ECAHS Learning Center

The following two talks are from the 2006 Al-Marah Winter Forum, held at Al-Marah Arabians in Tucson, AZ, November 10 – 13, 2006, and are printed here with the permission of the Speaker, Mrs. Bazy Tankersley.

About the Speaker

Bazy Tankersley, affectionately referred to as Mrs. T by staff and employees also known as the "Mother of Al‑Marah" has been breeding Arabian Horses since 1939.

Mrs. T bought her first Arabian horse in 1940. She studied genetics in college and founded her breeding program on stock from the Crabbet Arabian Stud. The Crabbet horses came directly from Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian studs of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sherif.

In the 1950's Mrs. T was a leader in getting classes for Arabian horses in open shows and was an organizer of three different Arabian horse clubs across the United States.

In 1956, Mrs. T founded the Arabian Horse Owners Foundation, a non‑profit foundation dedicated to meeting unmet needs including; educational seminars; the first Arabian racing in the United States; the first museum to house an extensive Arabian library and collection of historic memorabilia; educating judges and reproduction of written and pictorial materials, etc.

In 1957 she made the largest single importation of Arabian horses when she purchased stock from the Crabbet and Hanstead Studs in England upon the death of the owners Lady Wentworth and Miss Yule. Also in 1957 Mrs. T was appointed trustee of the Arabian Horse Owners Foundation and served as its president in 1975, 1976 and 1991. She has been a founding member of several Arabian Horse Associations.

Throughout the years Mrs. T has maintained a stud of about 200 horses. The Arabian Horse Registry of America records more than 2,524 purebred foals from Mrs. T's own breeding program. She was a judge for a number of years and still lectures on conformation, bloodlines
and Arabian history. She has also served as Chairman of the Horse Advisory Council for the University of Maryland.

Mrs. T has a keen interest in young people and established the first Arabian Horse Apprentice Program at Al‑Marah Arabians. Her interest in young people led to the development of the current program, and first such program in the country, approved by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training. This combination of youth and Arabian Horses is a highlight of her involvement.

MY PROGRAM ‑ WHAT AL‑MARAH IS

You people and I are among the luckiest people in the world. We share a passion for the Arabian horse. My godmother, Margaret Blake, was a wise and wonderful woman. She was the first woman to be on the Board of the Chicago Art Institute, had a passion for the drawings of the old masters and invested everything she had in vending machines when they first came out which made her rich enough to buy drawings for the Art Institute. One time she wrote me about her passion and she said "Mine is for the drawings of the old masters, yours is for the Arabian horse. What matters is the passion no matter what its object".

Being thus fortunate has made me feel an obligation to be true to that passion and that has engendered some principles on which Al‑Marah is founded:

1) Never settle for second best. This kept me from buying a stallion for many years until I found my ideal in Indraff.

2) Learn from successful breeders. I was fortunate to be born at a time when the prominent breeders had grown up before the automobile and were therefore true horsemen. They had the Ferraris, Jaguars and Rolls Royce's of the horse world because they knew horses, knew the value of feet and legs, knew that Arabian characteristics were unique and should never be compromised, knew that the temperament was one of the glories of the breed and should be preserved. When I was a teenager I wrote to W.R. Brown to ask him what to look for in Arabian horses and he wrote me a handwritten note back saying, "The head is the hallmark of the breed".

3) Have a plan. Select carefully foundation stock and even more carefully what you add to it. Be true to your vision.

4) Study genetics. You cannot be a breeder without this tool. It is not as complicated as you might think and there is much available material.

5) Cull your herd as if you were culling somebody else's. This means not to make excuses for mistakes but to eradicate them by culling what doesn't meet the standard. I would venture to say that the majority of good breeders scrapped a lot of their initial stock and virtually started over when they realized they did not have an adequate plan or enough quality in their foundation stock.

It is important to work closely with other breeders. We are all one tribe and we all want to leave the breed better than we found it so we must help each other.

PLANNING YOUR BREEDING PROGRAM

This is not for those of you who are already successful breeders, and there are a number here. From you I'm hoping just to get some nodding heads although perhaps a few will shake their heads as we all have a somewhat different approach to planning a breeding program. I am primarily addressing those who have started a breeding program in recent years, even if it is just with a starter mare, and for those of you who are contemplating a breeding program. Remember one mare is sufficient and all of the below will apply to her. I want to make a disclaimer here that what I'm about to say applies to those who want to have successful programs as far as acceptance from the public is concerned and those who hope to leave horses that contribute to the future of the Arabian in the United States. But there is nothing wrong with somebody who has a couple of sweet mares and who likes to have a foal every year or so just for the pleasure of raising a baby. The only criteria there is that they be sweet tempered.

