Al Khamsa History Ancestral Elements Series: Hearst

Al Khamsa History

Ancestral Elements Series: Hearst

Al Khamsa’s ‘language’ about pedigrees can seem complicated at first, but it is actually meant to be a simplification of the process of understanding the total pedigree of an Arabian horse. You need to learn two terms: Foundation Horses and Ancestral Elements. These terms are explained briefly here, but for detailed information, please see the research work, Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008).

A Foundation Horse is what it sounds like: when you go back as far as you can in a pedigree, you stop with either a Bedouin tribe or with a recognized source that is believed to have stock only from the Bedouin tribes. Ancestral Elements are the Building Blocks of Al Khamsa Pedigrees

An Ancestral Element refers to the country, stud farm, person or group who imported or was primarily associated with the Foundation Horses concerned. Four Foundation Horses were acquired individually and are designated by their own names. Simple parenthetical codes follow the names of Foundation horses, which help identify the Ancestral Element blocks to which they belong.

Khamsat V29N1 began this series, AYERZA; V29N2: BISTANY; V29N3: BORDEN; V29N4: COBB; V30N1: BLUNT; V30N2: CRANE; V30.3: DWARKA, V30.4: DAVENPORT, V31.1: HAMIDIE.

Terminology: a hujjah (hujaj, plural) is a signed and sealed document of evidence/testimony about a thing. In Al Khamsa terms, this means a testimony about the provenance of an Arabian horse. When such a document survives, it is the most important information about an Arabian horse.

u HEARST

William Randolph Hearst, head of a media empire, also had Arabian horses. The interest probably was begun by association with his employee, Homer Davenport. In 1945, Hearst’s Sunical Land & Livestock Department of the Hearst Magazines, Inc., imported 14 horses from Syria to add to his stud. Of these imports one mare, *Layya, has living, eligible Al Khamsa descendants. Another, *Lebnaniah, shown below, has recently been lost to Al Khamsa. • *Layya 1943 grey mare • *Lebnaniah 1943 grey mare

Above, William Randolph Hearst. Left, *Lebnaniah, from the Preston Dyer Collection at the International Museum of the Horse, Lexington, Kentucky.

In progeny lists, italics are used for horses not in Al Khamsa pedigrees. Only eligible-to-be Al Khamsa horses are shown in the progeny lists.

*Layya at right at the racetrack in Beirut, Lebanon, prior to importation. from the Preston Dyer Collection at the International Museum of the Horse, Lexington, Kentucky. Left, with a later owner, Kisa Beck Rhodes.

Current mtDNA testing has confirmed this line in the U.S. matches that of the Shaykha strain in Lebanon.

*LAYYA 4208 An Existing Dam Line

1943 grey “Shaykha” mare bred by the Khamis family stud, Rayaq, Lebanon. Purchased by Henri Pharaon of Beirut for racing and sold to Preston Dyer as agent for W.R. Hearst. Imported in 1947 to the USA by Hearst.

By Kayan, a grey Hamdani (by Gazelle, a grey Hadban, and out of a bay Hamdaniyah) and out of Nailey, a grey Shaykha [by a grey Kuhaylan (by a Hadban out of a Kuhaylah) and out of Obaya, a chestnut Shaykha by a grey Ma’naqi Sbaili stallion brought to Lebanon by the French Army from Saudi Arabia in 1919, and out of a chestnut Shaykha]. [Photo, next page]

NOTES: The above information (except for the transfers of ownership and importation information) is from pedigrees written by George Khamis and presented to Dick Skinner at the Hearst Stables in California [copies courtesy of Michael Bowling]. The names of *Layya’s parents are reproduced as spelled by George Khamis. They correspond to names of horses active in Lebanon in the 1940s.

The ownership by Henri Pharaon is from *Layya’s certificate of identity from the racetrack in Beirut, sealed by the Lebanese Ministry and the US Consul. Importation information is from AHA stud books.

By the time the Hearst imports were registered, the AHA stud books no longer included detailed information or strains. *Layya is shown simply as #4208, grey mare, 1943, sire and dam desert bred, imported 1947 by Hearst Sunical Co., California.

According to Edouard al-Dahdah and Husayn Nasir [a leading horseman in Lebanon today], the usage of “Shaykha” in the female line of *Layya means that this line traces to a famous mare called al-Shaykha, of the ‘Ubayyan strain belonging to Donato, a Lebanese merchant of Italian origin, and does not mean that they are members of the Kuhaylan Shaykhan strain. This mare was so noted that her descendants were called after her, the Shaykaat. This is an example of the formation of new strains of Arabian horses.

Further information about this pedigree is also available from Edouard al-Dahdah: Sire Kayan was by Gazal al-Jawlan, a desert-bred Hadban al-Inzihi of the marbat of al-Fawa’irah tribe. Gazal was by Ma’naqi Halba, a desert-bred Ma’naqi Sbaili at stud in the northern Lebanese town of Halba in the 1910s and 1920s. Gazal’s dam was a Hadbah al-Inzihiyah of Fad’us, Shaykh of al-Fawa’irah tribe. Kayan himself was raced in Beirut and owned by Rida Hamdar of Rayaq in the Biqa’ valley of Lebanon, where Kayan stood at stud.

Dam of 9 foals, including:

Layllany 1958 bm by Hallany Mistanny

Rose of Mistanny 1960 gm by Hallany Mistanny