Asil Arabians in Iran

On the occasion of its last Annual General Meeting, the Asil Club decided to recognize a group of approx. 300 foundation horses from Iran as “Asil Arabians”. Since the Iranian Arabians are hardly known in Europe, we are reprinting here Gudrun Waiditschka’s lecture on the “Asil Iranians”.

The “Grand Old Dame”

You can’t talk about Arabian horses in Iran without introducing Mary Gharagozlou and her life’s work. Born in 1927 as the daughter of Naqi Khan, a doctor who came from a long line of Persian landowners and statesmen from the Gharagozlou tribe, and the American Katherine Ladd, a librarian at the University of Baltimore, Mary had insights into two worlds – the Orient and Occident. She married Majid Bakhtiar, a Bakhtiari tribal leader, and became Iran’s leading expert on arid farming. She worked tirelessly for the benefit of the nomadic tribes throughout Iran, lived with them and they paid her the greatest respect. For several years she was also head of the Iranian nomad ministry.

It was an exciting, fascinating, but also difficult life, because she stood up for the nomads all her life, but the government was suspicious of them, so she ended up in prison at the one or the other occasion. When she married her husband Majid Bakhtiar, he had already inherited a stud from his father. Through him she got to know the Arabian horses in Iran, which were to become her great love and passion. Her life’s work was then the registration of the Arabian horses in Iran in a studbook in order to have them recognized by the WAHO. She only succeeded in doing this thanks to her outstanding position of trust among the nomads, because here, as in other countries in the Middle East, the nomadic population was very skeptical of the government and was not always ready to provide information about their valuable horses or let them being branded as the WAHO demanded for identification. They feared this might be a government method of stealing their horses. In spite of all efforts on the part of Mary Gharagozlou, one or the other horse was “left out”.

Horse breeds in Iran

Iran has been a multi-ethnic state for three millennia and this also applies to today’s Islamic Republic, whose ethnic, cultural and religious diversity is often overlooked in the West. Many of the peoples come from nomadic tribes, some of these tribes have also bred horses. Therefore, several horse breeds are native to Iran, such as the Kurdish horse in northwestern Iran, on the border with Turkey, the Dareshuri horse in the central and southern Zagros Mountains, the Turkmen in northeastern Iran, on the border with Turkmenistan, the Caspian pony on the Caspian Sea and the Arabian horses (“Asil Iranians”) in Khuzestan, a province in the south, bordering Iraq.

The Iranians themselves recognize as “Asil Iranians” only those horses that are descended from the horse-breeding Arab nomadic tribes in Khuzestan, have a “strain name” and it must be known which Bedouin (or nomadic) tribe once used this strain because, as in other Arab countries, there were families known as the “owners of a strain” who have had bred that strain within that family for several hundred years.
Unfortunately, there are numerous misunderstandings in the literature, also from well-known authors, who have written about Persia and its horses. E.g. General Tweedie called the Kurdish horse the “Persian Arabian” and Judith Forbis also believed that the Dareshuri was the Arabian horse of Iran. This is not the case, because these breeds were not bred by the Arab nomadic tribes, but by Persian tribes. The Bakthiari, a Persian nomadic tribe, are an exception, as they had bought Arabian horses from some Arab tribes a long time ago and bred them according to the same strict principles – in some cases even stricter – than the Arabs themselves.

The Arab nomads in Iran

The Arab nomadic tribes of Iran live in the southwest on the border with Iraq (see red marking in the map page 7); they are parts of the Bedouin tribes Al Kamees, Al Kassir, Beni Lam, Mir and others. These tribes immigrated to Persia from Mesopotamia a long time ago, and have retained their Arab way of life, their principles of breeding and their religion. They also have maintained their “strains” and bred on with these lines.

The strains in Iran

Table 1 (see p. 8) shows the number of Asil-Iranian horses and how they are distributed among the respective strains. There are currently 1213 breeding animals that are recognized by the “Iranian Asil Association” as “Asil-Iranians” according to the above criteria.

The largest tribe, Wadne Khersan, with over 400 horses is striking. But this tribe is little known outside of Iran – so where does it come from? The Wadne Khersan tribe were brought to Persia with two Bedouin (nomadic) tribes, the Al Kassir and Mir Beduins. Originally, however, this strain comes from the Nedjd, as a description by Lewis Pelly, 1865, shows (see p. 13). In his book “A Journey to Riyadh in Central Arabia” he lists different horse tribes of the Nedjd: next to Saklawi Jedran, Koheilan Adjouz, Obayan Sherrak and Dahman Shahwan, he names the fifth of the most important tribes in the Nedjd Wadne Khersan!

The second largest group in Iran are the Koheilan, followed by the Hamdani Semri, Obayan and Saglawi.
Table 2 shows which strains still exist in Syria, Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Syria has the greatest diversity of tribes, followed by Iran and Bahrain and finally Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This is also reflected in the latest scientific research into the genetics of these original populations: Syria, Iran, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have high genetic diversity. This indicates great proximity to the origin of the breed. In Saudi Arabia, the number of (WAHO-recognized) “desertbred Arabs” recorded in the studbook is rather low, which is why the diversity of tribes has also decreased. Egypt – which is not a country of origin – has a low genetic diversity and compared to the other populations a high homozygosity. This can be easily explained because Abbas Pascha only got a small “selection” from the actually existing gene pool of Saudi Arabia. These horses were selected according to his (beauty) ideal and so horses with other characteristics remained in Arabia. With this relatively small section of the gene pool, breeding was continued from then on, whereby the degree of inbreeding was increased and the genetic diversity continued to decrease through breeding selection for individual famous animals.
As the table also shows, the Wadne Khersan only exists in Iran. The Djelfe (Jelfan, Julfan) also only seem to exist here and Bahrain, albeit in small numbers. Muniqis used to exist in Egypt too, but these have now died out there.

