Windt im Wald A Wind in the Woods Geauga County, Northeast Ohio since 1995

The Descent of ANAZEH

by Michael Bowling

 Copyright 1979 by MICHAEL BOWLING

used by permission of Michael Bowling

published in Arabian Horse World July 1979

 Photos from the Carol Mulder collection

(unless otherwise noted)

Part 2

Part 1 : Part 2              

TABLE 1:                  

The First Four Generations of Descent from *LEOPARD 233

 

         The Manions first sent their mares to IMAGE and *RAFFLES; the resulting fillies in 1939 were IMAGIDA 1694 (Image x Ourida) and RAFISSA 1695 (*Raffles x Ydrissa), the latter being only the fourth foal registered to her soon-tremendously-influential sire. RAFISSA was YDRISSA's only Manion-bred foal, as the mare was sold to New York where she produced three more fillies, all of which have bred on in turn. At Manion Canyon RAFISSA produced 13 foals, of which RIFRAFF, by her sire *RAFFLES, was much the most influential. OUIDA's daughter RAYGEENA was probably her most influential for the Manions, but another first foal success, the elegant IMAGIDA, represents her most wide-ranging contribution to the world.

         I remember this mare's *RAFFLES daughters GIDA 4353 and RAFGIDA 4981 as most elegant and impressive, and of course their brothers IMARAFF 3476 and RAFFI 3781 have been influential, in a great many respected programs.

         Mrs. Manion quotes Dr. Munson as saying there must be 5,000 modern descendants of OURIDA. Asked how the Manions came to part with IMAGIDA, source of the OURIDA cross in most of those, she outline "one of those stories" which she said always had been a sore spot with her. William States Jacobs of Texas phoned "every day at 7:00 a.m. for two weeks trying to buy either IMAGIDA or RAFISSA." IMAGIDA was being most determinedly "green" at the time (well--not to put too fine a point on it--"IMAGIDA had run away with me in the sleigh and kicked it to pieces. I rode the runner and held on to the reins until she headed for a fence, then I bailed out. Another time she lay down on the road with me, saddle and all, and wouldn't get up") and Jacobs apparently hit the psychological moment--at any rate he got IMAGIDA for $1000 ("I cringe to think of it!"). According to Mrs. Manion the check to pay for the mare was signed by Roger Selby, and IMAGIDA never left the Selby Stud even though the Studbook lists Jacobs, not Selby, as breeder of IMARAFF, RAFFI, GIDA and RAFGIDA.

         A new change on Huntington's "linebred Maneghi" idea was rung in Ohio: KHALETTA and NARKEESA were both bred to Homer Davenport's desertbred Maneghi Sbeyli stallion *HALEB 25, "the pride of the desert," in 1907, a year after the Davenport group arrived in this country. It seems quite likely that the Hartman mares were sent straight to *HALEB's court from the auction, since New Jersey would be on the way home from New York to Ohio. One hopes, at any rate, that Huntington was in on the decision to try the cross, as he would have enjoyed planning this return to a new source of the strain he had tried to preserve.

         In any event the idea can't be called a blazing success. Only these two foals were bred by the Hartman Stock Farm: NARKEESA produced a bay colt, LEUCOSIA 50, and KHALETTA a bay filly, METOECIA 51. It would seem that the nucleus of horses passed to one Meldrum Gray, also of Columbus, for in 1910 he bred KHALETTA to the two-year-old LEUCOSIA, getting for his pains the chestnut colt NARKHALEB 114, another of those "absolutely Maneghi" pedigrees that this group of horses turned out now and then. Again, I will not try to describe this inbreeding--please see NARKHALEB's pedigree in TABLE III.

                                DB

                       DB

                                DB

              *Haleb 25

                                DB

                       DB

                                DB

         Leucosia 50

                                *Leopard 233

                       Anazeh 235

                                *Naomi 230

                  Narkeesa 7

                                Yataghan GSB DB

                       *Naomi 230

                                Haidee GSB DB

NARKHALEB 114

          Chestnut stallion 1911

                                *Kismet 253

                       *Nimr 232

                                *Nazli 231

                  Khaled 5

                                Yataghan GSB DB

                       *Naomi 230

                                Haidee GSB DB

         Khaletta 9

                                *Leopard 233

                       Anazeh 235

                                *Naomi 230

                  Nazlina 6

                                Maidan GSB DB

                       *Nazli 231

                                *Naomi 230

DB: Desertbred

GSB: General Stud Book, England

NARKHALEB's descendants are all through his outcrossed daughter from KILLAH 103, he by      *GOMUSSA 31 DB x *HADBA 43 DB.

         KHALETTA and METOECIA were among the first Arabians purchased by W.R. Brown when he founded his not-then-famous Maynesboro Stud in 1914. He bred three foals from KHALETTA and five from METOECIA but nothing has come of any of them; Brown came to own KHALETTA's sire and quite possible decided he liked his *NAOMI breeding less inbred than KHALETTA represented it, and since it was his ambition to have an entirely "double registered" (Jockey Club a well as Arabian Horse Club) herd, METOECIA did not fit his plans too well. The Davenport horses were not registered with the Jockey club, and so of course neither were their get.

