In 1906, an American newspaperman, Homer
Davenport, imported 27 Arabian horses directly from Arabia to this
country. Most people who saw the horses recognized them as wonderful
horses. There were a few detractors,
a good many of whom had horses from other sources which they preferred.
To each his own.
The Davenport horses were written about,
ridden, publicized, shown, raced, and bred to almost every other
kind of Arabian that came to this country. They seemed to do fine
regardless of what was asked of them. They had a unique capability
as a bloodline: they endured. Everything else that came to this
country when the Davenports arrived, as well as a good many that
have arrived since then, was crossed in with additional bloodlines
to the point that survival of bloodline identity was submerged into
the American melting pot from which most current "Domestic" Arabian
horses derive.
Not so the Davenports. They indeed were bred
to everything else, but ever since their arrival in 1906, a few
have been bred to each other. Some foals have always been produced
so that the original bloodlines of the importation survived intact
without anything else being added to them. The total number of such
horses is still scant, but there are more of them now than there
have ever been before.
That is a breeding history of 85 years duration
now: a long, long time. The integrity of a bloodline is a fragile
thing. If timing and support of mares, stallions and owners is not
exactly right, it is lost. Luck is always necessary but something
else has to work, too, to bring essential ingredients together.
There have to have been other good reasons for the survival of the
Davenport bloodlines.
Davenport owners will tell you that the most
important of these reasons, is the continuity in Davenport breeding
of characteristics which American breeders want. The horses which
Davenport brought to this country in 1906, had those characteristics.
Horsemen of those days recognized that these horses had characteristics
which they wanted. Every generation of American horsemen since then
has had the ability to supply those characteristics in a clear-cut,
simple way which their owners have felt was important to continue.
This is not to say that other lines of Arabian
horses have not supplied the same needs, but there has been something
special about the way that the Davenport bloodlines have fit into
American life. The purpose of this article is to indicate some of
the ties of continuity between past and present, which has caused
this to happen.
When the Davenport horses were obtained by
Davenport, he had several goals in mind. Part of his mission was
to get horses that would be suitable for establishment of a remount
stud for the U.S. Cavalry. The backing he received from President
Theodore Roosevelt was partly intended to work towards this purpose.
It may be that one of the reasons he got so many males
(17), was that he wanted a supply of remount
stallions.
If this was something he had in mind when he made his selection
in Arabia, he must also have realized that remount officers back
home would be looking at his selections according to how they would
produce cavalry horses. The demand of this part of his market was
for a useful, general purpose horse of quality. That is what remount
officers would have wanted then and what American horsemen have
wanted ever since.
Davenport had other goals, too. On the way
to Arabia, he wrote that he wanted to get stallions that could be
bred to western American mares to produce high-grade ponies for
the polo market. Elsewhere, in describing the goals of his horse
breeding venture, he writes that he wants to produce the best polo
ponies that ever followed a ball. Americans have always loved tough,
handy horses suitable for polo-type utilization, and many of the
Davenport horses over the years have continued to remain that kind.
Raswan commented that Letan (*Muson/*Jedah)
was the best polo horse in California of his day, and anyone who
has occasion to work with horses of that vital, muscular bloodline,
knows what it is to have a horse that swaps ends not for meanness
but just for the economy of the thing. It is a very frequent pattern
with Davenport horses.
Davenport also gives as a goal for his desert
horses, the production of elegant horses for pleasure riding. In
those days, that was not some kind of maniac horse that did a weird
gait, but rather a horse whose motion and carriage were of style
and beauty and pleasant to ride. The Davenport horses themselves
and through their influence have been noted for the production of
this kind of horse. The carriage of the
Hanad line particularly presents an example. A touch of Hanad
adds a grace to a horse in the show ring, but nowhere more importantly
than when riding for pleasure through the countryside. The same
bearing and ease stand well in Dressage competition.
Davenport himself obviously prized his horses
as useful, elegant, and athletic animals. He was, how unique among
our founding Arabian breeders in this country in recognizing that
in the coming day of the automobile, the ultimate value of the Arabian
horse would not be in its physical usefulness, but rather in the
pleasure it would give as a companion animal for woman, children,
and older people. That is the way the Arabian horse utilization
has worked out in this country, too. A few people have these horses
for their ability to perform, and Davenports do well for such people,
but most Arabians and most Davenports are owned by people who have
them because they love them as companions.
The Davenport horse has a special gift for
this. many people who have had experience with various kinds of
Arabians will observe that their Davenports are different; still
requiring of horsemanship, but easier to handle, some of them exceptionally
intelligent, none of them suited to training by abuse.
Maybe these horses are that way partly because
of Davenport's attitude in buying and breeding the foundation stock.
One of the most touching passages in his book about his importation,
My Quest of the Arabian Horse, is the part telling about
his personal communion with his mare *Wadduda on her return to the
desert:
"*Wadduda had stopped short again and was scanning the
horizon. I touched the mare with my heels, but she did not move.
She was thinking. Of what, who knows?...So for a long time we waited
together--the mare and I, in the gathering dusk, and as we waited
I almost wished that we could always be alone. The call of the desert
came strong to both of us then."
In the years since that day in 1906, Davenport
horses have meant much to many people. The importance of the personal
relationship is a constant factor and is probably the single most
significant item justifying the expense and trouble of maintaining
the historic breeding group.
There are a number of individual items of
continuity from the original imported horses which were valued at
the time of importation and are still valued in descendants now.