Characteristics of the Asil Iranians

Populations with high genetic diversity are optimally adapted to their environment and their use. This also applies to the Iranian Arabian horses.
In order to find pastureland for their flocks of sheep, the nomadic tribes undertook a vertical migration from winter camps in the plains of Khuzestan to summer camps in the Zagros Mountains until the 1970s. In this way they tried to escape the hot summer temperatures in Khuzestan and to use new grazing grounds. During this migration, mountain passes of 3000 m
had to be managed, the distance was 300 km (one way) and was covered in about 5-6 days. Stallions and sometimes the mares were ridden, the young horses ran free. In contrast, the Bedouins of Arabia undertook a horizontal migration, following the rain and fresh pastureland.
The following characteristics resulted from these demands on the horses:
• perseverance
• surefootedness
• rideability
• character
These inner properties are more important to the Iranians than any external appearance.
But how can one maintain these inner properties in a population? This is primarily done through appropriate use, in which the horses have to prove themselves – or not, and as a consequence they are then withdrawn from breeding. Katharina Ghalavand and her daughter Katayoun organize trail rides in Khuzestan and in the Zagros Mountains (not only, but also) for this purpose. These rides follow in the footsteps of the nomads’ migrations. They want to keep the memory of the old breeding tradition alive, but also subject their breeding animals to a “performance test” in doing so.
Another type of “performance test” are races and endurance rides. Unfortunately, there are French racing Arabians running in the races today, and the endurance rides have been discontinued due to frequent doping cases.

Imports to Iran

Iran was not spared from imports either. One of the first was Al-Alhagh, a gift from the King of Jordan. Its influence was minimal, its origin not properly clarified, and so he is not included in “Asil-Iranian” pedigrees.
Aegian Rooz *1966 and several mares came from the USA. Their influence is unmistakable in the improvement of type, but they and their descendants are not recognized as Asil-Iranians either.
From Germany came Mobarak *1989, an Egyptian Arabian whom Mary Garaghozlou received as a gift from Dr. Nagel. He was very influential, but he and his descendants are not recognized as Asil Iranians. Many of his descendants show the clear influence of the Egyptian through finer legs, changed conformation and increase in type.

In the last 5-10 years around 700 show horses and race horses have been imported into Iran. All of them are of course not recognized as Asil-Iranians, but they still pose a threat to the gene pool, because Asil-mares are crossed with show horse stallions, and then the foal crop is lost for the Asil-Iranian population.

Exports to Europe

In 1979 Gustl Eutermoser and Ulrike Marcik imported some horses from Iran for their Schiefferegg stud in Austria. That was probably the largest export to the West in the last century. There were a total of two stallions and nine mares. Since 1983, the Schieferegg stud has been located on Finca la Cañada del Robledo in Spain, an estate in Andalusia. There are currently 50 horses, which go back to Iranian / Egyptian lines, and a pure Iranian mare.

Last year, a stallion came to Europe from Iran by chance to take part in a HARC race: Ganj Beik (Shahad Mir Yazd / Yaghout Lorestan) * 2010. Unfortunately, he was injured, so he couldn’t start the race and was stranded here. Therefore, he was used at stud at Robledo in 2019 – as far as I know, the first “Iranian” blood refreshment in around 50 years.
In Holland Brigitte Kilian has Iranian / Egyptian lines with the two mares
• Wadnan-Soraya (Hadban-Mokhtar / DB Montasirah) * 2013 and her daughter
• Wadni-Souheyli (by Maarena Satins Image (SBE)) * 2018.
Hanneke van Scheltinga bought the mare Aanis Al Saltaneh from Mary Gharagozlou. This mare had two daughters:
• Negine (by Inta) * 1992 – with daughter Khashan (by Jallad) * 2003 without offspring.
• Lajevard Al-Rockebestan (by Haddad) * 1989 with daughter Katayoun (by Moshai) * 2001 without offspring
In Austria, Dr. Mauritsch has the Iranian-Egyptian mare
• Jima (Jallad / Bint Jezabel) * 1999 – without offspring.

The Situation in Iran today

The Iranian Asil Association (IAA) is responsible for supervising the gene pool according to Iranian standards, i.e. no crossing of horses from outside, not even from Egyptians. This has led to a lot of discussion because Mobarak’s blood is widespread.
The IAA now organizes shows (based on the model of a breed show), riding classes and races. The races qualify as HARC races, but it is difficult to find sponsors. The economic situation is currently catastrophic for the breeders, but horses like Ganj Beik and the recognition of the Asil-Iranians as “Asil-Arabians” by the Asil-Club give them hope that this might lead to further interest in their horses.
Gudrun Waiditschka