Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. I will keep readers posted on how this dialogue evolves. Comments will stay because they are the readers’.
Cathie Fye recently shared with me this picture of her 2003 Dahmah Shahwaniyah mare Thank Heaven (*Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer x Ru Serr Llany), one of two daughters of the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan in the USA. She is doing well in endurance, as she should. Look at the gaskin, and the clean hocks. Where do you see this anymore?
I had already decided to breed one of my mares to this stallion before he is done, but seeing this photo confirms my decision. He will be 25 next year.
Regina and Warren from Germany wrote the other day to give me an update about their asil Arabians which are from desert bred Saudi and Bahraini lines (no Egyptian blood) by way of the US, and from the rare and precious Dahman Shahwan strain.
Here is the 2009 Dahmah mare AAS Muharraq (AAS Theeb x AAS Ghazala by Ibn Taam-Rud), whose tail female is to *Savannah, a mare bred by Shaykh Salman Ibn Hamad al-Khalifah of Bahrain and imported from Bahrain to the United States of America in 1954 by K.M. Kelly.
Note the striking resemblance with the mare Bahraini Bint El Bahrein of Lady Anne Blunt in Sheykh Obeyd, of same strain, marbat and same provenance (the Royal Stud of Bahrain, we need to run an mtDNA test). Striking, no, even though AAS Muharraq has not one ounce of Bint El Bahrein blood!
This one is Ralihadiyyah, Muharraq’s brother. Note the shoulder.
This one is his brother Gudaibiyah, Muharraq’s other brother.
I am extremely impressed with the structure and conformation of Jenny Krieg’s filly, Ubayyat al-Bahrain, one of two daughters of the twenty seven year old desert-bred Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, out of the Ubayyah mare DB Kalilah. I don’r think she is even two years old.
To be honest, I have never seen such depth of girth, shortness of back, strength of musculature, and length of ear (all marks of an asil ware mare) in any Arabian horse in the USA before. She reminds of war mares I have seen in Syria including Mari a Shuwaymah Sabbah at Radwan Shabareq and Nawwarah a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah at Abdel Mohsen al-Nassif.
That’s how war mares in the desert were like. Really. Seeing this photo encouraged me to breed to this Bahraini stallion and I will do it as early as this spring, even if I would have preferred not to have to fork out 1,000 USD in breeding fees.
The image below is copy of Loan Oak Photography.
Read the story here. Hopefully these would end with Jenny Lees of Pearl Island Stud, and be bred to the Bahraini stallions already there (thanks Jeanne Craver for the link).
I am now told that the two horses offered by the King of Bahrain to the Queen of England are stallions, not mares, and that the Bahrainis brought over 7 or 8 stallions which were displayed at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, partly as Bahrain was sponsoring the big FEI Endurance ride at the same venue. Each of the 7-8 stallions appear to be from a different strain. You can see amateur photos here, here and here. The one below is my favorite (URL copied and redirects to website, with credits to “AnnaMaisy25” who took the picture). He appears to be one of the two offered to the Queen.
Bahrain stallion
Jenny Lees kindly sent me these photos of the Bahraini stallion Tuwaisaan Tha’atha’a, which was presented by the King of Bahrain to the Queen of England. He will stand at her place along with the other stallion, a Mlolshaan.
From Jenny Lees:
“Here is Mlolshaan Mahrous . He is around 15 hands 1” a very pretty stallion with a slightly cheekier sense of humour. He will cover Hamdanieh Munya this summer.”
Select pictures of new asil foals from around the world. This one is special, because she traces to the only desert-bred stallion in America, the old Mlolshaan Hager Solomon; he is a son of DB Khrush, so close up Davenport and Saudi imports there, and out of a daughter of Mlolshaan. Her breeder and owner is Cathy Fye, and judging from both the pedigree and the conformation, she will be an endurance athlete.
To continue with the series of this year’s foals, here are a couple from Regine and Warren Staas in Germany, from desert Saudi-Bahraini lines, tracking to *Savannah in tail female.
