EVOKING ADMIRATION
Carmel and Simeon Sarah (dec) Photograph G Egan
Lately, life has turned a little crazy. Not only am I drafting my next novel but I’ve promised myself that I will learn to update my author website myself. To slow my overactive mind I’ve been going through the fabulous stories and legends associated with Arabian horses. One I truly loved is The Sixth Sense of the Arabian mare. I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this before but for any who have not read the words previously it’s well worth putting up again.
When it comes to the Arabian horse it appears the demands of show ring success and competition carries an enormous amount of weight when it comes to the assessment of the Arabian horse’s value. So I ask a long discussed question. Does the art of showmanship take the place of natural beauty?
The connection between people and horses is a touching one but this beautiful legend illustrates so clearly the gift we have in the Arabian horse.
Every breeder should know these legends; but often the reality of day to day life can shift motivation and alter early goals. While we all love the beauty of the Arabian, and I watch with curiosity as this obsession with extreme beauty continues to gain momentum. Just like a runaway train, the father of most man made horse breeds continues to be labelled as an unmanageable, flighty creature owned mostly by people who cannot ride and are only interested in running their horses around a show ring.
Stavs Sorsha (Simeon Stav x Simeon Shaina)
While many of us who own Arabians know this is not altogether true, it’s this perceived idea, which does the most damage. The saddest thing being many discussed topics have been bandied around with no conclusion for as long as I can remember.
We began breeding purebred Arabian horses in 1975 and most of the topics discussed now were discussed then, and they continued to be debated during all the time in between. We retired from breeding within the last few years.
Stavs Sorsha
As for a solution, taking responsibility and adding some common sense could be a start. Look at the breed honestly through the eyes of an outsider and not as a person who participates in perpetuating a widely held but false belief. Let’s face it we only have to watch the news each night to understand the state of the human psyche. I wish one didn’t have to keep battering an already bruised head against a brick wall. These days I shrug my shoulders turn off the television and refuse to invest my already battered concern for a breed I love and simply plot my next book! Book world problems are much, much easier to solve.
Mind you, the one fact any Arabian horse owner knows and that’s how uniquely responsive and sensitive the Arabian horse is to his owner, if he’s allowed to be man’s friend.
In the end, life is to be lived but it does require our very best. Once you’ve experienced life with horses you would never settle for anything less. Enjoy this lovely legend, enjoy your horses and remember that the Arabian breed symbolises all that the word beauty represents. A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.
The sixth sense of the Arabian mare
Pearsons Valeeah (Simeon Stav x Pearsons Vogue)
The wild mare of Arabia was the ultimate achievement of nature. According to the Bedouin she was a mature and perfect creature with the gift of an intelligent spirit. This gift was bestowed upon the mare of Ishmael along with an intuitive soul to dwell within her beautiful, strong, and symmetrical body. The psychic powers of her animal spirit were gifts of God, just as her conscious mind developed through her intimate human association.
The Arab’s believed that psychic power is never transmitted through stallions, though they posses it as much as the mares.An Arabian sire communicates physical qualities and nervous energies, but never the elements of mind and soul, which are outside the domain of physical laws. The elements of mind and soul were a spiritual gift to the first mare – Ishmael’s mare – who, the Arab’s insist, was not only special, but a twofold creation of God.
She was brought into existence with an image of herself in her womb: a son who was only to serve later as a means of helping to reproduce her semblance on this earth. A perfectly developed male was born in Ishmael’s tent in the morning of her creation in the desert. For this mystical reason, the mare is always considered supremely important among the Bedouins. A stallion can only take secondary place.
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