by H.H. Reese, originally published in the Arab Horse Journal February 1963.
William Robinson Brown was one of three sons who inherited the Brown Paper Company which had headquarters at Berlin, New Hampshire. This company owned a great amount of timberland in New Hampshire and W.R. had the responsibility of supervising the management of this vast acreage.
In his very early days he received a splendid education which culminated with his graduation from Harvard. The Brown family evidently had an inborn love for horses as one brother had hunters and another had registered American Saddle Horses.
What a fortunate thing it was for the Arabian horse that W.R. took a liking to Arabians. He started with a few that the whole family rode and this led to the desire to get into the breeding of these beautiful and useful horses so it was not long until he acquired more stock and began breeding operations under the name of the Maynesboro Stud (Crabbet.com annotation: Maynesboro Stud is the 'M' in CMK breeding).
With ample pasture land and a rugged climate this enterprise had a fine chance to succeed with an owner who had finances, education and a family to assist him.
W.R. Brown imported eighteen Arabs from Crabbet Park and two of similar bloodlines from S.G. Hough. Some of the Borden horses obtained from the Crabbet Park Stud and whose descendants were featured at Maynesboro, are: *Rose of Sharon, *Hauran, *Ghazala (bred in Egypt, imported to England by Lady Anne Blunt), and *Rodan, and from the Hon. Miss Dillon: *Imamzada and *Nessa. Among the notable Crabbet horses obtained by W.R. Brown himself in 1918 and 1919 were: *Berk, *Battla, *Rijma, *Ramla, *Ramim, *Rokhsa, *Hazna, *Simawa, *Felestin and Rizvan.
In 1921 he imported three mares and a filly from France, the most well-known being *Kola and *Balkis II.
Four mares and two stallions were imported by Maynesboro from the stud Prince Mohamed Aly in Egypt in 1932, but were sold shortly afterward when the Maynesboro Stud was dissolved. These were *Nasr, *Zarife, *Aziza, *Roda, H.H. Mohamed Aly's Hamama and Hamida.
Stallions pictured or featured in Maynesboro's 1927 catalogue include *Abu Zeyd, *Rizvan, *Rodan, Rehal, Khaled, Gulastra and Ghazi. Mares and fillies were: *Rijma, *Rokhsa, Rabiyat, Raaf, *Ramim, *Kola, Fadih, Fath, Bazrah, Babirah, Guemura, Gulnare, Ghalib, Roshana, Rayik, Raad, Nusara, Nabih, Larkspur, Niht, Nek, *Hazna, Ghazayat, *Simawa, and Matih.
The 1932 catalogue added the stallions Bazleyd, Nusi and Rahas; and the mares and fillies: Raun, Rabk, Rajih, Nadirat, Bazikh, Bazrush (changed to Hurzab), Bakor, Ghanigat, Gharifet, Ghalib, and Ghazawi.
All of the Maynesboro Arabians were 'double-registered' in both the Arabian Horse Club studbook and the American Stud Book of the Jockey Club. This was especially desirable in the early days when so many of the stallions from this establishment were purchased by the Remount and their get from Thoroughbred mares could be registered by the Jockey Club.
This paragraph was given in the catalogue explaining the registration situation;
As the English Thoroughbred horse was largely derived from Arabian and kindred bloods, Kehilan Arabians are registerable in the General Stud Book of England, if they are the offspring of a formerly registered sire and dam, and in the General Stud Book of France and some other countries if accompanied with proper certificates of breeding, export, import, identification and other papers."
According to the Maynesboro catalog, foundation stock was secured from the following sources:
From importations to England by Mr. Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt (a granddaughter of Lord Byron), as a result of two journeys into Arabia in 1878 and 1885, undertaken by them for the purpose of securing all possible information concerning the origin, home and strains of the best Arabian blood and to secure the finest mares and stallions obtainable.
The results of their scholarly researches and success in obtaining the choicest blood have been described by Lady Anne in her two books 'A Pilgrimage to Nejd' and 'The Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates'.
