The Barbs

[Argent]

I think I mentioned a long while back that I'd developed an interest in the old African Barbs. What I've noticed is that what we call North African Barbs here tend to more commonly called Berbers (I've actually never seen a breeder or organization refer to them as a NAB), and what we call West African Barbs are almost exclusively referred to as Arab-Barbs (and they are not just a 50/50 cross, but any cross that is not entirely one breed or the other). I assume registries would be able to decide what crosses count as "purebred" for their breed, so the percentage issue won't be a problem with the WABs, but I just thought I'd throw the naming thing out there.

[larissar]

I know I should be working on front end development but I have to admit I've been working on breed research for the last few days and in particular Arabians and Barbs.

I've found similar information as yourself. This is a summary of what I've got so far:

North African Barbs are a very very old breed (possibly extinct), extremely similar to desert bred arabians, and they were actually found around Syria, Iran and Iraq.
West African Barbs (also called Arabo-Barbs or Moroccan Barbs) are basically crosses of North African Barbs with heavier/courser/poorer quality european stock and, confusingly enough, they were more often found in the North African countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunsinia and Libya.

Eqyptian Arabians, if you go far enough into their pedigree, are actually quite full of North African Barb blood. The princes in Egypt would select the best animals from the nomadic desert tribes of Syria, Iran and Iraq to create their Arabians. These are the same arabians which were imported into Europe by Lady Wentworth and her parents the Blunts, and into American by Homer Davenport.

I don't have my notes with me right now to explain the exact changes but I have adjusted the cross-breeding "recipe" for these breeds to reflect this new information. I've also adjusted the formula for creating new breeds so that multiple crosses can create the same new breed. It's still a lot of data to add in all the possibilities so initially we'll only have a few possibilities in most cases.

If research is shown, and it doesn't conflict or create issues with any breeds, then adding in a variation to a cross can easily be done.

I am extremely fascinated by the history of horse breeds.
Right now I'm working on the Spanish breeds and it's leading me on a very interesting trail through Roman breeds and into the Middle Eastern breeds, with a few offshoots into English breeds.


One breed giving me some trouble right now is the Spanish Barb. The modern Spanish Barb is an American breed, however there was a historic Spanish Barb created in Spain which help found many of the Iberian breeds. But I'm having trouble finding information on it, since the internet seems to only care about the modern breed. It's quite confusing when two breeds share the same name...

[Argent]

Berbers and Arabs are actually very dissimilar. Arabs are very light bodied and refined, with characteristic concave, or dished, faces; Berbers are heavier bodied and coarser, with a straight or convex profile and a definite proto-Baroque look. If you stood the two horses next to each other, they would very obviously be different.

Every breeder and organization I have found states that true Barbs come from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, or at the very least, this is where they import their purebred foundation stock from. Also, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia are west Africa; they're also the northernmost point of the continent.

Based on the Bedouin's strong cultural value of pure-breeding, I question the claim that one of the strains they regarded highest was in fact of mixed ancestry.

The Spanish Barb of the Americas is the same Spanish Barb of Spain; that's the point of separating them from the mixed-blood stock of other feral horses. There's a breeder in Idaho, USA, who has a collection of SBs they believe to be pure.

[larissar]

Berbers and Arabs are actually very dissimilar. Arabs are very light bodied and refined, with characteristic concave, or dished, faces; Berbers are heavier bodied and coarser, with a straight or convex profile and a definite proto-Baroque look. If you stood the two horses next to each other, they would very obviously be different.

Agreed, the horse you posted is very dissimilar to the Arabian. However you are posting a modern example of the breed. From my own research I believe the horse you posted would be a more classic example of the West African Barb, which can be thought of as the "true" Barb.

Every breeder and organization I have found states that true Barbs come from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, or at the very least, this is where they import their purebred foundation stock from. Also, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia are west Africa; they're also the northernmost point of the continent.

