Asil Legacy

Before our breed standard was revised by GBE in the seventies to depict the type embodied by many of the newly-imported horses, more of the horses in the breed resembled the previous GBE standard (in varying degrees), like for example, Asil Legacy. So many years later, I still get goosebumps when I see this particular photo of Asil Legacy. He was not only correct but a harmonious, typey, strong-bodied Arabian horse!

Asil Legacy (Asil Ecliptic x Asil Lyra) as photographed by Jerry Sparagowski

The 1965 bay stallion, Asil Legacy, sired by Asil Ecliptic and out of Asil Lyra, was bred by Alice Payne of Chino, California. His pedigree is equally interesting as his sire, Asil Ecliptic, is out of the *Raffles daughter, Raffleeta, by the *Raffles son, Rafferty; while his dam, Asil Lyra is out of the *Raffles daughter, Afara, also sired by Rafferty, the *Raffles son who replaced *Raffles in the breeding program, when *Raffles died in 1953. OK, it gets confusing from this point forward, but if you only remember one thing, remember the pedigree as double Rafferty plus a doubling of the cross of *Raffles x Rafarah (*Raffles x Rasasah). The 2 mares Raffleeta and Afara were actually sisters-in-blood. Their value to the breeding program was such, that Alice Payne considered these 2 mares, plus Rafarah and Prochi, the nucleus of her broodmare band. When you look at the 4th generation of the pedigree, the generation of the great grandparents, there are 8 placeholders for 8 horses.*Raffles occupies 4 of those spots or 50%! In the other 4 placeholders, he is either the sire of the same mare twice (Rafarah) and the grandsire of Masrufa, also twice! Incidentally, Masrufa is sired by Rasraff, who after Rafferty, is the other main stallion in the program. While*Raffles appears in 6 lines of the pedigree with an overall percentage of 57.75%; I was more impressed by the number of crucially important horses in the Asil breeding program who are part of the genetic makeup of this stallion! 

In closing, when Alice Payne died, Lois Selby Perry wrote a memorial, published in the February issue of the 1969 Arabian Horse News. Although Lois was not writing specifically about Asil Legacy, she was writing about Alice's breeding program which  produced him, 

"Alice proved beyond doubt the ability of the *Raffles line to be intensely inbred without producing deformities and characteristics to be hidden (for as most of you know only pure stock can be highly inbred, for inbreeding not only intensifies type but also brings out defects possibly resulting in individuals that may be undesirably common and even, grotesque). Alice hid none of her horses."