Turkish territory, but of late I believe it has been made more stringent, and the permission given to you must have been due to great judgment and skill on the part of the American Ambassador. I doubt if at the present time any other diplomat would have had a like success.

A.W.B.[sic]

P.S.

“I have not yet seen the book you mention by Colonel Borden. He is a first rate judge of a horse, so it will be a great pity if, as you forecast, his work should turn out [not?] to be a good advertisement for all of us.

Davenport to Blunt

Morris Plains, N.J.,U.S.A.

20th February, 1907

Lady Anne Blunt,

Crabbet Arabian Stud

Crabbet Park

Three Bridges Sussex, Eng.

Your Ladyship: –

“Your very esteemed letter from Cairo came and threw an entirely new light again upon matters, only going to show that a misunderstanding on both sides had made us seem ridiculous in each other’s eyes.

“When Colonel quoted you against me, I could not believe that it was true, of course your letter explains matters, as you must have thought, from his explanation of my importation, that I was a very green fellow to have gone to the Desert and reported bringing out a new breed of Arab horses called “Chubby.” It was explained to me thoroughly by the Anezeh, that it simply meant, as you say: This, or that, which the Anezeh would breed from.

“Before going further I wish to apologize for buying one of your Seglawieh Jedranieh fillies through an agent, as I wanted some of your Seglawis Jedran blood very badly, to see how it compared, and taking it, that if the quotations Colonel Borden had made. “That you had cut me socially,” were true, I was afraid that possible you would not wish to sell me a horse. I have just seen the filly, [*Markisa] she arrived today on the steamer, a filly with bald face and four white feet [illegible] and a very beautiful little filly considering the cheap price.

“I was very, very sorry, that I was compelled to enter into this detestable warfare that has been raging between the Arab horse breeders of America, and when Mr. Sewell came to my house and wanted to arrange a fake exhibition, I told him that it would eventually kill the Arab horse if it was not stopped. Three years ago, when he had published an Article in all the daily papers at great length, that he had the only pure Arab blood in the Civilized World. I, at that time, told his people that was detrimental to the Arab horse. He, in that article, said that the Blunts were breeding a few, but they were ponies, none of the big horses; he also published that the Blunts sent mares annually to the Russian Gov’t. to breed to his stallions — this, of course, I knew was untrue, and again appealed to them.

“My interest in the Arab horse — as you will see by my book, which I will send you immediately it is published — dates from as early a time as any enthusiast; and your conclusion that my success was due to a combination of circumstances, is exactly right. Had I not asked a question in Aleppo of a Bedouin with big white chalky teeth, remembering what you had written about such a man, saying it was the first Anazeh man you ever saw, had I not remembered that, and asked the question, I would have been ignorant of meeting the Anazeh; but the next day would have started on to Deyr, and likely have made a failure, which did turn out a success.

“I would have been very happy to have had you see my Maneghi Sbeyel stallion, a brown horse from the Gomussa; also a bay two year old colt bred by the Gomussa of the Sebaa Anazeh. Like yourself, I found the tall Arab horses only as exceptions. I am strongly in accord with the belief of the Bedouins, that the 14 hands two or three inch horses are the best types. In my 27 horses and mares, I think I brought five that stand 15 hands high, or nearly so. Found the Hamdani Simris the scarcest in the Desert, and I could not have got a single mare, had it not been that Akmut Haffez owned one, a four year old, which he had recently got from the Shammar.

“I am enclosing you a copy of a letter I have just received from Ammen Zaytoun, a Broosh [Druse?], a very charming young man from the American Consulate at Beyrout, sent with us by order of the President.

“I do not think that you have exactly understood me yet, about Hasim Bek. I don’t mean that he was the one Ruling Sheykh of all the Desert tribes, being that he is the present Sheykh of the Anazeh, possibly of the biggest branch of the Fedaan, as we met many other Sheykhs of the smaller tribes; but I believe that the Government of Aleppo, in an interview, the details of which I am publishing in my book, giving me this Sheykh’s history, is correct. He is paid Twenty pounds a month by the Sultan to accept the title of Bey; and as the Governor, also Akmut Haffez, and Ameen, the interpreter, and everybody else, explained it to me, that being the Sheykh of supreme power in war, he was called by the other tribes, Sheykh of Sheykhs, as in matters of great importance all other Sheykhs — not hostile — obey his commands. He told me that he had been reigning as Sheykh of the Anazeh since he was twelve years old, and he is possibly now, 30 or 35.

