Tag Archives: Traveler’s Rest

Aziza & Roda

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

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

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

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

1935 grey colt Azkar 1109, by Rahas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-> 1939 grey colt Julep 1678, by Gulastra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-> 1947 grey filly Azyya 3952, by Kenur.

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

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

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

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

-> 1949 grey colt Aziz 5388, by Rasraff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Roda is described in the Dickinson stud catalog:

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

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

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

The Dickinson catalog reads,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-> 1939 grey colt Apollo 1687, by Agwe.

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

-> 1940 grey filly Rodetta 1972, by Agwe.

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

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

-> 1943 grey filly Weda 2734, by Agwe.

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

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

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

From that mating she produced:

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

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

1946 grey colt Tut Ankh Amen 3830, by *Raffles.
The Shueys sold this young stallion to Mrs. Morrill of the Bear Claw Ranch in Wyoming late in 1950. He left one 1951 foal in North Carolina. Tut Ankh Amen became a key sire for Mrs Morrill. After several foal crops she sold him to R-Farm of Buckley, Washington; the horse moved to his new home in May of 1958. Tut Ankh Amen sired 103 registered foals, the last born in 1965.
1947 grey filly Star of Egypt 4167, by *Raffles.
From 1951 to 1969 Star of Egypt produced 15 foals, all bred by Margaret Shuey. They include one by Image (Pamela), four by Ibn Hanad (Egypt, Sunny Acres Misty, Sunny Acres Prometheus, and Sunny Acres Cherie), and one by Shalimar Teke (Sunny Acres Easter Star).
1948 grey filly Joye 4803, by *Raffles.
Joye was the dam of nine registered foals born from 1953 to 1967, all bred by Miss Shuey. They include the Ibn Hanad daughters Sunny Acres Papaya and Sunny Acres Lovejoye, as well as the Sunny Acres Aeneas daughter Sunny Acres Genevieve.

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

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

but finally produced:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional sources:

Arabian Horse News, September 1958, p. 34.

Arabian Horse News, April 1969, p. 73.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(with added photos)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Postscript: Names and Identities

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

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

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

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

The Science

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

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

The march of science

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

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

Scientific papers:

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

(with added photos)

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

(Bint) Yamama with Negma

*Nasr 1918 AHC 889 (Rabdan El Azrak x Bint Yamama)

Negma at age 32 (Dahman x Bint Yamama)

Jasir 1925 (Mabrouk Manial x Negma)

*Aziza 1926 (Jamil x Negma)

Khafifan 1916 (Mabrouk Manial x Negma) Imp. to Poland 1924 by Count Potocki

Mahroussa ca. 1920 (Mabrouk Manial x Negma)

*H.H.Mohamed Ali’s Hamama 1927 AHC 887 (Kawkab x Mahroussa)

*H.H.Mohamed Ali’s Hamida 1929 AHC 890 (*Nasr AHC 889 x Mahroussa)

Julep AHC 1678 (Gulastra x *Aziza)

Azkar 1938 AHC 1109 (Rahas x *Aziza)

*Zarife 1928 AHC 885 (Ibn Samhan x Mahroussa

*Fadl 1930 AHC 896 (Ibn Rabdan x Mahroussa)

*Maaroufa 1931 AHC 895 (Ibn Rabdan x Mahroussa)

Rodasr 1938 AHC 1591 (*Nasr x *Roda)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CMK Mare Families

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

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

The Double Registered Arabians

by R.J. Cadranell
from The CMK Record Summer 1989 VIII/I
copyright 1989

In 1791, during the century which saw the writing of great compendiums of knowledge, including Dr. Johnson’s dictionary, James Weatherby published in England what was to become the preliminary volume of The General Stud Book, Containing Pedigrees of Race Horses, &c. &c. From the earliest Accounts… In 1808, after several revisions, appeared the version which has become standard. This documented the pedigrees of a breed of horse which later adopted the name of Thoroughbred. Mr. Weatherby’s stud book demonstrates the Thoroughbred’s descent from numerous Oriental sires and dams. The pedigree of the Thoroughbred stallion ECLIPSE (1764) lists the names of the DARLEY ARABIAN, the LEEDES ARABIAN, the OGLETHORPE ARABIAN, the LISTER TURK, the DARCY YELLOW TURK, the BYERLEY TURK, the GODOLPHIN ARABIAN or Barb, HUTTON’S GREY BARB, and the MOROCCO BARB as ancestors.

The American Stud Book, a.k.a. the Jockey Club Stud Book, first appeared in 1873. Its original complier was S.D. Bruce, and The American Stud Book (ASB) is still the registration authority for Thoroughbreds in this country. Volume I included a chapter for “Imported Arab, Barb and Spanish Horses and Mares.”

Weatherbys issued Volume XIII of the General Stud Book (GSB) in 1877. This volume included a new section, roughly one page in length, for Arabian stock recently imported to the U.K. It was the beginning of modern Arabian horse breeding in the English speaking world. In this volume are Arabians which Capt. Roger D. Upton and H.B.M. Consul at Aleppo, Mr. James H. Skene, were involved in importing for Messrs. Sandeman (including YATAGHAN and HAIDEE, the sire and dam of *Naomi) and Chaplin (including the mare KESIA). GSB Volume XIV (1881) registered the earliest of Mr. Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt’s importations for their Crabbet Arabian Stud. Skene had provided crucial assistance to the Blunts, too; Wilfrid Blunt later credited Skene with giving him and his wife the idea for the Crabbet Stud (see Archer et.al., The Crabbet Arabian Stud. p. 34). Skene is perhaps the founding father of Arabian horse breeding in the English speaking world. The preface to GSB Volume XIV expressed the hope that the newly imported Arabian stock might, in time, provide the Thoroughbred with a valuable cross back to the original blood from which it had come. This idea had also been behind the thinking of Upton and Skene.

The Blunts subscribed to this view too. The British racing authorities agreed to hold an Arab race at Newmarket in 1884; the outcome was inconclusive, but Blunt wrote that

“the ultimate result, however, was not I think, as far as Arab breeding in England was affected by it, wholly a misfortune. It convinced me that I was on wrong lines in breeding Arabs for speed, and not for those more valuable qualities in which their true excellence lies. Had I continued with my original purpose, I should have lost time and money, and probably have also spoiled my breed, producing stock taller perhaps and speedier, but with the same defects found in the English Thoroughbred.”(see Blunt, Gordon at Khartoum, 2nd ed., London 1912, p. 265)

Although the Blunts gave up the idea of rejuvenating the Thoroughbred with a fresh cross to Arab blood, they continued to register their horses in the Arab section of the GSB, as it was the sole registration authority for Arabian breeding stock in the U.K. GSB registration conferred on the Crabbet horses the advantages of prestige and the eligibility to enter many countries of the world duty free.

