Al Khamsa’s Vanishing Lines
PTF News — August 2020 Update
by the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force
PROJECT: Tail-Female *Hadba. On a very happy note, in July, a tail-female *Hadba colt was born (Vorrtex x Zubaidah Assahara). The *Hadba horses are extremely rare with the highest concentration of them (just two stallions and three mares) being in Alberta, Canada. This colt (shown below, just after foaling) might be the only Hadban stallion here in the USA we have access to.
PROJECT: Ma’naqiyah, tail-female Ferida (BLT). News from the Preservation Task Force isn’t always grand. In June, one of the last links to tail-female Ferida, CSA Trilours (photo above), passed away due to unresolvable colic. That leaves just a single aged mare left: 1999gm CSA Baroness Lady. Lady last foaled a colt in 2015. This tail female line is now hanging by the thinnest of threads. As of the end of June, Edouard Al-Dahdah reports Cathy Fenton agreed to return CSA Baroness Lady to him, to be bred to his stallion Jamr Al Arab 2012cs (Vice Regent CF x Jadiba by Dib). She was bred in June but no fetus developed.
PROJECT: This message is meant as an alarm bell. I still remember the impact of the 2008 recession on our horses. Abandoned horses, kill pens, starvations. I also remember how we, Al Khamsa stepped up to the plate to rescue some of our most precious lines. That was the context for the creation of the preservation task force in early 2010, ten years ago already.
PROJECT: Ma’naqiyah Mares, tail-female Haidee (GSB). GTS Dabab and GTS Al Mas Hura. Kate Rhodes confirms GTS Dabab is in foal! She is due, the foal by Treff Haven Sabeel, between late January and early February 2021! PROJECT: Europa Ancestral Element. Karin Floyd has confirmed the Europa mare CW Halimah is in foal to the Code Red tail-male El Deree (INS) stallion she has leased, Musafir Almubarak.
Today calls for a similar, if not greater effort. Except that this time, more Al Khamsa lines are in jeopardy than in 2008. We need to keep a close watch on these lines, and be prepared to step in if necessary.
PROJECT: Code Red Tail-Male and Tail-Female Research, to take our Foundation Horses and determine how many offspring of breeding age are left of each one.
We need not do the complex watch by foundation horse or by ancestral element, which calls for a lot of research. Just keep an eye on the specifically American lines, those that don't exist outside the US or Canada, or barely. Groupings like the Rabannas, the Turfas, the Blue Stars, the Sahanads, the old US combined source lines, and the Davenports are the most endangered. The Straight Egyptians will survive. They are all over the world, and many of their owners overseas have the means to shepherd them through this crisis. The backyard breeding programs that are left in the US may not have this chance. I worry the most about the lines outside our regular, immediate watch, because their owners are not on the board, not on the task forces, and not reached by social media. ~ Edouard Al Dahdah
Moira Walker has been hard at work researching tail male and tail female lines. She has moved our Dropbox files to Google Docs for easier editing by members of the PTF. She has thoroughly researched *Nedjran, *Euphrates, *Dwarka, *Mirage and *Haleb for both tail male and general Code Red/Orange status. She has also done some research on stallions not yet accepted by Al Khamsa but in danger of genetics becoming lost. In female lines, Moira has done extended research on *Abeyah, Kesia I (GSB) Kesia II (GSB), *Aire, *Jamalah el Jedrani and *Sawannah, to name a few. 44