“Of recent years the Turkish Government have persuaded the Anazeh — through Akmut Haffez — in Aleppo, to pay a Camel Tax, but such tax is taken on the Anazeh’s own count, and is collected annually through Akmut Haffez. The Governor of Aleppo told me, which I am also publishing, in my interview with him, that this tax amounts to about 10,000 annually (2,500 pounds from the Anazeh, 10,000 pounds from all tribes). I don’t believe that I was misled, or has [had?] misrepresentations made to me by any of the men around me, as owing to the Irade from the Sultan, and the three strong personal letters which I carried from President Roosevelt, they accorded me every honour, and you can judge better of how I must have suffered in the Valley of the Euphrates from the heat in August, than most anyone I can think of.

“If my sales of horses are what they now seem to promise, this coming Spring I may be able to handle a number of your fillies and young stallions, as from the few Arab horses I have sold I have received much higher prices than you ask.

“I wish, before closing, to ask your permission to use your letter in my book, with the dignity it commands, as it is so friendly and eliminates any suspicion of further entanglement, and although you rightly objected in your letter to its being used in any further controversy, still using it in my book is altogether a different matter. I am publishing several photo’s of your horses and mares, many of which were taken by my cousin on his visit to your farm, and should deem it also a great favor to have your photograph, with Mr. Blunt’s, to publish also. The President has given me permission to use the letter he had written securing the Irade, together with his photo, and I have the photo’s of horses imported in 1845 by the late A. Keene Richards.

“May I kindly hear from you without delay relative to using your letter, as my book will very shortly be placed in the Publisher’s hands.

“Colonel Borden has not been to see me, he has written to a friend to write to another friend to suggest a meeting; that you have strongly recommended it. The Colonel is what we would call in regards to a Cayhuse — “Skittish.” However it is only a question of time when we all will be in One Arab Family.

“I am sending you my Catalogue under separate cover.

“Believe me. Your Ladyship’s servent

Blunt to Davenport

Sheykh Obeyd Garden

May 8, 1907

Crabbet Arabian Stud

Crabbet Park

Three Bridges Sussex

Dear Sir:

“I am shocked not to have thanked you sooner for a second interesting letter, dated Feb. 20, but some business which has kept me in Egypt has also hindered writing. Thank you also for the Stud Lists which I am much flattered to find modelled on the original Crabbet Arabian one. I think them extremely well got up in every way, paper, print, introduction and expecially illustrations which add an extra charm. In that respect I hope to follow your lead as I have long wished to illustrate my own Stud List, only I have been waiting till I could myself take photographs, and I have just begun. Of your portraits of horses I prefer “Haleb.”

“From your accounts and from other information I quite understand the immense change in the relations of the Ottoman Government with all the tribes it can get at, which has been brought about by H.I.M. the Sultan’s extraordinary sagacity, a benefit doubtless to the Empire. But I cannot help regretting it as it is evidently a principal cause, if not the sole cause of the greatly diminished percentage of purebred horses. This could not be otherwise, as deterioration is the inevitable result on nomads of contact with the governing posers of civilisation, and I have no doubt that 10 years hence there will be still fewer horses that [illegible]. So the good work of breeding pure Arabians elsewhere than in Northern Arabia becomes the more important.

“I am glad you bought Markisa and that you got her cheap as I do not think that the exceptional circumstances which allowed low prices are likely to recur. I shall not know till I get home exactly what there will [be] for sale there; here I have nothing I can part with except two mares at 200 gs each. They are of very particularly valuable and rare strains from the Abbas Pasha collection, but I shall sell them when their foals of this year are weaned as they are well represented. Both are believed to be in foal to the stallion “Jamil”, whose picture I sent you with a few other stud photographs including those of the two mares. There [These?] are my first photographic efforts; I hope to be better later on. I would with pleasure add my own portrait on a mare but the only existing one was taken by a visitor and I have not a copy. You ought however to be even more interested by the portrait of my Stud Manager at this place, as he is of the far-famed horse breeding tribe of Muteyr — to the S.E. of Nejd — the drawn sword does not show on the blue sky. I ought to have managed a dark background.

“There are several subjects referred to in [illegible] letter which might be talked over if I ever have the pleasure of meeting you, but writing takes too much time. Some day you may be coming to England, and then you must pay me a visit.

