Windt im Wald Farm
Geauga County, Northeast
Ohio
since 1995
Articles of History:
A Backyard Program Featuring
DAVENPORT
DESCENDANTS
by Frederick W. Mimmack, M.D.
All Rights Reserved
used by permission of Frederick W. Mimmack,
M.D
Arabian Horse News August 1972
Fred and Barbara Mimmack
SMOKEY HILL FARM
16619 East Easter Avenue
Foxfield, CO 80016
303-766-0885
This is the story of the evolution of
one family's backyard Arabian horse breeding program, focusing
on straight Davenport Arabian horses of the Saqlawi family.
The story really starts back in the late 30's and the 40's when
Arabian horses were introduced to me by my parents through attendance
at the Sunday shows at Kellogg's
and later, the pioneering all-Arabian shows in Southern California.
Ownership of an Arabian horse at that time was an impossible
dream for me, so I did as so many others in that position do,
I read everything I could lay my hands on. In those days, the
Western Horseman published articles by
Carl Raswan fairly regularly,
and the public library had the works of Raswan, Brown,
Blunt, Tweedie,
Wentworth, and of course Davenport.
Naturally, the controversy and disagreement
contained in some of this material led to questions in my mind.
I visited some of the local breeders, introduced myself, and
asked questions. As I look back now with considerable warm feeling
towards those people, I wonder how many of us today will slow
down our whirlwind pace long enough to hear the questions of
a ten-year-old child, and to take that opportunity to teach
him something. Those people, and also my father, who was a Thoroughbred
enthusiast, taught me a lot; particularly an appreciation of
tradition and of quality.
As the years went by, I developed
an eye and a preference for a certain type of horse, and I hoped
that someday I could become an owner and breeder. During most
of the 50's my attention to any kind of horse had to be shoved
completely into the background while I devoted myself to college
and medical studies. Fortunately for me, I also acquired a wife
and a firm commitment to being a good husband and father. My
wife Barbara was realistically impressed with the observation
that I had never lost my interest in Arabian horses, and she
thought that it was nice, and even offered to share it with
me, but extracted the promise from me that I would buy a house
before I bought a horse. Practical girl. I'm glad I kept my
promise; this girl who once commented that she would groom the
horses but wouldn't clean the stalls, has not only done both,
she has fed, watered, trailered, cooled out, nursed, transferred,
single-handedly delivered an abnormally-presenting foal, and
has brought weak ones into her kitchen for round-the-clock bottle
feedings. Any would-be hopeful backyard breeder would do well
to look first for an efficient wife with straight legs, sound
teeth, naturally curly hair, and a proven talent for the domestic
arts. A true connoisseur would also look for beauty, intelligence,
and a loving disposition.
When we once again found time to
attend Arabian horse shows, we were delighted to see how the
numbers of horses and shows had increased, but I noted that
the type of Arabian which I remembered from my youth was rarely
to be seen. I decided to "return to the books" and the study
of pedigrees. Working with my old books, the stud books, and
the magazines was a laborious process, but it led to the observation
that the "old desert breeding," of which my teachers had been
so proud, was practically gone except in combination with other
blood lines of distinctly different characteristics. Our favorites
among the show horses of the time represented just such combinations.
We ultimately came to believe that even the desirable horses
of blended bloodlines might someday disappear also if someone
did not take care to preserve each of the component parts in
pure form so that they could be blended again in the same way.
Later, after we had settled on Davenports for our own small
effort along that line, we learned that a number of people were
actively working on exactly the same idea.
In December 1960, Barbara and I,
and our first one and a half (of four) boys visited Southern
California once again, so I took the opportunity to visit Alice
Payne. This visit was undoubtedly the start of something good
for me, and one of my most memorable experiences. Not only did
Mrs. Payne show me a herd of the most astoundingly uniform Arabians
I had ever seen, but she managed to squeeze into a four-hour
visit more information than I had thought possible.
By this time we realized that we
could handle only a backyard program. I told Mrs Payne that
what we wanted was a breeding program small enough that our
family could handle it ourselves without hired help, and still
have some semblance of family life. We wanted to enjoy our horses
and still enjoy each other, our children and our professional
life. At the same time, we still hoped to use our limited means
to preserve some worthwhile bloodline, Mrs. Payne was really
enthusiastic about that idea, and considered it possible to
do something valuable with even one carefully-selected mare.