Agreed again, the breed was established there at least 350 BC if not much much earlier. But it too had to come from somewhere...

Based on the Bedouin's strong cultural value of pure-breeding, I question the claim that one of the strains they regarded highest was in fact of mixed ancestry.

I've tried writing this out a few times and each time I deleted what I've written. I'm terrible at explaining myself.
Basically, I'm looking at horses going back to 2000 BC and older. The origins of the Egyptian Arabian.
This article, and the website it's posted on, are a source of a lot of my historical information.
http://www.geocities.ws/Heartland/Ranch ... tWH42.html
The creation of the breed is obviously going to be a source of much controversy. Some believe that the arabian always existed, but evolution tells us this can't be true. Natural selection and human intervention created all the breeds we know today but they all had to start somewhere. Each area of the world (that had horses) had it's own landrace which evolved from proto-horses. For the sake of the game I've picked a handful of breeds to represent the earliest "breeds". But there are a lot of breeds which have broken off into various strains, which they themselves over enough years (hundreds and hundreds) have evolved into separate breeds. But, the game is programmed to make that happen much sooner for the game-created breeds. It can't handle strain splitting so all new breeds have to be a cross of at least 2 existing breeds. The Eqyptian Arabian is a popular breed so it's included in the game but has to come from somewhere. Based on my reading the ancient (possibly extinct) North African Barb fits the description of a proto-arabian, so it makes sense to cross it with the "arabian". The only other way around this is to make the original breed be called the Eqyptian Arabian, then cross it with the NAB to create the Arabian, and use that for all other breed creating. I can see that causing issues with casual horse people who've been spoon fed that the "Arabian" is the oldest breed in existence.

I'm going to quote a few phrases from the article that I've based my decisions on.

TRAVELERS AND HISTORIANS during the crusades and medieval times called the Bedouin tribes and their horses of Palestine, Syria, Arabia and northern Africa the Barbaric tribes or the Barbaries. Later the word Berber or Barb was exclusively used for the people and horses of the Barbary Coast and desert and mountain regions of northern Africa.

This is why I don't like to use the term Berber. In old literature referenced it doesn't always specify which animal they are referring to by Berber.

The Berber horses were not exactly purebred. Prior to the Berber invasions there had been no horses in north Africa.

The Egyptians however had horses acquired from Arabia and Syria which they first used to draw chariots and later to ride.

Ancient coins of Carthage bear witness to the Arabian type of north African Barb horse, 360 B.C.

the modern Barb horse of Algiers, Tunis and Morocco .... is mixed with cold blooded European horses which came to north Africa with the Romans and later the Vandals, 428 A.D. He also carries blood of the Kmura, small mountain pony.

EVIDENTLY THE Barb horse before the invasions of Romans and Vandals was a small, relatively fast animal, 13 to 14:2 hands tall with a rather plain but intelligent head. The roman noses and sheep heads often found in modern Barb horses must have been brought by Roman and Vandal horses. The Vandals stayed 106 years, from 428 to 534. To this cross-bred Berber horse of the 6th century, Arabian blood was added producing the various types of Barb horses found today.

I has to be said too that when reading other articles on that site it becomes apparent that breeding the arabian is very complex with all it's various ancient strains and that's not something the game can handle on it's own. That's where custom breeds and breed registries can take over. Since players can turn a strain of a breed into a new breed.

The Spanish Barb of the Americas is the same Spanish Barb of Spain; that's the point of separating them from the mixed-blood stock of other feral horses. There's a breeder in Idaho, USA, who has a collection of SBs they believe to be pure.

The breed that I'm trying to find information on, and perhaps it doesn't exist, was from quite a number of years prior to the 1500s. I'm basing this off my original research from 10 years ago and it's quite possible I was working from wrong information back then...

[Argent]

The link provided for the SB does not reference the 1950s. It documents the history, as the registry knows it, from the Spanish landings in the Americas, with the latest date mentioned being the 19th century, which is defined as the point where people started collecting the known Spanish stock and breeding them pure to keep the breed from going extinct.

