Arabian Horse In History Febuary AHT Newsletter

Painting by Juliusz Kossak.

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Arabian Horse In H i s to ry

Painting by Wojciech Kossak, 1904.

Painting by Wojciech Kossak, 1898.

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Prince Roman Sanguszko, inheritor of his grandfather’s Slawuta Stud, was exiled for his role in Poland’s bloodly November Uprising (1830-1831) against Russian rule.

by Linda White

The Arabian Horse

In History

lawuta, a city in the western Ukraine, was founded as the family seat of the Sanguszko princes.

However, the Sanguszkos, like many other princely houses of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, had ancestral origins that were considered murky. Sanguszko Arabian horse bloodlines, as well, would eventually be regarded as “murky” by certain of the world’s breeders.

“Murky” was nothing new, however. With the rise of light cavalry, the stamina and agility of horses with Arabian blood gave an enormous military advantage to any army who possessed them. Thus, many European monarchs began to support large breeding establishments that crossed Arabians on local stock. Prince Hieronymus Sanguszko (1743-1812) was the first Polish nobleman to send out (1803) emissaries to search for the best desert horses from the Middle East. From these he founded his family’s Slawuta Stud. Prince Roman’s younger brother Wladislaw, who was not first-born and, therefore, not an heir in those times, founded Gumniski Stud in 1835. Count Branicki, founder of Bialocerkiew, Count Dzieduszycki, founder of Jarczowce, and Count Josef Potocki at Antoniny, were other influential early Polish breeders. The studs at Gumniska and Antoniny were founded with mares from Slawuta. After Prince Hieronymus’ death, his son, Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko, financed four expeditions to Arabia, from which fine desert-breds were brought back to add to the foundation bloodlines at Slawuta.

When he died in 1845, Prince Eustachy left 25 percent of his herd to his daughter and 75 percent of his nearly 400 horses to his son, Prince Roman Sanguszko. Prince Roman became a Polish officer who participated in the November Uprising (1830-1831) and was exiled to Siberia. Also known as the Cadet Revolution, the November Uprising was an armed rebellion against Russia’s rule in Poland and Lithuania. It was instigated by a group of zealous young conspirators, one of whom was Prince Sanguszko, from the army officers’ school in Warsaw.

In June of 1831, Prince Roman Sanguszko, who became known as Roman the Elder, was taken prisoner by the Russians, imprisoned in Kiev, and tried for high treason (because the court regarded Poles, following Poland’s partitioning, as Russian citizens). Sanguszko declined a pardon and was forced to walk, in chains, the 3,300 kilometers to Siberia. He prudently subscribed most of the property to his daughter Maria, who married Count Alfred Potocki in 1851. It was her son, Count Josef Potocki, who founded Antoniny Stud in 1883.

The November Uprising was eventually defeated by the Russian army, but emotions ran high. As a side note (no pun intended), Polish composer Frederic Chopin wrote a piece of music called the Revolutionary Étude, that appeared around the same time as the November Uprising.

Chopin was unable to take an active part in the uprising

Sanguszko Family Tree & Inheritance Of Swaluta-bred Horses Hieronymus Sanguszko

Slawuta Stud

Eustachy Sanguszko

Roman Sanguszko

(Roman the Elder)

Wladislaw Sanguszko

Gumniska Stud

Dorota Sanguszko

Maria Sanguszko m. Count Potocki Roman Sanguszko (Roman the Younger)

Josef Potocki

Antoniny Stud

Large inheritance of horses Small inheritance of horses

due to his physical frailty, instead pouring his passionate feelings on the matter into his music. Upon conclusion of Poland’s failed revolution against Russia, he is reported to have cried, “All this has caused me much pain. Who could have foreseen it?”

Prince Roman the Elder, who might well have foreseen Chopin’s pain, bequeathed a 75 percent interest in the Slawuta Stud to his nephew, Roman the Younger.

(Remember that it was Roman the Younger’s father, Wladislaw, who had founded Gumniska Stud.) In 1860 the Elder then relocated the remainder of the herd to some property in Wolica, southwest of Warsaw, where he built a costly stables. Sadly, a number of the horses grew ill in Wolica’s humid climate and died there. Following Roman The Elder’s death in 1881, Slawuta regained much of its strength under his nephew, Prince Roman the Younger, who continued to import stallions from the desert down to 1914. One of Slawuta’s grimmer chapters came about on November 7, 1917, with the senseless slaughter, by October Revolution rebels, in front of Slawuta’s family castle and stables, of many horses, and the murder of Roman the Elder’s nephew, frail, 80-yearold Roman (the Younger) Sanguszko.