We discussed bloodlines, some of the wonderful old horses which
had been hers at one time or other, and her highly selective
in-breeding program. By then, *RAFFLES
had been dead several years, but he was certainly not
gone -- it was clear that Mrs. Payne's scholarly and systematic
approach was successful in preserving the *RAFFLES
type.
Mrs. Payne explained that in her
opinion, there were really very few living Arabian stallions
which could be considered true breeding stallions, in the sense
that they had quality themselves plus the ability to pass on
their quality with recognizable consistency. Excluding *RAFFLES,
and horses from her own program, she named about six stallions
which she considered worthy of the label "breeding stallion."
Actually two on the list had recently died. I was quite impressed
that two of the six were Davenports: IBN
HANAD and TRIPOLI.
We had never seen either horse, but we had admired pictures
which we had seen of both, and had noted that IBN
HANAD seemed to be producing horses of
very high quality, which resembled each other very much, with
classic beauty and particularly lovely heads. We were also impressed
with Mrs. Payne's high regard for the Davenport mares, and with
the remark which she repeated that it was her intention that
eventually all of her own stock would trace in tail female line
to one Davenport mare, *URFAH
40.
After this visit, the next logical
step for us was to visit
Craver Farms to see
TRIPOLI.
We managed this in December 1961, and here were found the horses
we had been seeking. TRIPOLI himself
was the kind of horse I remembered, and he was producing uniform
high quality Arabians, just as Mrs. Payne had told me. The old
foundation broodmares were a beautiful group and when I commented
on one mare with a particularly lovely head, Charles said "to
get that kind of head, you have to go back to the old GAMIL
line." The mare was ANTAN, and she
was sired by ANTEZ, out of GAMIL.
My rush back to the books showed me that there were no more
like her, but that GAMIL had produced
four more Davenports, all sired by her own son, IBN
HANAD.
The oldest of these was MAEDAE
7463 who by then was owned by Frank Brewster. Not long
after our first visit to Craver Farms, we noted an ad for the
dispersal of the Brewster Arabians, and we went to see MAEDAE.
We found a tiny, exquisite mare, with a head like ANTAN's.
Her price, though certainly reasonable for her value, was more
than we could afford, and we left Brewster's with the heavy
feeling that we might have just passed up the chance of a lifetime.
No one can imagine our excitement when Mr. Brewster wrote us
the following year, offering MAEDAE and
her 1963 Davenport filly, RHANI, sired
by Mr. Brewster's young stallion TRAIN
(Tripoli X Ehwat Ansarlah). At the time, we were just
out of the Army, establishing a private practice, and living
in an area where we could not keep horses. We bought MAEDAE
with the intention of breeding her to TRIPOLI,
so we imposed upon Charles Craver's generosity and asked him
to lease MAEDAE from us, which he did.
We could hardly believe our good fortune--an IBN
HANAD daughter to breed to TRIPOLI--the
very two stallions which Mrs. Payne had recommended so highly
to us.
Without the willing help and the
great fund of knowledge of Charles Craver, our own program would
never have started nor survived.
MAEDAE and
TRIPOLI produced two fillies right off
the bat. About this time we realized that Arabians of the Saqlawi
strain were extremely rare, not only among the living Davenport
horses, but in the breed as a whole.
The subject of
family strains could,
and does, fill volumes, but to be brief, the family strain breeding
system was one used by the Bedouin tribes for centuries, and
followed by breeders in many countries into which Arabian horses
were imported. It was followed by some of the foundation breeders
in America also, but by only a relative few in the past 25 years.
The origin of the names of the five main families: Kuhaylan,
Saqlawi, Hamdan, Hadban, and 'Ubayan ('Abayyan), was apparently
legend, but the families were bred selectively in the desert
long enough to establish and preserve distinct family types.
The family name is inherited from the female side of the pedigree.
The characteristics of the Saqlawi horses as described by several
authorities were great refinement, grace and beauty with fine,
dense bone, lighter musculature, slightly taller stature (some
authorities), broad chest and deep heart, and a very fine but
slightly longer head. Families with similar characteristics,
and considered to be closely related to the Saqlawi include
the 'Abayyan and the Dahman.
