The 1898 Crabbet foal crop, which had jumped
by 10 over that of 1897, marked a new peak in numbers and initiated
an era of sustained production. The smallest foal crops at Crabbet
would now hover around the pre-1898 record high of 14. In this period
the new Ali Pasha Sherif mares were active, and the Mesaoud fillies
came into serious production. The Rodania family was clearly established
as the most numerous at Crabbet, achieving distinction in the 1906
season as the first to be represented by five breeding mares, even
though Rose of Jericho, *Rose of Sharon and Rose Diamond had been
sold; Dajania, Basilisk and Meshura were roughly tied for second.
On the sire side activity was dominated almost entirely by Mesaoud
and his sons although Ahmar and Nejran closed out the Azrek era,
Mahruss II got one very significant foal and the newly-arrived Feysul
sired his most important offspring in his first Crabbet crop. No
one sire dominated the stallion battery in any year and the average
foals per sire fell slightly to 11.5. The shape Crabbet breeding
would take in the future was largely defined in this period, when
Daoud, Rabla, *Astraled, Risala, Ajramieh, Rijm, *Berk, Riada, Riyala
and Rasim were foaled. The number of Crabbet foals which would influence
future breeding rose sharply, perhaps largely because stronger international
demand was developing for stock to found stable new programs. The
Crabbet foals reported dead in GSB fell to 10% of this era's 149,
and 33 made it into modern pedigrees.
The Blunts worked at maintaining tail-male
descent from Azrek; when Ahmar was exported to Java they bought
back Nefisa's Azrek son Nejran and used him for three seasons,
but he was to breed on through just one daughter. *Rose of Sharon
had also produced a top-class Azrek colt in 1890; this was Rafyk,
the foundation sire of Australian Arabian breeding and whose
name is extensively repeated at the back of most traditional
Australian mare lines. According to the 1924 Crabbet Stud Catalogue
Lady Wentworth in her turn meant to reintroduce the Azrek sire
line through the double Rafyk grandson Minaret, but if that
horse actually reached England nothing came of the venture.
The remaining Ali Pasha Sherif mares
proved uncertain producers at Crabbet; in no more than three
seasons did as many as five or six of the 10 produce, although
a few straggled out to 1910. Astonishingly, the crippled Bint
Helwa overcame her broken leg to be the most reliable broodmare
of the lot; she shares honors with Rodania as the only Blunt
imported mare to leave family branches through three different
daughters--hers Hilmyeh, Hamasa and *Ghazala, with the last-named
bred by Ali Pasha Sherif but used at Sheykh Obeyd. Ironically
this family did not persist at Crabbet though the Sheykh Obeyd
and American daughters of *Ghazala, plus *Hazna, *Hamida and
*Hilwe, all founded highly influential lines. When *Rose of
Sharon went to Spencer Borden in 1905 she was in foal to Bint
Helwa's son Harb and produced *Rodan. That horse was to be the
only link to Harb in modern pedigrees but he proved a strong
one, siring such mares as Gulnare, Bazrah, Niht, Fath and Fenzileh
and leaving a male line through Ghazi.
Makbula left a branch through her daughter
Kibla; this became an essentially American family when Kibla's
granddaughter *Namilla and great granddaughters *Kiyama and
*Kareyma transplanted the line wholesale to the Selby Stud.
Bint Helwa's elder sister Johara left a small international
family. Indirect lines breed on from Makbula's imported daughter
Kasida, Lady Anne Blunt's favorite riding mare, in the important
Egyptian mare sire Kasmeyn; from Fulana in her very handsome
son Faraoun, another far back in Australian mare lines; and
from the magnificent Bint Nura II who had no fillies to live
but produced the imported stallions Abu Khasheb and Mahruss
II and the Crabbet colt Daoud. Daoud gave his dam indirect mare
lines in spades; one Daoud son, Redif, survives in pedigrees
through his own influential daughter Bint Ranya.
Mesaoud established his male line more
firmly before his 1903 sale to Russian Poland, though not via
Daoud; *Astraled, Nejef, Harb and Nadir joined Seyal among the
future sire branch founders. *Astraled, half-brother to Ahmar
and Asfura, was the last foal of Queen of Sheba, who had become
the most highly regarded of the Blunt desert mares. She lived
to 25 and produced 10 foals but had only two daughters of record.
Queen of Egypt died as a yearling; Asfura's daughter Ajramieh
did establish the family as a respected one that has always
been small in numbers. Queen of Sheba has strong indirect influence;
besides the Ahmar daughters already named, *Astraled and his
sons Rustem, Razaz, Sotamm and Gulastra all were top sires of
broodmares. Queen of Sheba's name is another to be repeated
in pedigrees with remarkable frequency, and the most international
Mesaoud sire branch, that of *Astraled via Sotamm to Riffal
and Oran, was notable for its Queen of Sheba reinforcement.