Volume IV of The American Stud Book (1884) continued to list Arabian horses imported to America. This volume included the 1879 import *Leopard, the first Arabian brought to America to leave Arabian descent here. The Arabian section in ASB VI (1894) included the imported horses (all from the GSB) of the early breeders Huntington and Ramsdell.

The mare *Nejdme was the first horse recorded in the Arabian Horse Registry of America Studbook. Foaled in Syria, she is pictured here in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair.

ASB VII (1898) listed in the Arab section Huntington and Ramsdell horses, with the addition of Ramsdell’s *SHAHWAN, newly imported from the Crabbet Stud, and his mare *NEJDME (spelled “Nedjme” in ASB) from the Hamidie Society’s exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. Also included were a stallion from the deserts of Northern Arabia and two stallions imported from Russia for the Chicago World’s Fair. The pedigree information printed with one of the latter, a horse named BEKBOOLAT, states that his second dam was by an imported English Thoroughbred. His pedigree also includes an Orloff saddle mare. BEKBOOLAT’s inclusion in the Arabian section of the ASB demonstrates that at the time the Jockey Club had a rather loose working definition of the term “Arabian.”

ASB Volumes VIII (1902) and IX (1906) list in the Arabian section no newly imported horses other than those which were bred in England, either at Crabbet or by Miss Dillon or Lord Arthur Cecil, and which therefore arrived in this country with GSB certificates. All GSB registered Arabians were automatically eligible for the ASB.

In October of 1906 the S.S. Italia arrived in America carrying 27 Arabians which Homer Davenport had imported directly from the Anazah tribes in Arabia. The only registration authority for Arabian horses in America was the stud book of the American Jockey Club. Not all the Arab horses in America were listed in the Arab section of the ASB. Huntington appears to have ceased registering with the Jockey Club after 1895. The Crabbet bred *IBN MAHRUSS and his dam *BUSHRA appear not to have had ASB registration. Davenport applied for the registration of his new arrivals.

Details of the ensuing embroilment are exceedingly complex, and the full story has yet to come to light. According to testimony published in “That Arab Horse Tangle” (The Rider and Driver, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 11, June 5, 1909 and No. 12, June 12, 1909), the Jockey Club began by sending to Weatherbys for verification the Arabic certificates which had accompanied the Davenport horses. By 1899, “to counter the overt forgery of pedigrees by dealers… the General Stud Book now accepted only Consular Certificates issued in the port where a horse was exported“(James Fleming, writing in Lady Anne Blunt, Journals and Correspondence, p. 407). After a favorable review from Weatherbys, the papers returned to Alexandretta and Aleppo for consular verification, which they obtained. It seemed as though the Jockey Club was ready to register the Davenport horses when negotiations broke down, and the Jockey Club denied the application. Davenport, whose vocation was the drawing of political cartoons, claimed his unflattering portrayal of Jockey Club chairman August Belmont was the cause of bias.

Davenport reminded people that the Jockey Club already had registered several imported Arabians from the Middle East on the basis of documentation ranging from the flimsy to the non-existent. One such mare, belonging to Peter Bradley, was apparently either *ABBYA or *ZARIFFEY, both described as “Kehilan, sub-strain unknown” in the auction catalog from the Hamidie dispersal. Davenport pointed out that their description was useless for establishing purity of blood, and neither mare appears among the eventual registrations of the Arabian Horse Club. Davenport also publicized the Jockey Club’s acceptance of *BEAMING STAR, an unpedigreed animal which Davenport’s traveling companion Jack Thompson had bought on the dock in Beirut and shipped to America on a boat separate from the Davenport importation.

Though registered by the Jockey Club, none of the above animals appears in the Arabian section of the printed ASB volumes. Also conspicuously absent is one of W.R.Brown’s 1918 imports from Crabbet, *RAMLA. This is perhaps because the registrations of foals, and hence to a certain extent their parents, were based on the annual return of breeding records of mares, as were the registrations in the GSB. Since most Americans will not be acquainted with this format, a typical GSB entry is quoted from Volume XXII(1913), p.l 957:

MABRUKA (Bay), foaled in 1891, by Azrek, out of imp. Meshura, continued from Vol. XXI, p. 896.
1909 b.f. Munira, by Daoud	Crabbet Stud
1910 b.c. by Rijm (died in 1912)
1911 b.f. Marhaba, by Daoud
1912 barren to Ibn Yashmak
1913 not covered in 1912

MARHABA is familiar to American breeders as the dam of the Selby import *MIRZAM (by Rafeef).

Since the Jockey Club refused to cooperate, Davenport joined with other interested Arab horse enthusiasts and formed the Arabian Horse Club (AHC) in 1908. The next year the Arabian Horse Club issued its first stud book, and after certification by the Department of Agriculture, it became the official registration authority for Arabian horses in America. The original 1909 stud book registered 71 Arabians, of which twelve had also appeared in the Arab sections of the ASB volumes published to that date. These horses were therefore “double registered” Arabians.

One Arabian breeder was unimpressed. Though invited to register his horses, Spencer Borden felt no need to do so. His stock imported from England was in the GSB and ASB, the foals he had bred were also in the ASB, and he “did not care to enter them in any other place” (see The Rider and Driver, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 9, May 22, 1909, p. 4). At that point in time, Borden was almost the only one breeding ASB registered Arabians. The registration on the Huntington animals had lapsed, and many of the breeders working with Huntington bloodlines entered their horses in the new AHC stud book. Ramsdell produced an occasional ASB registered foal from one of his *NEJDME mares, but his period of greatest activity as an Arabian breeder had passed. Borden had an effective monopoly on the production of Jockey Club registered Arabians.

Borden’s ultimate goal as a breeder of Arabian horses was to convince the United States Army to use his horses as the basis for an American cavalry stud, producing part-Arab animals for military use. In 1909 he was the only person breeding a significant number of Arabians eligible to the same stud books as Thoroughbreds, and he no doubt saw this as a great advantage.

