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here was a time — way back somewhere in the antediluvian, approximately, when I became interested in Arabian horses — when Arabian breeders used to know their horses’ pedigrees. In fact, it was unthinkable not to. In this respect, they were true to the tradition of the Bedouins, the original creators of the breed. The Bedouins had no written records, and to them, pure descent was everything, so of necessity they knew their horses’ lineage by heart. Most particularly, they knew their dam lines, identified by the various strains. You might say a horse was identified by its maternal descent and its strain. These days, strains have gone out of fashion to some extent, with the notable exception of straight Egyptian breeders who still place some emphasis on strain and family. Some studbooks have even stopped listing them. However, any Arabian horse, Egyptian or not, has a family descended from a foundation mare, usually somewhere in the 19th century, even if we do not always know the strain. In some cases, it was for some reason not handed
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down; in others, it was lost. These cases include a number of acknowledged desertbred mares, such as Weil’s Murana I (1816), but also the Slawuta mares of Poland, of whom nothing is known but their names, or the Veragua mares of Spain, whose identities were lost in the civil war. Although some might argue that strain affiliation is outmoded and a thing of yesteryear, its significance has been unexpectedly supported by modern science. The discovery of mitochondrial DNA proved once and for all that there are actually genes that are passed on exclusively through the female line, mother to daughter (or son). The Bedouins may have had something there, after all!
Left: EKS Alihandro (*Marwan Al Shaqab x OFW Psylhouette). Facing page: Blömmerod in the 1960s. The mare on the extreme right is Alfa, the great great great grandam of EKS Alihandro.
82 ▪ ARABIAN HORSE WORLD ▪ JULY 2015
b a c k
t o
h i s
r o o t s
eks alihandro b
T
y
B
e
t
t
y
here was a time — way back somewhere in the antediluvian, approximately, when I became interested in Arabian horses — when Arabian breeders used to know their horses’ pedigrees. In fact, it was unthinkable not to. In this respect, they were true to the tradition of the Bedouins, the original creators of the breed. The Bedouins had no written records, and to them, pure descent was everything, so of necessity they knew their horses’ lineage by heart. Most particularly, they knew their dam lines, identified by the various strains. You might say a horse was identified by its maternal descent and its strain. These days, strains have gone out of fashion to some extent, with the notable exception of straight Egyptian breeders who still place some emphasis on strain and family. Some studbooks have even stopped listing them. However, any Arabian horse, Egyptian or not, has a family descended from a foundation mare, usually somewhere in the 19th century, even if we do not always know the strain. In some cases, it was for some reason not handed
F
i
n
k
e
down; in others, it was lost. These cases include a number of acknowledged desertbred mares, such as Weil’s Murana I (1816), but also the Slawuta mares of Poland, of whom nothing is known but their names, or the Veragua mares of Spain, whose identities were lost in the civil war. Although some might argue that strain affiliation is outmoded and a thing of yesteryear, its significance has been unexpectedly supported by modern science. The discovery of mitochondrial DNA proved once and for all that there are actually genes that are passed on exclusively through the female line, mother to daughter (or son). The Bedouins may have had something there, after all!
Left: EKS Alihandro (*Marwan Al Shaqab x OFW Psylhouette). Facing page: Blömmerod in the 1960s. The mare on the extreme right is Alfa, the great great great grandam of EKS Alihandro.
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Pedigrees are what got me interested in Arabians in the first place. It is fascinating to follow lines of descent and see what comes through. Some characteristics persist through many generations, no matter what you throw into the mix. Others disappear, only to suddenly surface a few generations later to cause headaches for breeders who are not familiar with their horses’ backgrounds. With an increasing number of horses and generations and a correspondingly increasing globalization of pedigrees, it is getting very difficult to keep track of it all. It used to be easier in the days when each country had more or less its own gene pool and people bred “straight” this, that, or the other. This basically meant that you only needed to know a finite number of horses. Again, this is a lot easier for straight Egyptian breeders, who have a closed gene pool. All the other groups are by now intermixed to such a degree that the number for ancestors from different sources becomes mind-boggling. You can’t blame people for shying away from something that appears to be a confusing whirlpool of largely meaningless names, preferring to concentrate on the parents and maybe the grandparents of their horses and be content with that. A name with no identity to go with it really is meaningless. Knowing a name tells you nothing about a horse. You need to know what kind of qualities go with the name, both individual and genetic. Pedigrees, if you can read them, can tell you what you can expect from a horse. And they tell stories
— lots of them. Many go back hundreds of years. An awareness of this background gives you a sense of perspective, and a sense of heritage and tradition — values that are, or should be, a strong factor in breeding Arabian horses. Analyzing an entire pedigree would take a book and is quite impossible within the confines of a magazine article. What I propose to do in this series is take a look into the background of some well-known modern-day Arabians, going beyond the obvious, the names everyone knows. Let’s look a little deeper and dig up some of the stories buried there in the past, not forgetting that all-important Bedouin tradition, the tail female line.