“I expect to be there by the end of the month; my address will be care of Mr. Arthur Caffin as I shall be first moving about

“Yours faithfully, Annebel Blunt

“P.S. — Perhaps you will tell me the proper mode of address in case the ordinary British formula of “Esquire” is not welcome, or perhaps not even admitted, in America?

Addendum:

Commentary on these three letters will appear next month’s column by Charles and Jeanne Craver.

Line-Breeding And In-Breeding

by BEN HUR (Western Horseman May/Jun’45)

[Ed. Note: Today Ibrahim is accepted as a Desert-Bred stallion. See footnote (1) below]

Aarah No. 1184, chestnut Arabian mare owned by Ben Hur Farms, and her filly foal, Aarafa No. 2870, by Champion Raffles. She and all in her pedigree, including the fourth generation, have the blood of the tap-root stallion, Zobeyni — a striking example of line-breeding.


What kind of a stallion would you select to mate to your mares to improve the quality of the foal? Would your first consideration be that the stallion and mares be unrelated? Or would you select the best stallion available, with the best breeding (pedigree) regardless of his relationship to the mares?

Do you study the pedigrees of prospective sires? Do you know their breeding, and do you have the pedigree of your mares? Marked improvement in your foals can be made regardless of the kind of mares you have. You may have Pintos, Palominos, Quarter Horses, Morgans, Albinos, Arabians or American Saddle horses or just plain Stock Horses. By selecting the right kind of stallion you can make improvements each generation. The better the breeding of your mares, the more nearly pure in blood, the greater improvement in the foals.

Line-breeding and in-breeding are the old and time-proven methods by which breed improvement has been made in the past. This is true in cattle, horses, sheep, poultry, dogs. All our present day breeds are the result of close line-breeding and often, intense in-breeding. There is no mystery where our finest horse, cattle, sheep and dogs came from. A study of their pedigrees will reveal the facts. Owners of pedigreed animals are well aware of the importance of line-breeding and in-breeding. However, you, too, with grade mares may, by a definite breeding program and the proper selection of a stallion, employ the same methods of improvement in the foals.

Let us study the breeding of Arabians. They are pure in blood and their pedigrees extend back many generations. Pedigrees of Thoroughbreds, Morgans, American Saddle horses, as well as Arabians, all reveal the same fact, i.e., that there have been certain outstanding males every so often that have dominated and influenced all succeeding generations. The male exerts a far greater influence in breed improvement than the female, due solely to the numerical supremacy of off-spring. A mare may have twenty foals in a lifetime, but a stallion may get fifty or one hundred foals a year for ten to twenty years.

Zobeyni, famous Arabian stallion more than 100 years ago, furnishes an interesting study. Pedigrees of Arabians back five or six generations seldom show his name. But his blood is the greatest influence today among Arabians in England, the United States, Egypt, Australia, South America or whenever there are pure Arabians. It is more difficult to find Arabians without his blood, than with it. Zobeyni was a grey Seglawi Jedran stallion of the strain of Ibn Sbeyni of the Mehed tribe of the Fedaan Anazeh Bedouins, bred in Arabia and imported to Egypt early in the 19th century where he became enormously important in the world-famous stud of Abbas Pacha I. He is the founder of the male line that has been most successful throughout the world the past century. His great grandson, Mesaoud, and great, great grandson, Skowronek(1), are each in turn contributing as much or more than their illustrious ancestors to the success of Arabians in the 20th century.

Skowronek, bred in Poland, was later used as leading stallion at Lady Wentworth’s Crabbet Stud in England, from where his blood has gone to all parts of the world where Arabians are bred.

Mesaoud, grandson of the tap-root stallion, Zobeyni. Bred in Egypt, he was taken to England, then to Russia.

Arab tribes in the desert followed the custom of giving the strain and family name of the mare to the foal, rather than the name of the sire. The custom, followed in this country for a number of years, led to confusion and misunderstanding. The foal, given the strain name of its dam, might be, and in nearly every instance was, from a number of other strains and with many more related bloodlines on the male side than the female. As a result of this confusion, The Arabian Horse Club of America several years ago discontinued the practice of giving strain names to Arabians registered with them.

A study of the pedigrees with this article illustrates the fallacy of blindly following and giving breeding value to the strain name of the dam. Champion Raffles, for example, has been referred to as Kehilan for four generations back. Had the custom been followed of giving the strain name of the sire to the foal it will be readily seen that Raffles would be a Seglawi Jedran, from his illustrious male line — Skowronek, Ibrahim, Heijer, Mahruss, Wazir and Zobeyni.

