AK Dantilla

AK Dantilla

Mrs. George Fox, an avid Arabian horse breeder, having bred approximately 160 horses through the mid-seventies, had purchased Fa Dena, a Fa-Serr daughter out of Khedena (a Fa Deene daughter) from the Babson Farm. Although Mrs. Fox had also purchased the straight Babson Egyptian stallion Daaldan, she chose to breed Fa Dena to *Ansata Ibn Halima, producing Il Bint Khedena in 1968. Bred to *Ibn Moniet el Nefous, she produced  AK Dantilla in 1977, a full sister to the stallions: AK Rasul, AK Kaandil and AK El Sennari*. Through Il Bint Khedena, AK Dantilla and her brothers  trace in their tail female line to the 1932 Babson Egyptian import, *Bint Serra I, a Saqlawi strain mare bred by Prince Kemal el Dine. However, in keeping with historical breed tradition, based upon Carl Raswan's Bedouin strain theory, *Ibn Moniet el Nefous is also Saqlawi in strain, because he traces through Moniet el Nefous to Roga al Beida through his tail female line, making AK Dantilla and her brothers pure-in-the-strain Saqlawi (both tail female lines, the sire and dam, need to be Saqlawi to claim pure-in-strain status).

It's also interesting to study the breeding patterns of AK Dantilla, as she was bred (primarily) to a variety of Moniet el Nefous line bred stallions, most notably, Moniet el Sharaf (*Ibn Moniet el Nefous x Bint Bint Moniet), producing daughters by him, the first in 1984, a pretty grey mare named Fa Sharaf and the following year, 1985, a bay mare named Serra Sharaf.

Fa Sharaf

Of the two mares, Fa Sharaf appears to be the more prolific broodmare, with great grand progeny to her credit (Passionet De Nile-Nakhda Myrrh-Aneesa Bint Myrrh), insuring that this branch would remain relevant and vibrant in our straight Egyptian gene pool. However, one of the more interesting crosses with Fa Sharaf resulted in a chestnut stallion, Fa Daaleem in 1991. The sire of this horse was Fa Daalim, a son of Bint Fa Dena, a full sister to Il Bint Khedena, the dam of AK Dantilla! This cross reinforces *Fadl, Bint Sabah, *Bint Serra I but it also brings in outcross blood through *Bint Bint Durra via the stallion, Daaldan.

AK Dantilla was also bred to a son of the Babson mare, Roufah, by *Ibn Moniet el Nefous, NaIbn Moniet. What I found interesting about this cross is the intensification of *Bint Serra I, on both sides of the pedigree, as this mare has become scarce within pedigrees, especially in tail female lines.

 

I also found two other interesting crosses with Moniet stallions (Moniet el Nefous on the sire side of the pedigree) and Bint el Bahreyn through the tail female line of the dam: AK Shah Moniet (*Ibn Moniet el Nefous x Dahmah Shahwaniah) producing a stallion in 1982, Moniet Halim, who did sire get and Shaikh al Badi (*Morafic x *Bint Maisa el Saghira), producing a daughter, DE Desert Shah. The maternal side of the pedigree offers a bit of outcross blood, more so with Shaikh al Badi, as he does not carry a line to *Ansata Ibn Halima, which AK Dantilla has through her dam, Il Bint Khedena. *Bint Maisa el Saghira's dam, Maisa, was a daughter of Zareefa (Kazmeen x Durra), a mare who brings desert breeding up closer in the pedigree of Egyptian horses and within this pedigree, offers some diversity. And yet, with all that said, I am still left wanting for more, when I reflect upon this beautiful mare, AK Dantilla.

As noted previously, Carl Raswan who championed the concept of strain theory within our breed, felt that breeding a Saqlawi-strain mare to a Kuhaylan-strain stallion would produce a well-balanced horse, strong of body, muscled, with a harmonious frame. In an article written for the magazine, Western Horseman, he said, "Historically famous breeders like Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sharif of Egypt 'threw' a Kuhaylan stallion into their Saqlawi strain every third generation to give more muscle, more width and more strength to their over refined, incest-bred Saqlawi."  Walter Schimanski, a legendary breeder of Dahman strain horses, was also known for using Saqlawi horses to achieve balance but in the opposite direction of Raswan's Kuhaylan cross. I have written of this previously in other blogs. Walter Schimanski played the tendency to go short in one strain, against the tendency to go long in the other and as a result, he consistently bred the most celebrated Dahman horses of our time. In The Horse of the Desert, published in 1929, William Robinson Brown wrote, "Horses carrying Kuhaylan blood to a large degree, being for the most part of the thickset, able cavalry type, with plenty of substance, endurance, and powerful way of going, combined with well balanced conformation, and short, typical head, with width of brow, dish-face, and small nose, would be well mated with the Saqlawi."

Fadl Dan

 Therefore, with as much information that exists for breeders on the subject of the Saqlawi phenotype, I don't understand the choices made to breed deeper within the Moniet el Nefous family, when at the time (and at the same farm), horses like, for example, Fadl Dan (Fabah x Fada), a very Kuhaylan-type horse, may have been a more complementary cross for AK Dantilla.  At the time, Bentwood was heavily promoting Moniet el Sharaf as a breeding stallion, as his dam had sold at auction for a record price. I find myself wondering if the stallion choices made for AK Dantilla had more to do with financial reasons and not so much as to whether the *Ibn Moniet el Nefous sons like Moniet el Sharaf complemented the mare, as compared to other stallions, like the previously mentioned Fadl Dan, who may have fit the mare better. While Fadl Dan shared common ancestral ground with AK Dantilla (*Fadl, *Bint Serra I and *Bint Bint Sabbah), he also introduced outcross blood through *Bint Saada (a mare bred by Prince Mohamed Aly Tewfik and also, a bloodline that is scarce, even within the straight Babson breeding group), while balancing the tendency to become long and narrow that already, we can observe happening in AK Dantilla. This is not a criticism of AK Dantilla nor her production record, as she was a beautiful mare, who produced progeny like Fa Sharaf, who founded vibrant and influential programs for other breeders, bringing a modern day relevance to the bloodline. This is only one person's attempt to better understand these horses, realistically, meaning both the positive and negative attributes, in order to utilize the combination of blood existing today and breed forward, in a direction which consistently produces Egyptian Arabian horses who are sound in mind, body and spirit.

*Il Bint Khedena had a full sister, Bint Fa Dena, foaled in 1966, who was also bred to *Ibn Moniet el Nefous, producing the stallions: AK El Hassan and AK Sotamm and a mare, Monadena. These horses are full siblings-in-blood to AK Dantilla and her brothers: AK Rasul, AK Kaandil and AK El Sennari.