all for the love of a horse...: 2022

19 December, 2022

2022 - Your Favorites

Here we are, once again, at the doorstep of a new year! Before we get into the most favorite blogs of 2022, let's do a little housekeeping, as far as the stats are concerned. I added 64 more blogs this year, 80% of them were original, newly written and published for 2022. In return, you visited the blog 26,000 times this year! As a result, all for the love of a horse blog was included in FeedSpot's top 10 list of Arabian Horse Blogs and Websites of 2022! We were #7:

There are several ways to present the list of favorite blogs. If I just rank the blogs by the number of page views received, regardless of when they were published, the most popular blogs in 2022 are:

However, the ranking, as I explained, considers all blogs, regardless of the publishing date. What would the list look like if we limited the page views to only the newly written and published blogs for 2022? It's interesting that #3, 4 & 5 from the list above, now become #1, #2 & #3 below:

In the summer of 2023, all for the love of a horse will be 17 years old! How do the favorite blogs of 2022 compare with the all-time favorite blogs? Only the Babson blog, your favorite blog of 2022, is the 2nd favorite blog of all time!

The "honorable mentions" for older blogs who made it into the 2nd half of the 2022 top ten favorites:

This year, I thought to ask myself which blogs were my personal favorites:

The Laheeb blog in the spring of 2022 helped me to deal with the sadness I felt, after learning of Laheeb's death. Laheeb was special to me, his courage in the face of adversity was inspiring and I hope you were touched by his story.
A reader of this blog had asked me to name my favorite mare. With so many beautiful mares to choose from, I thought this an impossible task. And what does favorite really mean? I hope my Fa Halima blog will inspire you with the same awe and wonder that I feel for this unbelievable mare.
I have wanted to write a blog about *Ibn Hafiza for a long time but the words just never felt right. I have danced around the topic for a while, authoring blogs on his granddam, Mahfouza, his dam, Hafiza and his daughter, Nagliah, in addition to a blog about horses whose pedigrees do not contain the Blunt desert-bred horses. I am so happy to finally pull it all together and tell what I believe, is his unique story.
Ekstern's story is also the story of his sire, Monogramm and the many people who worked diligently behind the scenes to bring Monogramm to Poland. Ekstern is the kind of horse who appeals to a wide variety of people, regardless of bloodline. He was an unbelievable sire, his daughters matured into valuable mares of great influence, all over the world A senior-aged horse at the time of his death, it was still a shock to learn of his death.
The YouTube thumbnail for the Arabian Essence video of the Spanish Arabian stallion, Fanatico, competing at the AECCA show in October, inspired me to also write the blogs on Titanic and Tarambana Qahira. However, writing these blogs made me more aware of the plight of the Spanish bloodlines and how close we are to losing many of the lines forever. Less than 1 percent of the total Arabian horse population is represented by Spanish Arabians. They are rarer than you believe. Martina Minhard, the breeder of Tarambana Qahira, has been very outspoken on the impending extinction of these lines. I hope my blogs will inspire someone towards the preservation of these lines, sooner rather than later.

As I said in November, I am grateful for you dear readers, because you are the reason this blog exists. I hope that each blog will continue to inspire you with a desire to learn more about Arabian horses, so you can better understand them. And if along the way you receive equal helpings of some good old fashioned awe and wonder, well, then my part in all of this has succeeded, all for the love of an Arabian horse.

Best wishes to all for a Happy New Year 2023!

2 comments:

AnonymousFriday, December 23, 2022 11:33:00 PM
Blushing to see Ameer way up there. Thank you Ralph
ReplyDelete
Replies
Diane WilsonSaturday, December 24, 2022 12:10:00 AM
Thank you, Ralph. Your enjoyment has reached so many! Well deserved accolades for you.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

MY FAVORITE WEBSITE

If you want to understand the desert Arabian horse on a deeper level, then you will want to visit Daughters of the Wind, a blog maintained by Edouard al-Dahdah, since 2008. It's my favorite place to visit, on a regular basis. For me personally, the information that Edouard presents is at times so profound, that I find myself weeks, even months later, still thinking about what he has written. I consider him a treasured source of inspiration and for the times that I don't feel like writing anymore, a significant source of encouragement. In one place, you will be able to read of the horses, their heritage; as well as the culture, traditions and the geography of the land, from where they originated. I strongly encourage you to visit his blog to broaden your understanding and deepen your appreciation for the Bedouin-bred horse.

MY FAVORITE WEBSITE X 2

The Horse In Word and Picture is the blog of Rania el Sayed, a very talented photographer, whose equine photography is second-to-none. I still remember when I first learned of Rania, it was all because of the late Dr. Nasr Marei. At the time, Nasr published an article that featured Rania's photography. I was thrilled by the photography and later, "meeting" Rania was one of the highlights of my horse life. I loved her photo of Mangooma and Rania, in an act of kindness never to be forgotten, let me use her photo in my blog. Thanks Rania for all of your support. You'll love Rania's blog and all of the equine topics she covers, including the straight Egyptian Arabian Horse. She really pushes me to think deeply about things that I haven't thought in a while. And you don't have to join Facebook, to read her posts. .

