Welcome to the latest edition of The Arabian Breeders’ Magazine. The feedback on the first edition was absolutely fantastic. I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to contact me and share their thoughts on this new direction for The Arabian Magazine Family.
Having now completed this second edition, it is clear to see that there is still so much passion about the different breeding programmes around the world. And, thankfully for us, so many people still prepared to share their immense knowledge, often built up through decades of breeding Arabian horses. If you haven’t read it yet, I would urge you to read The Breeders Interview from our first edition, and then enjoy the latest part in this compelling series in this issue. To have some of the finest breeders from around the world share their experiences and insights are, quite frankly, fascinating. I am indebted to those that have already taken part in this series, and I look forward to sharing more over the coming months and years.
There are very real concerns that breeders are growing ever smaller in number. Certainly, the days of the huge stud farms have long gone and now it is a diminishing number of private breeders that continue to follow the bloodlines that they love so much. It is the preservation breeders, especially, that are, perhaps, endangered in this modern world. There are many that breed for fashion or for a saleable horse, but to breed to a restricted bloodline – Spanish, Egyptian, Crabbet and Russian particularly – requires real dedication and perseverance. Every time such a farm closes its doors, it marks the end of another person or family that have devoted so much of their lives to the Arabian breed. And whether they bred just one horse or a hundred, we all owe them so much.
For without these preservation breeders, there would be no regular breeders. And with no regular breeders, there would be no horse shows, no geldings, no performance horses, no outcrosses with other bloodlines to add that certain ‘something’ that we all recognise and love so much in our purebreds. They all work and blend together – the breeders, the handlers, the riders, the one-horse owners – creating a magical circle that unites us in this precious Arabian world that we are all a part of. For it doesn’t matter if you are the one-horse owner, or whether you are one of the world’s biggest breeders, the reason you are reading this magazine, and why you love the Arabian horse so much, is the same – we are all intrinsically drawn to this amazing breed, and we all want to absorb as much as we can about it.
This is partly why I now have The Arabian Magazine Family. The word, family, conveys so much. For in the end, all of our breeding programmes are linked together. All of our horses are connected. They all go back to the desert – to places where now, sadly, we can only dream of seeing ourselves, walking in the footsteps of those pioneers who first went out to the desert – and it is from this small pool of horses that a vast world of different bloodlines and pedigrees has grown. I think that it is amazing to be part of such a family, and I am excited to share as much about this wonderful world with you as I can over future editions.
Wishing you all a peaceful December, and see you in the New Year.
Cover horse – Luigi (Kanz Albidayer x Lolita by Om El Bahreyn), owned by Al Shahania Stud, Qatar, and bred by Danielle Saelens, Belgium