Champion Raffles, owned by Roger Selby, Portsmouth, Ohio, bred by Lady Wentworth in England. As son and grandson of Skowronek, he is an example of successful in-breeding and line-breeding from the Zobeyni line.

Aaraf, foaled in 1943, sired by *Raffles, out of Aarah. Note resemblance to Mesaoud, who appears nine times in pedigree.

To the student of pedigrees and breeding it will be apparent that there is vastly more involved than a custom in this instance. These pedigrees aptly illustrate the vastly greater importance and influence of the male line in most pedigrees. Raffles goes back to Zobeyni not once but twelve times, out of thirty-two ancestors in the sixth generation. Rose of Sharon, the great grand-dam of Raffles in the sixth generation, whose strain or family name of Kehilan has been arbitrarily given by those who still follow this custom, appears in his pedigree but once. We leave it to the reader to decide whether the male Zobeyni (Seglawi) line or the female Rose of Sharon (Kehilan) blood and influence is the stronger.

The questionable value placed on strain and family names of the dam is shown in the pedigree of Raffles in that there are seven different strain names out of thirty-two names in the sixth generation and nine names of unknown strain names.

Abu Zeyd, son of Mesaoud, was foaled in England, imported to United States in 1904 by Homer Davenport.

The pedigree of the Arabian mare, Aarah, pictured with this article, shows that she is bred along the same lines as Raffles, in fact, they are very much in line. Aarah, like Raffles, would be Kehilan from her dam’s side, but take time to count — 18 of her 32 ancestors in the sixth generation are sons and daughters of grandsons and daughters of the famous Zobeyni, a Seglawi. Mesaoud, illustrious great grandson of Zobeyni, and also a Seglawi through his dam, appears eight times in the pedigree of Aarah. Is there reason then for similarity of appearance of Aarah and Mesaoud?

Aaraf and Aarafa, out of Aarah and by Raffles, follow to a marked degree the type and markings of Mesaoud. The pedigree of Raffles shows Mesaoud twice which added to that of Aarah makes Mesaoud appear ten times in the pedigrees of Aaraf and Aarafa and numerical superiority is the answer. We must not assume that success in breeding is a mathematical problem of addition and multiplication. Breeders have universally found it safe to follow the rule of eliminating from the pedigree the undesirable and animals of doubtful value and to multiply as often as possible the highly desirable animals. The blood of Zobeyni, for example, appears in 12 out of 16 ancestors of Aarah in the fifth generation and Zobeyni is a common ancestor in eight out of eight ancestors of Aarah in the fifth generation and Zobeyni is a common ancestor in eight out of eight ancestors in the fourth generation, yet without direct, closeup in-breeding.

What is in-breeding? The commonly accepted definition is that of mating dam to son, as in the case of Rifala, daughter of Skowronek, back to Skowronek, or sire bred to daughter, the two most commonly practiced. There may be several other close variations of in-breeding, brother and sister, half-brother and sister, dam to grandson, sire to granddaughter.

In-breeding has been found to be most successful where there has been a previous successful outcross. Ibrahim, sire of Skowronek, it will be noted, is an example of the closest kind of line-breeding in that in the fourth generation Wazir, sired by Zobeyni, appears three times and his full sister Horra, once, mated to a grandson of Zobeyni. Eleven of 14 of Ibrahim’s ancestors in the first four generations are close up in the blood of Zobeyni. Ibrahim, taken to Poland from Egypt, and out-crossed on the Polish Arabian mare, Yaskoulka, not directly related, produced Skowronek, whose blood is found in Arabians around the world today. The blood of Skowronek was intensified in his get, Raffles, when he was bred to his daughter, Rifala, thus giving Raffles three-fourths of the blood of Skowronek, combined with the blood of Mesaoud of the same line of breeding.

The predominate blood of a female line is harder to find among pedigrees of horses of live stock, not because there are not highly desirable females but in the case of horses, because of the limit placed on reproduction in the mare as compared to the stallion.

