Our stallion has a very Arab-y head as well. Not dished, but broad forehead and a very tapered muzzle. He can be very hard to find bridles for!
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/22632_299219097351_8291078_n.jpg
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/22632_299219047351_7955155_n.jpg
My guy has prominent, wide-set eyes and a bit of a dish at the top of his head:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/6316489935/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/3302202490
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/6154205513
And turns into a bit of a “moose nose” at the bottom:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/6316325635/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/5659284047
He needs smaller halters and bridles to fit his muzzle. It took me a little time to appreciate the shape- I usually prefer a straight or even Roman profile on a TB, but now I’m quite fond of it 
Pedigree:
Alibhai - more Buckpasser (as does my girl) - I’ve seen that in quite a few of these horses.
A Fine Romance has a straight profile, no dish whatsover, but a small head, with a broad forehead, large jowl and tapered muzzle, small ‘muscular’ ears.
It is not a Nasrullah or Princequillo head - and he is inbred 4x4 /5x5 to them respectively.
The head it is most like is Never Bend’s.
He also has very distinctive eyes - so much so that people call them ‘Fred Eyes’ when they show up (often) in the offspring.
They are large, but almond shaped…I’m wondering where they come from.
(going off now to try to figure out how to post a link to a picture).
Our April Sound mare (JC Ruthie Dear) has the best delicate face ever and her foals get the prettiest heads too. I know you don’t ride the heads but…they’re sure pretty!
http://www.crestlinefarm.com/brood_april.htm
Her pedigree is http://www.pedigreequery.com/ruthie+dear
The most extreme faced TB I had was Pappa’s Lapin…totally Arab in type with huge dish!
http://www.pedigreequery.com/pappas+lapin
http://www.crestlinefarm.com/images/marepappa1.jpg
Not a great head shot…wish I’d got one of her!
I have a mare with a very pronounced dished face (sorry no pics), very Arab-looking. I have no idea where it came from. She’s also very small (14.3-1/2), but NOT petite. Could easily pass for an anglo-arab. Pedigree: Lucky South X Yeah Kay.
I rescued an OTTB mare that Im now trying to rehome, and honestly, I wish I knew more about tb bloodlines. She seems to have a very “dishy” head, and also nice feminine ears compared to many tb mares Ive met.
A couple pictures that show her head/profile:
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b429/fyreflygirl/IMG_1722.jpg
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b429/fyreflygirl/Stardust/IMG_0037.jpg
http://www.pedigreequery.com/our+stardust
Maybe someone here can share info about her pedigree with me? Would love to have a pm if you are familiar with her bloodlines (so I dont derail the thread) and share here if you recognize where her arab looks might stem from! (I do see one line, pretty far back to “Hoist the flag”
Thanks,
~k
Fred, this horse
http://www.pedigreequery.com/diamond+chip3
had the most amazing slanted eyes, he was without a doubt the wickedest coolest horse I ever knew. He had a broad forehead, ears put on as an afterthought, teacup muzzle and wonderfully weird slanted eyes. And they kept his forelock shaved too, which only added to the look of cool wickedness.
He was one of my favorite horses because we was wicked smart and wanted to be the boss but not a bully or bull headed in his determination to be boss. He was a thinker. I had him post surgery and that meant hand walking around the shedrow every day. After he went from racing fit to standing in a stall for 6 weeks. The average post surgical candidate is just a giant orangutan off your right side in these circumstances. The real challenge is to make sure when they go up in the air they don’t come down on your head, or try and take off. If you spent your days dealing with 10+ such characters at any given moment (big surgical practice), this isn’t a big deal, be a little bit careful and it’s not too hard to outsmart your average 3-4 year old racehorse. 
