Saklawi horse

Saklawi (Arabic: صقلاوي, ṣaqlāwiyy), Seglawi or Siglavy in Central Europe, is one of the five mythical Arabian horse bloodlineages recognized as pure by the Bedouins, the Al Khamsa.

Selected by the Ruwallah and Anizah, two nomadic tribes of the Arabian Desert, this lineage was imported to Egypt several times in the 19th and 20th centuries, and is still bred today in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Imported to Central Europe in the early 19th century, they have influenced several other local horse breeds, in particular the Lipizzan, Shagya and Gidran.

[7] According to a chronicle written by English observers in the mid-19th century, the Bedouin Arabs hold "Saklawiyah" horses in high esteem, as it is not uncommon, when one of them is thrown off by an opposing rider, for him to exclaim "O Felan!

[9] Prince Mehemet Ali considered the Saklawi to be the bravest of Arabian horses, believing it could fight to defend its master.

[10] It seems that Abbas I Hilmi of Egypt paid a colossal sum of over £3,000 in the 1850s (representing between £289,300 and £10 million today[11]) to acquire a mare of Saglawi Jedran lineage in present-day Saudi Arabia.

[13] In general, several written sources indicate that Saklawi horses were brought to Egypt in the 19th and 20th centuries, including Ghazieh, a Ruwallah mare too weak to cross the desert, who was transported by cart to Cairo,[14] and Gamil-el-Kebir, ancestor of the famous Arabian stallion Dahman-el-Azrak, and its son Rabdan.

[28] The Borike stud farm in Croatia was home to Siglavy Arabians,[29] the horses generally originating from the Turkish invasions.

[32][33] Starting in 1802, Count and Squire Andrei Fedorovich Rostopchin imported four Arabian stallions of Siglavy and Koheilan stock to his stud farm in Voranava district, near Moscow, and these are at the origin of the so-called Orlov-Rostopchin breed.