Pedigree revision, Part I: A very English affair

In this post we’ll touch on the first instance of what I’ve called ‘pedigree revisionism’: in other words how, when trying to clarify and set straight a pedigree first created years ago, we sometimes have, or want, to make retrospective changes. You might be interested to see how I’ve approached this, which things I am prepared to change, and which I am not, and to consider whether you would agree with me!

This story begins a long time ago, back in the early 1980s when I was a mere child of about twelve, and a newcomer to the model horse hobby. One of the models I acquired at that time was a Dream Pony Arab in ‘mahogany’, as it was called, a chestnut mare whom I named Mystic Fire. I didn’t think I had many records left of this mare, but remarkably, whilst looking for a different photo for this blog (which I couldn’t find), I discovered a photo of her. So here she is, with all the glory of my teenage photography skills:

Having already registered some models with the Model Arab Horse Society which existed then, I knew that real parents were required, but being young and without resources at my disposal (no Internet in those days!), I asked the MAHS President, who may have still be known as Keren Heath back then, to find some parents for this mare. She came back with Magic Sun x Fire Crystal, both real horses, which I duly accepted, and that was that.

In 1983 Mystic Fire produced a chestnut filly whom I named Fire Opal, by an Egyptian stallion I had at the time. Shortly after that I must have sold Mystic Fire, because she is not listed as belonging to me in The International Arabist Stud Directory 1984/85, an invaluable publication which I still have and refer to on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I now have not the foggiest idea who bought her. I kept Fire Opal as a Details Only/Breeding Stock Only and eventually bred a daughter, Samarkand, from her.

Now fast forward a little to the later 1980s, by which time I was much more established in the hobby, and a regular with the bunch of reprobates friends who made up The International Arabist regulars. Those who were around the British model Arab scene at that time will remember that Egyptian-bred, and particularly Babson, Arabians were definitely the most fashionable, top-of-the heap bloodlines to have. This made things interesting for someone in my position at the time, trying to carve a niche for myself and my model stud. Feeling that I couldn’t compete in the Egyptian stakes, I was looking for something else, and having read a number of Marilyn Sweet’s interesting articles on Arab bloodlines, I decided to specialise in ‘Old English’ lines, that is to say horses tracing back to original Blunt imports (while trying to minimise those lines which later included Skowronek, who was very unfashionable at the time), and also to early imports by people other than the Blunts.

Inevitably, going down this road brought awareness of the Courthouse Stud, the small but highly-regarded breeding programme of Bill Musgrave Clark. Mr Clark based his stud on carefully selected horses from Crabbet, and also acquired and used three desert-bred stallions, Atesh, Nimr and Fedaan. He produced some lovely individuals, but always in small numbers, meaning that Courthouse lines had the cachet of extreme rarity value, which appealed to me!

When I wanted to create a new stallion I therefore looked for a pure Courthouse pedigree, but on the advice I received at the time, this seemed to be impossible. (Looking at the information I have now, I believe it was not). I therefore went with a pedigree recommended by Marilyn Sweet: my new stallion Siam was by the ‘fairytale’ Courthouse stallion Shammar, out of the Maxwell mare Kazminda. I was still quite pleased with this pedigree as I admired Kazminda’s dam Kazra and her family (several times winners of the Princess Muna Saddle for best female group), and this tail female line went back to another notable non-Blunt horse, the 1938 import Nuhra.

Siam was not much to look at; he was an OF Family Arab Stallion and never had much show success outside of Native Costume classes, but he was special to me because of his pedigree. I even wrote out and hand-coloured a version to show the percentages of various elements within it, as you can see below. Red represents lines back to original Blunt imports, green is other, non-Blunt imports and blue is Skowronek.

Because Siam was my pride and joy, I used him a lot at stud, so these days rather a lot of my horses trace back to him.

Now we move forward in time again, to the early 1990s, and Claire Ashworth asked me to paint a number of mini models for her.  One of these was a Stablemate Arab stallion which I painted liver chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail. I was rather pleased with him, if I say so myself.

Claire named him Fitzwood Shandai and chose Siam as his sire, but neither of us ever got round to sorting out a dam for him. However, when Claire later acquired a beautiful Eberl ‘Jamil’ resin, painted by Chris Nandell, which she named Imxotic, she used Shandai as his sire. Claire later sold Shandai to Sue Beard, with whom he still happily resides, and Imxotic to Helen Cooke.

Now it’s time to climb in our time machine one last time, and move forward to the present day. As many of you will know, Helen was tragically taken from us in 2009. She left all her models to her mum, and entrusted me with the task of selling those which the family did not want to keep. As a thanks for my help in this, at Christmas 2009 Mrs Cooke very generously gave me Imxotic.

He thus came to me with an almost blank pedigree, with only Fitzwood Shandai’s and Siam’s names filled in. My first task was to contact both Claire and Sue, to find out whether Shandai had ever been assigned a dam; to the best of their knowledge, he never had. Both were happy for me to find one. I had several possible mares to choose from, but I thought it would be nice to make Shandai ‘Straight English’ and I’ve always suffered from a dearth of pure English mares.  Rooting through my old records, I looked again at Mystic Fire (in her daughter’s pedigree) and realised that she was from classic Crabbet lines and would be very suitable.

The problem was, of course, that I had sold Mystic Fire, both body and details, in the early 1980s, and could not remember to whom. I am pretty certain, though, that it must have been someone who is no longer in the model horse hobby, and who never did a great deal with her. I therefore decided to ‘reclaim’ Mystic Fire, as if I had never sold her and she had remained at my stud all along. It was then straightforward to assign Fitzwood Shandai to her as a 1990 foal by Siam.

Controversial? Yes, maybe, as it involved ‘altering’ the past. But one of the aims of this blog is to prompt discussion, and I would be very interested to read your views. What would you have done?

That then sorted Shandai out, but Imxotic still needed a dam of his own. The thing was, by a mixture of accident and design I have ended up with no fewer than five of Siam’s sons and grandsons standing at stud with me, so I didn’t want him to be too closely related to any of the others. Both Imxotic’s name and conformation suggested that he should not be Straight English, but something more, well, exotic! (Besides, I already had a Straight English Siam son, Shalekahh, whose dam I actually leased in order to be able to breed him). Egyptian would be the obvious choice but Shalekahh’s son Salazar is half-Egyptian… What could I do that was completely different, but still fitted the requirements? After some thought I decided that Spanish Arabian blood was what fitted the bill, and happily I still had one Spanish mare, Habanera.

It’s nice to know, though, that Shandai is still there with Sue, a beautifully-bred English Arabian stallion aged only 21, and his dam Mystic Fire is now available to me for a lot more back-dating, should I choose. Very tempting, if I didn’t already have far more Arabian details than I have bodies…

I know I also promised you part-bred Arabs, but that would make this post way too long, so we’ll save that for another time. Next time, though, just to keep up the variety, I think we’ll talk about Lippizaners. See you then!