Not Diamond Chip. We would start walking with him very politely on your side and very on the muscle … and if you so much as dropped your attention for a nanosecond, he would get a little bit ahead of you and then whip around so he was facing you, and pretty much attempt to take your head off with both front feet. In about a second flat. There’s very little you can do in a shedrow to gain control if the horse is in front of you and light in the front tootsies other than try and keep them from getting a leg over the line and keep your body out of the line of fire, and he damn well knew it! So you had to watch him like a hawk and any time he made to get ahead and spin to face you, you dropped back and into his shoulder and started a circle to the left - in the middle of the shedrow - always keeping his shoulder by your shoulder so, while you were not going forward, he wasn’t getting his way either. We would do this dance of circles about 5-6 times with a horse not looking like he was doing anything wrong - just a handler who decided to spin in circles for whatever reason. He would realize he wasn’t going to beat me … this time… and we would head back around the shedrow (with a few healthy kicks to the flipped feed buckets hanging on the rail to show his displeasure).
Some days we might make it around with only one dance, other days it was a dance 3x a turn around the shedrow. Sometimes with a whole set of babies walking behind us and the gallopers cursing my head for bringing Chip out when they were on two year olds (heh heh, it’s possible we might have both gotten a sly grin out of dance of circles followed by bucket kicking, with a string of 2 year olds backed up and on their toes behind us).
Uber cool horse and a hard knocking black type runner to boot.
I used to own this mare: http://www.pedigreequery.com/bon+reve - she had a dishy face. Some people thought she was Arab or a cross.
I have 2 TB mares with very dishy heads. One is petite and the overall effect is very Araby. The other is a big mare and her face is longer but the dish is so pronounced it looks like she’s had some weird pasture accident! Both mare pass this trait on.
They share Aberlou in their pedigrees but I know it didn’t come from him - he was a plain-headed horse if ever there was one!
I’ll try to post pics when I get a minute.
DMK- wonderful story, so visual you had me right there with you, circling in the shed row.
Thank you for sharing Diamond Chip with us, he does sound like a very smart, thinking horse. :yes:
The local endurance person, who of course loves Arabs, says my guy has a lot of Arab characteristics. He doesn’t have a dishy head though, more a very slight Roman nose, although his head is very refined, as is his neck (although he is quite sturdy in the shoulders and butt and has very well-sprung ribs). He has multiple crosses to Mahmoud, which I guess explains it, and kind of looks like Mahmoud around the head, particularly. Mahmoud is described in the TB Heritage site as having “beautiful light action” and I think those adjectives would describe my guy’s gaits as well.
JB, probably about the same but a much broader forehead, stallion jowl and a shorter eye to muzzle distance, so a different look altogether
Though this thread is a bit dated, haven’t had to the time to keep up, I found it to be an interesting question. Sorry to bore those who have to repeatedly read my back ground so as to qualify my comments. I have been inspection/looking at TB yearlings for over 30 years now, 1000s and 1000s. I happened to like an “Arabish” head, esthetically. That being said it would have no bearing on my “short list” when buying a TB racehorse. But I have always made notes, mentally and in my catalogues over the years of “types”. IMO Northern Dancer sired horses more times then not had “Arabish” heads. And body type for the most part. Though I could not say as a rule his get passed this on. There is one son of his, Sovereign Dancer that IMO tended to. Be it as the sire or the dam sire. IMO he struck me as prepotent in this regard. We have a Capote (son of Seattle Slew) mare out of a Sovereign Dancer mare, that looks MUCH more like a daughter of Sovereign Dancer then Capote. http://www.pedigreequery.com/forbidden+dance Which is why I bought her, for body type, paid too much also. An auction “Impulse buy” she was/is so pretty. For what it is worth in others I feel had that had that “look” also there was a lot of Bold Ruler/Nasrullah in their pedigree. Just an observation.
None of the pictures posted IMO have the distinctive Arabish head that I am thinking of, wider between the eyes then most TBs, dished but more like scalloped, length and with Not as pronounced in either respect as a true Arab. Which all TBs descend from.
I know someone already mentioned Hoist the Flag, my Slew gelding was very dished but he also had Hoist on the mare line.
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/boggs+creek
My Danzig gelding also had a lovely head; not short and dished but long and tapered.
I have a mare here that has a LOVELY head. Refined, teacup muzzle (and a perpetual droopy lip), and it matches the rest of her which is just as dainty.
She’s not a half bad little jumper either…
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/first+thought2
She’s by Valiant Nature o/o Raise a Thought
