Witez II

Witez II (April 1, 1938 – June 9, 1965) was a bay Arabian stallion foaled at the Janów Podlaski Stud Farm in Poland.

He spent his early years at Janów at a time when Poland was under occupation by Nazi Germany before ultimately arriving in the United States in 1945, where he lived for the remainder of his life until his death.

Ofir was by the desert-bred stallion Kuhalian-Haifi, foaled in 1923, who was imported from the Jauf region of the Arabian Peninsula by Prince Roman Sanguszko of the Gumniska stud.

Ofir's daughter Mammona also made the trek from Janów to Tersk Stud as a suckling foal and later became a dam of significance in the USSR.

However, though Janów was on the German side of the Curzon line, the Russian military nonetheless confiscated most of the mature breeding stock as spoils of war.

Patton issued orders, and on April 28, 1945, Colonel Charles H. Reed, Sperl's superior officer, with members of Troops A, C and F of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, conducted a raid behind Soviet lines and accepted the surrender of the Germans at Hostau.

[1] Witez II was purchased in 1949 by Earle E. and Frances Hurlbutt of the Calarabia Ranch near Calabasas, California, who owned him for the remainder of his life.