*GOMUSA #31:
in the 1909 edition of the Arabian Horse
Club studbook, his birth date is indicated as
1903, color is given as "brown," and
parentage is given as by a "Seglawi Jedran out of Kehilan
Heifi." It is also indicated that his certificate was sealed
by "Hassan Tassen Pasha and Akmut Haffez." The birth
date and parentage information is retained in Vol. I (1912)
through Vol. IV (1937) of the Arabian
Horse Club studbooks, although the color changes from brown
to chestnut in Vol. I. The Raswan Index indicates the
same date of birth, color, and strain information concerning
his parents, adding additional detail that the dam was "a
Kuhaylah-Hayfiyah of Ibn Matra of the RASALIN-
QUMUSA-(SABA'
tribe)." (22) (Raswan frequently
gives more extensive strain information on Davenport's imported
horses than is available in other sources. Where he got it is
not known. Sometimes it is not in agreement with the importation
documentation secured by Davenport in the desert and/or other
sources.)
The Davenport catalogs of
1906 and 1909-1910
differ from the AHCA studbooks and Raswan in the spelling of
the horse's name which is given with a double 's' so that it
appears "GOMUSSA" rather than *GOMUSA
as registered. Birthdates given in the catalogs is a year later
- 1904. Color in the catalogs is given
as bay. Strain of dam, and therefore the horse's strain, is
given as "Maneghieh Sbeyel." (23) In
Davenport's book on the importation, *GOMUSA
is described as a two-year-old and as a "Maneghi Sbeyel,"
which would have agreed with his catalogs. (24)
The contradiction of sources boils down
to the question of whether *GOMUSA was
born in 1903 or 1904,
whether he was a Mu'niqi-Sbaili or a Kuhaylan-Haifi, and whether
he was bay or chestnut.
Unfortunately, the original pedigree
information concerning *GOMUSA obtained
in Arabia does not seem to have been preserved, which is true
for several other of the Davenport imports. One of the horses
purchased by Davenport was a three-year-old Kuhaylan-Haifi stallion
obtained from Hassan Tassen Pasha, described as a bay "without
a white hair on him." (25)
In the copies of importation certificates which do survive there
is one for a "red-brown" three-year-old horse of Kuhaylan-Haifi
strain sired by a Saqlawi and whose certificate bears the seals
of Hassan Tassen Pasha and Akmet Haffez. This much would agree
with the 1909 volume of the Arabian Horse
Club studbook. Recent translation of the document indicates
that the horse had a white star on the face and a grey mark
on a left leg. That would not agree with the description of
the horse from Hassan Tassen Pasha as lacking white markings,
given in Davenport's book, but it might be stretched to fit
the markings as given in the 1909 studbook,
which were left fore foot and white snip. The documentation
for this horse is not an original. It is a photocopy. On its
lower margin is written, "This colt died the day before we
reached the sea coast at Escanderoon. He was a beauty solid
bay without white.The doctors only remedy was to have
the colt led passed the Grave Yard. His remedy failed."
In the Blue Catalog, the possibility
is mentioned that the importation document of the dead colt
was erroneously used in preparing the *GOMUSA
entry in the first issue of the Arabian Horse Club studbook.
(26) Whether this actually happened or
not is a question that will probably never be answered but it
points up the fact that 1906 was a long
time ago. There are a number of contradictions between studbook
entries and other sources of information about various horses
which might have been correctable at the time, or at least understood,
and which are now simply beyond resolution. That is too bad,
but anyone who has tried to figure out personal events of several
years ago can see how it can be.
*GOMUSA as an
individual was described with enthusiasm by Davenport.
"He stands slightly over 15 hands
highwithout shoes on, is one of the most remarkable
built horses any one ever saw, regardless of breed; his back
is much shorter than ordinary short-backed horses." (27)
In his book, he says, "He was the most powerfully made horse,
I think, it has even been my pleasure to see. His remarkable
hips and shoulders were a sight. There was not a flaw in him
... one of his eye-balls was white. In this country such a thing
would be disliked in a horse, but in the desert it is commonly
found." (28)
The reference to the white eyeball has
been taken by some writers to mean that *GOMUSA
had a glass eye. That may have been so, but other explanations
are also possible. The horse may have merely had a clouded eye.
