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Letters from Linda: 1999 Subject: Artema Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 We brought Artema home last night bred to Lydian... Got my photos back from Cravers. ...Demetrius, Zacharia Vice Regent and the new 2 week old baby there. Got one of Trommel and friend ... Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999... Artemisia CF finished her second endurance ride 2 weekends ago at Hopkins Creek Ride and swam her first river. What a good girl!! She's a doll. Came in second over the line and would have been in second place, but the mule we were riding with brayed, and scared her so her pulse spiked to 17 and we had a 10 minute penalty, so we ended up 4th. We'll take it though. *** Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999: I dropped off my first set of proofs to a BIG Arabian farm yesterday that I shot last Sunday. I felt like I was handing over my child when I gave them the proofs. I expected them to call and sing my praises because I literally took the best photo I've ever taken of their 2 year old stallion. They were getting ready to leave for a show and couldn't take time to look or talk, so this is what I get for sharing my deepest love (besides Davenports). Oh well. Thanks for the comments on the photos I sent before. I sent you another one yesterday. I just love to see the looks on the owner's faces when I really get a good one. The money doesn't matter. I'm addressing the first question you posed as whether or not Davenports should (or could) be used extensively in distance riding. This question poses a whole herd of emotions for me, since I firmly believe that thedistance riding community has fallen in love with all my Davenports since I started campaigning them 4 years ago. I have to admit, after meeting and getting to know Cravers I have been focused on nothing less than getting these horses out into the mainstream of horsemen BECAUSE of who they are, not in spite of who they are. I don't worry about losing what we have (only 700 horses). WHY PRESERVE THEM IF WE DON'T USE AND ENJOY AND SHARE THEM? EVERYONE who has ever been to our farm has fallen in love with their personalities and dispositions. I just got another Davenport convert from our small band of endurance riders here in Michigan. That brings to a total of 5 the number of endurance riders with Davenports soon to be on trail here. (or already competing). These people would never have known the story of the Davenports if someone hadn't been using one!! Distance riding people for the most part don't necessarily care what history lesson or pedigrees are associated with the horses they ride. They just want horses who love to go down trail. Most can't even tell you what their horses sire's name was. They just love to distance ride! If it wasn't for using these horses and taking them to the rides, a lot of the new Davenport converts would never have known that there were any around. Anyone who saw my beloved Demitasse CF go down trail could tell that she LOVED what she did for a living. Artemisia and Fakher El Alamein are no exception. Prelude CF will also be a war mare down trail! This is what they were bred for! They love what they do no matter what we ask because they love US! That shows to people who watch us. They pick up on this. My problem with the preservation of these horses has always been that I felt not enough people had an opportunity to USE them. Endurance injuries are rare. Distance riders in my experience have more of a working knowledge of sports injuries and prevention than any show person or trainer. We work with veterinarians constantly at the rides and pass veterinary criteria throughout the entire competition. We learn TONS from these vets. If we didn't care for our horses, they wouldn't be able to come back year after year and compete. I hope I haven't sounded too harsh, but I am on a mission to make sure these horses have an audience. They deserve one. (Signed) Linda Sherrill Justus Arabians ....dedicated to the Davenport Arabian..... *** Posted to the Davenport Message Board Aug 20 1998: Davenport Sets State Record by Linda Sherrill Demitasse CF, my 8 year old wonderful Davenport mare, set at least a state (Great Lakes Distance Riding Association) record Saturday when she posted the lowest recorded pulse and respiration ever taken at a sanctioned GLDRA ride. Demitasse came in at the SECOND surprise vet check of the day (after 23 miles of deep sand competition) and posted a 7/1 pulse and respiration! ( 7/1 = 28 pulse per minute and 4 respirations per minute.) The ride manager and vet took it again just to make sure, and yep, she was down there! Demi is such a cool mare to ride and is really getting the hang of this distance stuff! On to 50 milers next year! Linda *** 18 May 1999: Artemisia finished her first endurance ride on Sunday, May 16th. She finished 3rd out of 11 horses and we are so proud of her! I had a ton of horse left at the end, and she was so STRONG! She is picking up right where our beloved Demitasse left off. Time will tell. Fakher El Alamein (Valentino) did himself proud as well, winning the junior division Sunday.
This is Artemisia CF (of course) with me this past Sunday.
