Breeding Groups: An Introduction

Al Khamsa Breeding Groups

An Introduction

Due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, the first article in this series will begin with the first 2023 Khamsat issue, Vol. 33 No. 1. It will cover the Doyle Egyptian group. So what IS a Breeding Group?

A Breeding Group is a family of horses bred within restricted bloodlines. In some cases, it begins at one farm, with one breeder’s eye guiding its growth. In others, it is created by multiple people (working separately or together) that see a need or desire to put a group of bloodlines together.

Sometimes the need is driven by the major use of one horse in a way, so that other such horses are in danger of being lost. So a breeding group can be formed of horses that do NOT carry that line. The group is formed for a negative goal: such as, Non-Nazeer. This does NOT mean that discriminated against horse is not a good one. Otherwise, it would not be in danger of overwhelming other lines. It means that breeders are looking ahead and trying to keep a good genetic spread of bloodlines to ensure breeding health of Al Khamsa horses in general. This sort of breeding group can be for Al Khamsa as a whole OR for subdivisions of homogenous breeding groups. For example: the stallion Tripoli was the main breeding stallion in the Davenport Breeding Group, so a group of horses was developed that did not trace to him. Such a subdivision can serve as an “outcross” within the already homogenous Breeding Group.

A Breeding Group is one way of dividing up the entirety of Al Khamsa horses into understandable divisions, in a similar way to the Ancestral Element system.

As Breeding Groups become well established, they have a tendency to take on a certain look, guided by a breeder’s eye. An experienced Al Khamsa observer and look at a collection of Al Khamsa horses and identify the Doyle, Babson, Davenport, desert-bred Blue Star, Pritzlaff, Ansata, Gleannloch, etc., horses. They have a “LOOK”.

Among these different groups, then, the aspiring Al Khamsa breeder can identify the type of horse that most speaks “Arabian Horse” to them.

Some well-established Al Khamsa Breeding Groups are showing signs of being lost. This is in addition to the individual horses or Ancestral Elements that are the focus of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force.

For this reason, the Khamsat will be producing a series of articles on Breeding Groups within Al Khamsa: both as a guide for new breeders who wish to find the lines they wish to spend their breeding careers preserving, and as a wake-up call for Al Khamsa supporters who might not realize that well-known building blocks of Al Khamsa breeding are in danger. If you have a group you would like to feature, contact: the_khamsat@alkhamsa.org.