MY FAVORITE BOOK

One of the questions that I am asked most frequently is which book(s) do I recommend? Judith Forbis', The Classic Arabian Horse, published in 1976, is MY FAVORITE BOOK...EVER. Prior to the publication of this book, we really didn't have anything that compiled the history, the bloodlines & breeding practices and conformation (including breed type) of the straight Egyptian horse in one volume. You had to dig through multiple sources, sometimes in languages foreign to one's own, to try and develop an understanding of the Egyptian Arabian horse. So, this is my recommendation to you today, especially if you are just starting, this is the most important book you will ever own. You can find the book on Amazon, previously owned, at a very affordable price.

A NEW FAVORITE BOOK

Many times, I have heard other enthuiasts say, "if only I could get into the mind of this breeder and understand the Arabian horse as he or she does!" Dr. William Hudson, a long-time breeder, weaves together his lifetime of experiences including the latest developments in equine genetic science with the history, art and culture of the Arabian horse. This is not the type of book that you will read, cover-to-cover, in one sitting. You will find yourself turning to this massive 1,500 page, 2-volume set, over and over. If you love Arabian horses and want to understand the breed intimately, on a deeper level, this is the only book you will ever need to own. If you are breeding Egyptian Arabian horses, I urge you to purchase this 2-volume set before you breed one more horse!

MORE FAVORITE BOOKS...

One of the questions that I am asked most frequently is which book(s) do I recommend? Previously, I mentioned Judith Forbis' THE CLASSIC ARABIAN HORSE which is a great introduction to the breed and to Egyptian Arabian horses specifically. But now, you have read that book and are ready to go deeper. So, this is the book that I recommend reading (VOLUME II ) without hesitation. It's fantastic. The depth of this book, within tail female lines, sire lines and strains found in Egyptian (EAO) breeding is not found anywhere else. If you are serious about the Egyptian Arabian horse, whether a breeder, student or enthusiast, you must read this book, at least once!

STILL MORE FAVORITE BOOKS

In the Preface, Dr. Nagel wrote, "Since it is claimed that the Arabian horse breed is one of the oldest on earth, one has to accept that it is also in the crossfire of many opinions which sometimes clash vigorously. There are obviously many doubts and errors, and the advocates of different concepts seem to be not ready to settle on a common stance. It should encourage the reader to think...The refreshing variety of thoughts surrounding this noble member of the great family of horses should not be lost." Whether you agree or disagree with Dr. Nagel, is not what is important but rather, the resulting thought that this book will inspire. I can't even tell you how many times I have read this wonderful book cover-to-cover. It's one of the more provocative books that I have ever read and each time I have read it, a part of the book that had not impacted me previously, will cause me to think deeply for days, weeks and even months at a time. So, dear reader, I recommend this book to you, in the hope that it will inspire you to think deeply about our breed and examine why, you feel the way you do.

"The ideal Arabian type is recognizable at sight to the experienced horseman and novice alike. It falls short of the ideal if it reminds one of another horse or breed. It falls short of the ideal if it is so plain and uncertain of type as to require a sign: 'This is an Arabian horse.' It falls short of the ideal if it is so coarse and masculine as to remind one of a small Percheron, at one extreme, or so highly animated and elf-like as to remind one of a gazelle at the other extreme. The ideal type stands out alone. You know it immediately when you see it."-Ben Hur, from his 1951 Western Horseman article, Type in the Arab

In the summer of 2006, when I discovered Blogger, the last thing on my mind was creating a blog. At the time, I had been participating in a popular Egyptian Arabian horse website and desired to find a website that would allow me to "cut-and-paste" the posts that I had written for future reference. From those humble beginnings, this blog was born. I'm not a professional writer and although I want to say that writing is a hobby; I think it is better to say that I write for the love of the breed. I've had the good fortune to meet a number of horses who are now considered legendary, as well as some really wonderful people, who are equally legendary. Over the years, people have suggested that I charge a subscription fee or pursue paid sponsorships but you know how money changes everything and this blog, after all, is a labor of love. So, there you have it, the story of the blog. Many thanks to the people who make this blog doable, for example, where would I be without any of the photographers, the "visual storytellers" of our breed, who allow me to post their pictures and to the authors of the many books and magazine articles that I have read over the course of 45 or so years, helping to educate a long ago kid, crazy in love with Arabian horses. And finally, an overwhelming amount of gratitude for you dear readers, for coming here to this place, to read, discover and celebrate this common ground we share, all for the love of an Arabian horse.