Sired by Nakashy - desert-bred (disputed strain, see notes in bio)
Out of Sada al Toga - desert-bred (also disputed strain, see notes in bio)
AHR #1
1887 Grey Arabian
Historical Mare, Deceased 1914 (age 27)
Bred by Hedje Memmed (Hajj Muhammad of Damascus, Syria - aka Hadji Hassan)
Imported to the US at age 6 for the Ottoman Empire Hamidie Hippodrome Society exhibit in the 1893 Chicago World Fair's "Wild East" performance. Purchased by C. Kindorf of Chicago, Illinois, for $1200, the highest winning bid at the Tattersalls dispersal sale of the Hamidie Society horses. Later owned by J.A.P. Ramsdell of Newbergh, New York, and then Homer Davenport of Davenport’s Desert Arabian Stud, Morris Plains, New Jersey.
100% Hamidie ancestral element - CMK, Early American, Al Khamsa, Blue Star
🐎 Biography
Fun note before getting started - her name, *Nejdme, is one of the many ways to say 'Star'.
All who knew *Nejdme considered her to be the best of the 40 horses brought over to the US for the Chicago World's Fair exhibition. She was sold in 1894 to C. Kindorf, then J.A.P. Ramsdell. Homer Davenport purchased her in 1909.
He [J.A.P. Ramsdell] also secured a white mare from an Arab Sheik who brought her to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. Her breeding is not known, and she lacks registration; yet Nejme bears every indication of being a high caste Arab mare." Peter Upton, Arab Horses in America, p.87
J.A.P. Ramsdell describes her as follows:
Nedjme (sic) is 14.02 hands high… She is almost white, with the thinnest blue-black skin; her head is a typical Arab’s, not too small, deep through the jowl, large in the brain space, with the forehead (called by the Arabs the jibbah) well developed: her eyes are very large and set in Arab fashion, rather lower in her face than in that of our horses; around them the hair is thin and shows very perceptibly the black skin…
The skin of the eyelids, lips and nostrils is extraordinarily fine and the opening of the latter small when she is quiet, but expands splendidly when she moves. The “mitbah,” where the head joins the neck, is very gracefully cut, and she has plenty of room for the wind-pipe…
Her ears are long and thin, with a quick but not nervous movement and when forward point inward. Her neck is long and well set on, shoulders running very far back; she is well ribbed up and has to perfection the far famed carriage of the tail, it having the effect of being “thrown on,” so perfect is the arch, and carried at such height.
Her hocks are strong and large. The legs are perfect, the feet blue and rather cup-shaped.”
[Editor's Note] Nejdme's height is described as 14 ¾ hands according to p.164 in Dr. George H Conn's The Arabian Horse in America.
Another quote is from Carol W. Mulder's Imported Foundation Stock of North American Arabian Horses Volume I:
*Nejdme appears to have had a feminine, but not unusually pretty, head which displayed considerable breed character. Her neck was long and light with a fine throat and very stylish attachment of head to neck. She appears to have had good shoulders and her withers were better than average. Her hips were of good length and her croup, although not as ideally long as her hips, was level with a very high-set tail which she apparently carried well in an elegant and arched manner. From the side view her legs were good, but she may have been a bit cow-hocked behind and somewhat toed-out in front from the rear and front views. Overall, it is clear that *NEJDME was a mare of quality, pleasing and elegant appearance, and outstanding style and carriage which enables her to display, to a rare degree, natural perfection of form under saddle. *NEJDME was a good individual of strong breed type. With her many outstanding features she was, without doubt, better than many of the foundation mares of some other Arabian horse breeding countries. It is with pride that American breeders can look back to *NEJDME as the first entry in the stud book of the American Arabian Horse Registry of America, Inc. She was a worthy choice for this distinctive honor.”
For the discrepancies around her breeding/strain read this note:
According to information in two 1909 letters from J.R. Dolbony (apparently a performer with the Hamidie Society) to Homer Davenport, *Nejdme's dam was a Saqlawiyah Jidraniyah mare named "Sada el Toga" leased to Dolbony, who bred her to a Kuhaylan 'Ajuz stallion named "Nakashy," resulting in *Nejdme.
These letters are part of the National Archives file of correspondence between the officers of the AHC and the government agency responsible for approving livestock registries.
These letters were reprinted [Dirks & Dirks, 1989]. According to Baddah al Saifi, son of Fuhayd al Saifi, Shaykh of Subayah, in the Abbas Pasha manuscript [1993, p439], Sa'dah al-Tuqan is a substrain of Kuhaylan. Nakhayshi is a now-extinct strain or substrain. Both are early and rare strains. [EAD, 2005]" -*Nejdme's Al Khamsa Roster Page see also *Nejdme according to Dobolny's letters for more insight (plus Lost Asil tail females: *Nejdme and Khalil Sarkis and the Hamidie Society from the Daughters of the Wind blog by Edouard Aldahdah
*Nejdme was double registered with the Thoroughbred Jockey Club, which was fairly common for Early American Arabians.
The Arabian Horse Registry was created later (1908) than the Jockey Club's 'American Stud Book', so horses could only be registered with the TJC before then (up until 1943, when the AHRA was more established).
💗 Get/Progeny
*Nejdme (also commonly spelled Nedjme) produced 11 registered foals, 5 colts/stallions, and 6 fillies/mares. There are additional notes of one registered Anglo-Arabian, a colt, and one half-Arabian, a filly.
| NAME | AHR #/CAHR # | DOB | COLOR | GENDER |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nogali | AHR #291 | 01/01/1896 | Grey | Stallion |
| Alruna | AHR #299 | 01/01/1897 | Roan | Mare |
| Nonliker | AHR #3 | 06/01/1898 | Grey | Mare |
| Najine | AHR #10 | 05/25/1899 | Grey | Mare |
| Yaquis | AHR #11 | 01/01/1900 | Grey | Stallion |
| Natlick | AHR #322 | 01/01/1901 | Grey | Mare |
| Nanshan | AHR #13 | 01/01/1902 | Grey | Mare |
| Negus | AHR #311 | 01/01/1903 | Grey | Stallion |
| Nanda | AHR #15 | 04/04/1905 | Bay | Mare |
| Joklan | AHR #58 | 03/15/1906 | Grey | Stallion |
| Jerrede | AHR #84 | 01/01/1910 | Bay | Stallion |
Note that Alruna AHR #299 is listed as roan in the AHR datasource information but is likely to have been a sabino. Roan is not a color pattern that is genetically possible in the Arabian horse breed.
🐴 Related Articles & Resources
My most informative links are shared above in the bio section discussing the strain discrepancies.
*Nejdme Photo Gallery
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