This black filly is alredy on allbreedpedigree.com (here) by AAS Japik (AAS Sail out of AAS Al Kamila) out of AAS Ghazala, and both dam and daughter look splendid!
The chestnut colt below is also a Dahman, by AAS Japik out of AAS Muharraq (AAS Theeb x AAS Ghazala), and is also a promising one. These are all close lines to the desert, and as Lady Anne Blunt wrote in her Journals about a mare of same strain and same origin (Bint El Bahreyn) “the Dahmeh Shawanieh from Ibn Khalifeh, she is a fine mare and authentic” (Dec. 22 1907) and “authentic blood from eastern Arabia is rare” (Dec. 30 1907). It still is.
Solomon picture taken in 2010 by Jenny Krieg. I love how much we know about his sire line, which dives deep into Arabian and Bahraini history. He is 28 years old this year.
He is Mlolshaan (M118 in the Bahrain Studbook), born in 1986, bred by Sheykh Mohammed Bin Salman, brother of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Salman (ruled 1961-1999), and uncle of current King Hamad (ruling 1999-present), out of Mlolesh Asila M105.
His sire is Rabdan Al Wasmy (M19), born in 1979 (out of a Rabda M16 — M indicating a mare/horse at the stud of Sh. Mohammed), photo below
His sire is Managhy Al Ahmar, born in 1971, died in 1989 (M20)
His sire is Dahman II of Jesra (one of the Amiri Studs), born 1962, died accidentally in 1977 photo below from Royal Bahraini Stud website
His sire is Jellabi Al Wasmiya (another Stud), born 1943, died 1973, favorite stallion of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Salman, a.k.a Old Jellabi I, photo below
His sire is Dahman I, born 1938, died in 1970, photo below
His sire is Mlolshaan Al Marshoosh (speckled), born 1930, died 1968, perhaps the longest living known Arabian horse
His sire is sire is Jellabi Al Marshoosh Al Awwal (the first speckled Jellabi), born 1914, a present of ruling Sheykh Hamad Bin Isa to the royal family of Saudi Arabia in 1937
His sire is Shawafan, favorite stallion of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Ali (ruled 1869-1925), early XXth century.
Dahman II 1963-1977
Jellabi al-wasmiya
Rabdan al Wasmy M19
Dahman I
“At Cairo we heard from sportsmen, that from time to time one or two horses ‘asil’ from the stud of the Sheikh of Bahrain came up on the race track; they always ran with great success. This stud, existing since 1785, is pure-in-the strain bred. The same was confirmed to us by the Bedouins of Damascus.”
This news from the Bahrain News Agency from August 2014 was just displayed on Philippe Paraskevas’ “Egyptian Alternative” Facebook page. I find it fascinating that more than 80 years after the importation of the first Kuhaylan Afas to Poland by Bogdan Zientarski, a stallion from same bloodline joins the Polish State Studs. Below a photo of this gorgeous stallion.
The set of articles on the Arabian horses of Bahrain which Judi Forbis published in the Arabian Horse World in 1971, and reprinted in her Authentic Arabian Bloodstock contains so much information that it has become one of those snapshots that help chronicle the history of Arabian horses, often complementing existing pedigree and studbook information.
One example where her material add extra information not otherwise available is her description of the stallion Dahman I (1938-1970) whom she saw in extreme old age:
“Of particular interest at this stud [Jezra] was old DAHMAN, well over thirty years of age. He had been used extensively and while having size and great forehand depth, he was light behind, short and somewhat rounded in croup and possessed a strangely pointed triangular head which was very large, convex, bony and coarse, though dry. It is said he is responsible for many of the plain heads on Bahrain today. Sired by a Mlolshan, he was out of a chestnut Dahmah [Dahmah Al Shaqra] who was one of the old Khalifa mares left on Qatar and eventually sent back to Bahrain as a gift from Abdul Jasim [in reality Abdallah bin Jasim] al Thani, the ruler of Qatar.”