If, according to your research, the Barb and Arab are essentially the same thing at the time period you've chosen for determining ancient breeds, then why have both? Why not have a single landrace of some sort? Or, if the Barb as we know it now is in fact a crossbreed, why not make it the product of Arabs and one of the coarser ancient breeds?

Arabian strains were never individual breeds, but simply varying types, according to everything I've ever read on the subject (of course, one could, in theory, debate that if strains diverge in an extreme way, then new breeds have been created); there's no real reason for the game to factor them in.

[larissar]

The link provided for the SB does not reference the 1950s. It documents the history, as the registry knows it, from the Spanish landings in the Americas, with the latest date mentioned being the 19th century, which is defined as the point where people started collecting the known Spanish stock and breeding them pure to keep the breed from going extinct.

Sorry that was a type-o. I meant to write 1500s not 1950s.

If, according to your research, the Barb and Arab are essentially the same thing at the time period you've chosen for determining ancient breeds, then why have both? Why not have a single landrace of some sort? Or, if the Barb as we know it now is in fact a crossbreed, why not make it the product of Arabs and one of the coarser ancient breeds?

I've actually changed the West Africa Barb (the horse we typically think of when we say Barb) to be a cross as follows:
(Arabian x North African Barb) x (Tarpan x Forest Horse)
This is pending more reading, but it brings in the two arabian types from Arabian and Syria, crossed with what I've figured would be in the area at the time, Tarpans and Forest Horses. This is a bit of a stretch since technically Tarpans didn't actually contribute to most modern breeds, but something similar to them would have.

Arabian strains were never individual breeds, but simply varying types, according to everything I've ever read on the subject (of course, one could, in theory, debate that if strains diverge in an extreme way, then new breeds have been created); there's no real reason for the game to factor them in.

True, I guess this is really just something I didn't consider changing since it's been part of the game since the beginning. There are a few other breeds in the game which are technically just a different strain of a breed.

[Argent]

Arabian strains were never individual breeds, but simply varying types, according to everything I've ever read on the subject (of course, one could, in theory, debate that if strains diverge in an extreme way, then new breeds have been created); there's no real reason for the game to factor them in.

True, I guess this is really just something I didn't consider changing since it's been part of the game since the beginning. There are a few other breeds in the game which are technically just a different strain of a breed.

Merp. I meant strains like Saqlawi and Kehailan; we have different default definitions of the same term, I think. But yeah, the individual "country strains" insist that their Arabs are pure Arab, so they fall into a sort of grey area.

[larissar]

I think I've found something. In my notes I had listed "Baladi" as another name for Eqyptian Arabian. I don't remember where I got that but I know it's been noted for nearly as long as the game is old. When I google Baladi I find a cross bred Arabian horse of Egyptian origin, which is not considered pure arabian. I'm guessing somewhere along the lines that's how I ended up with an Egyptian Arabian horse as a separate breed.

I'm going to change the official name to Baladi and leave it as is. If someone wants to create an Egyptian Arabian registry that would be one way of creating them.

I meant strains like Saqlawi and Kehailan

I've spend far far too much time today reading about these different strains. I find it all really fascinating, and it's easy to see why the Arabian breed had so much influence on nearly every other breed in the world.

[Argent]

Considering the baroque type likely stems from the mixed Berber, not the pure Barb, will the baroque breeds' "recipes" be changed to reflect this?

[larissar]

Yup, and I've already done a lot of the research to fill in these gaps. It's been a few weeks since I looked at it but going by memory I think the type came primarily via the Sorraia and Garrano. The type was built up with some heavier/coach-like french breeds before being refined by the Barbs into what we think of now as the baroque-type. Obviously it wasn't *quite* that cut and dry in reality but I think I have a good representation of what historically happened. The new breed recipes will be online after I update the site with the new layout.