*Raffles No 952

Grey Arabian Stallion —

 

Wazir * s

Mahruss*

BF Saouda w

Heijer*

Wazir

B Jamila*

Ghazieh s

Ibrahim*

Aziz * d

a Seg-Jed*

Horra * s

La Fitte*

Wazir *

Makbula*

M Kebira k

SIRE

Skowronek*

Cercle

Kortez

Gonta

Rymnik

Kohejlan

Hama

Caramba

Yaskoulka

—–

Derwisz

—–

Epopeja

O Maciuk

Lira

Kreolka k

 

 

Mahruss * w

Heijer *

B Jamila s

Ibrahim

a Seg-Jed

La Fitte*

Makbula * k

Skowronek*

Kortez

Rymnik

Gonta

Yaskoulka

Derwisz

Epopea

Lira

DAM

Rifala*

Mesaoud * s

Seyal*

Sobha * h

Berk*

Ahmar a

Bukra

Bozra s

Rissla*

Aziz * d

Mesaoud*

Yemameh s

Risala

Merzuk * k

Ridaa*

R Sharon k

    * Asterisk after the name denotes those with the ancient, tap-root, desert-bred stallion, Zobeyni, as an ancestor, founder of the male line that has been most successful in England and the U.S. the past century.

    The small lettes after the names in the sixth generation denote the family strain names, k — Kehilan; s — Seglawi; a — Abeyan; b — Sh. Sba; d–D. Shahwan; h — Hamdani; w — W. Hursan.

    The capital letters before certain names are, R — Rose; M — Makbula; O — Obejan; B — Bint; F — Faras. ……

 

AARAH No. 1184 Chestnut Arabian Mare —

Mesaoud * s

Seyal*

Sobha * h

Berk*

Ahmar

Bukra

Bozra

Ribal*

I Mahruss * s

Rijm*

R Sharon k

Rijma*

Mesaoud * s

Risala*

Ridaa * k

SIRE

Ghadaf*

Mesaoud * s

Harb*

B Helwa * s

Rodan*

Hadban h

R Sharon

Rodania k

Gulnare*

Sottam n

I Sherara

Sheara k

Ghazala*

Aziz * d

B Helwa*

Helwa * s

 

Ibn Nura * d

Feysul*

El Argaa k

I Yashmak*

Shahwan * d

Yashmak*

Yemama k

Rizvan*

I Mahruss * s

Rijm*

R Sharon k

Rijma*

Mesaoud * s

Risala*

Ridaa * k

DAM

Nadirat*

Aziz * d

Mesaoud*

Yemameh s

Abu Zeyd*

Azrek s

R Diamond

R Jericho k

Nusara*

I Mahruss * s

Rijm*

R Sharon k

Noam*

Rejeb * k

Narda II *

Narghileh * k

    * Asterisk after the name denotes those with the ancient, tap-root, desert-bred stallion, Zobeyni, as an ancestor, founder of the male line that has been most successful in England and the U.S. the past century.

    The small letters after the names in the sixth generation denote the family strain names: k — Kehilan; s — Seglawi; d — D Shahwan; h — Hamdani; a — Abeyan; n — D Nejib; h — H Enzeki.

    Capital letters before names denote R – Rose; I — Ibn; B — Bint.

The Arabian mare Rodania, celebrated mare of the desert, captured by the Gomussa tribe, sold to the Blunts, and taken to their Crabbet stud, England, in 1881, is the most striking example of the female influence. Note her daughters in these pedigrees and the number of times they appear — Rose of Sharon, Rose of Jericho, and her granddaughters Rose Diamond and Ridaa, and grandsons, Rijm, Rodan and Rejeb. The pedigrees of Raffles and Aarah in connection with this articles illustrate the concentration of blood of a male and female line of successful line-breeding and the more controversial in-breeding. You may apply the practical application of these results in breeding to your own horses, no matter what breed or type.

(1) Today Ibrahim is accepted as a desert-bred stallion. For more information see:

Lady Wentworth’s THE AUTHENTIC ARABIAN HORSE

Schile, Erika THE ARAB HORSE IN EUROPE

Potocki, Count Joseph (son of Skowronek’s breeder) “Skowronek’s Pedigree and the Antoniny Stud” The Arabian Horse News, Feb. ’58.

Blunt, Lady Anne JOURNALS AND CORRESPONDENCE 1878-1917

Guttmann, Ursula: THE LINEAGE OF THE POLISH ARABIAN HORSES

Dickenson, J.M. A CATALOG OF TRAVELERS REST ARABIAN HORSES

See also:

Skowronek — Magic Progenitor