In 1917, apparently at the insistence of W. R. Brown, Borden relented and “double registered” his horses by entering them in the AHC stud book. Shortly after this, Brown bought out the Borden program, becoming the new monopolizer of double registered stock. In 1918 Brown made a substantial importation from the Crabbet Stud. At the time, Brown’s chief American rival as a breeder was Peter Bradley, whose Hingham Stock Farm had continued to breed the Davenport Arabians after the latter’s death in 1912, as well as horses of Hamidie and one or two other lines. However, Bradley did not breed double registered stock, and the last Arabian foal crop born in Hingham ownership came in 1921.

Brown’s Maynesboro Stud was to enjoy a number of years as the largest Arabian nursery on the continent. He had bought Crabbet bred horses imported by Ames, Borden, and Davenport. He had made his own large importation from that source, followed by a second and much smaller importation from England. He had bought the rest of the Borden herd, which included animals of Dillon, Ramsdell, and Huntington lines. Among the latter was the mare NAZLET, whom Borden had had to register with the Jockey Club himself. Brown also developed a network to keep himself informed of Arabian horses which became available for purchase. After the closeout of the Borden operation and before the 1926 Kellogg importation from Crabbet, Brown was almost the only breeder of double registered stock.

Among the horses Brown’s brother had acquired from the Davenport estate was the 1910 bay stallion JERRED, by the Davenport import *EUPHRATES and out of *NEJDME. Several writers have advanced the theory that JERREDE was not out of *NEDJME, but rather her granddaughter NEJDME III, claiming that Davenport never owned *NEJDME and that the AHC made a mistake in attributing the colt to her. Both Volume 1 (1913) of the AHC stud books and Volume XII of the ASB attribute *NEJDME’s ownership to Davenport, and state unequivocally that JERREDE was her son. Furthermore, as of 1909 NEJDME II (whose sire *OBEYRAN was single registered) was in the ownership of Eleanor Gates in California. Brown was using JERREDE at stud in a limited way, and by 1915 he had begun an effort to accomplish the Jockey Club registration of the Davenport imports *URFAH and her son *EUPHRATES, thus making JERREDE and his get eligible, too. Brown traced a copy of the Arabic document pertaining to *URFAH and *EUPHRATES, secured consular verification of it, and finally had Lady Anne Blunt vouch for its authenticity. The Jockey Club notified Brown of the completion of the registration in 1919. *URFAH and *EUPHRATES appear in ASB XII (1920), on p. 662. Since the credentials of the other Davenport imports were really no different from those of *URFAH and *EUPHRATES, the possibility of double registering them arose. Brown did not want to watch the rest of the Davenport horses ride into the ASB on the coat tails of *URFAH and *EUPHRATES. He insisted that should the Hingham management wish to pursue the matter, the Jockey Club ought to consider the Davenport imports on a case by case basis (see Charles C. Craver III, “At the Beginning,” Arabian Horse News, May, 1974, pp. 97-112). The management at Hingham evidently did not, and the other Davenport animals remained single registered, duly entered in The Arabian Stud Book, but not the Jockey Club Stud Book.

The JERREDE influence endured at Maynesboro only through his daughter DJEMELI (out of Nazlet), dam of MATIH. Other single registered lines from Maynesboro’s early days did not endure, producing their last foals for Brown in 1921. In 1921 and 1922 Brown imported Arabians registered in the French Stud Book, making the last additions to the double-registered gene pool which did not come from the GSB. Brown’s limitation of his breeding stock to double registered animals amounted to a self imposed restriction of his options. Looking from the broadest perspective, that of the development of the breed as a whole in America, Brown’s attitude meant that the separate breeding traditions which Davenport and Borden had established by and large remained separate for another generation. Brown’s horses amounted to a breed within a breed. Since double registration gave his animals an added selling point, Brown and others to follow had a not insignificant economic stake in the matter as well.

Brown made two further importations of Arabian stock to this country: the better known of these is his 1932 importation from Egypt, which included *NASR, *ZARIFE, *RODA, *AZIZA, *H. H. MOHAMED ALI’S HAMIDA, and *H.H.MOHAMED ALI’S HAMAMA. The latter two received their lengthy appellations to distinguish them from Brown’s 1923 import *HAMIDA (Daoud x Hilmyeh) and the mare HAMAMA (Harara x Freda) of Davenport and Hamidie lines. There is evidence to suggest that Carl Raswan helped to steer Brown in the direction of the Egyptian horses. None of the Brown’s 1932 imports appears in the Arab section of the ASB, apparently closed to new non-Thoroughbred registered stock by that time (see below), and since Brown began dispersing his herd shortly after their arrival, it is unclear what use he would have made of them. Brown bred single registered 1934 *NASR foals out of RAAB and BAZRAH. *AZIZA produced the 1935 colt AZKAR, by RAHAS.

Brown also made his own small importation from the desert in 1929. These horses were never registered with either the ASB or AHC. Some believe they never reached this country.

W. K. Kellogg’s importation from the Crabbet Stud in 1926 greatly expanded the base of double registered breeding stock, in terms of numbers and also bloodlines. By that time, the GSB had been closed to newly imported Arabians. The passage of the Jersey Act in 1913 had closed the GSB to Thoroughbreds from other countries, unless they could trace their pedigrees in all lines to animals entered in previous volumes. The 1921 decision did the same thing for Arabians, though one wonders if the death of Lady Anne Blunt in 1917 and the advanced age of her husband, leaving no equal authority, had been an additional factor, making Weatherbys leery of becoming involved in future controversies similar to the one which had surrounded the Davenport horses. Their principal business was the registration of Thoroughbreds, not the verification of the pedigrees of imported Arabians. GSB XXIV (entries through 1920) registered imp. Skowronek, and GSB XXV (through 1924) included imp. DWARKA, the last Arabian added to the GSB gene pool. DWARKA blood had reached America in 1924 in his daughter *ANA. Skowronek blood arrived in the Kellogg shipment of 1926. At about this time the ASB followed suit and ceased to consider imported Arabians not already in the GSB or another Thoroughbred stud book. This established the ASB Arabian gene pool as overlapping that of the GSB with the addition of *EUPHRATES, *NEJDME, and Brown’s French imports. The double registration of the line from *Leopard had not been maintained.

With the advent of manager Herbert Reese in 1927 and the influence of W. R. Brown’s opinions, the management at Kellogg’s came to believe in the importance of double registered stock. Letters in the Kellogg files between Reese and Kellogg indicate that the double registration factor had a major bearing on most aspects of management policy: planning matings, starting young stallions at stud, and the buying and selling of breeding stock. For instance, Reese admired the young sires *FERDIN and FARANA for their conformation, and reminded Kellogg that they had the added advantage of being double registered. Reese made the decision to buy LEILA (El Jafil x Narkeesa) in spite of her status as a single registered mare.

