I've acquired a few new exciting additions for the Thoroughbred herd! Starting off with a lovely chestnut mare called Verveine. She sports a pedigree packed with stamina. Sired by the legendary DARSHAAN, an excellent broodmare sire. Other notable ancestors in her pedigree are VAGUELY NOBLE, SHIRLEY HEIGHTS, and ALYCIDON, who are all known producers of stakes winners over longer distances. Verveine will be a great asset to our steeplechase breeding program! Next up is Spearmint, a chesnut + dominant white stallion (or so he will be soon, once he is painted). He is mostly of French lineage, tracing back to leading sires KENMARE and KALDOUN on his sire's side. His cool colour came from his dam's side though, from her grandsire MONT BLANC. The dominant white mutation stemming from MONT BLANC has not been identified to my knowledge. Interestingly, it does look very similar to the W14 mutation. Spearmint brings some great uncommon French bloodlines, as well as the possibility to breed foals with beautiful white patterns. I'm super pleased to add him to the herd!
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I participated in National Model Painting Month (NaMoPaiMo) again this year - my third year in a row. This event is organised by Jennifer Buxton for the model horse/miniatures community, and it challenges you to paint an equine figurine in a month's time in February. My model this year was the Superlumina resin sculpture (by Maggie Bennett), which I painted to a rich glowing chestnut. She is the model body for Bahraini Arabian mare Hamdanieh Munira, whose first foals are now on the ground participating in racing - exciting! This horse was painted using an acrylic base coat, and oil paints on top. The details were done in acrylics. I finished her just in time to take her to the beach on February 28th for a photoshoot.
I have always been fascinated by the beautiful tack of the Bedouins. Therefore, I sought to recreate these native regalia in 1:9 scale for my miniature Arabians. My newest set is this bright red native style tack. It has two rows of silky tassels all around, in 4 colours. The decorations on the halter and collar were handsculpted out of polymer clay and adorned with tiny beads. The set is currently worn by my mare Jellabieh Badriyah. The doll was customized from a standard 1:9 scale doll and dressed in custom made clothes by a friend of mine. He wears the white clothing often worn by men of the desert, as well as sandals. He also has a beautiful black-and-gold overgarment that is removable for riding. I think he and Jellabieh Badriyah look fantastic as a pair. I should really make an accurate diorama to take good pictures of them! Below are some details of the tack set. I am quite pleased how the decorations came together. You can click the pictures to enlarge. See you next time!
Over the last year, my Thoroughbreds and Bahraini Arabians have competed in flat racing or steeplechases over at the All Breeds Racing & Competitions Board (ABRCB). The purse money earned in those races is tallied at the end of the year, and the highest earners are elected champions.
The exciting news that not one but *two* of our stock earned champion titles just came in! Arcanite (STOWAWAY x ARDSTOWN by ARDROSS) - J.J. Houlahan Championship Horse of the Year Quest For Fire (Sky's On Fire x MORAINE by RAINBOW QUEST) - Champion 2YO Thoroughbred Colt I will continue to race both in the 2021 season, along with more of their stable mates. Hopefully Quest For Fire is able to achieve another title this year, after which he will be auctioned as a Triple Cup prospect for his 4 year-old season. As for Arcanite (whom I really need to take a new picture of soon, he is painted up in a lovely dark bay color now), I hope to achieve a Grade-1 (G1) win in the steeplechase section to conclude his carreer. The 2021 season will be his final season, and he will be on stud duty afterwards. His stable mate Iced Out will be racing in the graded races this season, and might go for the championship title next. I just added a gallery of my entire model horse collection at the bottom of the Our Horses page. Although I don't neccessarily plan on pedigreeing all of them, I thought it would be nice to showcase them anyway :) There are quite a few more horses I need to photograph and add, but the largest part of the collection is there. As promised, the second part of my blog post about my Arabians from Bahrain. Today I'm focusing on the stallions (for the mares, see Part 1). The Bahrain Royal Stud has numerous Arabian stallions, most of which