         The NAZLINA branch from ANAZEH thus reduces to the single stallion NARKHALEB. He too went to New England, to Hingham Stock Farm, where he sired MIZUEL 388 from SANKIRAH 149; this horse, foaled in 1919, came to be owned by W.K.Kellogg and to sire three foals, all colts, none of which left descent. D. Gordon Hunter bred HAYABEL 791, NARKHALEB's 1930 daughter, another who dropped out. In 1931 W.K.Kellogg bred NARKHALEB to the unrelated mare KILLAH 103, resulting in the brown 1931 filly NARLAH 916 who managed to propagate this slenderest surviving branch of the ANAZEH family tree.

         The double *NAOMI mare NARKEESA did not accompany her relatives to New England; her travels were in the opposite direction, and she ended up in San Francisco, CA, where she produce five outcrossed foals by EL JAFIL 74 for two different owners. Three of these dropped out, but the youngest two more than made up for the disappearing act of their siblings.

         EL SABOK's daughters SABIGAT 672 and HIRA 571 both produced at Traveler's Rest in their later year; General Dickinson was a great believer in outcrossing and in combining Arabians from as many sources as possible in his program, and thus introduced a number of Harris horses over the years. Of course, he also admired their proven ability as demonstrated in endurance tests and other performance fields.

         The SAERA 670 branch from EL SABOK is a lesser-known but very prolific one, with several long-lived producers to its credit on the female side. The good mare ROKHAL by EL SABOK produced in California, with a string of HANAD foals and another series by A'ZAM, along with some "singles" by other sires. ROKHAL descendants also were exported, this time to Nicaragua, but did not breed on in recorded stock. NAHA 671 also went to California and hers is another *LEOPARD branch that passed through the hands of E.E. Hurlbutt. Her most influential offspring probably has been NAHADEYN 3114, though she also bears the distinction of having produced NABOR--not the Russianbred NABOR, registered here a *NABORR, but the 1941 foal who bore that name originally and was responsible for the "furriner's" having to add a letter when he arrived here. The first NABOR has no descent, which is probably just as well from the point of view of future students of pedigrees.

         BESRA 572 was exported to Hawaii; doubtless her descendants still exist in the Island, but their registration was not maintained. The very good EL SABOK mare EMINEH 576 bred on successfully in a number of lines, as did GIRTHA 630 though with lesser opportunity (fewer foals). An interesting story must revolve around AGA 668; he was used at stud at three by Harris, and he and both his resulting sons were promptly gelded. Be that as it may, his daughter TERNA 934 produced four foals and two of these bred on, so AGA still has descent.

         OMAN 570 sired 12 foals spread over 20 years, and a number of these were used for breeding -- indeed, his daughters SURA 781 and especially KAHAWI 782 would have to be accounted among the distinguished matriarchs of their generation.

        I hope it is clear from the above that EL SABOK's is much the most widepread and influential of the ANAZEH branches; only that of IMAGIDA even dreams of rivaling it. The very strength of numbers makes it impossible to go into the detailed accounting of breeder and locations making use of his stock, done for the founders of the other lines. (In fact El Sabok did not do much traveling that we know of--he somehow got from California to Wisconsin, but beyond that--he stood at the Kemah stud and was used by Albert W. Harris, and there is no more to say.)

         KASILA's included the *RASEYN son KARONEK who sired 40 foals, so spread that *LEOPARD branch rather widely; another of KASILA's was ROKILA, by ROKHAL's son ROKHALAD and so a great- granddaughter of both EL SABOK and LEILA, and a strong source of the *LEOPARD influence, comparatively speaking. Interestingly, the doubling to *LEOPARD here was done with the horses (of his sources) least inbred to *NAOMI and thus most likely to have given him something to say in the matter.

         LEILA's son LEIDAAN 1679 carried on the tradition of prolific daughters--he did not have many, but several of them produced foals in numbers like 14 and 18. To be fair, several of his get (including the daughter with 18 foals) were crossed back to LEILA through ALIDIN, so this tendency was probably coming from both sides. The last LEILA foal was the very handsome halter champion EL KUNUT 1856, a popular sire in his day (17 foals, two out of an Alla Amarward mare and three more out of El Kunut's own daughter, so doubled back to Narkeesa), whose descendants are still breeding on.

         "The descent of ANAZEH" is a vast subject and one which tends to get out of hand, both physically in trying to keep track of the masses of notes and charts of descent involved, and mentally in trying to picture just how many horses are actually involved here, and what we know of them. It would be scientifically unsound, and I would be called out for it from now until 1990, to try to guess the genetic influence today of a horse foaled in 1890. We do have samples of ANAZEH's genes around today; the problem is that we don't have the information on all the intermediate links, that would enable us to tell which of today's circulating genes originated with him.

         I will go so far out on a limb as to share my impression (garnered from a study with no controls, shame to admit) that there are so many ANAZEH descendants, because ANAZEH-bred females in the early generations were prolific above the average of the breed. I haven't approached this systematically, but I would be very much surprised if a random sample of the breed included as many dams of 14, 16, 19 foals, as are listed in my data sheets on the ANAZEH group. This trend does not continue right back to ANAZEH's daughters, but we have the difficulty of not knowing how many purebred foals went unregistered in those first generations. Certainly some proportion did, and very likely in the crash of the Huntington program many females of this breeding went into production of other type of horses--there was very little call for pure Arab breeding in those days.

Part 1

[Photos from the Gina Manion collection appearing with this article included: Ourida and Ydrissa, Rafissa, and the "*Leopard descendant in costume class."]

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