Looking at the Kellogg record from Reese’s arrival in 1927 through 1933, one sees that despite the higher priority attached to double registered stock, the first seven mares Reese purchased and then bred registered foals from had Davenport blood, and that Reese bred more than fifteen foals from double registered mares and single registered stallions. The reason for this is perhaps contained in correspondence between Reese and Kellogg among the Kellogg Ranch Papers. They mention the possibility of registering the ranch’s Davenport stock with the Jockey Club for $50 per head. This writer was unable to locate correspondence to and from the Jockey Club, or any letters explaining why the plan did not come to fruition. Whether Reese and Kellogg, or the Jockey Club, did not follow is not known, but by the summer of 1934 Reese was writing to Kellogg that “…we have eliminated a large percent of the single registered stock” (H.H. Reese to W.K. Kellogg, August 25, 1934). Reese’s last three single registered Kellogg foals out of double registered mares were the 1933 HANAD fillies out of *FERDISIA, *RIFDA, and RAAD. Thereafter, he put Jockey Club mares to Jockey Club stallions only. The fortunes of Davenport blood at the Kellogg Ranch declined as many, but by no means all, Davenport and part Davenport horses were sold. Well known double registered Arabians bred at the Kellogg Ranch include ABU FARWA, FERSEYN, SIKIN, RIFNAS, NATAF, RONEK, SUREYN, and ROSEYNA. Later writers had an unfair tendency to bolster the reputation of these horses at the expense of the ranch’s single registered stock.

As Maynesboro began to break up in the early 1930s, the greatest concentrations of Maynesboro stock accumulated at Kellogg’s, J. M. Dickinson’s, and W. R. Hearst’s. All three breeders continued to double register their horses. Together with the Selby Stud, which had acquired the bulk of its foundation stock from Crabbet, these studs were the principal breeders of double registered Arabians in the 1930’s, and among the largest breeders of Arabian horses in general.

The other major player was Albert Harris, who had bought his first Arabians from Davenport. His foundation sire NEJDRAN JR. and mares SAAIDA and RUHA were all single registered. Harris later added the Davenport import *EL BULAD, a stallion he had tried for years to buy from Bradley before he at last convinced him to sell, according to a letter from Harris among the Kellogg Ranch Papers. Other single registered Harris foundation mares included the Hingham bred MORFDA, MERSHID, and MEDINA. Most of the Harris Arabians were single registered, but he also bred from *ANA, a double registered mare he had imported from England, and a number of double registered mares from Maynesboro: OPHIR, NANDA, *SIMAWA, NIHT, NIYAF, BAZVAN, and MATIH. Harris imported the double registered stallion *NURI PASHA from England in 1924, and had his first ASB registered foals born the next year. With an occasional lapse, Harris proved amazingly conscientious about breeding his few double registered mares to double registered stallions. From 1925 through 1941, Harris bred 38 double registered foals, and only 5 foals from Jockey Club mares and single registered stallions. His Jockey Club mares almost always went to KATAR (Gulastra x *Simawa), *NURI PASHA, KEMAH (*Nuri Pasha x Nanda), KAABA, or KHALIL (both *Nuri Pasha x Ophir) rather than Harris’s single registered sires like NEJDRAN JR., ALCAZAR (Nejdran Jr. x Rhua), and *SUNSHINE. From 1925 through 1931, Harris distinguished his double registered foals by giving them names beginning with the letter “K,” among them the stallions named above. He later abandoned the system: three single registered foals of 1932 and 1934 also got “K” names, and beginning in 1935 virtually all Harris bred horses got names beginning with the letter “K.” In 1942 and 1943 (the last two years in which the Jockey Club registered Arabians as Thoroughbred horses), Harris-owned double registered mares produced five more foals, all by Jockey Club stallions. For some reason, these appear only in the AHC stud book, and not the ASB.

General Dickinson’s farm, Traveler’s Rest, also appears to have used double registration as a guide for making decisions. Most of Dickinson’s double registered horses had come from Brown. Dickinson bred 65 double registered foals born from 1931 through 1942. (Two additional foals, ISLAM and BINNI, were from double registered parents but do not appear in the Arab section of the ASB.) Only 17 Traveler’s Rest foals from the same period were by single registered stallions and out of Jockey Club mares. This seems to indicate that the consideration of double registration had a major effect on breeding decisions at Traveler’s Rest. Jockey Club registered mares were more likely to go to GULASTRA, RONEK, JEDRAN, KOLASTRA, or BAZLEYD than *NASR, *ZARIFE, or *CZUBUTHAN. The matter was of sufficient importance to Dickinson that his catalogs indicate which of his horses carried ASB registration. The consideration may have had a bearing on Dickinson’s decision to sell the Davenport stallion ANTEZ to Poland. Famous double registered Arabians bred by J. M. Dickinson include ROSE OF LUZON, NAHARIN, GINNYYA, CHEPE NOYON, HAWIJA, BRIDE ROSE, GYM-FARAS, and ALYF.

At Selby’s, aside from ten foals out of the single registered mares MURKA, SLIPPER, CHRALLAH, and ARSA, the exception was *MIRAGE. Lady Wentworth, daughter of the Blunts, had taken charge of Crabbet in 1920, and bought this desert bred stallion at Tattersalls in 1923. The 1924 Crabbet Catalog relates that Lady Wentworth was waiting for the completion of additional paperwork regarding his provenance before incorporating *MIRAGE into the Crabbet herd. The writer does not know the outcome of the paperwork, but in 1921 the GSB had closed to imported Arabians, as noted above. Weatherbys registration was of the utmost importance to Lady Wentworth, and unable to induce the GSB to reopen for *MIRAGE, she sold the horse to Roger Selby in 1930.

Britain’s Arab Horse Society (AHS) had formed in 1918 and issued its first stud book the following year; it stood ready to register imported Arabians after the closing of the GSB. However, Lady Wentworth had had a disagreement with the Arab Horse Society, and had ceased to register her horses in its stud book after the 1922 foals. Somewhat like Borden before her, she felt that GSB registration was all her horses needed. It was not until after the War that she rejoined the Society, so *MIRAGE does not appear among AHS registrations.

