all for the love of a horse...: THIS WAS 2023

27 December, 2023

THIS WAS 2023

This year, I added 67 more blogs (3 more than 2022) and of this number, 85% of them were original, newly written and published for 2023. There are 522 total blogs, including this one, published since the summer of 2006 (check the Blog Archive pull down, located in the sidebar on the right hand side of the page). I published the largest number of blogs in April (10) and the smallest amount in December (3). Original content flourished for June, July and August, as I published 6 new blogs each month, more than for any other month in 2023. In return, you visited the blog more than 80,000 times this year (47,000 page views were recorded in Singapore, 20,000 page views in the United States and 2,000 views from each of the following countries: Germany, United Kingdom and Canada). As a result, all for the love of a horse blog maintained its top ten position this year (#7) in FeedSpot's list of top Arabian Horse Blogs and Websites!

If I rank the blogs by the number of page views received, regardless of when they were published, the most popular blogs of 2023 are:

How does the top 5 differ from the above-mentioned list, if we consider only the newly written and published blogs for 2023?

In the summer of 2024, all for the love of a horse will be 18 years old! How do the favorite blogs of 2023 compare with your all-time favorites? For the 2nd year in a row, your favorite blog of 2023:

The Straight Babson Egyptian Arabian Horse

is also the 2nd favorite blog of all time!

What are your all time favorites? A year later, the list has not changed at all:

My Favorite Blogs of 2023:

I was looking forward to the release of Mark Rashid's new book this year, For the Love of the Horse. I have enjoyed all his previous books and his new book doesn't disappoint, it's as good as all the others but its different and not in the way you may think. It is a bit uncomfortable, as Mark introduces questions that challenge the very core of all I have studied, digested and believed in. The chapter titled New Revelations presents the previously unexplainable training challenges Mark has encountered with horses who have been inbred. I have read this chapter several times now and I find myself thinking alot about what he wrote, as applied to a few horses I have known. I expected this blog to get a little more traction than it received but maybe, like me, you are uncomfortable. I have to admit to you dear reader that I was concerned about posting it but the more I struggled with should/shouldn't, the more I appreciated the opportunity this book created to re-examine and reconsider our breed and the intimacy of our bloodlines.
While I appreciated the source of Safinaz blood in Safeen, I really didn't know the individual horse well, although his sons, EAI Silvereen and Shy Gafeen were horses I admired. Writing about Safeen was the opportunity I needed, to understand him better than I did. Funny, the more I read about him, the more I thought about him and the more I thought about him, the more I wished that I had bred a mare to him. Safeen's pedigree weaves together unique ancestral elements which appear less frequently in modern day pedigrees like Seef (Mashhour x Elwya), Daaldan(Fadaan x Fay Dalla) and the matriline to *Bint Serra I. Think outcross. How many more horses are there out there, like Safeen, who will become a surprise for someone, once discovered?
If there is such a thing as a favorite color, Palomino horses are my thing. I love them. I'm not really sure why, as the American cowboy, Roy Rogers and his horse, Trigger, were a little before my time. So was Mr. Ed. The only connection that I have to Palominos may be the equestrian units who are part of the annual Rose Parade, on television. As a child, I didn't understand that the Palomino color did not exist in the purebreds; although there are chestnut colored purebreds (think of Gold 'n Ali and his son, Fire 'n Ice, Cal Dorado by Cal-O-Bask or the *Rushan son, Antham) who come awfully close to the Palomino coat color. I remember My Mystic Mirage's photo, within the booklet that IAHA mailed to me. When Julie Koch posted this long-ago photo, well, a flood of childhood memories inspired me to write the 500th blog, a milestone for All for the love of a horse blog.

As I wrote in late 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 2024!

No comments:

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.

27 December, 2023

THIS WAS 2023

No comments:

Post a Comment