The first thing I want to say to the ones whom I'm primarily addressing, is that if you have already started and you learn more that makes you rethink what you have done, it's no disgrace to start over. Either keep your first horses as pets and don't breed them or find them good homes and pull up your socks and start over. I was one of those people.

The first mare I bought I did not plan to keep. I bought her because she was phenomenally comfortable to ride and I wanted my mother, who had a bad back, to get sold on Arabians for our ranch. (She never got on the mare.) Then I bought two almost pure‑within‑the‑strain Kuhaylans on the recommendation of Carl Raswan and I also bought a gorgeous mare, Selfra, who I loved to pieces, from Van Vleet Arabians in Colorado. She did have slightly sickle hocks and a longish back, however her front end was glorious with an exquisite head and eye and she had beautiful feminine overall presence. The point I want to make is that none of the blood from those four mares is in my herd today. (Beautiful Selfra would have been had the stallion I kept from her not been stolen.)

In the living pedigree demonstration Sunday morning, you will see great great grandchildren of the mares that became the foundation mares of Al‑Marah. There were times when we made infusions of other blood, but the apples did not fall far from the tree, as all were rich in the blood of the Blunt/Crabbet mares I admired the most. My founding bloodlines descended from the mares, Rodania, Dagania, Sobha but most particularly, Rodania, who still has tremendous influence in the herd today because of the multiple crosses to her in my foundation stock. And, of course, the stallions, Mesaoud and Skowronek.

It was 2 years after I had purchased these first mares that I found Indraff (that story later). He had four crosses to Rodania, was a grandson and great grandson of Skowronek and had multiple crosses to Mesaoud.

I then set about finding more mares worthier of him and seeking out which bloodlines would nick with him the best.

Through my study of genetics in college and subsequently from studying successful cattle and dog breeding programs, I'd become convinced that the way I wanted to go was to have one line-bred line to cross with a second line-bred line, which was not too dissimilar. One would have strongly the weaknesses of the other and vice‑a-versa.

If you feel like I, that you need to start over, think about the above plan.

Let me share what I learned during those years. If you have already started breeding, first off take a good hard look at what you have and maybe call in an experienced breeder, whose program you admire, to help you assess your stock. Adjust! If there are less worthy animals that you love, by all means keep them for love but don't breed them. You can’t afford to use second rate horses. Maybe you can keep the best and initiate an up‑grading program, but this is slow and you may be ahead to bite the bullet and start over. This is the shortest and best way.

If you need to re-vamp or are just starting out, visit some farms where you have seen horses that you like. I'm a big believer that everybody has their own particular taste in horses and it's very gratifying to me when people select a branch of Al‑Marah horses and concentrate on those so that they are creating their own particular blend. Study, study and study pedigrees. But remember, if a horse is a great grandson of some prominent horse that doesn't mean a thing. What you want is a pedigree where ALL the individuals have merit and have proven that they nick. Only then will you get predictably good foals. How often I have heard someone say proudly I have a Bask or a Witez II or a Padron or whatever is their stallion hero. Come to find out it is a great grandson and all the rest of the pedigree is a hodgepodge. This is not worthy breeding stock!

Unless you plan to be a big farm, don't own a stallion. A worthwhile stallion, as good as you could breed to on somebody else's farm, is going to cost at least $50,000 to $100,000 and within 3 years you'll have to have another one to breed to his daughters. And it is hard enough to find available really superior proven broodmares and not all of them would do their best bred to your stallion. Keep the option to breed to several stallions.

There is nothing like proven performance to help guide you which is why I say buy a proven broodmare and a maiden filly.

In summation, you want quality over quantity every time. If you can only afford one first class mare, buy her rather than two or three moderately priced mediocre ones. Don't be afraid to buy older mares who are well proven. You can usually get them at a reasonable price and, even if you only get two or three foals out of them, those foals could be the foundation of your program. And go for consistency. It pleases me that all of us at AlMarah have a hard time telling, for instance, the Dreamazon or the Good Oldboy daughters apart. Once, when Lee Bolles was Al‑Marah Manager, he went out to the pasture to bring in one of the Selfra‑Indraff daughters to breed her. They were all super sweet natured, like their mother, so when he put the halter on the mare he hopped up on her back and rode her in only to realize, when he got to the barn, that he had brought in a full sister to the one he went for and it was one that had not been broken, or at least not until five minutes before.

Most of you are likely to be small breeders. This doesn't mean you can't breed top quality, every bit as good as the big farms.

Happy hunting!