That thread title sounds like the horses foundered…
There are very, very, very few pure Arabians in the USA, Western Europe, Russia and Egypt that do not have Blunt DB ancestry. Rodania, Dajania, Hadban, Azrek, and Queen of Sheba permeate the breed if you go back far enough, and their descendants crossed with the Egyptian Arabian stallion Mesaoud left descendants everywhere.
Lady Anne Blunt helped save the pure Arabian horse for the rest of us. Bless her!
I loved that. Thank you for posting it.
Thanks for the article, that was interesting.
[QUOTE=Jackie Cochran;8893341]
There are very, very, very few pure Arabians in the USA, Western Europe, Russia and Egypt that do not have Blunt DB ancestry. Rodania, Dajania, Hadban, Azrek, and Queen of Sheba permeate the breed if you go back far enough, and their descendants crossed with the Egyptian Arabian stallion Mesaoud left descendants everywhere.
Lady Anne Blunt helped save the pure Arabian horse for the rest of us. Bless her![/QUOTE]
Too bad her daughter had to breed all those asil mares to Skowronek…<G>
I agree Ghazzu!
When I was trying to get into breeding Arabians I went with the Davenports, horses with Arab character, withers, good long sloping shoulders, short cannon bones and SUBSTANCE. I would have LOVED to have been able to dream of outcrossing with pure Blunt DB descended Arabs (the Davenports are horribly inbred now,) and I would not have minded Mesaoud in the pedigree too terribly much.
The downfall of the pure Asil Arabian was that most of the individual desert bred horses were not particularly beautiful (of course some of them were.) When breeders decided that what artists painted was more pertinent to the breed than the individual tough, enduring, and good dispositioned horses that actually came out of the desert, it went all downhill, IMHO.
You don’t ride the head. I often wished that the non-dished face Arabs had been more popular with the breeders in Egypt and the West.
Then came the mania for high trots, NOT a big characteristic of the desert Arabian (except for Azrek and *Haleb.) Then long, snaky necks got popular, then the mania of trying to breed Arabians 16 hands high or higher.
At least I got to own some really pure Arabs. Too bad I had bad luck and then got crippled by MS.
Well, somebody better still be breeding Crabbet Arabs, because when Madame goes to join her ancestors on some distant misty hill/sand dune, I am going to want another one just like her, because she is perfect.
Interesting. I didn’t know she was Ada Lovelace’s daughter!
(Oh good grief, the writing quality of that article made my eyes bleed, though.)