That can happen as a result of injury or infection. Another
possible explanation is that the sclera or "white" of one eye
was larger in proportion to the iris than in the other eye.
This happens from time to time with Arabian horses and would
be more likely to fit Davenport's comment that the characteristic
is frequently found in the desert than would the hypothesis
of a glass eye, which does not occur frequently in Arabians.
The truth is that we do not know what Davenport meant by "eyeball."
Years ago,
Elizabeth Paynter, a Davenport breeder interested in the
*GOMUSA line, contacted Carl Raswan in
regard to whether *GOMUSA had a glass
eye or not. His reply to her was in the negative.
In current Arabians, *GOMUSA
is represented through two daughters, SAAIDA
#66 and KILLAH
#103. Both were out of *HADBA#43,
and their descendants are widely scattered through the Arabian
breed in America. Among horses trading to him are several bred
by Heritage Hills from LA DONNA,
including HERITAGE BEAU
and HERITAGE ADONIS.
In Davenport breeding, he is represented through lines tracing
to EHWAT-ANSARLAH.
*AZRA
#32, grey stallion foaled
1903. "Sire a Kehilan-Al-Krush; Dam,
a Seglawi-Obeyran." (29) This was apparently
the horse described in My Quest of the Arabian Horse
which Davenport brought contrary to the advice of Akmet Haffez,
who thought the price was too high. Davenport commented in the
book that before the trip was over, he realized that the horse
was the poorest one in the group acquired. (30)
*AZRA has remained under a cloud because
of this comment. Whether it was still warranted as he grew older
would be interesting to know as so many Arabians improve with
age. He had time for the ripening process. His last foal was
sired in 1927, when he was 24 years of
age.
*AZRA produced
six foals. It happened that they were out of DAHURA
#90 and DOMOW
#267, two mares which were of great influence in the
breed through progeny by various stallions. Their combinations
with *AZRA bred on as did their other
foals. Some of *AZRA's best-known descendants
came through lines established by CHARMAIN #860,
COURIER #2465,
and ARDITH #1101.
*DEYR #33, chestnut
stallion born 1904. His registration
in Volume IV of the Arabian Horse Club studbooks indicates "Sire,
a Kehilan-Ajuz; Dam, An Abeyan-Sherrak." In his Index,
Raswan concurs with the registry version, with added particulars.
(31) No importation documentation appears
to have been preserved for a horse of this strain background.
Davenport writes of his purchase of *DEYR,
who was a two-year-old at the time, that
"this little fellow was so full of life that they had
to show him with all four feet hobbled, but he understood the
hobbles so well that in his pacing motion he managed to make
much play." (32)
In General Dickinson's discussion of
*DEYR it is said that,
"he was a horse of intense vitality and was considered
by the late Peter Bradley as the best 'Davenport' stallion.
Though HALEB has contributed greatly
through the success of his daughters, there can be little doubt
that the DEYR male line has been the
premier line from any Arab stallion imported to the United States
directly from Arabia." (33)
In his lifetime, *DEYR
produced 18 foals, 17 of them under ownership of Peter Bradley's
Hingham Stock Farm. Like *HAMRAH, in
his stud career he had the benefit of the Hingham mares, and
from these his production made him, next to *HAMRAH,
the most successful of the Davenport imported stallions. An
analysis of 80 pedigrees chosen randomly from the registrations
in the AHR studbook Vol. XXX (1976),
showed 66 tracing to *DEYR and in over
half of those he appeared more than once.
*DEYR was noted
as a sire of breeding stallions. His son, HARARA
#122 (out of *Haffia #45) sired
eighteen foals, a substantial number for the time, but is chiefly
remembered as the sire of ANTEZ
#448, who was an extremely important
sire in this country beginning in 1928.