The new information here pertains to Dahmah Al Shaqra originally being a Bahrani mare that went to and later came back from Qatar. This adds to the discussion on horses of the Dahman strain that took place on this blog a few years ago.
Another interesting snapshot is the information Judi Forbis reports about Hamdany Riadh, a stallion at Sheykh Mohammad B. Salman (brother of the then ruling emir and uncle of the present King), during her 1970 visit to Bahrain:
“Despite deep chuck holes and the rocky desert, the car succeeded in reaching Ganabia safely where Sheikh Mohamed’s farm was located a few kilometers away. An old grey Hamdaniyah mare from the Saud’s stud and a desert-bred [implied — not from Bahrain and not the Saud’s studs] grey Obeyah mare were the most attractive of some fifteen broodmares. Sheikh Mohamed had also kept a good Hamdani stallion which he received from the Saud’s as a gift, but unfortunately the horse had died recently.”
A few years ago, a discussion on this blog had come to the conclusion that Hamdany Riad was in all probability the Saudi stallion Faris (Al Harqan x Al Hadbaa), #84 in the Saudi Studbook, which gifted to Bahrain in 1964 along with a number of Hamdani mares.
The visit of Judi Forbis to Bahrain adds another piece of extra information not otherwise mentioned in Bahraini studbooks, with regards to the mare Dahmah Al Tawilah, the dam of Dahman II (Dahman Al Thaani):
“…then came an interesting contrast between two elderly Dahmah matrons, both chestnuts, both very distinctive but of a very different type and sire line. One was half sister to the old Dahman stallion [Dahman I or Al Awwal], but sired by a Krush, and far more refined than he.”
The caption of a photograph of a chestnut mare in the same article reinforces this identification: “Dahma, a chestnut mare at Sakhir. Dam of Dahman II and IV, who are breeding stallions used by Sheikh Isa, she is also a sister to old Dahman I. Pictured in her 20s. Forbis photo.”
From this we learn that the sire of Dahmah Al Tawilah is a Krush (in the Bahrain studbook this horse appears as OA Original Arab with no strain mention). This Krush may be “Krushan Bay” (aka Krush Al Asday, meaning the Bay Krush) who is the sire of the Jallabiyah dam of Jellabi II (Jellabi Sakhir), a mare contemporary to Dahmah Al Tawilah.
Mlolshaan (Bahrain Studbook spelling) is an Arabian horse strain now only found in Bahrain, but which was also present in Najd in the past, as evidenced by its mention in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript page 251, under Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish.
I was always curious about the origin of the word Mulawlish, which is uncommon in Arabic today. It is obviously a Bedouin Arabic word, which means it can be traced to Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur’an and of pre-Islamic Bedouin Arabia.
The Bahrain Royal Stud website offers this interpretation of the meaning of the strain: “The name Mlolesh is believed to derivate from the word “Mlolash” the trilling high-pitched sound the Arab women make at weddings and other happy or exciting occasions. The original Mlolesh mare must have had a beautiful neigh!”.
So a Mlolesh is a trill, so to speak, and its usage, originally associated with women, was extended to mares. It is a common pattern with horse strain names, as is the case with the Kuhaylah.
Still, I thought I’d look up the word in another way, through a dictionary. The first step to find the origin of an any Arabic word is to take it back to its original trilateral root, a process that follows the generic rules of Arabic grammar. All (or almost all) Arabic word go back to trilateral roots.
The form of the word Mulawlish is common and is the same as Muhajir/Murafiq/Murasil/Musafir and can be traced back to the verb Lawlasha, which is itself an emphasized version of the verb Laasha. The trilateral Arabic root is hence L-W-SH (Lawsh).
The problem is that the root L-W-SH does not appear in the usual Arabic root dictionaries (e.g., Lesan Al-Arab, the most comprehensive of all, compiled in the XIIIth century from older dictionaries). That’s because the last letter “SH” or “CH” is how Bedouins (or some of them) pronounce the letter “K” (e.g., “Chabir” for “Kabir”, big, in Iraqi and Syrian Bedouin dialects, or “Hatchem” for “Hakem”, the name of the Fada’an Bedouin leader who was Homer Davenport’s counterpart). It took me a while to make that connection.
