Welcome to Barnmice Mary!

Hi!  I bought my first copy of the Arabian Horse World in 1965, back in the old days of super *Raffles, *Raseyn, *Witez II, Azraff, etc..  *Ansata Ibn Halima and *Morafic were reinvigorating the old Babson pure Egyptian breeding pool.

Sorry, had to check something.  My first horse was an Anglo-Arab of unknown breeding, probably the the pure Davenport Arab Ibn Ralf, I've owned 2 pure Davenports, 1 Egyptian colt, and 2 regular American bred Arabs.  I no longer own horses, my MS sort of prevents me.  I am soooo furtunate, I found a hunt seat stable where I've gotten to ride 4 Arabs so far.  Mia the bay mare in my avatar photo is probably mostly Crabbet, Mick the other Arab I'm riding now is descended in sire line from the *Bask group of Polish breeding, anyway he is mostly Polish.  It is so interesting comparing the Crabbet mare, definitely descended from Bedouin war mares to the Polish horse, definitely descended from the Polish Cavalry Arabs, wonderful horses indeed but not quite the same quality of the more Desert Bred, Egyptian, and Blunt blood horses.

I LOOOOOVE ARABS.  Especially Al Khamsa Arabs, but I'll cheerfully ride any Arab and feel priviledged.

I'm glad you like my blogs!

I am glad you are getting your place set up to your satisfaction.  Let me suggest that, when you get your barn office, that you keep copies of everything in your house too.

Mentor for courage?  Sure.  I was forturnate that I decided to ride Forward Seat many decades ago even though it was becoming quite unfashionable.  The Forward Seat encourages boldness, galloping and jumping (I no longer do either), and discourages hanging onto the horse's mouth.  I doubt that I would be as brave on horseback if I had not had this background. 

I have a blog on here  named "Courage", written 1-30-2011.

What system do you ride?  Even though I was gaga over Arabs when I started serious riding I never considered Saddle Seat or Western, I just do not like the results as much as I do with the Forward Seat, but then I have never been particularly enamored with high action at the trot or the pokiness of the Western Pleasure.  Arabs were bred to MOVE, however high action at the trot was extremely rare among Desert Bred Arabs, in fact only Azrek db (Blunt, Crabbet Park, England) and *Haleb 25 (imported from the desert in 1907 to the USA) were really famous for their high trots.  Most of the American/English/modern Egyptian/Russian/ and some Polish horses that trot high go back to Azrek, way, way, way back in the pedigree.

I like modern Arabian showing even less that I did 40 years ago.  The halter horses are too weedy and ill behaved, I would never risk going trail riding on a Western Pleasure Arab, and nowadays the English Pleasure horses have that horrible high action that would have won in Park classes 40 years ago.  I won't even tell you what I think of the Park classes.  Arabs are not ASB's or Hackneys, but to win in the English Saddle Seat classes they HAVE TO move like them.

Sad.  I like the old type, Crabbet, Davenport, Kellogg, CMK breeding.  The US bred some really good Arabs back then, but today they would never win at the shows.  Did you realize in the 1960's people were still taking active breeding stallions to the shows, show in ALL the classes open to stallions (Halter, Eng. Pl., Park, West. Pl., Trail, driving, including junior and lady classes), competing for the Most Versitile award, and that the breeders boasted about this in their ads?  One reason I latched onto the Arabs was back then they were the only breed that allowed women and kids to show stallions.  I figured that all of this showed that Arabs were really good horses.

To bad this no longer happens in the shows.