Arabian Horse Strains

STRAIN (Rasan or “rope” in Arabic):

• Originated as a cultural feature of original Arabian horses not a scientifi c one.

• It is the means by which Bedouin horse breeding tribes identifi ed the ancestry and authenticity of their Arabian horses.

• Strain names represent the female line of descent regardless of the sire line.

• Any number of reasons may be associated with the identifying features of a strain, from legendary stories, to family notoriety and in some instances behavior or physical features. These identifying features are not static and can evolve and change over long periods of time.

SUBSTRAIN (Marbat, in Arabic, which means “the place to which the ‘rope’ is tied”): • The second or third names after a strain name such as: Saqlawi Jidran.

• The substrain usually further identifi es authenticity, specifi c origin, or branches of a strain.

• Can be based on a family or clan breeding their own version of a strain. For example: The “Jidran” family bred the Saqlawi strain: Saqlawi Jidran. It can even have more detail: A breeder named Ibn Sudan became noted for his Saqlawi Jidran, which then became Saqlawi Jidran Ibn Sudan. While another breeder, Ibn Al-Dirri became noted for his Saqlawi Jidran Ibn Al-Dirri (later becoming just Saqlawi Al-Dirri).

• Can be based on a legend. For example the legend of the Kuhaylan Krush (Krush meaning “lamb’s stomach in Arabic): One story relates that the Muteyr Bedouin had a particularly prized Keheileh Ajuz mare which had escaped from them, and would not return to her owner when called. Because she was a mare of great speed, the Bedu were unable to capture her so they devised a plan. They dug two holes in the sand, and lined each hole with a lamb’s stomach. They put water in one hole, and feed in the other. Each day, the mare would come to eat and drink at these two holes. Each day, the Bedu would drive one pole into the sand. Each pole was several yards away from the lamb’s stomach bowls, and each one was only a foot or so from the prior placed pole. Day-by-day, they began to build a paddock around the two bowls at such a slow pace that the mare did not seem to mind. Finally, the day came that the Bedu only had to plant one more pole to complete the enclosure. When the mare came to eat and drink, the Bedu rushed forward planting the last pole enclosing the mare. The Keheileh Ajuz mare was then renamed as the Keheileh Krush, in memory of the lamb stomachs which had lined the holes and held the precious feed and water for the mare.

Strains and Substrains in Contemporary Egyptian Breeding

Tail Female Strain Substrain and root female Substrain other than in tail female KUHAYLAN Jellabi Jellabi (Kazmeyn, Feysul, Ibn Yashmak) (as traditionally recorded by the [The El Samraa female line, fi rst listed as RAS for the Bint Yamama line) Mimreh (Mansour, Ibn Samhan, etc.) Saqlawi, was changed to Kuhaylan in Rodan current EAO records.] Bint Rissala - RAS Ajuz (Rabdan El Azrak, Mashaan, etc.) Bint Riyala - RAS [Kuhaylan line to Nafaa of Inshass is rare.] Krush El Kahila - Inshass [No substrain is given for either El Samraa Halawi or Nafaa.] Bint Futna II - Hamdan Stud

DAHMAN Shahwan Najib (Ibn Nura, Sahab and El Dahma - Ali Pasha Sherif other Ali Pasha Sherif stal- Bint El Bahreyn - Khedive lions)

HADBAN Inzihi Venus - Shammar tribe

SAQLAWI Jidran (Ibn Sudan) Shaifi (Badaouia, dam of Kheir) Ghazieh - Abbas Pasha [Saqlawi lines to Sa’ud mares, Hind (note: genetically Bint Yamama Ibn Al-Dirri (Basilisk, in pedigree and Mabrouka of Inshass are rare. line is common to Ghazieh) of Hamran RAS) No substrains are given.] Roga El Beda - Ali Pasha Sherif

ABAYYAN Om Jurays Sharrak (Saadoun, sire of Durra) El Mahroussa - Inshass [Abayyan line to Bint Karima of Inshass is rare. No substrain given.]