They have also purchased from the Kedive Ali Pasha Sherif and brought to England the last remaining blood of the famous Sheykh Obeyd Stud, collected in Cairo by a great enthusiast, the late Abbas Pasha I, former Kedive of Egypt."
From importations to England by certain English gentlemen with the interest of the turf at heart, of a few celebrated Arabian race horses from Arabia and India. One such expedition which secured horses direcy from Arabia being described by Maj. Roger D. Upton in his books 'Newmarket and Arabia' and 'Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia'."
Much of the above English stock coming to America through importations made by the late Randolph Huntington, the late Homer Davenport, the late Col. Spencer Borden, the late Ex. Gov. F. Lathrop Ames of Massachusetts, and William Robinson Brown, the owner of Maynesboro Stud, and others."
From a Kehilan Arabian mare called Nejdme, exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893."
The English import referred to in the foregoing as made by Homer Davenport was *Abu Zeyd, a very beautiful stallion by Mesaoud which became the Maynesboro's premier sire.
All Maynesboro Arabians are registered in the Arabian section of the American Stud Book, Jockey Club, New York City, where they remain until they are bred to English Thoroughbreds, when the offspring called Anglo-Arabs automatically enter the English Thoroughbred section.
As registered in the American Stud Book, Kehilan Arabians pass duty free from one country to another for the improvement of stock, and can be introduced under a certain number of top crosses in the American Saddle Horse registration and in the registration of some other breeds.
The term 'Kehilan' as used in the foregoing is in the correct sense, meaning 'purebred', as distinguished from the strain Kehilan-Ajuz.
A rather unusual instance of 'double-registration' of one of the early Maynesboro animals (one line only, through the mare Matih) was the acceptance of this mare by the Jockey Club, since that organization had refused to register any of the Davenport desertbreds yet registered Matih even though her great grandsire was *Euphrates, one of the group imported by Davenport in 1906 direct from the desert.
As a Remount agent, W.R. Brown stood other stallions than his own at times. Two of these were among the most valuable of early-day Arabians, *Rodan and *Astraled. The latter sired only five purebreds in this country, three of them, including Gulastra, when he was at Maynesboro and then twenty-three years old. He died the same year.
He had spent four years of his life in this country in the state of Washington, was donated to the Remount in 1920, but it was not until after 1922 that Mr. Brown was able to acquire him.
As a member of the Remount Board, W.R. Brown was especially interested in promoting the Arabian as the ideal sire for producing cavalry horses, and one of the methods he used to bring this idea home was through endurance rides. Maynesboro Arabians and half-Arabians won many of these tests.
The first was the Morgan Horse Club Endurance Test, 154 miles, with 9 entries, Morgans and Arabians, held in 1913 in Vermont. First was Maynesboro's Anglo-Arab mare Halcyon, carrying 180 lbs, in 30 hours 40 minutes.
Second was the Morgan Ethan; third and Arabian stallion Yaquis, carrying 160 lbs; fourth was *Rodan, of Maynesboro, carrying 160 lbs, in 30 hours 40 minutes. His time was equal to that of Halcyon, but he carried less weight so did not score as high.
The endurance rides which brought real fame to the Arabian were the Endurance Test for the U.S. Mounted Service Cup, in 1910-1920, 1921, 1922 and 1923. The first, with fourteen entries was won by Maynesboro's *Ramla, covering the 306 miles in five days at sixty miles per day in 51 hours, 26 minutes, carrying 200 lbs.
The 1920 event brought only a second and a fifth by Maynesboro, out of 28 entries, all breeds, but 1921 saw this stud take first, third and fifth, the stocking-legged, blaze-faced chestnut gelding *Crabbet winning top honors. He carried 245 lbs over the five day 310 mile course, in the time of 49 hours, 4 minutes, and was the best in condition of the six horses finishing.