A sire line is still in existence today for *DEYR
through his grandson, ANTEZ. Of *DEYR's
own sons, the best known was HANAD. He
is represented in current breeding through sire lines tracing
to several of his sons, including IBN
HANAD (through Tsali and other Sunny
Acres breeding), HANRAH (though Ibn Hanrah
in the Donoghue breeding program) and TRIPOLI,
used extensively in 100% Davenport production. Both HANAD
and ANTEZ were successful in the production
of mares of equal merit to their sons.
Like his sons, *DEYR
was a successful sire of mares. His daughter, AMRAN
(out of *Wadduda #30) is probably
the most famous of his female production. She was the dam of
JADAAN (by *Abbeian #111),
Valentino's mount in some movie scenes, and FASAL
(by *Hamrah #28), considered by Raswan
to be the best of the early Kellogg mares and dam of CARAVAN,
FASALINA, KASAR,
SALAN, and others.
*MOWARDA #34,
grey stallion, foaled 1904. Vol. IV of
the AHC studbook indicates "Sire, an Abeyan-Sherrak; Dam
a Kehilan-Ajuz." He left no foals, which may have been a
great loss for American Arabian breeding as his dam was a famous
mare among the 'Anazeh, who would not permit either her or any
of her female line to be sold. She was referred to in Davenport's
book:
"When I asked if she was 'Chubby,'
the Bedouin smiled, and almost laughed, when he said 'Kehilan
Ajuz,' which is equivalent to saying, 'Rather, she's the dam
of all that is chubby.' She was a picture, though she had no
jibbah, or bulging forehead. On the contrary her forehead was
as flat as a board, but her eyes were far apart and set in peculiar
Japanese slant. They were turned up at the outer corners like
those of a chorus-girl with a 1907 make-up.
There was the same stately dignity about her that WADDUDA
had; she looked like a fine lady of quality in the presence
of a lot of cooks at an employment agency." (34)
*KUSOF #34, bay
stallion foaled 1904, Arabian Horse Club
studbook Vol. IV indicate both sire and dam of the "Maneghi-Hedruj"
strain. However, the Davenport catalog of 1909-1910
gives his sire as a Jilfan Stam El Bulad. The importation documentation
simply indicates that he was of the Mu'niqi family. He was purchased
at the same time as *DEYR and *EL
BULAD.
*KUSOF is represented
in Arabian breeding through one daughter, SAMIT
#153 (out of *Haffia #45). Out
of a lifetime production of eleven foals, her line is traced
today through four: SUFFARA, SURA,
ZIKI and FADIL.
The family spread rapidly through the early studbooks, and by
the third generation of removal, *KUSOF
had 19 descendents. In the fourth generation, the number was
up to 43. Present-day *KUSOF lines are
mainly represented in early California breeding in combination
with FARANA (for instance, the mare MAILAT
#1487), through the use of the mare LA
PLATITA #2831, and through the Jimmie
Wrench mare, MAHBUBA #732. There is also
a line preserved today through
SAHANAD, a mare of nearly 100% Davenport
breeding (one line gong to the Hamidie stallion, *OBEYRAN),
and her foals by Davenport and Egyptian stallions.
*EUPHRATES #36,
chestnut stallion, foaled 1905. He was
a full brother to *HAMRAH #28, by a Hamdani-Simri
stallion and out of *URFAH #40, a Saqlawiyah-Jidraniyah.