SHUWEYMAN Sabbah [rare but still exists in female line] Folla - Hamdan Stud

SOME OTHER STRAINS in Egyptian breeding but not found in tail female line Muniqi Hadruj Muniqi Sbaili Hamdani Simri Rabdan (sometimes referred to as “Kuhaylan Ajuz” Al-Rabdan) The Concept of Strains in Arabian Horses by Joe Ferriss

This feature is adapted from my article in Australian Arabian Studs & Stallions Annual 2003

Two Saqlawiyah Jidraniyah Ibn Amoud mares of the Shammar Tribe in the Jezirah, Syria, 1996. Photo by Joe Ferriss.

Recalling my past, the first time I my grandfa ther’s passing, I mar ried in interesting that the strain name of an remem ber hearing the word “strain” in 1969 a magical woman named Sharon Arabian foal is handed down to it from relation to animals was when I was a who loved horses. By 1970 I found its female line of descent, instead the young boy and I heard my grand father my self, city boy that I was, be com ing sire line of de scent common to Eu ro pe- Sidney Ferriss and my uncle Harold involved with Arabian hors es. The an and Western customs. talking about grand pa’s dog breeding word “strain” was to sur face again. pro gram. In the late 1930s my grand- For my birthday in 1971, Sharon fa ther be came a prom i nent breeder It is impossible to be involved with gave me the second edi tion of the of Irish Terriers, Cheviot sheep and Arabian horses without being exposed Raswan Index by Carl Raswan, a 3 Percheron draft horses. Grow ing up in to the long litany of its his tory mainly vol ume publication profuse with writ- Detroit, Michigan as a boy, I was an through the many books and mag a- ings about Arabian horse strains. This automobile fanatic and didn’t know a zines published. Reading about the was fol lowed soon by a holiday gift thing about animals. It was a rare oc ca- Bedouin tribes, their culture and leg- of Carl Raswan’s The Arab and His sion when I visited my grandfather’s end was thrill ing to a new reader in the Horse. These two publi ca tions were farm but here is where talk of animals early 70s. Before long the more com- filled with in for ma tion relating to the and breeding was abound. When I mon strain names such as Kuhaylan, strains of Arabi an horses. The late heard the men tion ing of “strain” in the Hamdani, Hadban, Dahman, Saqlawi, Carl Raswan had become a legendary context of dogs and sheep is seemed to Abayyan and Muniqi be gan to surface. au thor i ty on Arabian horses having me to be some sort of family de scrip- Also I was to read that strain names spend much of his life among the tion. In my young mind I likened it have sub names (or substrain) too such Bedouin tribes as well as procuring to model names of cars to dis tinguish as Saqlawi Jidran Ibn Sudan, mean- horses for many breeders in terna tion- them such as Chevrolet Impala, or ing from a specific breeder, such as al ly. His name and writings were quite Ford Focus. Some years later after Ibn Sudan. As a new reader I found it familiar in the U.S. at that time. Upon reading this material it be came Egyptian and desert oriented breeders His concept of strains as types clear to me that Carl Raswan’s position in the 1970s. be came thoroughly wo ven into the on strains was that they are dis tinc- In Raswan’s writings he had from think ing of many breed ers. It was not tive types each with spe cific physi cal time to time cited the impor tance un com mon to hear someone describe char ac ter is tics. He not only pro vid ed of considering the WHOLE ped i gree a compact, masculine horse as being detailed de scriptions about what many when apply ing his formu la. The fact very “Kuhaylan” in type, or like wise of the various strains of Ara bi ans “look that a horse was of a cer tain strain but a refined, feminine horse de scribed as like” but provided a kind of formula for looked like another was ex plained by very “Saqlawi” in type. To illustrate dis till ing the many phys i cal vari a tions the in flu enc es in the rest of the pedi- this trend of strain types visually I of Arabians into 3 main gen eral cate- gree. Raswan used a color coding sys- have prepared Chart 1 in this article go ries by strain name com plete with tem applying a different color for each which shows a range of “strain types” a color coded chart. Pag es 25-30 of strain to il lus trate the composition of sum ma rized from some non-Arab writ- Raswan’s The Arab and His Horse pre- a whole pedigree. Through his col or ers of the past including Raswan. sents and ex ten sive fold out chart with coding, he made it very visual as to the Raswan also claimed that some photos that presents his formula the 1 ped i gree dif fer enc es and similarities in Bedouin bred their horses pure-in-the- es sence of which is dis played here. total strain make-up. strain which meant that stal lions and For a visual learner like me this was mares of the same strain were mated wonderful to have some sort of pic to ri- al formula to try and un der stand the variations. Carl Raswan’s simple vi su al became popular thought among many

