El Sbaa and the last Asil horses of France
By Edouard
Posted on April 29th, 2008 in Algeria, Arabia, France, Masters, North Africa
Look at the picture of the magnificent El Sbaa below: a French government commission led by M. Rieu de Madron purchased this Asil Ma’anaghi Sbayli stallion straight from the desert in 1925. El Sbaa stood at the Stud of Pompadour, France, but he was ill suited for its humid climate, so he developed a form of asthma and died a few years later.
He left too few offspring behind, including the stallions Nemer (out of Ninon), Khartoum (out of Kioumi), Meat (out of Medea) and Matuvu (out of Manon). Nemer was exported to Poland, and Khartoum to Romania, where they both started famous racing lines that endure to this day (although not in Asil form). Meat was retained for the Stud of Pompadour, where he took over from his sire, and Matuvu was sent to the stallion depot of Blois, where only a handful Arabian horse breeders used him.
Two Asil lines to El Sbaa survived well into the 1970s: one old French dam-line at Pompadour, and another Algerian dam-line with the French breeder Robert Mauvy.
At Pompadour, the last Asil to carry a line to El Sbaa was the very typey mare Ablette (by Sumeyr out of Attique by Meat), born in 1954. This mare, one of the best ever bred at Pompadour, was from the female line of Zenab, a grey Hamdaniyah bred by the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe and imported to France in 1880, with seven other mares, and eleven stallions. Ablette, pictured below, is reminiscent of the some of the old American-bred Asil Arabian horses of Davenport bloodlines. Sadly, Ablette was only bred to non-Asil horses, even though Pompadour did maintain a couple of Tunisian Asil stallions at the time.
Robert Mauvy kept a small collection of some of the purest bloodlines in France in his estate in Central France. His pride was the chestnut mare Zarifa (by Matuvu out of the Algerian Asil Iaqouta), born in 1946, and her full sister Aouda El Habiba, born 1941. They were from the female line of Cherifa, a bay Shuwaymah Sabbahiyah also bred by the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe born in 1869, and imported by the French to Algeria. Aouda El Habiba had a few Asil offspring which did not breed on, and Zarifa had offspring whose Asil status is pending (in my opinion), and subject to further research. More on this reseach later.
April 30th, 2008 7:13 am
El Sbaa was bought from the stablse of Mr Ibisch in Cairo not from the desert.
De Madron saw him in Egypt while he was on the racetrack and when asked for his owner, he was told that the horse belongs to a wealthy Syrian of Kurdish origins, Mr Ibisch (whose name appears many times in the Raswan Index). De Madron was also told that Ibisch wont sell the horse for any price.
While in Beirut, De Madron met with Mr. Beyhum, an important and wealthy figure in the Beirut society, from whom he De Madron had bought a Hamdani horse who had won many races in Egypt. Beyhum was a good friend of Ibisch, so De Madron asked him to interfere in order to let Ibisch to sell El Sbaa.
Ibisch sold the horse saying ”The Syrian Goverment should never let this horse go away”. In the book by De Madron there is a magnificent picture of El Sbaa’ at the race track in Cairo.
April 30th, 2008 5:52 pm
Joe, thank you for the correction about the place where De Madron bought El Sbaa. I don’t have his book, and was referring to Mauvy’s “Le Cheval Arabe”.
The connection with Ahmad Ibish is fascinating, in part because Ibish appears as the owner of the stallion Aiglon, who is the maternal grandsire of the hugely influential stallion Sirecho in the USA.
May 1st, 2008 9:33 pm
Hello Edouard,
Thank you for your consideration to the fascinating French Arabian horse history. Let me know if I can help in anyway with researchs on El Sbaa’s progeny in France. It would be so fantastic to find some of his Asils descendants still today! Robert Mauvy has inspired generations of breeders here in France and his book about the “Cheval Arabe” as we proudly call them here in our country is a bible to any french breeder.
Friendly,
Amélie
May 2nd, 2008 2:55 am
Hi Amelie, good to hear from you. How’s France treating you? I miss it..
If Denouste’s Asil status was proven beyond doubt(and that’s a far cry), then several horses with a line to El Sbaa would be eligible for Asil status.
Mauvy’s Asil mare Zarifa had several offspring from the stallion Saadi (Ourour x Oureah), and from Saadi’s son Amri, both of whom have a line to Denouste
Mauvy did these breedings, but it’s not enough to prove that Denouste was okay, even if we can assume that Mauvy knew what he doing..
May 2nd, 2008 1:50 pm
What an interesting thread on French Arabian breeding. Edouard, what is the present status of Robert Mauvy and or his breeding program? Reading some of this thread makes me wonder if you or Joe Achcar, or anyone could shed any light on the French mare *KOLA AHR#485 a 1912 chestnut mare imported to the U.S. in 1922 by W. R. Brown. Her sire is Latif, 1903 bay D.B., and her dam is Destinee, 1893 grey by Maksoude out of Degourdie. She left a 1917 chestnut son in France named Petard, sired by Djebel (Sinai x Dragonne). *Kola was 10 years old when she came here and produced 10 foals so her blood is well circulated in America. Years ago there was an Al Khamsa breeder out west who had some horses that were all Al Khamsa plus *Kola but I do not know if that has carried forward until now. Just wondering what is known about *Kola. Thanks.
May 2nd, 2008 7:03 pm
Hi Joe, and thanks for your encouraging words. I am passionate about Asil Arabians of French and North African lines. They form a tiny subset of the larger so-called “Arabians” of French bloodlines.
I would love to see the horses from this subset recognized for what they are: Asil Arabians tracing in all their lines to high-quality desert horses. Hence my starting the discussion with presenting some of the desert-bred imports, such as Dahman, Bango, and now El Sbaa.
I will then move to discuss the purity issue.
Joe, I also received your email about *Kola, and I have to think hard about how to answer it. I will definitely get back to you, perhaps on this blog.
May 3rd, 2008 5:46 pm
Joe, Mauvy died in 1979. His breeding program was taken over by a few of his disciples. Towards the end of his life, he heavily used the stallion Saadi (Ourour x Oureah), which carries a line to Denouste (Latif x Djaima). I am not currently in a position to assess the Asil status of Denouste. This needs more research. When it is done, then yes, I believe a couple dozen horses of the remnants of the Mauvy program would be eligible.
The problem with Denouste, as with other French Arabian horses bred in private farms (except Mauvy’s) is that you have no way of trusting the breeder. This is why most of the horses I talk about in this blog are from Pompadour (a Government stud, with no reason to cheat about bloodlines) or Mayvy (a purist).
May 25th, 2008 12:17 pm
Hi Edouard and thanks again for this wonderful input,
El Sbaa is magnificient.
I wish we have people like you in France and previously Mr Mauvy to educate us about this part of the Arabian history that has been lost in memories and cannot survived if we are not aware of what is remaining?
Hope we will find quickly some asil horses tracing back to the old Pompadour program…