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EKS ALIHANDRO
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et’s start with EKS Alihandro, the perfect example of a successful, thoroughly “modern” Arabian and one of the most successful young show champions in the world. Though bred in South Africa, he is by descent American and has none of the South African foundation lines, which were basically Crabbet. This is also a highly international pedigree that contains all source bloodlines with one exception — no Spanish. It’s a well-composed mix of Egyptian, Polish, Russian, Crabbet, and U.S. foundation lines, filtered through Qatar, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Sweden — a global pedigree par excellence
Top left: OFW Psylhouette (Padrons Psyche x *Hafati Julianna), Alihandro’s dam.
and as such a perfect example of the modern Arabian show horse. But never forget, those modern horses all descend from old bloodlines! His sire is Marwan Al Shaqab, one of today’s uncontested top sires and well-known to everyone, even though his background may not be; but we will come back to that another time. Let’s rather consider Alihandro’s dam, OFW Psylhouette. She is by Padrons Psyche, another of
Top right: *Hafati Julianna (RSD Dark Victory x PGN Flirtation), Psylhouette’s dam.
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Bottom left: Kaszmir, sire of Alhambra who was foaled in 1943, is in Familia’s dam line.
today’s top sires, out of the black Brazilian-bred mare Hafati Julianna. She was by RSD Dark Victory, a stallion of impeccable old American breeding by the top sire of the 1990s, Bey Shah, out of Kamasi Sabaha by Khemosabi, then continuing down with Gazon and Indraff, all pretty much the top sires of their day, carrying a high percentage of Crabbet blood with some added Davenport. We may note in passing that the dam line of RSD Dark Victory traces to Dajania DB, a Crabbet foundation mare whose family is noted for producing superior stallions. Once we get to Alihandro’s fourth dam, PGN Flirtation, we find something that you don’t see often anymore: a mare of entirely old Polish breeding. Her sire Aristo Kossak carries 2-3 generations of American breeding, but was 100 percent Polish. Through his sire Ariston, he was a grandson of *Bask, one of the first Polish horses to have a major impact in the U.S. and in his day noted as “setting new standards for the Arabian breed.” You could say he was the horse that more or less kick-started the “industry” as we know it today. Despite being of bloodlines classified as pure Polish, it is interesting to note that Aristo Kossak also carries a tail female line tracing to Crabbet Park, in this case to the Ali Pasha Sherif mare Sobha, which ultimately goes back to Abbas Pasha in Egypt. Familia, the dam of PGN Flirtation, was imported to the U.S. from Sweden and was bred by Blommeröd Arabian Stud. This is one of the first, and arguably the most influential Arabian stud farms in Sweden. Blommeröd was founded in the 1960s by Erik Philip-Sörensen with Arabians purchased in Poland, and subsequently became one of the foremost sources of Polish Arabians in the world. Its crowning achievement must be Probat, the stallion who was leased to Poland and had a major influence on the Polish breeding programs. One of the Blommeröd foundation mares was Alfa, foaled in 1958 in Poland by Wielki Szlem out of Alhambra, along with her eldest daughters
Top: In Alihandro’s pedigree are top sires of their day, inluding Khemosabi, sire of Kamasi Sabaha, dam of RSD Dark Victory.
Bottom: Dardir (Naborr x Darda), sire of Madar, who in turn sired Familia, great great-grandam of Alihandro.