Some examples above based on Raswan’s chart at right. Photos courtesy Judith Forbis to each other in suc ceeding genera- time in the Jezirah region of Syria, While visiting the Shammar, we tions. This was called “strain breed- visiting the Tai and Shammar tribes were given an extraordinary presen- ing” or “breed ing within the strain”. who still breed Arabians and main- ta tion of their prized strains. Horses In essence when a stallion and mare of tain a keen knowledge of their long were formally presented in groups of the same strain were mated they would equine histories. Many of the photos five at a time. This was a magnificent be called “first generation pure-in- of Arabians in this feature are from my sight, riders and hors es in colorful the-strain”. When the results of these journey. In inter views with both the attire, bounding and prancing in style matings were then mated to geth er it Tai and Shammar tribes, strains were reminiscent of 19th century paint- would be called “sec ond generation commonly dis cussed. However there ings. Larger groups of their strains pure-in-the-strain” and so on. These was no in dica tion that these strains included Saqlawi Jidran Ibn Amoud, two concepts of strain breed ing and had spe cif ic appearance features and and Hamdani Ibn Ghorab. Earlier it strains as distinctive types became in fact tribal leaders disputed that had been pointed out by the excellent largely popular over the next two these strains were each a specific type. authority on Bedouin horses, Mustafa decades among many Egyptian and Often legends of speed, courage and Al-Jabri, that many of these substrain desert oriented breed ers. The theory nobility were related to certain strains names such as Hamdani Ibn Ghorab behind "strain breeding" was to get but not "looks". can often change as a horse changes deeper into the chosen strain type The Tai tribe was most hospi ta ble tribal or clan own er ship, by example: and move further away from un re lat ed and put on horse races in the desert a Saqlawi Al Abd acquired by Al- types within a breeder's pro gram. In Rolah could be changed to Saqlawi for our intrigue. One of the chief stal- 2 this approach it was not only de sir able lions used by the Sheykh Mohamad Al-Rolah. to have all ancestors be of sim i lar type Abdul Razak Al-Taiee of the Tai was The Shammar gave a special semi nar but also of the same strain. a splendid grey Muniqi Hadruj whose in the “Hall of the Elders” re gard ing Some of the de tails of Raswan’s writ- appear ance was nothing like Raswan’s the histories of their Ara bians. I was ing be came over sim pli fied or obscured descrip tion of Muniqi type but more amazed to hear that their Rabda strain as time passed to the point that many like his de scrip tion of the Hadban originated not from a Rabda mare were em brac ing the no tion that strains strain. Later a Hamdaniyah Simriyah but from a Muniqiyah Sbailiyah mare are a guarantee of spe cific types and mare was presented to us which was who dis tinguished herself in battle and some believed that a simple prov en for- more close to Raswan’s description of having a curved feather mark on her mu la was at hand to solve the rid dle of the Muniqi. Wherever I traveled in forehead, all of her produce were then maintaining con sis tency in breeding Syria, Raswan’s description of Muniqi named from this particular “Rabda” Arabian horses. Unfortunately the sci- did not fit what I saw, and likewise mare. This indicated that a particular ence of ge net ics is not as easily man- in the Arabian gulf. Raswan’s descrip- strain name could, in essence, origi- aged as some followers of the strain tion of the Muniqi was readily dis put- nate from an offshoot of a different breeding for mu la would hope. The ed by many even though they spoke strain. What I realized is that strains concept of strains as spe cif ic types with reverence about Raswan. The are rooted in a cultural element, not a in reality was sometimes too hard to Bedouins and Arabs that I met simply scientific one, which liberated me from pre dict with cer tain ty or to con trol disagreed with the whole notion of the notion that a strain will always be consis tent ly in the practice of “strain strains as types and said there is no real a fixed notion of specific description. breeding” and gradually this gave rise his to ry to sup port it. Repeatedly, whether with the Tai, to some skeptics. To digress here for a moment, why Shammar, or private and gov ern ment By the 90’s more people were trav- couldn’t the range of type still be breeders of Asil Arabian hors es, their el ing to the Middle East and areas described in some generic scientific view of strains was based more on previously less visited were being seen way to enable breed ers to un derstand the character and prominence of a by more Western and European travel- the actu al varia tions of types that do particular family, much like we would ers. I happened to be one such traveler sur face when breed ing Arabians? So think of in famous human names such in 1996 vis iting Jordan, Syria, The even if the Arabs see strains sep a rate- as Kennedy, Rockefeller, or Blunt. United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. ly from type, the concept of a "range This then was their traditional Arab As with oth er visitors, notions we in of type" chart would still be useful for concept of strains, described as the the West had about Arabian strains eval u a tive pur pos es as shown in Chart “Rasan” or rope, shown in Chart 3 from previous travelers writings were 2 in this article which eliminates the which I created after I returned from not supported by most of those in ter- as so ci a tion with the strain names. I my travels. It was a fas cinat ing way of viewed in the Middle East. My pre vi- originally created Charts 1 and 2 in looking at strains that I had not heard ous learning was to be chal lenged by 1992 before going to the Middle East, of before. In most re gions we traveled new information. as a way of being able to consider in in, this graphic rep re sents the way My travels with fellow members a new light type variation even as strains were de scribed. Family char- of the Arabian Horse Historians questions had arisen challenging the ac ter is tics of courage, speed, nobil- Association allowed me to spend some "strain-type" theories. ity, agility, endur ance, intelligence, CHART 1 CHART 2 CHART 3