Mesaoud had one major son outside Crabbet; the beautiful Azrek
mare Rose Diamond was sold to the Hon. George Savile in 1903
and duly presented him the next year with Lal I Abdar (*Abu
Zeyd), another from whom the male line persists.
Two new Ali Pasha Sherif sire lines were
established at Crabbet in this phase. Mahruss II, chiefly a
riding stallion, bred just four Arab mares in England; he sent
*Ibn Mahruss to America inutero and got one Crabbet foal:
*Rose of Sharon's mighty son Rijm. That massive chestnut was
admired for his scope, presence, freedom of stride and excellence
of shoulder, back and loin. Before his sale to Spain Rijm contributed
to the Crabbet tradition as sire of the breeding stallions *Nasik,
Fakreddin and *Nureddin II; of the widely influential daughters
Nessima, Fejr, *Noam, Belka and *Rijma; and of the great early
endurance gelding *Crabbet. *Noam and Belka also distinguished
themselves under saddle. Feysul came from Sheykh Obeyd with
his son Ibn Yashmak late in 1904 and promptly sired the impressively
smooth 1906 chestnut Rasim. Rasim served as a riding stallion
for his first 11 years and narrowly missed going off as a charger
with Neville Lytton in the First World War. His two eldest daughters
were key figures of the Kellogg importation and Rasim became
extremely influential in the Wentworth years.
The important mares foaled in this era
included Ahmar's Hilmyeh and Namusa, Rish by Nejran, and good
daughters of the Mesaoud sons Rejeb, Seyal and Narkise, but
if this was the dawn of a new day the sunlight radiated from
superb daughters of Mesaoud and *Astraled. Feluka, dam of the
Rijm siblings Fejr (to produce *Felestin; *Sulejman's and Rasim
Pierwszy's dam Fasila; Faris, sire of Rissalix; Ferhan, sire
of Indian Gold; and Fayal) and the Australian sire Fakreddin;
of the greatest Kellogg foundation mare, *Ferda; and after her
sale to H.V.Musgrave Clark of Fasiha, established the Ferida
line with a vengeance. If Narghileh was not the greatest Mesaoud
daughter then that honor must go to Ridaa's 1900 filly Risala,
dam of Rasim, *Rijma, Rissla, Razieh (Bint Rissala), Risfan
(South America) and Rafina, a line foundress in Australia; few
sires have ever had the equivalent of an *Astraled and a Risala
in the same crop, as Mesaoud did in 1900. Rosemary produced
two full sisters, the bay Rabla and brown Riada; the former
founded an exuberant family still noted for action horses and
the latter died of twisted gut, leaving just one breeding offspring,
but that was Rayya, dam of *Raseyn. The records of the handsome
grey Kibla, Ajramieh and Hamasa look pale in this company but
each founded a major line in the breed.
A case could be made that Daoud and *Astraled,
with fewer daughters, were better mare sires than Mesaoud. It
must be remembered that all three were extensively used on mares
of, by this time, highly selected Crabbet families; and above
all that their daughters profited from a coherent, established
context in which to operate. Riyala, the most important *Astraled
mare of this period, produced Ranya, dam of Bint Ranya and the
persistent Spanish influence Razada; Rafeef, sire of Nezma,
*Rasafa and the superlative Risslina; the prolific Risama (Bint
Riyala); the Hanstead matron Razina, the broodmare of her generation
in England, granddam of Indian Magic, *Serafix, *Silver Drift,
*Iorana, Bright Shadow, Namilla, Oran, Sala and *Count Dorsaz
just to start the list; Ramayana, sold to Poland with Fasila
and represented by Polish and Russian families today; Ruellia,
who sent a son Riyalan to Australia and then went to Tersk;
and Raftan, sire of Naseel, Ariffa and Doonyah. Rokhama by *Astraled
bred on through just one daughter but that was *Rokhsa, who
founded one of the greatest Maynesboro and Kellogg families.
Partition
and The
War
Years: 1907 - 1918
The first foal crop for the partitioned
Crabbet and Newbuildings mares arrived in 1907. Wilfrid Blunt's
chief sires in the Newbuildings half were to be *Astraled, Rijm,
Harb, Ibn Yashmak and Rustem; Lady Anne at Crabbet had Feysul,
Daoud, *Berk, Razaz, Sotamm and *Nasik (not all these were active
as early as 1907). Blunt breeding presents a considerably more
complicated picture from this point. Under the terms of partition,
Crabbet and Newbuildings mares could be sent to sires standing
in the alternate half, and no breeding animal (current or potential)
could be sold without approval of the other side. In practice
it developed that when Blunt needed money, Newbuildings horses
which Lady Anne would be unwilling to see sold appeared on his
sales list; and when Lady Anne wished to use a Newbuildings
sire she bought or traded for him or one of his sons.
