Bogdan von Zientarski (1884-958) — photo below by Carl Raswan — was the manager of the Gumniska stud farm for Prince Roman Sanguszko from 1927 to 1944. In 1931, Sanguszko sent him and Carl Raswan on a shopping trip to Arabia to buy original Arabian horses. They came back with four mares and four stallions. The stallions — Kuhailan Haifi, Kuhailan Zaid, Kuhailan Kruszan, and Kuhailan Afas left a strong imprint on Arabian horse breeding in Poland, and from there on, Europe and the rest of the world. The mares disappeared in the mayhem of World War II, leaving little or no trace.
In the course of their Arabian trip, Zientarski and Raswan visited Bahrain and saw the stud of the ruler, Sh. Hamad Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa (ruled 1925-1942). They liked and bought a colt, the future Kuhailan Afas (photo below as a yearling), the pedigree of which I translated here. They also saw the colt’s sire, a herd stallion about which Zientarski wrote:
“We went out in the courtyard to look at the horses. There were 43 of them. In general, beautiful, noble animals of great lines, mainly beautiful heads … I learn that the colts are sired by the bay, 10-year old Kuhailan Wadnan stallion with splendid legs, ruined by hobbles and bad shoeing, with a rather large head but with all characteristics of noble descent, a good croup, and excellent high carried tail…a bay yearling, out of the Kuhailat Afas mare by the Kuhailan Wadnan stallion, seems to be very good; I buy him after a long bargain…”
In my view, this bay Kuhailan Wadnan stallion, ten years old in 1931, so born around 1920, is the same horse as the bay Wadnan (alt. spelling Wadhnaan, Wathnan) that appears in the chart below featuring the basic stallions used by the Amiri stud over the 20th century. The same chart appears in Volume 1 of the Amiri Arabian Studbook. In both charts, the Wadnan stallion is the sire of the maternal grandsire of the three Jellaby stallions at the core of modern Bahraini breeding.
In another document, a letter (below) from Danah Al Khalifa to Jens Sannek listing the horses in the extended pedigree of her stallion Sarhan (Maanaghy Al Saghir x Sitah d.b.) that was imported to Austria, the Wadnaan stallion appears as the direct grandsire of the three Jellaby stallions. Whatever the case, this means that he is represented in the pedigree of pretty much every Bahraini horse alive today. Both this letter and the Amiri Studbook refers to this horse as Wadhnaan Alasday (the “dark bay Wadhnaan), and gives him the number 511.
The Wadnan of the chart above is known as “Shaykh Abdulla bin Isa’s favorite mount”. Shaykh Abdullah bint Isa was the brother of Sh. Hamad bin Isa, the ruler of Bahrain during Zientarski’s 1931 visit. There is even a well-known photo of him riding the Wadnan stallion, below.
All this to say that the sire of the Polish import Kuhailan Afas is very likely to be present in all Bahraini modern pedigrees through his grandsons Jellaby Al Wasmiya and Jellaby Al Sakhir and many other mares and stallions. Almost everything matches: the date, the coat color, the rare Wadnan strain, and the status as a herd stallion. The small number of stallions the stud maintained at the time further increases this likelihood. I doubt that the ruler maintained two bay Wadnan stallions of the same age at the same time.
Now I write “almost” because what does not totally match is the pedigree for Wadnan. The chart above has him as the son of the First Old Speckled Jellaby, himself son of a Shawaf (Felhan al Shawaf), while the pedigree of Kuhailan Afas in the Qatar Digital Library has him directly by a Kuhaylan Shawaf, so skipping a generation. I am inclined to believe the 1931 Raswan/Zientarski pedigree on this one, because it’s closer to the facts than a chart from the 1990s.
