Tag: Nasik

Ben Rabba: An Exceptional Influence on the British Arabian

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By Alexia Ross. Ben Rabba’s visible debt to the Nasik son Rifnas appealed to many of the breeders of Crabbet lines at the time. It reintroduced a factor for extreme shoulder and front structure that was hard to find within the surviving Crabbet gene pool in the UK. Less obvious to the English eye was his debt to other early American influences, notably the Davenport importation. It is to this influence that Ben Rabba owed his good hindquarter and exceptionally well muscled loin, the latter a trait often overlooked by Arabian breeders for the show ring but essential to genuine athleticism in any horse of any breed.

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Risslina (Rafeef x Rissla) 1926 chestnut mare. Photo from the Crabbet Arabians by Cecil Covey.

Margaret Murray and the Painswick Lodge Stud: Part 1, 1932-1967

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By Emma Bennett. Perhaps the inspiration to own and breed Arabs came from Margaret Murray seeing her mother drive a pair of South African Arabs in a phaeton, for in 1932 she bought a grey two-year-old colt from Mr. T.C. Armitage’s stud at Taunton in Somerset. This colt was Sahban, by *Aldebar 1864 (bred by the Prince of Wales) out of the Crabbet mare, Seriya (Skowronek x Somra). Sahban was the start of a long friendship between Margaret Murray and Tom Armitage who was president of the Arab Horse Society three times. Sabhan was used mainly on pony and Thoroughbred mares and only sired a few purebred foals as at that time Arabs were used mainly to improve other types of horses.

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