At the time of purchase, *EUPHRATES was
only a yearling. At that age, Davenport described him as even
finer than his brother *HAMRAH." (35)
In his catalog of 1909-1910,
representing a later assessment, Davenport describes *EUPHRATES
as "possibly a more beautiful horse than HAMRAH
though not so large but of about the same perfect model and
same perfect disposition." (36)
*EUPHRATES had
a much more limited opportunity at stud than did his brother,
producing only four foals. Of these, JERREDE
#84 (registered as out of *Nejdme #1)
is of special interest in Arabian breeding both because it furnished
an opportunity for the continuation of the *NEJDME
line and because JERREDE himself was
- as would be expected from his breeding - an extremely attractive
horse that had caught the eye of W.R. Brown. Brown wanted his
Arabians to have registration with the Jockey Club as well as
the Arabian Horse Club. mainly because of personal considerations
of some previous years, the Davenport horses were not so registered,
which caused JERREDE, the son of a Davenport
stallion, not to be so registered. Brown went to considerable
trouble to remove obstacles for jockey Club registration of
*EUPHRATES and ended up with the deserted
registration of JERREDE. The effort had
taken a considerable amount of time, and by then Brown seemed
to no longer have need for JERREDE in
his breeding program, most likely because he had slanted his
breeding efforts towards more recently imported lines. (For
more on the Jockey Club registration of JERREDE,
see "At the Beginning,"
Arabian Horse News, May, 1974.)
JERREDE was involved,
incidentally, with one of those interesting ventures in Arabian
breeding which was not carried further in that he was the sire
of D'JEMELI #180,
who was out of NAZLET #161,
a Huntington-bred Mu'niqiyah mare. In an effort to reconstruct
the Mu'niqi strain, D'JEMELI's daughter
MATIH #469 (by
Sargon) was bred to NASIN (Sinbad/Nazami)
twice, producing foals in which the Mu'niqi strain predominated.
The studbooks indicate Mr. Howard Ray as the breeder. This is,
no doubt, the same Howard Ray mentioned by Raswan as in Arabia
in 1927 in search of pure-in-strain Mu'niqi
breeding stock. Raswan is generally credited with guidance in
the Ray breeding program. Unfortunately, it was another instance
of a promising start towards saving a particular type of Arabian
which was not continued, and at present the breeding it represented
has blended in with other bloodlines.
The major bloodline through which *EUPHRATES
enters into modern breeding is through SLIPPER,
out of his daughter, SABOT. SLIPPER
was used extensively at the Selby Stud, and her female line
is found in many horses today. An example would be AARFATE
#13395, a well-known breeding stallion of several years back.
*ANTAR #37, bay
stallion born 1906, by a Saqlawi-Jidran
out of a Kuhaylah-Haifiyah. He appears as a foal on the importation
document of his dam, *RESHAN #38. According
to the Davenport catalog of 1909, his
sire was sold to the Italian government for 900 pounds Turkish
(about $3600), (37) at that time a high
price, which would, for instance, buy a fine home in America
and who knows how many average Bedouins such a sum would have
supported in luxury for a year?
Little has come into the literature about
*ANTAR. His last registered foal was
sired in the season of 1912, the year
of Davenport's death. He is not represented in current pedigrees.
*MOHARRA #47,
chestnut stallion, foaled 1907, thus
imported inutero. According to the 1909-1910
Davenport catalog, his sire was the same Saqlawi stallion which
sired *ANTAR #37. His dam is given in
the same catalog and in the 1909 Arabian
Horse Club studbook as *ABEYAH # 39.
Interestingly, her name is omitted in his entry Vol. I, copyright
1913, and succeeding volumes nor is he
given in the progeny listings for *ABEYAH
contained in these volumes. He had no registered get.
*ABBEIAN #111
grey stallion reported as foaled in 1889
by Arabian Horse Club studbooks beginning with Vol. I (1913).
In Vol. I his strain is given as "Abbeyan Dahra." By Vol. III
(1927), the strain is changed to "Abeyan-Dahwah,"
and in Vol. IV it is "Abeyan-Dahwak." Vol I does not indicate
his importer, but by Vol. III it is given as Homer Davenport,
1906. In Vol. III his markings are given
as "none."
There is a long-time question among students
of Arabian horse breedings as to whether this is the same horse
as a grey stallion named "Abbeian" and later referred to as
"Abeya" or "Abeyan" which was imported by the Hamidie Society
for the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.