Selby’s showed little reluctance to breed *MIRAGE and his son IMAGE to double registered mares. The *MIRAGE daughters RAGEYMA and GEYAMA went into the Selby mare band. Of the 64 AHC registered Selby foals born to double registered mares from 1932 to 1943, 28 were by *MIRAGE or IMAGE. However, the management at Selby’s took double registration seriously enough that all eligible Selby foals appear in the Arabian section of the ASB, with the inexplicable exceptions of FRANZA (*Mirzam x *Rose of France) and RASMIAN (*Selmian x *Rasmina). Apparently ineligible was NISIM. NISIM was originally registered as the 1940 grey foal of two chestnuts, namely IMAGE and NISA. After the coat color incompatibility became apparent, the AHC changed the sire to *Raffles. The 1940 entry under NISA in the ASB reads, “covered previous year by an unregistered,” which was standard ASB notation for single registered Arabian stallions used on double registered mares. Famous double registered Arabians bred by Roger Selby include RASRAFF, RAFMIRZ, INDRAFF, SELFRA, and MIRZAIA.

The only Arabian sire getting registered Arabian foals in the first two crops of W. R. Hearst’s stud was the 75% Davenport stallion JOON. By 1935, when the third crop was on the ground, the program had expanded to include the Davenport stallion KASAR and the Crabbet import *FERDIN. The Hearst program was growing rapidly with purchases from the Kellogg Ranch and the disbanding Maynesboro Stud. All of the Maynesboro horses were double registered, but some of the Kellogg purchases were horses with Davenport pedigrees. The Hearst Sunical Land and Packing Corp. began producing double registered Arabian foals in 1936. From that year through 1943, it bred 56 double registered foals, and only five foals from Jockey Club mares and single registered stallions. The key Jockey Club sires at Hearst’s were RAHAS, GULASTRA, GHAZI, and REHAL, all bred at Maynesboro, and the homebred ROABRAH (Rahas x Roaba). Hearst’s also owned and used the Davenport stallions KASAR and his son ANSARLAH, but restricted them in large part to their single registered mares: ANLAH, SCHILAN, LADY ANNE (daughters of Antez), RAADAH (by Hanad), ALILATT (Saraband x Leila), RASOULMA (*Raseyn x *Malouma), and FERSABA (out of the Davenport mare Saba). The other single registered sire at Hearst’s was JOON, but after the management decided to use double registration as a criterion for planning the breeding schedule, apparently the only mare he ever saw was ANTAFA (Antez x *Rasafa). The Davenport influence at Hearst’s, as at Kellogg’s and Harris’s, would likely have been far greater had double registration not been an issue.

Other breeders double registering Arabian foals during the years 1934-1943 included Fred Vanderhoof (from *Ferda and *Bint), E. W. Hassan (from Ghazil), L. P. Sperry (from *Kola and Larkspur), Donald Jones (from Nejmat), C. A. West (from Bazvan), Ira Goheen (from Hurzab and Kokab), L. S. Van Vleet (from *Rishafieh, Raffieh, Selfra, Gutne, and Ishmia), and R. T. Wilson (from Matih). Their combined total of double registered foals was minor compared to the five farms discussed above, but it demonstrates that the concern with double registration and its effect on management policy were not confined to a select group of breeders. At Van Vleet’s, for instance, the Jockey Club mares were more likely to go to KABAR (Kaaba x *Raida) than *ZARIFE.

Until fairly recently, the Arabian Horse Club was inconsistent in assigning the breedership of foals to the owner of the dam at time of covering. Sometimes the breedership of a foal was attributed to the owner at time of foaling. The latter seems to have been the Jockey Club definition of “breeder,” and as a result the breeders of several familiar Arabians differ from ASB to AHC. RABIYAS, e.g., was bred by W. R. Brown according to The Arabian Stud Book and by the W. K. Kellogg Institute according to the ASB.

Some Arabians are in the ASB under a different name. Many of these amount to minor spelling variations, as in the case of HAWIJA (spelled “Hasijah” in ASB). Some take the form of the addition or subtraction of a prefix or suffix. DANAS is “Danas Maneghi” in the ASB, while *CRABBET SURA is “Sura.” Sometimes a numeral was added or subtracted. *Raffles is in the ASB as “*Raffles 2nd,” as there was apparently a Thoroughbred by that name. The mare *NARDA II is in the GSB and the 1906 Crabbet catalog as “Narda,” the numeral apparently added to distinguish her from an American Thoroughbred of the same name. In her case it carried over to her Arabian stud book registration. A few have entirely different names, e.g. RIFDA who is “Copper Cloud” in the Jockey Club Stud Book.

The last Arabians which the Jockey Club registered as Thoroughbred horses were 1943 foals. By the late 1950s, most newer breeders were not even aware that at one time there had been two categories of registered Arabians in America. Very few living Arabians in America show straight Jockey Club pedigrees; this writer estimates fewer than 1%. Among them one would have to include those horses bred from GSB registered Crabbet and Hanstead lines imported from the U.K. in recent decades. The GSB continued to register Arabians through the foals of 1964 and this function helped to a certain extent to hold the older English Arabian lines together as a breeding unit.

The issue of double registration had a controlling influence over the development of the Arabian breed in America. Until the early 1940s, all new breeders had to decide if Jockey Club Arabians were important to them, and if so, to what extent. The double registration factor goes a long way toward explaining why Davenport mare lines were more frequently top-crossed to Crabbet stallions than ASB mare lines were top-crossed to Davenport stallions. The double registration idea continued to influence after 1943, but one cannot know exactly how many breeders based decisions on the possibility of the Jockey Club reopening the ASB to Arabians. Readers are encouraged to examine the pedigrees of their own horses to find breedings selected possibly with double registration in mind.

[A final note regarding Jockey Club registered Arabians pertains to the use of the asterisk(*) to denote an Arabian horse imported to this country. Its first use as such in a printed stud book was in ASB Volume X (1910). The Jockey Club also used the symbol to denote imported Thoroughbreds. It was not until Volume IV (1939) that the Arabian registry adopted its use, though it has recently abandoned it. Arabians imported after June 1, 1983 no longer receive an asterisk as part of their registered names in this country. However, the symbol continues to delight advertisers and pedigree writers; there are no restrictions on its use in these contexts.]

The San Simeon Stallions, 1937: from left JOON, RAHAS, SABAB, GULASTRA, KASAR and GHAZI. Is it a coincidence that they were posed so that the single-registered horses alternated with double-registered ones?
Photo courtesy Harriet Hallonquist.

The Descent of Anazeh (Part 2)

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Leopard and Linden Tree

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

Rafissa 1695 (*Raffles x Ydrissa), Gina Manion up, 1950’s.

