Crabbet Arabian Horses
By Emma Bennett. One of the nicest aspects of the Painswick Lodge Stud is that after the death of Margaret Murray in 1967, several members of her family continued to breed from her bloodlines: her daughter, Iona Bowring, from the families of Gleaming Gold and Farette; her son and daughter-in-law, Pat and Caroline Murray, through Fari II and Gleaming Gold; and her niece, the Countess Lewenhaupt, through Rifari in Sweden.
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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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From the Crabbet Convention Organisation. Continuing the series begun in the March issue we feature this month the most famous mare of the great RODANIA female line – RISSLA. RODANIA was a celebrated mare in Arabia and the Blunts first heard of her on a journey through the Nefud two years before they saw and bought her. Lady Anne Blunt described her as “having extraordinary strength and style of going” and the mare had been so much sought after that she became the object of a feud between the Sheykh of the Roala and his kinsmen.
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