The photo Amy holding Valentino was taken at the lake just 1/8 of a mile from our house and went out with our Christmas cards last year. Amy's gelding is Fakher El Alamein (Valentino) and he's 17 this year, and still thinks (and acts) like he's 3. We bring everyone in at night now. He struts in like nobody's business (probably thinks he's the farm stallion again), since he wasn't gelded until he was 10 or so!! |
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Reply-To: DavenportArabs@onelist.com I'm addressing the first question you posed as whether or not Davenports should (or could) be used extensively in distance riding. This question poses a whole herd of emotions for me, since I firmly believe that the distance riding community has fallen in love with all my Davenports since I started campaigning them 4 years ago. I have to admit, after meeting and getting to know Cravers I have been focused on nothing less than getting these horses out into the mainstream of horsemen BECAUSE of who they are, not in spite of who they are. I don't worry about losing what we have (only 700 horses). WHY PRESERVE THEM IF WE DON'T USE AND ENJOY AND SHARE THEM? EVERYONE who has ever been to our farm has fallen in love with their personalities and dispositions. I just got another Davenport convert from our small band of endurance riders here in Michigan. That brings to a total of 5 the number of endurance riders with Davenports soon to be on trail here. (or already competing). These people would never have known the story of the Davenports if someone hadn't been using one!! Distance riding people for the most part don't necessarily care what history lesson or pedigrees are associated with the horses they ride. They just want horses who love to go down trail. Most can't even tell you what their horses sire's name was. They just love to distance ride! If it wasn't for using these horses and taking them to the rides, a lot of the new Davenport converts would never have known that there were any around. Anyone who saw my beloved Demitasse CF go down trail could tell that she LOVED what she did for a living. Artemisia and Fakher El Alamein are no exception. Prelude CF will also be a war mare down trail! This is what they were bred for! They love what they do no matter what we ask because they love US! That shows to people who watch us. They pick up on this. My problem with the preservation of these horses has always been that I felt not enough people had an opportunity to USE them. Endurance injuries are rare. Distance riders in my experience have more of a working knowledge of sports injuries and prevention than any show person or trainer. We work with veterinarians constantly at the rides and pass veterinary criteria throughout the entire competition. We learn TONS from these vets. If we didn't care for our horses, they wouldn't be able to come back year after year and compete. Arthur Moore, riding Akmet Haffez's Abeyeh Sherrakieh mare, an animal with a wonderful head and build, was to go back to Aleppo at this time with Jack Thompson and Faiot, Haffez's younger son, to procure more tea, of which the Bedouins were very fond. ... and while my companions were gone I tried to come to an agreement with Haffez over the mare which Moore was riding. She had been taken in war by the Anezeh, from the Shammar, across the Euphrates, and her pedigree bore the last seal of Sheikh Faris, the great enemy of the Anezeh, who had been dead two years. She was small, not more than fourteen hands two inches high, but I never saw such beautiful hind quarters and back tendons on anything in horse flesh. ... I told him <Akhmet Heffez> seriously that above all the mares I has seen on the desert, I wanted his Abeyeh Sherrakieh, because of her fine head. ... ... Hashem Bey seemed to be more interested in our rifles and guns than anything else. I presented him with my rifle (a special "Savage") and with all the cartridges I had with me, and he took them not so much as a present as an addition to his supply of guns. Of course we discussed horses with him at great length, and, as the highest authority in the world on Arab horses, he cleared away many doubtful points relative to the breed. I had my Arab horse books along with me, including the last volume of Roger D. Upton, in which he mentions all the families and sub-families of the Arab horse. These were carefully examined by the Sheikh, and those which were considered "Chubby" by the Anezeh were marked thus. He said the Abeyeh Sherrakieh mare, which Arthur Moore had just ridden back from Aleppo, had the rarest head there was in the desert, and she, herself, was one of the most valuable of mares. Moore had come to the desert an entire skeptic on the subject of Arab horses. He had heard in America so much talk about the Arab by ignorant people and had failed to find any proof of their stories, that he was an entire disbeliever. He went to the desert convinced that our Cayuse horses could outrun, outlast, outwork and outdo the Arab in everything except looks. But on the way back from Aleppo he was entirely converted and became an enthusiast. As I mentioned above, he was riding the Abeyeh mare and determined to put her to the test. It was a foolish thing to do, for the heat was terrific and the mare had a bad cough and cold. At home she would have been in the care of a veterinary. Moore, with his rifle and ammunition and $4,000 in gold, which he was carrying, weighed 300 pounds. He did not follow any beaten roadway, but took her over the rocks of the desert in a bee-line. The further she went, he said, the stronger she seemed to get, and the better she seemed to move. At the end her cough did not seem to be worse, and when Moore was on her she didn't seem to be tired. She showed some of the effects of the test when she was standing still by continually resting. Moore wanted the Arab horse to show him something, and he got it without getting it second-hand. From that time on he stood up for the Arab horse. ... What made this trial of the mare the more wonderful was that while she was considered among the Anezeh as their greatest race mare, she had probably never before had on her back more than 150 to 160 pounds. While Moore was riding her the first evening we left Aleppo, Akmet Haffez had outrun everybody in the party with his Hamdenieh Simrieh filly, until he came to race the Abeyeh mare. Then, to the utter astonishment of everybody, this small mare, carrying the handicap, easily outfooted Haffez's horse in a half mile run. (from Homer Davenport's book: "My Quest of the Arabian Horse" Now available as "The Annotated Quest" with annotations by Charles and Jeanne Craver. Published by the Seauphah Publishing Assoc. Inc, Hillview Ill. 1992)
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