Seventeen, of all breeds, had started. In 1922 Maynesboro had pure Arabs entered but came in fourth with a Thoroughbred-Standardbred cross and in 1923 again won, with the Anglo-Arab Gouya in 45 hours flat for the 300 miles, carrying 225 lbs.
The results of these official endurance rides were written up by the Yearbook of Agriculture, showing that of the nine highest-rated classifications competing, Arabs and grade Arabs furnished the highest percentage of horses finishing, and had the lowest percentage of leg trouble.
All horses regardless of size, carried the same weight, and the pure Arabs carried over 25 percent of their own weight.
As an amusing sidelight to these rides, one of the cowboys who rode for Mr. Brown remarked that he had "ridden sixty miles a day lots of times, but this was the first time he ever rode sixty measured miles".
Also these hardened cowboys were astounded to see the grey-bearded Albert W. Harris enter the test on one of the Arabs, saying they were sure he would never make it to the finish line the first day, then had to eat their words as well as Ramla's dust when Mr. Harris won the Ride (1919). One of these cowboys was Jack Humphrey, who won the 1921 Ride on *Crabbet.
When the Maynesboro Stud won permanent possession of the Mounted Service Cup by three wins, Arabian owners decided the contest was too lop-sided in their favor, since Endurance was an Arabian forte, so they decided not to compete in further such rides in order to give the Army a chance to win the Cup, which it did in three successive times with no Arab competition.
However although no Arab breeder entered in these later rides, the Remount stallion El Sabok, ridden by Norman Harris, finished first in flat time, but because of a welt on his back he was not 'in the money'. El Sabok is the only stallion of any breed to ever finish one of these Official Rides.
Norman Harris is the son of Albert W. Harris and a director of the Arabian Horse Club registry as well as an Arabian breeder.
The writer went to the Maynesboro Stud with Mr. W.K. Kellogg in 1927...went again in 1933...and secured several mares and fillies for the Kellogg Ranch. On a third trip we secured such famous mares as Rabiyat, Roshana, Rayik and Ghazayat.
Rabiyat was in foal to Brown's stallion Rahas at the time of purchase, producing the Kellogg stallion Rabiyas. Shipped in the same car were other Maynesboro horses of the dispersal, these being the stallions Rahas and Ghazi, and a few mares, that went to the W.R. Hearst Ranch at San Simeon, California.
So this good Arabian blood was preserved by these two California breeding establishments and in the case of the Kellogg Ranch is still being bred with much success under the present management The California State Polytechnic College on the site of the old W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch near Pomona, California.
W.R. Brown was elected president of the Arabian Horse Club of America in 1925 and held that post for several years. Secretary of the Club in this same period was H.S. Gregory who was also Brown's secretary with the Brown Paper Company. When they resigned in 1939 the following was written in the Club records:
Mr. Brown's keen interest in maintaining the integrity of the registry and his refusal to allow the Club to keep half-bred and cross-bred registries, as other Arab associations have always done, together with his insistence that the Club take no part in anything but the purebred Arab horse, are responsible for the high standards our Club has maintained and the confidence the breeders have in the registry.
After the many years which Mr. Brown and Mr. Gregory have served the Club, it was with regret the resignations were accepted. It is appropriate at this time to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution of Mr. Brown to this organization and to record his unparalleled service to Arabian horse breeding in the United States.
At a time when most prominent early breeders were passing out of the picture and the affairs of the organization were at a low ebb, Mr. Brown undertook the presidency of the Club."
Mr. Brown assembled by purchase at home and abroad foundation stock of unsurpassed quality. He developed a stud of international importance that will be a strong influence in Arab horse breeding in the United States for all time."
By careful judgement and thorough preparation he competed in the United States Army Endurance Tests with such success as to re-establish the peerless reputation of the Arabian horse for endurance."
It is to Mr. Brown's sterling qualities of foresight, tenacity, and loyalty to his ideals, that the members of the Arabian Horse Club pay their respects."
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