Mlecha DB gr.m. Kehailan Dueni, imp. 1845 to Poland
Rozmaita I (Elazus DB) PL
Mlecha (El-Delemi) Jarczowce/PL Mlecha (Bosak) Taurow/PL Mlecha (Hafiz I) PL Nimfa *1900 (El-Kenir I) Pelkinie/PL Fanfara gr. *1914 (Kohejlan) Pelkinie/PL Pomonia II b. *1924 (Mazepa I) Pelkinie/PL Atfa b. *1931 (Dzingishan III) Pelkinie/PL Alhambra gr. *1943 (Kaszmir) Adamow/PL Alfa gr. *1958 (Wielki Szlem) Janow Podlaski/PL, exp. SW Familia gr. *1976 (Madar) Blommeröd/SW, exp. USA PGN Flirtation ch. *1989 (Aristo Kossack) Caravan Arabians/USA Hafati Julianna bl. *2000 (RSD Dark Victory) Carvalho Filho/BR OFW Psylhouette ch. *2005 (Padrons Psyche) Orr/USA, exp. SA EKS ALIHANDRO b. *2010 (Marwan Al Shaqab) Elkasun Arabians/SA
The dam line of EKS Alihandro. 85 b ARABIAN HORSE WORLD b JULY 2015
Aleksota (1965) by Negatiw and Dokala (1966) by Doktryner. Dokala was later exported to the U.S., as were Alfa’s next daughter Aldara, by the Naborr son Dardir, and several of Aleksota’s foals. Alfa was also the dam of Alrex, by Exelsjor, who became a major sire in France. She had 12 foals altogether, of which Familia was the tenth. Like several of her half siblings, she was sold to the U.S. Her sire was the Blommeröd-bred Madar, by Dardir out of
RUMINAJA ALI G Russell and Mildred James 1976
ANAZA EL FARID B Lester or Lois St. Clair 1988 BINT DEENA B Lester or Lois St. Clair 1979 *GAZAL al shaqab B Al Shaqab Farm 1995 KABORR G Tom Chauncey Arabians 1970 KAJORA PASB B Tom Chauncey Arabians 1979 *EDJORA G Rolf Axelsson 1968 *MARWAN AL SHAQAB B Al Shaqab Farm 2000 BEY SHAH B Lester or Jennie Walton 1976 FAME VF B Robert C. and Patricia Ann Radmacher 1982 RAFFOLETA-ROSE B Louie D. and Mary Lou Johnson 1971 LITTLE LIZA FAME B Horseshoe Lake Farms 1987 AZA DESTINY B D and S Stables 1971 KATAHZA B Dr. Gordon C. or Madeline Edgren 1981 AFHAR RAHZA G Charles B. Chapman 1969
Maritsa (Arax x Monopolia), a Russian-bred mare of Polish descent. Madar did not have very many get, and Familia has been the most successful of them. Looking further along Familia’s dam line, we come from Alfa to Alhambra, foaled in 1943. She was a daughter of Kaszmir, a grey stallion with an interesting story. He was bred at Janow Podlaski in 1929, by Farys II out of Hebda, his pedigree featuring very close-up desert lines and one line to Amurath 1881, bred at Weil, the stud farm of the King of Württemberg. Amurath 1881 was a very special horse, as he can be found in the pedigrees of practically all warmblood breeds today, which would be worth an article of its own! According to Erika Schiele, Kaszmir was sold to a turkey farmer as a yearling because he showed little promise and had a crooked front leg. However, as a three-year-old he became a racetrack sensation at Warsaw, winning all of his races and earning wagonloads of zloty, culminating in his win of the Polish Derby in 1933. He quickly changed hands once more and became a breeding stallion. In the early days of American breeding, General Dickinson of Travelers Rest tried to purchase him, but his owner Prince Czartoryski asked the then exorbitant price of $15,000, and nothing came of it. Sadly, Kaszmir died of colic not long afterwards. His blood continues through two sons, Taki Pan and Geyran, and a handful of daughters. It should be noted that Alhambra’s full sister, Ambara, was imported to the U.S., as were her daughters Amfibia and Bint Ambara, who became significant broodmares. Amfibia was in fact the dam of Ariston, the sire of Aristo Kossak, mentioned above, giving PGN Flirtation a double dose of this blood.