“When the war [World War I] broke out there were ten stallions and 132 broodmares at Slawuta,” writes Erika Schiele in The Arab Horse In Europe. “The place was totally destroyed in 1917, almost all the horses were killed, and the 80-year-old Prince Roman was murdered in front of his castle by mutineers.” In the early stages of Russia’s October Revolution, the primary forces in the Ukraine were the Russian-administered Provisional Government and the Army staff of the Kiev Military District, which supported the Russian administration. Under threat of Russian right-wing elements in Kiev, some government leaders, together with socialist groups of national minorities, established the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.

The Bolsheviks, initially part of this committee, then left to form their own revolutionary committee. It reportedly was a group of Bolshevik-minded peasants who dispatched the old prince and his precious horses.

As the close of World War I approached, most of Poland, partitioned to Prussia in the late 18th century, was still claimed by Germany, with the rest of the Polish state

claimed by Russia and Austria-Hungary. Slawuta was the site of one of history’s earliest Jewish printing houses. The primarily Polish, heavily Jewish population of the region was uncertain about whether they would be repatriated with the proposed new Polish nation, and anxiety mounted.

The Drama of Slavuta, a translation by Ephraim H. Prombaum of a series of 12 articles appearing in The Jewish Daily Forward from December 1937 to February 1938, chronicles the ongoing oppression of Slawuta’s many Jews and the fallout from that oppression. Published in 1991

by University Press of America, The Drama of Slavuta is available for further inquiry.

Amazingly, Slawuta blood persists today. The dam line Milordka, born at Slawuta in 1810, has the most Top: Juliusz Kossack painting of Prince Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko (1768-1844), who financed four trips to Arabia in his quest for fine desert-bred bloodstock.

Pictured here aboard the Amurath daughter Szumka.

Bottom: Prince Roman the Younger in Syria with stallion Achmet. This Sanguszko prince imported horses from the desert for Slawuta up to 1914.

The Arabian Horse

In History

representatives in Poland and is divided into many valuable offshoots: Lala 1938, Amneris 1940, Hedba 1913, Koalicja 1918, and Saga 1936. Lala, by Amurath Sahib, was the dam of Ela 1951 and Lafirynda, who became the grandam of legendary multi-national champion and top sire *Aladdinn.

Ela 1951 produced highly regarded sires *Essaul and *Espartero. Amneris 1940, also by Amurath Sahib, produced stallions *Aquinor and *Aramus, who was named 1970 U.S. and Canadian National Champion Stallion. Hebda 1913 (by Hermit db) became the dam of Kaszmir, Polish Derby and 3-time Criterium winner and sire of note. The gorgeous Koalicja produced sires Miecznik and Enwer Bey, sire of Trypolis. Koalicja’s grandson *Witez II was influential in North America, as has been her descendant Partner, also a multi-national show ring champion and sire of champions.

In To Breed An Arabian Horse, published in 1984, G.W. Allen, D.V.M., Zenon Lipowicz, Roman Pankiewicz and Walter Schimanski write that Koalicja, who was taken to Tersk in 1939, also contributed through her daughter Konfederacja, and through Provincja, a Priboj daughter descended tail female from Koalicja. Koalicja’s Naseem granddaughter Nejenka produced stallion Neptun, a national champion of Holland sired by Pomeranets. The

Slawuta mare Saga 1936 was the dam of chief sire Sedziwoj and influential broodmares Canaria and Estokada. Canaria, who produced legendary sire Celebes, also in turn produced influential daughters Gwara and Czatanoga. Estokada 1951, an Amurath Sahib daughter, became the dam of popular sire *Eter and the exceptionally good-producing daughters Eskapada, Estebna and Estonia.

The dam line Szwejkowska (born c. 1800) is another pervasive Slawuta link. This dam line is represented today in Poland through two Ibrahim db daughters bred at Antoniny, paternal sisters to Skowronek: Kalina 1909 and Elstera 1913. Again according to Allen, Lipowicz, Pankiewicz and Schimanski, the Kalina branch produced Janów chief sire Rozmaryn, and Piolun and Skyzyp. Werbena (Wojski x Kalina), a foal of 1945, produced three exceptional daughters:

Top: Sanguszko grandson Count Josef Potocki founded Gumniska Stud in 1883.

Juliusz Kossack painting.

Bottom: When Prince Roman the Elder relocated his herd to costly, new stables in Wolica, south of Warsaw, in 1860, the horses failed to thrive in the humid climate.

Facing Page: A drawing of Prince Roman the Elder with his horses prior to his death in 1881.