In either case, by long-term usage. *ABBEIAN
#111 as registered is considered a Davenport bloodline.
The Hamidie Society horse is listed
in the Jan. 4, 1894, auction catalog of Tattersall's of Chicago,
Limited, as follows: "Abbeian, Grey
Stallion 14 3/4 hands, foaled 1888; white
nose; bred Abeyan-Dahra." The Hamidie Society Abbeian apparently
found his way into the stable of Peter Bradley of Hingham, Massachusetts,
and thence to the ownership of Homer Davenport, who referred
to him in his catalog titled "The Worlds Fair Arabians"
of 1906-1907 under
the name "Abeya." "bred 1888." The term
"bred" is often used by Davenport to indicate "foaled." Probably
that is the meaning intended.
*ABBEIAN is registered
out of sequence with the other original Davenports, but then,
so is *MASOUD #64. Three horses known
to have been in the desert importation of 1906
were not registered at all, so he may have been one for which
registration had been delayed for some reason. No importation
document exists for *ABBEIAN. That is
also true for a number of other horses in the importation. No
strain is given for the sire of *ABBEIAN,
which is also true for a number of the other horses for which
there is importation documentation, including some of the most
highly regarded. Frequently such horses are registered as having
sire and dam of identical strain, which is possible correct.
The case has been made, most recently
by Gladys Brown Edwards, that *ABBEIAN #111
and the Hamidie Society horse were the same animal, but that
is not a comfortable case. If *ABBEIAN #111
was a Hamidie Society horse, the Arabian Horse Club could just
as well have registered him accordingly. Carl Raswan in entries
31 and 32 of his
Index lists *ABBEIAN and the Hamidie
Society horse as different individuals, distinguishing between
birth dates, importers, strain names, and calling attention
to the "white nose" of the Hamidie Society horse. Raswan had
personal contact with the Bradley breeding establishment in
arranging the purchase of JADAAN #196,
a son of *ABBEIAN, and he subsequently
had opportunities to know JADAAN well,
caring for him, writing for publication about him, and even
doubling for Rudolf Valentino as his rider in the movies. Raswan's
friends and foes alike would agree that the man was fascinated
almost to obsession with the pedigrees of Arabian horses. It
would have been completely out of character for him to have
had close contact with JADAAN, both in
purchase and as a horseman, without informing himself as to
the obvious pedigree data concerning the horse's sire, *ABBEIAN
#111, and at that early point in Arabian breeding in
America, the data should not have been difficult to obtain.
The Blue Arabian Horse Catalog of Jane
Llewellyn Ott enters *ABBEIAN as being
imported by Davenport. Carol Woodbridge Mulder in Volumes I
and II of Imported Foundation Stock of North American Arabian
Horses treats the subject rather extensively, concluding that
there were two horses. She accounts for the non-sequential registration
of *ABBEIAN and his absence from Davenport's
farm catalog on the grounds that he might have been a gift horse
received on the trip by one of Davenport's companions on the
expedition. (38) The same explanation
could also account for the absence of an important document
for him.
The Douthit index cards for Davenport
horses were probably authoritative for what was known on the
subject through approximately 1950. They
treat *ABBEIAN #111 as imported by Davenport.
*ABBEIAN #111
had six foals. He is best known for his son JADAAN,
who fell out of favor with some of those recording history of
Kellogg breeding, but nevertheless sired twenty-one foals -
a production which has had a good influence on Arabian breeding.
Among *ABBEIAN's daughters, SHERIA
#110 is widely distributed in the breed through her daughters
SHERLET and POKA,
who produced AATIKA and TRIPOLI.
The POKA line was a very fruitful one
and perhaps best known because it was POKA's
daughter AATIKA #590, which bred to *SAOUD
#697, produced RASASAH #1141,
who was the outcross basis upon which much of the Alice Payne
inbreeding with *RAFFLES was done. That
may seem pretty far removed from POKA
and of course, still further from *ABBEIAN,
but tiny elements in a pedigree make vital difference in an
in-breeding program. Mrs. Payne felt that the contribution of
POKA to her success was substantial and
that it worked the best of the foundation lines which she had
tried, including the most likely of the premier Arabian lines
than available in the United States.