EKS ALIHANDRO
Stallion foaled 2010 Bred by Brown, South Africa
PATRON c 1986 *PADRON C Dr. J.J.M. Blaauwhof 1977 *ODESSA NSB C Jozef Peeters 1973 PADRONS PSYCHE C McPherson Family Trust 1988 *TAMERLAN B Tersk Stud 1967 KILIKA B Robert D. Stratmore 1982 *KILIFA C Henry Garde 1972 OFW PSYLHOUETTE C Harold or Dolly Orr 2005 BEY SHAH B Lester or Jennie Walton 1976 RSD DARK VICTORY B Robert S. Dougherty 1985 KAMASI SABAHA B Robert S. Dougherty 1976 *HAFATI JULIANNA K Paulo Machado De Carvalho Filho 2000 ARISTO KOSAK PASB B Denise Borg 1976 *PGN FLIRTATION C Caravan Arabians 1989 *FAMILIA G Blommeröd Arabian Stud 1976
Top left: The desertbred stallion Hermit, the maternal grandsire of Kaszmir.
Bottom left: The foundation mare Mlecha DB, who was imported to Poland in 1845.
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Ambara was out of Alhambra who was out of the 1931 mare Atfa, by Dzingishan III out of Pomponia II. Dzingishan III was by the desertbred stallion Hermit, who was also the maternal grandsire of Kaszmir, and there is an intriguing anecdote regarding Dzingishan III, who, while pulling a sleigh, apparently raced down a wolf until it collapsed in exhaustion! Atfa’s dam Pomponia II ranks as one of the most significant mares in the history of Polish breeding, despite the fact that she only lived to the age of 12. She had five daughters, of which four fortunately survived World War II and bred on, including Atfa. Now, Polish pedigrees are the longest in the world, many of them going back to the early 19th century and, more often than not, ending with a blank — those famous (or, as some say, infamous) Slawuta foundation mares of whom we know nothing more than their names. This, however, is not one of those. It is one of just four Polish families that can actually be traced straight back to a desertbred source. Going back from Pomponia II, seven generations take us to the foundation mare Mlecha DB. Looking at these generations can be confusing, because no less than four mares along this line were named Mlecha. Back in the 19th century, horses were often given identical names, distinguished at most by Roman numerals or years of birth. In this case, we don’t even have that — we have three generations of Mlechas following one upon one another, with no numbers and, in two cases, not even a recorded year of birth (and there were plenty
more Mlechas in this family, just to confound matters further). The original Mlecha, however, was imported to Poland in 1845. She was purchased in the desert by Count Juliusz Dzieduszycki along with two other desertbred mares, Gazella and Sahara, plus seven stallions. It took Count Dzieduszycki two years of travel and 100,000 gold ducats to get those horses, but the effort paid off handsomely. While some of the stallions vanished without a trace, all three mares founded hugely important families that are still going strong today. Fortunately enough, the Count had all his desert horses portrayed by the famous painter Juliusz Kossak, recording their image for posterity. Now paintings can be idealized, of course, but there is one thing that speaks strongly in favor of these portraits actually being good likenesses: while all of them look unmistakably Arabian, each of them looks totally different. These are obviously portraits of individual horses with individual characteristics — which is more than one might say for the highly stylized photographs of show horses today! They don’t gloss over the faults, either. In the context of these portraits, Mlecha comes off as one of the best and appears to have been a mare that would have appealed even to today’s audiences. Her strain is usually given as “Koheilan Dueni,” but it has been argued (and listed in other sources) that this is actually Koheilan Dajani. While this is an intriguing idea, given the Dajania family’s penchant for producing above average stallions, mitochondrial DNA analysis has revealed that Mlecha and Dajania are not descended from the same root mare. However, Mlecha shared a common ancestor with another Crabbet foundation mare, Dahma DB, whose family is found today only in Australia. Maybe “Dueni” was not Dajani, but Dahman, the term “Koheilan” often being used in the sense of “purebred” rather than strain distinction. We’ll probably never know. But we do know that Mlecha’s venerable family is a strong one indeed and has once again produced a great representative — EKS Alihandro.
Right: EKS Alihandro.
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