From our Arieana Notebook:
Bint Helwa and her influence is at the very heart and
soul of all the foundation bloodstock of Arieana Arabians.
A (nearly) full sister in blood to Mesaoud, Bint Helwa is on the
line of tail female descends through her daughter *Ghazala for both
Haapey Pico
and Gleeful Pico, the two foundation
mares for Arieana Arabians, in addition to
Bint Helwa's numerous counts of mid-pedigree dam line
influence for Arieana's two precious foundation mares.
I hope you will
enjoy this excerpt from Spencer Borden's writings to more fully understand why we cherish
Bint Helwa's influence for the beauty, the courage, the endurance,
and the soundness she herself
possessed and has passed down to us through her son Harb
and her daughters
*Ghazala and Hilmyeh, and we quote:
When visiting this stud (Crabbet Park/cp) in September 1905, the writer
[Borden] had first one and then another particularly attractive animal pointed out as
the offspring of "the broken-legged mare". Finally he asked "What is the
broken-legged mare, and where is she?" "You shall see," said Lady Anne
Blunt, leading the way to a box stall, of which Bint Helwa was the sole
occupant. Here we saw a broken-legged mare sure enough. Were it not for
her injury she is such a beauty, pure white, with a head such as Schreyer
would seek as a model! But, her off fore leg! This was broken between the
knee and shoulder so that it wobbled loosely. Her shoulder was also broken,
and the gentle creature stands always on three legs, the fourth can support
no weight, the toe just touches the ground, and when she would move about
the mare rears a bit, hops around with the good front leg, dragging the poor
useless member. The exclamation was spontaneous, "For heaven's sake how
long has that mare been in that condition?" "Oh, for eight years" answered
Lady Blunt. Then she told the story ~
'Bint Helwa had come from the Egyptian stud [Sheykh Obeyd] with two other
mares [Johara and Fulana] and
the three turned to pasture together on arrival in England. In the evening
the other two came up to the stables but Bint Helwa was missing. On
searching, she was found in a ditch. She had jumped the enclosing fence of
the pasture, landed in the ditch so that her leg and shoulder were terribly
broken, and the other mares following had jumped on top of her, breaking two
of her ribs. As she was within six weeks of foaling it was decided not to
destroy her, but take her to the stable and try to save the foal.
The mare was gotten out on to a drag, pulled as gently as possibly to
her box stall, suspended in slings, and cooling applications made to the
injured parts. The breaks were too extensive to knit, but such was the
soundness of her health and constitution that the days passed and no rise in
her temperature ensued. When the day came for her foal to be born, she was
lowered gently in the stall, the little one came into the world all right,
and since that time the mare has bred seven perfect foals. Now in 1906,
the broken-legged mare is 19 years old and she is due to foal this
spring."
Sadly this beautiful chestnut filly by Mesaoud mentioned in Spencer
Borden's story above died as a yearling, but Bint
Helwa's several other foals played significant roles in carrying
forth the Crabbet Stud's foundation bloodlines and appear in the
pedigree of our rising star Haat Pursuit
(Blitzen of Pico x Gleeful
Pico).
In addition to her daughter *Ghazala's
dynastic dam line strength and influence, both at Arieana
Arabians and world-wide, Bint Helwa's Mesaoud son
Harb sired *Rodan, and Bint
Helwa's daughters Hilmyeh by
Ahmar and Hamasa
by Mesaoud founded strong
international dam lines. You can trace her daughter Hilmyeh's branch mid-pedigree
in our Arieana bloodstock through *Hamida
to Surrab, the dam of Abu Baha. Of special interest is that Bint Helwa was the
only Blunt foundation mare other than Rodania to have three
line-founding daughters, but Rodania does not
actually breed on through a son as Bint Helwa
does through her son Harb. The
Bint Helwa dam line eventually and regretfully died
out at Crabbet in 1918, though in later years it was returned to
England through two mares descending from the Bint Helwa
granddaughter Gulnare.
Source of quotation:
Borden, Spencer. The Arab Horse. Doubleday, Page
& Company, New York, New York. 1906. pp. 60-63.
More information on the founding of The Crabbet Stud and Bint
Helwa's role as a foundation mare for Wilfrid and Lady Anne
Blunt can be readily found through our website's links to
other CMK Articles on the
Internet.
Suggested hard copy reading for further study
includes:
Archer, Rosemary and Colin Pearson with Cecil Covey, The Crabbet Arabian
Stud. Alexander Heriot & Co. Ltd., Glouchestershire,
Great Britain. 1978 (revised 1994).
Forbis, Judith, The Classic Arabian Horse. Liveright,
New York, New York. 1976.
Mulder, Carol
June Woodbridge. Imported Foundation Stock of North American
Arabian Horses, Volume 2 (revised edition). Borden
Publishing Company, Los Angeles, California. 1993. pp. 272-274.
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