With TRIPOLI
and MAEDAE both belonging to the
Saqlawi family, we had "lucked" into the opportunity to preserve
Saqlawiyat as well as straight Davenports. Charles Craver pointed
out to us that there was possibly another straight Davenport
stallion alive of the Saqlawi strain, and not closely related
to either MAEDAE or TRIPOLI.
His name was KAMIL IBN
SALAN (Salan X Schada), and he
had not been reported dead, but he was "lost." While we returned
to the search through the studbooks, and correspondence with
the breeders of this stallion and his offspring, we decided
to breed MAEDAE to SIR
(Tripoli X Dharebah). Technically, SIR
is a Kuhaylan, but his pedigree carries numerous crosses to
the priceless Saqlawiyah-Jedraniyah mare, *URFAH.
This mating produced the 1967 colt SIR
MARCHEN.
In the interim we had located KAMIL
IBN SALAN at Kelly
Ridge Ranch in Oroville, California, and had discovered that
he was offered for sale by his owner, Mr. Robert Osborne, who
was dispersing all his Arabians. Mr. Osborne had been helped
in setting up his program by none other than Jimmy Wrench, a
man responsible for salvaging many priceless Arabians of yesteryear.
The Kelly Ridge breeding program consisted of a Davenport stallion
crossed on mares of Wrench breeding. These mares were either
KUBRIYA or ABU
RASEYN daughters out of Davenport mares,
or mares of other direct desert breeding. When I went to see
KAMIL IBN SALAN,
I was able to see his get from these mares. They were a pleasing
and impressive group, in which the SKOWRONEK
characteristics predominated, as would be expected. I liked
KIS for himself - he had some qualities which I considered important
- sound straight legs, outstanding withers, a long sloping shoulder,
and long neck. He also showed the slender, leggy build which
has been described as characteristic of the Saqlawi, and a striking
head with prominent bulge between the eyes, supposed to be characteristic
of the 'Abayyan. He had his faults, of course, but we felt that
the test for this stallion would be breeding him to Davenport
mares. He would be valuable at the very least, as an out-cross
stallion for TRIPOLI in the Saqlawi program.
In the years since then, we have
certainly had our set-backs and losses, most of which seemed
to hit at one time. One four-year-old mare died unexplainedly
one month before foaling. Another produced twins, lost both,
and developed subsequent fertility problems. But in 1971 came
"the Unsinkable" MOLLY BROWN
sired by KIS and out of the Craver mare MOTH
(Tripoli X Maedae). This filly represents five straight generations
of Saqlawi breeding, and as she develops, we believe that she
is going go look like the Saqlawi horse described by Brown and
Raswan. She is a well-balanced delicate filly but on the tall,
leggy side with a head which is slightly longer and straighter
in profile than the typically Kuhaylan head. A 1972 full sister
looks just like her so far. A late 1972 foal is eagerly awaited--from
KIS and MOTH's full sister MAEFAH
(Tripoli X Maedae).
We chose the name "MOLLY
BROWN" for two reasons: we felt that
after a string of bad luck, this filly just had to be "unsinkable."
She also happens to be a true brown in color. She was born a
dark bay but gradually turned black. Breeders trying to breed
blacks may be interested to note that there are no blacks in
her pedigree, the nearest grey is four generations back, and
the nearest browns are six and seven generations back: the original
desert imports *JEDAH and *HALEB.
Our little program has been in existence
for nearly ten years now. The time has flown, and it has all
seemed very worthwhile. The horses seldom appear at shows, and
only when it can be fun. With four boys, our car more frequently
takes us to tennis matches, baseball games and music lessons.
Our effort with horses has been helped immeasurably by people
like Charles Craver who restored our faith that true horsemen
still exist like those we remember from childhood. We have learned,
and continue to learn, the joy, the beauty, and the responsibility
associated with living things. ...
Sometimes it seems as though we are
just beginning; the work and the worry, the joy and the beauty
are always there. We are bound to make mistakes. The selections
required in this program have to be very rigorous. There are
many ways in which our horses should be evaluated and tested.
It could easily take several lifetimes ... perhaps one of these
days another ten-year-old child will come along.
