Scholar’s Corner
Halawa and the Arabian Horses of W.J.G. Bentley by Robert J. Cadranell, ©1990, 2021
Halawa.
(R.J. Cadranell and Jeanne Craver have investigated the story of Halawa, a 1929 grey mare registered as a daughter of the two bays Ziki and Hamama, and as bred by Raymond C. Force. Halawa is in some very good modern pedigrees through the blood-siblings Tehran, a bay colt by Farana, and Zohara, a chestnut filly by El Nahas. Herewith a Cadranell summary of the evidence. Please read this carefully; it is a closely reasoned treatment of data from a wide variety of sources, and we believe it establishes the true sire of Halawa, rather than leaving her paternity an open question. This serves to underline the value of such thorough and scholarly research. ~ Michael Bowling, Editor)
By 1925, however, the Lewis breeding program was running out of steam for other reasons. W.K. Kellogg purchased in December of that year a major portion of the Diamond Bar stock, including the only three mares bred for 1926 foals. When the Diamond Bar finished the dispersal of its breeding herd, it was left with six geldings
The short-lived Arabian horse breeding program of W.G.J.S. Bentley of San Fernando, California, lasting from only 1924 to 1928, is an adjunct to the story of F.E. Lewis II’s Diamond Bar Ranch. In 1918, Lewis had bought nine mares and two stallions from Peter B. Bradley’s Hingham Stock Farm in Massachusetts and brought them to his California ranch in Spadra, near Pomona. The stallions and seven of the mares traced exclusively to Homer Davenport’s 1906 importation from Arabia. One of the mares was bred entirely from horses the Hamidie Society had imported for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. The last mare had a pedigree combining Davenport and Hamidie elements. Though at least one writer has criticized Lewis’s selection of foundation stock for its heavy emphasis on the stallion *Hamrah, it has turned out that one may successfully compound *Hamrah blood ad infinitum. Lewis’s foundation stock was in fact sufficiently diverse that a breeding program using only Diamond Bar bloodlines could, had anyone pursued it, still be in operation today and still be producing Arabians excellent by anyone’s standards.
The 1920 census shows W. George J. Bentley was aged 50, born in Canada, widowed. He was living in Los Angeles at 1617 Vermont Avenue, immigrated to the U.S. in 1889. His father was born in Canada; his mother born in Ireland. He was a contractor for the building of houses, and appears in the 1921 Southwest Builder and Contractor.
There is not much information on W.G.J.S. Bentley, personally. He apparently owned a patent for some type of engine, under the name of William George J. Bentley, about 1908.
There is a William Bentley in the 1930 census who seems to be the same person, aged 60, born in Canada, living at West 30th Street in Los Angeles. The immigration information is the same, and he now has a 28-year-old wife named Kathleen. Bentley is now in the gold mining industry. *** The pedigrees of several horses in this article are affected by the switch of the mares *Saleefy and Freda during the cross-country move from Hingham Stock Farm to F.E. Lewis in late 1918. This switch is explained in detail under Schilla on her page in the Al Khamsa Online Roster. The pedigrees concerned have the switch shown in capital letters. Those changes have not, at this date, been changed in the Al Khamsa Online Roster.
Updated from an article in the CMK Record, VII/1. Horses which are not Al Khamsa eligible are underlined.
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