will not serve at stud (instead they are given as gifts, or used for racing or mounted police). Selection of the stud stallions is based on bloodlines, performance of the stallion under saddle, and his overall conformation and looks. Once a stallion passes the inspection and reaches 7 years of age, he is tried on a few mares. If the progeny are up to standard, he will be used at stud for the rest of his life. This practice ensures the quality and preservation of the Bahraini Arabian. (source: Bahrain Royal Stud) So, on to my stallions! First up is Mlolshaan Sadik, of the Al-Mlolesh family. The Mlolesh strain is ancient and has been in Bahrain 'since time immemorial' accorcing to the Royal Stud. The strain name is believed to have derived from the word 'mlolash', a high-pitched sound made by the Arab women at happy occasions such as weddings. This was likely used to describe the original Mlolesh mare's neigh. Mlolshaan Sadik is by the impressive stud HAMDAANY WADHAH (pictured above right). He, in turn, is sired by KUHEILAAN AAFAS TTAAWOOS (pictured below, left), who also sired Bahrain's 2006 Racehorse of the Year JELLABY BALSAM. The Kuheilat Aafas family is very respected and of great antiquity. Its modern representatives can all be traced to the mare - KUHEILAT AAFAS REEM EL-NUFOOD (pictured below, right). Unfortunately I was unable to find much information on Mlolshaan Sadik's dam MLOLESH DABIYA and her ancestors. Her paternal grandsire RABDAAN ALWASMY is pictured at the bottom of this post on the right. Next is my stallion Obeyaan Jameel, of the Al-Obeyah family. The Al-Obeyah family has been with the royal family of Bahrain since the kindom was founded. It is an old, well-respected lineage that is known for producing exceptionally attractive horses. "The males are handsome and the fillies are stunningly pretty" - Bahrain Royal Stud. Obeyaan Jameel is sired by the masculine, well-balanced stallion SHAWAF AL BETAAR (pictured above, right), who has proven himself on the race tracks. The Al-Shawafah family is also extremely ancient, and believed to have been with the Al Khalifa royal family since their earliest history. Obeyaan Jameel's dam, OBEYAH AL GABRA, is a daughter of Sheikh Mohammad Bin Salman's favorite stallion JELLABY KHER (pictured below, left). He, in turn, is sired by the impressive RABDAAN ALWASMY (pictured below, right). Unfortunately, I was unable to find images of Obeyaan Jameel's dam and other females in his pedigree - I will add those if I ever stumble across them. This concludes the posts about my Bahraini Arabians. I loved researching their bloodlines and finding old photographs of their ancestors! I can't wait to add more horses to this program and 'breed' the first foals from them!
The Arabians of Bahrain have long facinated me - they are much more robust (yet still elegant) than many other Arabians around the world. They are also extremely good performers! Bahraini Arabians have proven themselves on race tracks and in endurance competitions, but are also very good all-round mounts. I recently decided to start a model horse breeding program of Bahraini Arabians because several of my favorite models/molds are great representatives for the horses from Bahrain. My customized Breyer PAM models, for example, very much resemble the well-built Arabians from Bahrain. The only problem in starting up this breeding program was finding pedigrees - there were very few well-documented pedigrees out on the internet. So I set out on a mission to gather information and spent many hours piecing together pedigrees from online stud books, the official website of the Bahrain Royal Stud and blog posts by Arabian horse expert Edouard al-Dahdah. I entered as much information as I could into the database of Pedigree Query, so they are accessible to other model horse hobbyists (and fans of the Bahraini Arabians in general!). It has certainly been good for my overall knowledge of the history of the different strains of Bahrain! However, to spare others a couple hours of background research, I will explain a little about the model horses in my Bahraini Arabian breeding program. Starting with the mares - great emphasis has always been placed on mares by the Bedouin tribes and this tradition is carried on by the studs in Bahrain. The mares pass on their strain name to all their offspring (regardless of the stallion's strain). In Bahrain there are currently about 20 strains in existence, though my own program currently has female representatives of only 3 strains: Kuheila't Jellabieh, Al-Kray and Al-Hamdanieh. My mare Jellabieh Badriyah is pedigreed to be from the Kuheila't Jellabieh strain. The original Kuhailah mare that founded this strain was bred by Sheikh Jarshan of the Utaiba tribe. She was a much admired war mare, and when her rider was killed in one of the tribal raids that were common many decades ago, she was captured by a man called Jellab. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ahmed (1796-1843) of Bahrain acquired this mare at a great price (10 thousand gold rials and the mare's firstborn filly), and she became known as Kuheila't Jellabieh (source: Bahrain Royal Stud). Today, the Jellabieh family is still considered the most precious of all in Bahrain. In Jellabieh Badriyah's pedigree, we also find thee lines to one particular Jellabieh mare (JELLABIEH 229, pictured above, right) through her sons JELLABY ALASIL and JELLABY NEJIB (pictured below, right) who sired Jellabieh Badriyah's maternal grandsire OBEYAAN SAARI (pictured below, left). Next up is Kray Ghaliya, my representative of the Al-Kray family. The Kray strain has been with the royal family of Bahrain for centuries. During one of the battles fought on horseback, a member of the royal family was mounted on a Kray mare. The mare was very fierce and brave, so their enemies sought to bring her down; they eventually succeeded. To honor the efforts of the mare, the descendants of her mount are identified as 'Master of Kray'. The Al-Kray family is very rare, and believed to be extinct outside of Bahrain. Kray Ghaliya is out of KRAY MOHAMMEDIA (pictured above, right), who is a daughter of KRAY MANIFA and JELLABY ALAHMAR MONTASIR (both pictured below). Kray Ghaliya's pedigree also includes two lines to JELLABY NEJIB, who was discussed earlier. Last but not least, my mare Hamdanieh Munira (pictured at the top of this blog post) is from the Al-Hamdanieh family. This family has been the favorite of the Al-Saud royal family of Saudi Arabia for centuries, and it has been present in Bahrain for many decades as well. Hamdanieh Munira's sire (pictured below right) and dam (pictured above left) are located in the United Kingdom, as they were gifts from the royal family. SHUWAIMAN AL BAHRAIN is a successful endurance horse, and his sire KRAYAAN DILMUN was the leading UK endurance sire in 2010. SHUWAIMAN AL BAHRAIN's dam, SHUWAIMEH BINT WARDA is pictured above right. KRAYAAN DILMUN is sired by MA'ANAGHY NADEEM (pictured below, bottom right) and out of KRAY MANIFA (discussed earlier). My plans for this program are to race my stallions and two mares (Hamdanieh Munira and Kray Ghaliya), or try them as endurance horses. Jellabieh Badriyah will serve as a broodmare only, hopefully producing lots of successful model horse foals!
As you might have noticed, I do really need to start painting the models, as they are all currently unpainted - it might take a while though, knowing myself. Next time I will introduce the two Bahraini stallions I have pedigreed, and give some information about their ancestors as well. During the year, I usually attend between 2-4 live shows (model horse conventions) in the Netherlands and Germany. Yesterday was my first time at Live Show Reken in Germany. With 50-60 entrants each year, it is the second-largest show in Germany (maybe even in the whole of Europe?), after the model-horse-fest in Bensheim which I will attend in August. The day started off with the Performance & Tack division, in which I had entered two Arabians in costumes. My mare Bint Nehemia took reserve overall Champion of the division wearing the green costume (which was hand made by me) pictured below: Bint Nehemia also took first place in the Arabians/Part-bred Arabians class in the Traditional Artist Resin Breed division. A great day for her! Next came a special division of theme classes. The theme for this year's show was 'Medieval', so there were classes for cavalry, the 'horse market' (entering a group of 5 different horses), mares with foals, proud horses, and more. My Akhal Teke stallion Vasili took reserve Champion in this division after winning 1st place in the proud horses class. He then went on to win 1st place in his breed class as well! In the mini Custom Breed division, my drastic custom stablemate drafter (resculpted by me, painted by the German artist Larissa S.) took reserve Champion after winning in a big drafter class. Many of my other horses placed well in their classes too, but to name all the placings would take too much time so I'll keep it short. All in all, Live Show Reken 2020 was amazing, and I hope to be able to go again next year!