or other qual i ties not photographable clearly different now than in his day ject would likely fill a library. were more tra di tion al ly associated even through the tribes have struggled In this age of internet com mu ni ca- with certain strains than actual ap pear- to maintain their way of life. If he tion, increased travel, and new learn- ance of the horse. could have lived longer and trav eled ing from various Middle East ern sourc- When they were queried about the in dif fer ent regions he cer tain ly would es, increasingly we hear from native notion of “strain breeding” or breed ing have written more on the subject. It Arab breeders and writ ers that strains same strain to same strain for several must be appreciated that he laid in an are NOT syn on y mous with types. enlightening frame work for un der stand- generations, tribe members and Arab So what is right? First, one must ing the range of Ara bian type, even if breeders we spoke with repeatedly remember that the cul ture and its peo- it is not tied di rect ly to strains in the frowned on this. To them it was not ple are ultimately the ones who define broader sense. In fact the subject of desirable to breed any line too close what comes from them. However, Arabi an strains is a very complex one and hasn’t been done for a very long within individual fam ilies or strains of with a very long and evolv ing his tory. time ac cord ing ly. a very strong in fluence, one type may One will prob a bly never have the final It would be unfair to negate all that become popular and be fixed by re peat- word on the subject and an amalgam Raswan wrote on the subject strains ed use of that strain or fam ily, whether of all that has been writ ten on the sub- based on later trav els. Things could be in appearance, character, or athletic KUHEILAT AAFAS, 1990 grey mare sired by Hamdaany and out of Kuheilat Aafas 170. Owned by the Emir of Bahrain. Joe Ferriss photo. A Muniqiyah Sbailiyah mare owned by Abdul Muhsin Nasif. A Muniqi Hedruj stallion of the Tai. Atiyah, a Muniqi Sbaili Ibn Safain stallion owned by Basil Jadaan

Ma’anaghieh 981, yearling filly in the stud of the Emir of Bahrain. A young Muniqiyah Sbailiyah mare at the Basil Al-Assad stud in Damascus.

A Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare of the Tai tribe.

Hassan, a Hamdan Simiri stallion owned by Hisham Ghrayeb.

A Shuwaymah Sabbah mare of the Tai tribe.

All photos on this page are by the author, taken at different times under different cir- cumstances. Though not to be compared to today’s show horse photos, these illustrate A Hamdaniyah Ibn Ghorab mare of the the range of variety found within same, Shammar tribe. Shuwaimaan 800, stallion owned by the similar or related strains. Emir of Bahrain. References: ability. Arabian breeders of the past that emerge as strong families will 1 Raswan, Carl. The Arab and His Horse, just as those of the present who com- always “lay in a rope” of their own 1955, Published by the au thor, pp. 24-31 mit themselves to breeding to a vision uniqueness whether by strain or any 2 Al-Jabri, Mustafa. “Origins of Strains and of their ideal will always develop an other name. the Bedouin’s Breeding Method” Khamsat Vol. identity. For this reason female lines 14, No. 1, p. 57.