Some of these concern the stallion *Muson, who was a horse of unusual
individuality. On his way home from the desert, Davenport wrote
to his wife about this horse as a spectacular animal, and commenting
on how he would be valued in New York. The horse had his opportunity
for such fame when he was used as an exhibition mount by "Buffalo
Bill," in his Wild West Show in Madison Square Garden.
*Muson was noted for his fascination with
sounds and objects in the distance. George Ford Morris, the artist,
commented that he had often seen him assume a characteristic 'listening"
pose. The inclination to do this continues in *Muson's descendents,
and they still do it in recognizable form 85 years after the original
importation, and owners still marvel at this remnant of desert behavior.
A horse of particular note in the Davenport
importation was *Abeyah. She was a real beauty, famous for a bulging
jibbah and for exceptional speed in the desert. The jibbah passed
on and rather frequently turns up in her current Davenport descendants.
There has been less opportunity to identify the legacy of speed,
but some of her descendants have been noted for the characteristic.
At the age of 12, with little specialized preparation and having
spent his life as a show horse and breeding stallion, her great-grandson,
Antez (Harara X Moliah) equaled the Arabian record for one-half
miles.
Subsequently, Antez was exported to Poland,
where he sired a horse named Hashem Bey, who is reported as the
high-point horse at the Polish Arabian races, which were held at
Lwow in 1940. In the U.S. another Antez son, Sartez, set speed records
over a variety of distances. Realistic race evaluation of current
Davenports has not occurred.
One of the unique features of present Davenports
is their lovely coat characteristic. Many Davenports shine. They
do it on their own. Grooming is not necessary and may not even do
much good. As they get older, the greys often have a beautiful opalescent
color. The chestnuts and bays have a corresponding burnished appearance,
with some of the chestnuts having the bright copper-penny look.
From her pictures, one suspects the coat
characteristic came from the imported mare *Reshan. Whether for
that or another reason, the Bedouins loved the mare. They had lost
her by sale and tried to buy her back by offering to trade, according
to which story is taken, either 30 or 50 female camels for her.
In either case, the valuation is considerable, since a frequent
rate of exchange between mares and camels in Arabia was five female
camels per mare.
One of the most famous of the imported Davenport
horses was the stallion *Haleb. Davenport described him as "Our
great horse." George Ford Morris, who may have been America's finest
horse painter and was an expert judge of all kinds of horses, described
him as the only horse he could not fault. In Arabia, *Haleb had
also been considered a prime animal. At the time of his importation
to this country, over 200 mares were said to be in foal to him.
Pictures of *Haleb show him to have been
a horse of magnificent balance of body. Parts of his skeleton were
preserved, including his fine, hard cannon bones and his skull,
which had a pronounced dish. Unfortunately, a good picture was not
preserved of his head.
A horse like *Haleb was the kind of horse
that Americans have always liked: well-balanced, athletic, useful
for a variety of purposes, and handsome. He left only a few foals
before dying. Included among them was a Saqlawi line from the mare
*Urfah. One of the characteristics which occurs in this line from
time to time is a pronounced dished profile, which may have its
origin with the cross to *Haleb.
The major breeding stallion of the Davenport
importation was *Hamrah. He was only toe when the importation occurred,
so, of course, we have no way of knowing anything of his origin
in Arabia, except that he was the son of a particularly important
mare and by a noted stallion. In this country, he matured to a magnificent
stallion with a short back and a long hip. Statistical analysis
of the AHC studbooks show him to have been the most significant
Arabian stallion in this country through 1946.
In Davenport breeding, *Hamrah's influence
has been pervasive with many horses tracing to *Hamrah at the grandparent
level of concentration, or closer. His ability to project influence
over years and generations may have much to do with the uniformity
and general "frame" of current Davenport breeding. Chances are that
many of the characteristics which most current Davenports share
come from this proponent desert-born ancestor who is strongly in
the pedigrees of all of them.
If we knew more individually about the 15
foundation Davenport horses which are represented in the pedigrees
of currently living Davenport horses, no doubt we could identify
the source animals for many other characteristics which add to the
attractiveness of the Davenports we have today. Unfortunately, we
are never going to be able to make this kind of study in the detail
which we would like. Full information of this sort about the foundation
animals has simply not been preserved.
There is a final point, however, for which
further detail is not required. That is that these bloodlines have
persisted since 1906, while retaining the essential factors of identity
which they had from the beginning. This is so to point that, if
we could have a conference with some of the old-time founding breeders
of Arabians in America, they would still recognize what we call
Davenport Arabians as the same kind of horses Homer Davenport went
to the desert to get: nice moderate-sized, athletic horses that
are friendly and look like the real thing. Some of them obviously
show family characteristics that come from the old horses: *Haleb's
balance, *Reshan's coat, *Abeyah's jibbah, *Hamrah's coupling, *Muson's
vitality, a certain inner spark that may have come from *Wadduda,
if it did not also come from all the others.
These are characteristics that Americans
have prized enough to keep these bloodlines going. In all the generations
of horses since 1906, there have no doubt been many times when American
breeders went to considerable trouble to maintain matings between
Davenport horses, although it has nearly always been an easy option
to instead do attractive outcross matings. Sometimes survival has
been by a thin thread of devotion, but it has held and the horses
are still with us as a blessing for the present, and as an example
of continuity in the breeding of Arabian horses in America.