Wirginia, Wadera and Wataha. *Wirginia, exported to North America, was chosen 1968 U.S. National English Pleasure Champion. Warmia, Kalina’s beautiful granddaughter by Comet, became the pride of Michalów. One of her daughters was *Wizja (by *El Paso), who was selected 1977 U.S. National Champion Mare. *Wizja’s full sister Wilejka was 1982 Polish National Reserve Champion Junior Mare and a gold medalist at the 1982 Stockholm International Cup. Elestra 1913’s branch of the Szwejkowska dam line produced three sires of note: Polish Derby winner Flisak, Morocz, and the legendary *Naborr.

From 1804 to 1917, Slawuta imported 73 stallions and nine mares from the desert, the most significant of which was Ilderhim, a foal of 1900. During the Bolshevik revolution many of the horses at Slawuta were killed, but the Ilderhim son Bakszysz (x Parada, by Rymnik) was saved and, subsequently, had a strong influence on Polish breeding. Bakszysz sons included Fetysz 1924 (x Siglawy Bagdady), whose well-known son Miecznik, born at Janów in 1931, was out of the famous Koalicja.

Miecznik’s best sons were Marabut 1942, Doktryner 1950 and Aquinor 1951. Aquinor’s illustrious progeny included champion sire *Eleuzis, 1972 U.S. National Champion Stallion *Elkin, and 1972 U.S. National Champion Mare *Elkana, whose descendants continue to light up the world’s show rings.

The “murky origins” disputes persist, however, unreasonable though they may seem in light of the infinitesimal influence any ancient “murky” origins could have on today’s Arabian horses. According to books by pedigree experts in a dozen languages, the most common source of “non-Arab” blood in Arabian pedigrees worldwide is (arguably) from native

Polish mares from the 19th century Sanguszko and Branicki studs. This was documented in scholarly examinations of those studs published in Germany prior to World War I, by Prince Roman the Younger in 1900, and by officials of the Polish Arabian Horse Registry. However, the Polish Studbook (PASB) identifies the sources of its “purebreds” as the studs of the Branicki, Dzieduszycki, Potocki, and Sanguszko families (PASB 1932, p. iv, ix). The Potocki bloodlines at Antoniny were derived from Sanguszko’s stud, Maria Klementyna Sanguszko’s having taken a large portion of the Sanguszko horses with her as a dowry when she married into the Potocki family in 1851. Where does this leave us?

In an editorial found on the website AWhiteHorse.com, Carol M. Schultz cites, “Dr. Edward Skorkowski, Secretary of the Arab Horse Breeding Society of Poland, compiler of genealogies for the Polish studbook and preeminent authority on Polish pedigrees, characterized the Sanguszko horses of the Slawuta, Antoniny and Guminska studs, and the Branicki horses of the Bialocerkiew studs as ‘horses developed by continuous improvement by desert-bred Arabs,’ placing them in a separate class ‘with regard to descent from the Dzieduszycki horses which descended from imported Arab mare lines.’ (Originally published circa 1965 in Your Pony magazine. Reprinted in 1969 in Arab Breeding in Poland.)

“In a 1900 letter Prince Roman V. Sanguszko (born c.

1837), owner/manager 1860-1917 of the original Sanguszko stud at Slawuta/Chrestowka, stated that his Arabs were ‘without any infusion of alien blood (excepting local mares)’ and that ‘our horses are 2/3 to 4/5 pure Arabians, having some amount of local non-Arabian blood or blood the Arabian origin of which cannot be proven (from 1/5 to 1/3),

The Arabian Horse

In History

‘” Schultz continues. “Commenting on a proposed studbook classification for those animals that have even the slightest drop of non-Arabian blood, Sanguszko admitted: ‘This would apply to all my horses, since I have at present none born from original desert sires and dams.’ (Sherbatov & Stroganov, The Arabian Horse, A Survey, 1900, reprint translation 1989).

“At least 90 percent of AHRA registrations today trace to the Sanguszko bloodlines identified in 1900 by Prince Roman as ‘non-Arabian,’” she adds. “Among the most widespread Polish imports to the United States which trace to these specific horses are *Bask 1956 (now in more than 25% of AHRA pedigrees) and *Czubuthan 1933 (also in 25 percent of AHRA pedigrees) ... and the single most widespread Polish export, Skowronek, sire of imports *Raseyn and *Raffles, among others, and thus in 90% of AHRA pedigrees.”

In seeming contradiction, in a published September 2002 article, Polish Prestige Board Chairman Marek Grzybowski told The Warsaw Voice interviewer Igor Slavich, “I have dealt with Arabian horses and horse auctions since 1972. We started in 1970 in Janów Podlaski—presently one of the world’s best-known events of this kind. Poland boasts one of the oldest traditions of Arabian breeding, with pedigree lines dating back to the 18th or the early 19th century—that is, lines of original desert horses imported to Poland. All Polish horses derive from original Arabian horses, for example the excellent line of Kuhailan Haifi, imported in 1931 to Poland by Prince Wladislaw Sanguszko to his stud in Gumniska, and of the mare Gazella, bought

by Count Juliusz Dzieduszycki in 1845 in Jarczowce. Every horse shown in Poland has its roots in the desert.”