This means that the real trilateral Arabic root is L-W-K and not L-W-SH, and that the word Mulawlish should instead be rendered Mulawlik, back to verb Lawlaka back to the verb Laaka.
Lesan Al-Arab here tells us that one of the meanings of the root L-W-K (lawk) is the act of turning something (e.g., the tongue, as in chewing) inside one’s mouth (al-lawk idarat al-shay’ fi al-famm). The dictionary even illustrates this meaning by using the example of a horse chewing a bit by turning its tongue around it (wa qad laaka al-faras al-lijaam).
Now the explanation offered by the Bahraini Royal Stud website begins to make sense: the original meaning of turning something (the tongue) inside one’s month could have been extended to mean “the sound made by turning one’s tongue inside one’s mouth (i.e., a trill). From women making that sound in rejoicing at wedding, the meaning slipped and became associated with horses that make a trilling, high pitched sound when neighing.
That said, I believe that the more mundane, more literal meaning suggested by Lesan Al-Arab could provide the answer to the origin of the name: Mulawlish could simply refer to a mare/horse in the habit of chewing its bit tirelessly, or one prone to chewing its food on and on and on..
Jenny Lees sent me these four beautiful photos of the two new Bahraini stallions standing at her stud, with her grand-daughter. She meant them as an example of the wonderful disposition and temperament of Arabian stallions in general and Bahraini horses in particular.
I was invited to take the two Bahraini stallions presented to HM the Queen to the AHS National Show at Malvern this summer. After they had done the display we all settled down in a corner of the showground for a picnic. This is my five year old granddaughter Elsie with the stallions Tuwaisaan That’atha’ta the grey and Mlolshaan Mahrous. Both stallions are in their early teens and both have covered mares. Elsie has a special relationship with the grey Tuwaisaan.
To learn more about the pedigrees of both stallions, visit this link.
The stud of Sheykh Muhammad B. Salman Aal Khalifah in Bahrain includes representatives of an Arabian horse strain by the name of “Saidan”, of which one representative is the stallion pictured below, Saidan Gharib (photo from the 1998 WAHO Convention in Bahrain).
While the strain sounds very similar to the strain of Saadan (as in Saadan Tuqan, the strain of, among others, the mare Francolin imported by the Blunts) they are not the same, and are not written in the same way in Arabic.
It seems that the Bahraini “Saidan” strain gots its name from the ruling family of Oman, the Aal Said. Here is a quote from the Bahraini studbook volume 1:
“The Kuheilah Sai’da strain is a family of horse peculiar to Bahrain. The oft told story of how the name came about is still repeated in gatherings when men discuss horses of old and their merits. In the early 19th century the Al-Khalifas had to repel many invaders to ascertain their supremacy in Bahrain. In the year 1816, in one of the attempts to overtake the islands by the forces of the Sultan of Muscat, Said bin Sultan, a big battle was fought on the shores of Bahrain. When the Muscati fleet was sighted approaching on the Eastern coast, horsemen were gathered and positioned awaiting their landing. Although the Muscat forces were greatly superior in numbers and fought fiercely, the shallow water on the shore was to the advantage of the Al-Khalifa horsemen, who were victorious. The remaining of the routed enemy took to their ships and left the shores of Bahrain. When the victorious horsemen returned to their home camp, a Kuheilah mare gave birth to a filly foal. To commemorate the glorious battle and defeat of Said bin Sultan, the filly was named Sa’ida. The Sa’ida at Shaikh Mohammed’s stud are descendants of this mare.”
Thank Heaven is now in the ownership of Jeannie Lieb, who took this photo of the beautiful Mlolshaan Solomon daughter as was settling in her new home. She has her sire’s withers, shoulder, and clean legs. Compare with his own photo, in extreme old age, below.
Thank Heaven, daughter of Mlolshaan Hager Solomon