Since I nearly finished assigning pedigrees to the Egyptian Arabians in my collection, I thought I'd share some of the horses that play a prominent role in my 'breeding program'. First and foremost, when I built the pedigrees of my Egyptians, I tried to include horses that have a strong build and good joints. I also tried to avoid too much linebreeding (7-8 crosses to a particular ancestor in the first few generations is just plain overdoing it), and I like to include some bloodlines that are not commonly found in real horses nowadays. One of those bloodlines is the line of GASSIR (pictured below). He has that lovely desert horse dryness and good substance - something he passed on to many of his progeny. In my program, I use three of GASSIR's sons: MOURAD, SABEEL and ZAGHLOUL. All very good movers! MOURAD is also a half-brother to world famous stallion MORAFIC (NAZEER x MABROUKA). His granddam is MONIET EL NEFOUS, a mare that I also favor in my program because she has a lovely head. My grey mare Sabah is linebred to her (3 crosses), as well as to GASSIR (3 crosses). Another stallion that I really like (who is absolutely underrated and was not used a lot at stud) is SEEF. He was bred by the EAO, but kept at one of their stallion stations in the countryside where they keep stallions they don't use on their mares. SEEF's potential as a stud was discovered when he was already in his mid-teens, so he sired limited offspring. SEEF was a good race horse, and was known for siring athletic offspring with powerful movement. My stallion Najid carries three crosses to this wonderful stallion. The third bloodline that is prominently featured in my program is BALANCE - a succesful racing stallion bred by the RAS (later EAO). His influence comes mostly through ZAAFARANA and NASRALLA (who is also known under his racing name SHAHRIAR). The BALANCE bloodline has produced a lot of good racers, including AMRULLA (out of ZAAFARANA), a stallion who is featured multiple times in the pedigrees of my horses. My mare Bint Nehemia carries four lines to BALANCE, and my stallion Mansur carries three (two through AMRULLA). The one thing these bloodlines have in common is that they produce athletic horses with lots of muscle, and that is what I want to 'preserve' in my program. I hope this post gave some insight into my Egyptian breeding program, since not everyone might be familiar with these more obscure bloodlines.
Picture credits: I was unable to find the authors of the pictures in this post, due to the fact that most are very old. If you happen to know who took them, please do let me know. My first post! I have just barely gotten the first few horses pedigreed and photographed, but I figure it is time to 'open' Riverlands Farm. I used to have a large Pedigree Assignment (PA) website running, but after taking a break of a few years and completely overhauling my collection, I wanted to start fresh - with a new farm name and new pedigrees. The only horses that currently have pedigrees are my Arabians (and I haven't even gotten to all of them yet!), though I do intend to pedigree some other breeds in my collection in the future. My collection consists of many different breeds, so I doubt I'll pedigree them all. But some of the breeds I hope to add to the pedigreed bunch in the future are: Akhal Teke, Thoroughbred, Saddlebred and perhaps some Spanish breeds. I am also getting back into entering fictional competitions with my models on the All Breeds Racing & Competitions Board (ABRCB or just The Board). Some of my Arabians will be entering flat races and endurance rides there, and I hope to race my Thoroughbreds over fences soon too (once I have researched their pedigrees). All in all this website is going to be a bit of mess for the foreseeable future as I get everything up and running. But it's good to be back in the PA community! |
Farm blogHere you will find updates regarding my collection, as well as live show reports and articles related to pedigree assignment. Archives
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