Arthur Ball, president of Ball Jar Company (home canners in the audience will nod wisely at the name), bought the George horses around 1935, and OURIDA and YDRISSA were in the group. Ball sold this pair of chestnuts to the Manions for $1500 (“We have our canceled check!”) and Manion Canyon came into being.

The Manions first sent their mares to IMAGE and *Raffles; the resulting fillies in 1939 were IMAGIDA 1694 (Image x Ourida) and RAFISSA 1695 (*Raffles x Ydrissa), the latter being only the fourth foal registered to her soon-tremendously-influential sire. RAFISSA was YDRISSA’s only Manion-bred foal, as the mare was sold to New York where she produced three more fillies, all of which have bred on in turn. At Manion Canyon RAFISSA produced 13 foals, of which RIFRAFF, by her sire *Raffles, was much the most influential. OUIDA’s daughter RAYGEENA was probably her most influential for the Manions, but another first foal success, the elegant IMAGIDA, represents her most wide-ranging contribution to the world.

I remember this mare’s *Raffles daughters GIDA 4353 and RAFGIDA 4981 as most elegant and impressive, and of course their brothers IMARAFF 3476 and RAFFI 3781 have been influential, in a great many respected programs.

Mrs. Manion quotes Dr. Munson as saying there must be 5,000 modern descendants of OURIDA. Asked how the Manions came to part with IMAGIDA, source of the OURIDA cross in most of those, she outline “one of those stories” which she said always had been a sore spot with her. William States Jacobs of Texas phoned “every day at 7:00 a.m. for two weeks trying to buy either IMAGIDA or RAFISSA.” IMAGIDA was being most determinedly “green” at the time (well–not to put too fine a point on it–“IMAGIDA had run away with me in the sleigh and kicked it to pieces. I rode the runner and held on to the reins until she headed for a fence, then I bailed out. Another time she lay down on the road with me, saddle and all, and wouldn’t get up“) and Jacobs apparently hit the psychological moment–at any rate he got IMAGIDA for $1000 (“I cringe to think of it!”). According to Mrs. Manion the check to pay for the mare was signed by Roger Selby, and IMAGIDA never left the Selby Stud even though the Studbook lists Jacobs, not Selby, as breeder of IMARAFF, RAFFI, GIDA and RAFGIDA.

ANAZEH’s daughter NAZLINA 6 produced KHALETTA 9 in 1903, and ARAB PRINCE 72 in 1904, both sired by Khaled and bred by Huntington. These four, along with NARKEESA 7 (Anazeh x *Naomi) and several others, went through what appear to have been the final dispersal sale of Huntington’s horses in 1907. This was the auction in which old *NAZLI was sold from her stall as being in too poor condition to lead out, so it appears that hard times had set upon the program with a vengeance. The largest buyer at this sale was the Hartman Stock Farm in Columbus, Ohio, and NAZLINA, KHALETTA and NARKEESA were among the ones they took home.

A new change on Huntington’s “linebred Maneghi” idea was rung in Ohio: KHALETTA and NARKEESA were both bred to Homer Davenport’s desertbred Maneghi Sbeyli stallion *HALEB 25, “the pride of the desert,” in 1907, a year after the Davenport group arrived in this country. It seems quite likely that the Hartman mares were sent straight to *HALEB’s court from the auction, since New Jersey would be on the way home from New York to Ohio. One hopes, at any rate, that Huntington was in on the decision to try the cross, as he would have enjoyed planning this return to a new source of the strain he had tried to preserve.

In any event the idea can’t be called a blazing success. Only these two foals were bred by the Hartman Stock Farm: NARKEESA produced a bay colt, LEUCOSIA 50, and KHALETTA a bay filly, METOECIA 51. It would seem that the nucleus of horses passed to one Meldrum Gray, also of Columbus, for in 1910 he bred KHALETTA to the two-year-old LEUCOSIA, getting for his pains the chestnut colt NARKHALEB 114, another of those “absolutely Maneghi” pedigrees that this group of horses turned out now and then. Again, I will not try to describe this inbreeding–please see NARKHALEB’s pedigree in TABLE III.

NARKHALEB 114 Chestnut stallion 1911	Leucosia 50	*Haleb 25	DB	DB
				DB
			DB	DB
				DB
		Narkeesa 7	Anazeh 235	*Leopard 233
				*Naomi 230
			*Naomi 230	Yataghan GSB DB
				Haidee GSB DB
	Khaletta 9	Khaled 5	*Nimr 232	*Kismet 253
				*Nazli 231
			*Naomi 230	Yataghan GSB DB
				Haidee GSB DB
		Nazlina 6	Anazeh 235	*Leopard 233
				*Naomi 230
			*Nazli 231	Maidan GSB DB
				*Naomi 230

DB: Desertbred GSB: General Stud Book, England

NARKHALEB’s descendants are all through his outcrossed daughter from KILLAH 103, she by *GOMUSSA 31 DB x *HADBA 43 DB.

NARLAH 916

KHALETTA and METOECIA were among the first Arabians purchased by W.R. Brown when he founded his not-then-famous Maynesboro Stud in 1914. He bred three foals from KHALETTA and five from METOECIA but nothing has come of any of them; Brown came to own KHALETTA’s sire and quite possibly decided he liked his *Naomi breeding less inbred than KHALETTA represented it, and since it was his ambition to have an entirely “double registered” (Jockey Club as well as Arabian Horse Club) herd, METOECIA did not fit his plans too well. The Davenport horses were not registered with the Jockey Club, and so of course neither were their get.

The NAZLINA branch from ANAZEH thus reduces to the single stallion NARKHALEB. He too went to New England, to Hingham Stock Farm, where he sired MIZUEL 388 from SANKIRAH 149; this horse, foaled in 1919, came to be owned by W. K. Kellogg and to sire three foals, all colts, none of which left descent. D. Gordon Hunter bred HAYABEL 791, NARKHALEB’s 1930 daughter, another who dropped out. In 1931 W. K. Kellogg bred NARKHALEB to the unrelated mare KILLAH 103, resulting in the brown 1931 filly NARLAH 916 who managed to propagate this slenderest surviving branch of the ANAZEH family tree.

NARLANI 6261 (Aulani x Narlah) at age 20 (courtesy Susan Brandol).

TEENA 11586 (Yatez x Narzah by Narzigh x Narlah).