*ABBEIAN's son
ASHMAR #156 (out of Satwan #100)
produced KOKHLESON (out of the *Hamrah-Farha
mare, Kokhle), through which the *ABBEIAN
line also continues at present. FRANKOKHLA #1646
was a daughter of KOKHLESON. She and
her sister KOKHLANZA #2638 were foundation
mares at Manion Canyon. FRANKOKHLA was
especially known as the dam of RUFFLES,
one of the most striking of the *RAFFLES
sons, and RADIANT, dam of RADIO.
There is a special "Arab" quality about the KOKHLESON
line that often catches the eye. It is very evident in
various lines of descent as in the above-named horses, in SKYLINE
KOKHLETA #7617, a direct daughter of
KOKHLESON still producing, and in IBN
T'CHAKA, out of a mare inbred to KOKHLESON,
IBN T'CHAKA made
quite an impression at the 1980 Nationals,
performing the airs above the ground to the rhythm of his own
drummer.
Discussion of the KOKHLESON
line should end with mention of the work of Reba Troxell and
Esther Oliver in preserving one branch of it. Miss Troxell bought
her first Arabian horse from W.R. Brown in 1926.
For years, she and Mrs Oliver had a small place in urban Burlington,
New Jersey. They managed to keep horses in a truly backyard
situation since that was all the room they had. Because of the
necessity for urban sanitation, the horses were housebroken.
They acquired the aged mare, HALLOUL,
of all Davenport breeding, and bred her to KOKHLESON,
a son of their mare, KOKHLE, producing
two foals. One of these, RALF #3448,
was then bred to the Davenport mare, ALASKA,
which they had acquired for that purpose. Of the resulting foals,
one continues the *ABBEIAN sire line
today. One, FASHA #28774, was a Legion
of Merit winning gelding, and one is a brood mare in active
production of completely Davenport progeny. A son of their stallion
Ralf out of a different mare was El IBTIDA
#11247, East Coast Champion Stallion.
The contributions of backyard breeders
to the preservation of the Arabian breed is often overlooked.
They can be very significant. In this case, lines of breeding
were preserved which were rare and obviously worthwhile.
An equally important contribution of
these backyard breeders was the friendly personal leadership
of the two ladies in the Arabian horse community developing
in the East, beginning during the 1950s.
Those were the good old days when an Arabian horse meeting was
an adventure, any Arabian owner was an old friend, and a horse
show was place where you enjoyed the other fellow's horse about
as much as your own.
ARTHUR MOORE'S
MU'NIQI: grey stallion whose importation
document showed him to be in his sixth year, of the Mu'niqi-Hadruj
family, sired by an "Abayyan-Sharrak. This was apparently a
gift horse to Arthur Moore, possible the one described as a
five-year-old "Maneghi Hedruj." (39)
The same horse is apparently referred to in Davenport's letter
to his family written in Naples en route home as belonging to
Arthur Moore, who wanted Davenport to sell it for him. In Arthur
Moore's scrapbook for the trip, there is a captioned photograph
of the horse being loaded aboard ship, so there is no question
that the animal was a part of the importation. (40)
ARTHUR MORRE'S
MU'NIQI was not registered and,
of course, has no progeny in the AHC studbooks. He does not
appear in the Davenport catalogs of the importation known to
the writer.
SIMR: chestnut
stallion whose importation documentation shows him to have been
a two-year-old in 1906. His dam is given
as a "Hamdaniah El-Semary" and his sire a "Kehelan El-Aguj."
He is listed as a chestnut Hamdani-Simri colt foaled
1903 in the Davenport Desert Arabian
Stud catalog of 1906. This particular
catalog is restricted in its entries to the bloodlines imported
in 1906.
