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From
our Arieana Notebook: A stallion bred in the Nejd and the original
horse on one of
our sire
lines, Maidan was one of the most gallant and remarkable Arabian
stallions in the recorded history of our breed. Admired for both his beauty and his athletic
prowess, his story begins when he was brought from the desert to Bombay, India in 1871 by
the respected horse dealer Abdur Rhaman who sold him to Captain Johnstone who commenced racing him
in India as a two year old.
The
reports of his early to mid-life are somewhat conflicting, but in general it is
agreed that as a young horse he was a superb racehorse in India, winning the Punjab Cup
as an untried two-year old, and that he continued his winning career for three
more years until no
further matches could be made for him. (Borden, p. 77)
Then at 5
years of age (1874) Maidan was sold as a charger to Lieutenant Colonel
Brownlow of the 72nd Highlanders. Brownlow was a heavy-weight at 19
stone (266 lbs.) with his equipment. Maidan carried him for twelve
years in campaigns through the mountainous regions of India and Afghanistan until Brownlow was
killed in the fight at Kandahar at the end of the famous 300 mile forced march
of Lord Roberts's Army from Kabul.
At 17 years of age Maidan
was bought by Lord Airlie who again put him to racing in India. In the three
years between 1881-1884 Maidan
won the Ganges Hog Hunt Cup, the Kadir Cup (the Blue Ribbon of
Pigsticking in India), and a 4-mile steeplechase.
He was then sold
to Captain the Honourable Eustace Vesey, who bought him to take to
England. Leaving India on the troopship Jumna Maidan got
as far as Suez, where the ship met the expedition going to the relief
of Suakim, where Osman Digna was harassing the garrison, and was
pressed into service as a transport for troops to Massowah, near the
lower end of the Red Sea. So it happened that the old racehorse and
charger had his journey lengthened (he stood on his feet for one
hundred days without once lying down) before he reached Marseilles,
France. Shortly after he won a race for his owner at Pau and
later was raced successfully in England. (Borden, pp. 78-79)
Upon
the death of the Honourable Vesey in 1889, Maidan was purchased by the
Honourable Miss Dillon, and won yet another steeplechase at the age of
22 years. He slipped and broke a leg whilst out at exercise in 1892,
and had to be destroyed. (Upton p. 23)
Yet even at such an advanced age
Bordon mentions that he was described in the London Live Stock
Journal as "...fresh and well, with immense bone below the knee
and as clean in the legs as a four year old, notwithstanding the fact
that he was hunted in Suffolk last year."
The
first mare Maidan was ever known to cover was the mare *Naomi and she
produced the chestnut filly *Nazli in England on May 17, 1888. Randolph Huntington
had purchased *Naomi carrying this foal in February 1888 and thought
she would be at side when *Naomi arrived here in the United States. But
this was not so and *Nazli did not arrive until
1893 when she was five years old. Thus it is
through Huntington's importation of these two mares, and most directly
through the *Naomi daughter *Nazli and her
produce, that we have Maidan's influence
coming
down to us at Arieana Arabians from out of one of the very first purebred Arabian breeding programs here in the United States.
(For more information about Randolph Huntington and his Americo-Arab
project, please see the stories
of Anazeh, Khaled,
*Kismet,
*Leopard, *Naomi
and her daughter *Nazli, and *Nimr.)
Today at Arieana Arabians we
proudly carry on the traits that are traditionally associated with this
Maidan family line through our linebreeding program on Rahas and
Guemura and by breeding horses
from their descendants with an eye for that same enduring Maidan beauty coupled with his speed, strength, and stamina as
exemplified in the rising star and future herd sire Haat Pursuit
(Blitzen of Pico x Gleeful
Pico by RS Ibn Haatshaat).
~Suzi Morris (08/12/2012)
Sources:
Borden, Spencer. The Arab Horse. Doubleday, Page & Company,
New York. 1906. pp 76-80.
Upton,
Peter. The Arab Horse. The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marlborough,
Wilshire SN8 2HE. 1989.
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Maidan 