This branch spread on quite well after its difficult start; NARLAH produced nine foals of which six have registered offspring, though the foals of her first daughter ARAKI 1677 did not breed on to future generations. Most of NARLAH’s foals were bred by E. E. Hurlbutt, and two fillies of his breeding (NARSEYNA 3347 and NARZAH 4198) produced 11 and 14 foals respectively. NARLAH’s son NARLANI 6261 sired 17 foals (only four of them colts!) though he was not used to get registered purebreds until he was 15 years old. NARSEYNA was dam of the popular sire SUROBED 6675. NARLAH’s last foal COALANI 8419, full sister to NARLANI, had a son (Rabalain 20302) and grandson (Ben Rabba 29921) exported to England, so this *Leopard branch too is international in scope.

The double *Naomi mare NARKEESA did not accompany her relatives to New England; her travels were in the opposite direction, and she ended up in San Francisco, CA, where she produce five outcrossed foals by EL JAFIL 74 for two different owners. Three of these dropped out, but the youngest two more than made up for the disappearing act of their siblings.

The first of these was EL SABOK 276, foaled in 1916. He became a Remount sire and achieved a distinguished record in endurance tests, which brought him to the attention of that proponent of usefulness and hardihood, Albert W. Harris. EL SABOK was used for three seasons at Harris’s Kemah Stud, and sired some of the most influential animals to come out of (or take part in) that program. Of EL SABOK’s 15 registered get–making him far and away the most prolific *Leopard descendant within the first four generations, as is obvious from Table 1–only five left no registered descent, and most of the others have bred on quite extensively.

EL SABOK 276, July 26, 1920, age 4. From the collection of Mrs. N.W. Harris, courtesy of Mrs. Douglas Wernick.

EL SABOK 276 on an endurance ride, N.W. Harris up. Only stallion to finish, age 9.

OMAN 570 (El Sabok x *Ana by Dwarka), Miss Helen Caudle up.

STAMBUL 575 (El Sabok x Morfda by *Hamrah)

STAMBUL 575, photo by Cecil Edwards (copyright Lois M. Berry)

EL SABOK’s grey son STAMBUL 575 was his most prolific offspring; we are told he sired over 1,000 foals–mostly Remount half-Arabs, of course, and most of them not registered–but he got 20 registered purebreds and had he only sired ALLA AMARWARD 1140 he would have been an influential breeding horse, as Carol Mulder’s article on that prolific sire in this issue makes clear. The *Leopard line has been spread to other countries through this branch as well; I know ALLA AMARWARD’s descendant WITEZAN 8552 went to Australia and left offspring there before his death.

EL SABOK’s daughters SABIGAT 672 and HIRA 571 both produced at Traveler’s Rest in their later year; General Dickinson was a great believer in outcrossing and in combining Arabians from as many sources as possible in his program, and thus introduced a number of Harris horses over the years. Of course, he also admired their proven ability as demonstrated in endurance tests and other performance fields.

The SAERA 670 branch from EL SABOK is a lesser-known but very prolific one, with several long-lived producers to its credit on the female side. The good mare ROKHAL by EL SABOK produced in California, with a string of HANAD foals and another series by A’ZAM, along with some “singles” by other sires. ROKHAL descendants also were exported, this time to Nicaragua, but did not breed on in recorded stock. NAHA 671 also went to California and hers is another *Leopard branch that passed through the hands of E.E. Hurlbutt. Her most influential offspring probably has been NAHADEYN 3114, though she also bears the distinction of having produced NABOR–not the Russianbred NABOR, registered here a *NABORR, but the 1941 foal who bore that name originally and was responsible for the “furriner’s” having to add a letter when he arrived here. The first NABOR has no descent, which is probably just as well from the point of view of future students of pedigrees.

BESRA 572 was exported to Hawaii; doubtless her descendants still exist in the Island, but their registration was not maintained. The very good EL SABOK mare EMINEH 576 bred on successfully in a number of lines, as did GIRTHA 630 though with lesser opportunity (fewer foals). An interesting story must revolve around AGA 668; he was used at stud at three by Harris, and he and both his resulting sons were promptly gelded. Be that as it may, his daughter TERNA 934 produced four foals and two of these bred on, so AGA still has descent.

OMAN 570 sired 12 foals spread over 20 years, and a number of these were used for breeding — indeed, his daughters SURA 781 and especially KAHAWI 782 would have to be accounted among the distinguished matriarchs of their generation.

I hope it is clear from the above that EL SABOK’s is much the most widepread and influential of the ANAZEH branches; only that of IMAGIDA even dreams of rivalling it. The very strength of numbers makes it impossible to go into the detailed accounting of breeder and locations making use of his stock, done for the founders of the other lines. (In fact El Sabok did not do much traveling that we know of–he somehow got from California to Wisconsin, but beyond that–he stood at the Kemah stud and was used by Albert W. Harris, and there is no more to say.)

Leila 575

EL SABOK’s sister LEILA 275 was foaled in 1917. Her only producing daughter was ALILATT 632 who bred on in five separate line, doing rather better than her dam, in the way of daughters at least. ALILATT was a producer for the W. Randolph Hearst interests and thus met a number of different breeding sources in the sires of her offspring. Two of ALILATT’s daughters, KASILA 1266 and ALIDIN 1411, produced ten foals apiece.

KASILA’s included the *RASEYN son KARONEK who sired 40 foals, so spread that *Leopard branch rather widely; another of KASILA’s was ROKILA, by ROKHAL’s son ROKHALAD and so a great- granddaughter of both EL SABOK and LEILA, and a strong source of the *Leopard influence, comparatively speaking. Interestingly, the doubling to *Leopard here was done with the horses (of his sources) least inbred to *Naomi and thus most likely to have given him something to say in the matter.

ALIDIN was a Van Vleet matron and numbered some familiar names in her branch, and several extremely prolific matrons–two of her daughters produced 15 and 18 foals. ESPERANZO is a familiar name picked from this lot, and ALIDIN’s first foal, the mare ALIHAH, had several highly-regarded daughters to represent her. A mystery that someone, somewhere, can probably clarify, has to do with ALILATT’s 1940 production: she had two chestnut fillies listed to her credit for that year, with two different breeders and foaling dates, but the same sire. One of these, RIFLATT, had her registration canceled, and the other, GUEMERA 1807, had no descent, so the matter is largely academic–but it would be interesting to know just what went on here.