The documentation for SIMRI's
importation is a photograph of an original document. On the
lower margin of the photograph is written in Davenport's hand,
"SIMRI Chestnut since gelded."
The word "Simri" is crossed out by a different writing instrument
and the word "Deyr" written by it. The correction was probably
done in error. The pedigree does not agree in strain with that
of *DEYR as that horse is registered.
*DEYR and "SIMRI"
were both specifically listed in the same catalog, so clearly
there were two horses having the names "DEYR"
and "SIMRI." Finally *DEYR
was not dignified by the same operation which eliminated SIMRI
as a prospective sire, as *DEYR was siring
foals as late as 1921.
SIMRI was not
registered and has no registered progeny.
Although much more is known about the
Davenport importation than is known about any other major group
of imported animals with which the writer is familiar, obviously
much is not known. The Davenport book is Fascinating and full
of good, solid information, but it simply cannot be used as
a complete guide to the importation. Other documentation does
not fill all the gaps.
One good question is "How many horses
were imported?" The book, My Quest of the Arabian Horse,
gives 27 as the number in several places, and Davenport's letter
in route home gives the same figure. Other sources give lesser
numbers, and only 24 were registered, exclusive of in-utero
imports. There is no good reason to doubt that the figure of
27 is correct. The importation contained mares of record, leaving
a balance of 17. Of the stallions, 14 (including *ABBEIAN
#111) were registered. There were two unregistered imports,
SIMRI and ARTHUR'S
GREY, with import documents, leaving
one horse lacking to complete the total of twenty-seven. This
must have been the gift horse to Jack Thompson mentioned in
Davenport's book (41) and in his letter
dated 9/16/06 from Naples, Italy.
Mrs Carol Mulder indicates that of the
horses in the Davenport importation, three unregistered stallions
were returned to the desert "because of trachoma eye infections."
(42) Upon query, she does not recall
the source of this information, which is not at all to say that
there was no source. Nevertheless, the information is difficult
to fit in with the record of what is actually known to have
been imported to the United States and retained here. one might
also ask whether such horses would have been worth the expense
and trouble of return to the Middle East.
The total number of horses registered
by the Arabian Horse Club as imported from Arabia in 1906 by
Homer Davenport is 25. This includes *MOHARRA,
who was imported in utero, but it does not include the other
in-utero registrations, which were SALEEFY #70,
MELEKY #63, and SEBHA
#59. If the early registrations of the Arabian Horse
Registry are ever revised, from the point of view of technical
accuracy, the names of these three mares should be preceded
by asterisks, indicating that they were imported.
Compared with information available
concerning other horses exported from "Arabia Deserta," the
sources of information about the Davenport 1906
imports are plentiful, even lavish. This is so much the case
that it is almost embarrassing because, as would be expected
with any complex event of 75 years ago, not all of them are
in complete agreement. The differences involve little points
which seldom have any bearing on Arabian breeding today. Nevertheless,
it is tempting to try to figure them out, as has been done in
this article and its companion piece, "There is Nothing Like
A Dame," Arabian Horse Journal, January,
1981 issue.
The major source of information about
the Davenport importation in his book, My Quest of Arabian
Horse. This is one of the most entertaining of all Arabian
horse books and would be good reading simply as a travel book.
It gives a straight-forward account of his trip to the desert
with many particulars about individual horses. There are some
references to horses concerning pedigree and acquisition which
are impossible to correlate exactly with the horses known to
have been imported. Most likely, this is because the book is
not a complete, continuous story. It was first published in
1909, but major portions of it appear
to have been written very shortly after the expedition itself
and published in serial form in the Woman's Home Companion.
These chapters have the advantage of telling the story while
events were still fresh in Davenport's mind, but perhaps some
inconsistencies and incomplete accounts might have been corrected
if the work had been done later. Perhaps imperfections of this
sort did not bother Davenport too much. He was an artist and
journalist by profession, and the impact of immediate news was
of primary concern to him. He was not one to let trifling details
impede the flow of a good story.
