by the PTF

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, 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: 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.

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.

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. 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

PROJECT: Ma’naqiyah, tail-female Ferida (BLT). News from

only Hadban stallion here in the USA we have access to.

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.

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.

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

PROJECT: Tahawi Tail Female Preservation

Lisa Fratt Craig still has two code red Tahawi tail-female mares to foal this fall: EB Araceli 2005gm, tail-female to Futna (TAH) and RC Miss Burgandy 1998bm, tail-female Bint Barakat (TAH), both due toTammens Kismet.

Hot off the Press! RC Miss Burgandy had her Tammens Kismet foal: a colt, below at right.

Lisa has achieved another milestone in her quest to preserve the tail-female lines of the three Tahawi mares Futna (TAH), Folla (TAH) and Bint Barakat (TAH) with registered descendants. She welcomed two new tf Tahawi mares (at right) to her herd: Maya CC 2000bm, tail-female Folla (TAH) and Noor Al Sabah TLF 2006cm, tail-female Bint Barakat (TAH). Maya CC is her first tf Folla (TAH) mare. They will be bred to her tail-female Bint Barakat (TAH) stallion, Royal Faaiq 2006bs.

PROJECT: Bahraini lines. Two wonderful foals were born this year. Above left is Laura Fitz’s colt Malaak Al-Talj at three months old, by Monologue CF x Mi Blue Angel, by DB Khrush out of Thank Heaven (the first Al Khamsa foal of the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon).

A more exotic backstory of the filly above center: Ubayyat Al-Jennine, out of Mlolshaan Hager Solomon’s second (and final) Al Khamsa foal, Ubayyat Al-Bahrain (out of DB Kalila). After Ubayyat Al-Bahrain did not carry a first attempt, owners PJ Altshuler and Marwan Abusoud used frozen semen from Jenny Lees’s UK-bred Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman al Rais, by Krayaan Dilmun x Shuwaimeh Bint Warda, both parents bred in Bahrain and gifts to Jenny from HH Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Khalifa. When Ubayyat settled, they transfered the embryo to one of their Egyptian mares, who carried the filly without a hitch.

Both of these foals have Saudi as well as Bahraini lines, and Malaak Al-Talj has a Davenport sire and other endangered lines as well. Both show the excitement that Preservation Breeding can bring.

In addition to these foals, breeders in the Davenport Conservancy are reporting twelve new foals on the ground (including the Hadban colt on the previous page), with a few more to come. 2021 promises to be a good year as well. Also, the Sahanad group has been hard at work, producing foals and moving horses after a tragic loss of one of their breeders. So many are answering the call!