Handwritten Slawuta pedigree, c. 1908.

Facing page: Undated watercolor, probably of Prince Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko and friends, in the pastures at Slawuta.

In “The Polish Quest for Arabian Horses” appearing in the November/December 2001 issue of Saudi Aramco World, Peter Harrigan notes, “I had come to Poland to seek out the story of Count Rzewuski and other Polish adventurers who had traveled from the Ukrainian farmlands and Russian steppes south to the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula in their quest for the purebred Arabian horses that gave any cavalry an enormous military advantage—an advantage so great that it justified such arduous journeys. Most of their stories have been obliterated by two centuries of wars, uprisings, revolutions and the long fog of communism.

“Extensive European trade brought to Poland horses of all extractions: Hungarian, German, Dutch, Danish, Friesian, English, Spanish, Moravian and Italian. Over time, as its advantages became better known, “oriental” bloodstock

became highly, even obsessively, prized over all other strains.

Purebred horses from the Arabian Peninsula, known then as today as kuhailans, were renowned as light and swift, with even temperament and enormous endurance under the harshest conditions. Moreover, because they developed as a singular breed, they were famed for the uniquely consistent, predictable way in which they passed on their qualities to successive generations.

“Peter Upton, a former president of the British Arab Horse Society who has scoured the world for records of horses out of the desert, explains that ‘the purity of the kuhailan is wellestablished, because the desert of the Arabian Peninsula was geographically isolated, and so the origins of the Arabian horse are known. It appears Arabs believed strongly that the influence of a sire could affect even the offspring resulting from the subsequent mating of the dam with other males, and that this effect was greater, the purer the sire’s breeding was. The kuhailan is the ultimate in purity, and was thus seen as the improver.’

“In Poland, the advantages of adding Arabian horses to domestic stock were recognized as early as the 16th century at Knyszyna, the royal stud of Polish king Zygmunt II August (1520-1572). According to a 1570 account called ‘Of Mares and Stallions,’ written by Adam Micinski, the king’s master of horse, this stud bred only horses of pure Arabian blood with a view to producing a fixed type.

“After the Peace of Karlowitz, signed in 1699, ended centuries of Turko-Polish hostilities,” Harrigan continues, “oriental horses reached Poland through peaceful trade. By then, it was not only for its military qualities that the Arabian horse was in demand. Cultural contact with the Ottomans had heightened Europe’s craze for things Turkish and Arabian.

Throughout Poland and Lithuania, it became the aristocratic fashion to parade and ride on Arabian horses.

“Poles assumed, usually correctly, that horses captured in battle were pure Arabians, for the Poles knew that Turkish and Tartar cavalrymen did not entrust their lives to common horses. Yet, because only the nomadic Bedouin tribes, and not the ordinary townsfolk, bred pure-in-strain horses, buying Arabians from dealers in Odessa, Paris or Istanbul was risky. Even purchasers buying at markets in Beirut, Damascus or Aleppo, had little guarantee of authenticity, despite florid ‘pedigrees’ that often stated nothing more substantial than ‘this horse has drunk the sweet milk of camels and breathed the pure desert air.’

“By the beginning of the 19th century, after successive Russian partitions in the east, Polish noblemen and landowners in the Ukraine began to take matters of cavalry-building into their own hands. Prince Hieronymous Sanguszko (1743-1812), from Slawuta on the Dnieper River, was first to dispatch his own horse-buying expedition. This expedition returned successful in 1805 after a journey of two years: a handful of the finest, purest horses was worth more than a large number of those of dubious lineage. Ownership of even one fine Arabian stallion or one perfect broodmare meant ownership of what was, in effect, a priceless biological template.

“Prince Hieronymous died in 1812. His son, EustachyErazm (1768-1845), underwrote an expedition to Aleppo in 1816. Prince Eustachy-Erazm was so impressed with his new horses that he penned ecstatic letters to friends, including one to the owner of the estate in nearby Sawran, Count Waclaw Rzewuski. ‘My dear Count,’ he wrote, ‘I tell you the simple truth, that no eye has yet seen in our country such Arabian horses, nor has the ear heard of such as I now possess.’”

Does this perennial haggling change anything? Does the questioning of obscure, long-ago bits and pieces really matter? Are not Slawuta’s historical contributions to the Arabian horses of today remarkable, “murky” or clear as spring water?