The foals reported dead in GSB for this
period fell to just over 8% (14 out of 167) and 54 of the remaining
167 are in modern pedigrees--some of them very prominently indeed.
Rodania now reigned supreme; Dajania's family was a distant
second while the Seglawi Meshura and Basilisk lines were fading
as Sobha picked up speed. Average number of foals per sire at
this period was still about 13. With substantial numbers of
mares in production and some of the great sires of its history
at their peak of activity, and with the individual geniuses
of the two Blunts operating independently from a base of nearly
30 years' observation of Crabbet breeding trends, it would be
surprising if this period did not turn out some of Crabbet's
greatest products. Do not expect to be surprised
One major sire exported in this period
was *Astraled, who went to Lothrop Ames in Massachusetts in
1909; American Arabian breeding was not ready for a sire of
this caliber and *Astraled landed in Oregon as a Remount sire,
leaving just a handful of foals in New England. *Astraled became
a legendary sire of crossbred using horses in his new home only
to be called back to the place that had been prepared for him
by W.R. Brown in 1923, in time to sire the great Gulastra in
his last crop. Note that for the Blunts *Astraled got Riyala,
Rustem, Rim and *Ramla from *Rose of Sharon's daughter Ridaa;
the only breeding *Astraled offspring from his early New England
years was Kheyra, out of Ridaa's half-sister Rosa Rugosa; and
at Maynesboro Gulastra came from a daughter of Ridaa's half-brother
*Rodan.
It was during the years of partition
that *Astraled got his important Crabbet sons, Razaz, Rustem
and Sotamm. Rustem remained at Newbuildings where he got Rustnar,
*Ferda, Arusa, Rayya and *Simawa. Rayya produced *Raseyn and
*Ferda is in a class by herself among the Kellogg matrons, while
*Simawa proved one of the best mares of the Maynesboro importation.
Lady Anne used Razaz and Sotamm; the former sired important
mares while the latter got the Australian mare sire Rief and
Kasmeyn, a mare sire in his own right in Egypt (maternal grandsire
of *Bint Bint Sabbah and Nazeer just for two), and Naufal who
sired other foals beyond Riffal though that was his great success.
Riffal left the important sire Oran in England along with the
good mares Samsie, Nariffa, Quaker Girl (herself exported to
Australia), Rubiana and *Mihrima (Canada); his sons The Chief
and *Victory Day II bred on in the Netherlands and Canada respectively
while the Riffal influence through his Australian get is incalculable.
*Astraled
could have sired no colts and done very well for himself through
daughters; his post-partition Newbuildings fillies included
Rim and Selima, two of the breed's dynastic matrons. Rim produced
the likes of *Ramim, dam of Rehal and Ramghaza; *Rifla, dam
of *Rifda, Rifnas and Shemseh; the ill-fated *Raswan, sire at
Crabbet of Ferhan, *Rose of France and Star of the Hills (his
only get), "World's Champion" Raseem, one of the great mare
sires of British history, though at Tersk he was surpassed by
his daughter Rixalina; Naharin's dam *Rimini; the Selby import
*Rahal; *Rimal, a colt of remarkable beauty, gelded after his
Kellogg importation; Rix, sire of *Ashan, *Crown of India, Radiolex
and Shimrix; and *Nizzam's and Niseyra's sire Rissam. Selima's
noted foals do not match Rim's for numbers but their influence
spread extravagantly; all her breeding offspring were exported
but her British influence remained substantial. Shareer, another
"World's Champion," left Rythal, Rytham, Rythama and Sharima
behind when he went to Russia accompanied by his great daughter
Rissalma (in fact Rythal already was in Holland and Rytham went
along on the Tersk trip but left the tremendously influential
Sharfina, his only British foal, at Crabbet inutero).
Shareer's sister Sardhana produced *Crabbet Sura in England
and founded a mare line in Poland when she accompanied Rasim,
Fasila and Ramayana to Baron Bicker's stud. Star of the Hills
left Starilla to represent her in England (which she did ably
through her son Saladin II) when Star traveled to Russia, where
she founded one of the most important Tersk families. The Selby
colt *Selmian was not used in England - he was sold at age three
- but he got Selfra, Selmiana and Ibn Selmian among others.