EL KUNUT 1856 (El Kumait x Leila)

LEILA’s son LEIDAAN 1679 carried on the tradition of prolific daughters–he did not have many, but several of them produced foals in numbers like 14 and 18. To be fair, several of his get (including the daughter with 18 foals) were crossed back to LEILA through ALIDIN, so this tendency was probably coming from both sides. The last LEILA foal was the very handsome halter champion EL KUNUT 1856, a popular sire in his day (17 foals, two out of an Alla Amarward mare and three more out of El Kunut’s own daughter, so doubled back to Narkeesa), whose descendants are still breeding on.

“The descent of ANAZEH” is a vast subject and one which tends to get out of hand, both physically in trying to keep track of the masses of notes and charts of descent involved, and mentally in trying to picture just how many horses are actually involved here, and what we know of them. It would be scientifically unsound, and I would be called out for it from now until 1990, to try to guess the genetic influence today of a horse foaled in 1890. We do have samples of ANAZEH’s genes around today; the problem is that we don’t have the information on all the intermediate links, that would enable us to tell which of today’s circulating genes originated with him.

I will go so far out on a limb as to share my impression (garnered from a study with no controls, shame to admit) that there are so many ANAZEH descendants, because ANAZEH-bred females in the early generations were prolific above the average of the breed. I haven’t approached this systematically, but I would be very much surprised if a random sample of the breed included as many dams of 14, 16, 19 foals, as are listed in my data sheets on the ANAZEH group. This trend does not continue right back to ANAZEH’s daughters, but we have the difficulty of not knowing how many purebred foals went unregistered in those first generations. Certainly some proportion did, and very likely in the crash of the Huntington program many females of this breeding went into production of other type of horses–there was very little call for pure Arab breeding in those days.

*LEOPARD descendant in costume class forty years ago. Photo shows the first Arabian costume class in the state of Indiana–1939. The sixth horse from the left is YDRISSA 927 (Antez x Bint Nimnaraah), with five crosses to *NAOMI, dam of ANAZEH. Sam Miller up. Writes Gina Manion, who sent photo: “Compared to the fanfare today, this is quite a switch. Costumes consisted of bedspreads, bathrobes and turkish towels with head-bands. Quite authentic looking, actually!”

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

The Descent of Anazeh (Part I)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NIMNAARAH 129 Chestnut mare 1911	Naaman 116	Anazeh 235	*Leopard 233	DB
				DB
			*Naomi 230	Yataghan GSB DB
				Haidee GSB DB
		*Nazli 231	Maidan GSB	DB
				DB
			*Naomi 230	Yataghan GSB DB
				Haidee GSB DB
	Nimrette 128	*Nimr 232	*Kismet 23	DB
				DB
			*Nazli 231	Maidan GSB
				*Naomi 230
		Naarah 256	Anazeh 235	*Leopard 233
				*Naomi 230
			*Nazli 231	Maidan GSB
				*Naomi 230

DB: Desertbred

GSB: General Stud Book, England

NIMNAARAH’s descendants are all through her outcrossed daughter by *HOURAN 26 DB.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rancho San Ignacio: A Look Back

Rancho San Ignacio: A Look Back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BREEDING PROGRAM AND BLOODLINES ADDED

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

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

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

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

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

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

A 1987 VISIT TO RANCHO SAN IGNACIO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOALS AND PERSPECTIVES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Articles by Richard Pritzlaff himself appeared in:

Arabian Horse World, May 1983, p. 387.

Arabian Visions, October 1987, p. 80.

And an interview with him appeared in:

Arabian Horse World, May 1987, p. 298.

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

Jadaan: The Horse That Valentino Rode

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no denying he was an impressive horse.

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

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

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

Jadaan was then 10 years old.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jadaan’s Get

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

Year	Name	Dam	Notes
1925	Markada	Fasal	a broodmare for Dickinson 3 reg foals (from Dickenson’s Catalog(’47): “Height 15.1 weight 1025” “Markada is intelligent to a degree and has been well educated. She knows a number of tricks and has personality enough to make an ideal heroine for a ‘human’ horse story. She seems to take pride in giving one a good ride. Markada is above average size and well built up, especially in the forehand. She has deep shoulders, sloping nicely, and good withers. Her middle piece is well rounded and she carries herself well at both ends. This mare is close to desert breeding and strong in the blood of great producing dams.” “Used 1931-1934. Sold in Tennessee”^[3]
1927	Irak	*Raida	no recorded get
	Wardi	Sedjur	a broodmare for Jedel Ranch
1929	End O’War	Amham	died at 4 months
	Raidaan	*Raida	a sire for Gordon A. Dutt. 7 reg. foals
	Jadanna	*Rossana	exp. to Mexico City, Mexico
	Gloria Davenport	Sedjur	4 reg foals
1930	Jadur	Sedjur	2 reg. daughters
	Badia	Babe Azab	Dam of12 offspring including the Davenport 2nd foundation mare, Asara. Damline of Fadjur’s favorite mare, Saki.
	Estrellita	Amham	8 reg. foals
1931	Jadura	Sedjur	line has died out
	Amaana	Amham	at least 5 reg foals
	Raidaana	*Raida	Kellogg broodmare. at least 6 reg foals. Destroyed by Remount in ’44 at age 13. Lame.
1932	Bedaana	Beneyeh	5 reg foals
	Majada	*Malouma	died at six months
	Jurad	Sedjur	did not breed on.
	Hamaan	Amham	sire for Marie C. Scott’s Wyoming ranch. 20 reg. foals
	Jarid	*Raida	a sire for Dr. Fred A. Glass
Fred E. Vanderhoof bred 3 mares to him in 1938 resulting in
1939	Leidaan	Leila	bred on.
	Havanna	*Bint	at least 7 reg. foals.
	Ravaana	Rasrah	at least 7 reg. foals.

^[1]From Mary Jane Parkinson’s The Kellogg Arabian Ranch: The First Fifty Years p. 277: “JADAAN, age 29, had outlived his usefulness. …was destroyed on May 28” by the U.S. Remount.↩
^[2]“(Buck-knees) While this is a very unsightly disfigurement, it is not by any means as serious as several other front leg flaws, and is, in fact, considered by many experts to be relatively harmless!” — Carol Mulder↩
^[3]From “Fasal 330” by Carol W. Mulder in Arabian Horse World Feb. 1976: “(Markada) dying in her prime.”↩

Arab Families (1950)

by GRACE DASHIELL

(Western Horseman June, 1950)

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

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

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

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

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

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

KEHILAN

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

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

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

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

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

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

SEGLAWI

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

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

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

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

MUNIQUI

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

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

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

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

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

Image of Khaled by George Ford Morris

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

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

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

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

HAMDANI

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

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

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

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

CMK Arabian Horses

The Arabians of written record