Once you find the original imports you have to go to the studbooks of the
country or the on-line world Arabian studbook. There are some well known
reference works that anyone doing research should have, Carol Mulder's
books on Imported Foundation Stock (Vol 3 is about to be published) are
essential. What other materials you will need depends on the bloodlines
you are researching.
I breed CMK Arabians so I have lots of info on Crabbet, Maynesboro, the
Hearst importation and the Davenport importation. I also subscribe tothe
Crabbet Influence Magazine and have compiled an index of the magazine
that lists all the articles by title and by author, all the pictures of
every horse with stud book references and all teh advertisers. I used
that to look up the info on Lewisfield stud.
For a sampling of what's available as research material call one of the
rare book sellers who specialize in Arabian horse books and ask for a
catalog. You can spend as much ore more $ on teh books as you can on the
horses! <g> There are references on Spanish, Polish, Russian, Al Khamsa,
Davenport, CMK, GSB, and just about every specialized group there is.
Right now my rather modest research library has only about 100 books. I'm
slowly building a larger one though.
If you don't wish to buy your own materials then you can always go to
Denver to the Arabian Horse Trust and use their library. That's the only
place to look at historical photos, film and video, read the breeders
scrapbooks and they also have some of the more rare books that would be
prohibitively expensive to own.
There is a group of Arabian Horse Historians who have regular meetings
and share information about sources. They have also reprinted some of the
more rare references. I purchased a reprint of the Maynesboro catalog
from them but my recent letters have gone unoticed.
Once you know the pedigree you need more information about the horse
itself. Breeder diaries can give a hint into the temperment and stamina
of the horses. Unfortunately IAHA does not keep records in a format that
is readily searchable so it's hard to get show and trail ride records on
the animals. I try to enter in awards as reported in AERC newsletter, the
NATRC newsletter and in the general Arabian press about distance horses
in my DB so that the info is there. The Arabian Jockey Club is keeping
typical racing data on Arabian who race or sire or produce race horses.
You can buy some reports from them but I haven't looked into it much.
The U.S. Cavalry kept some records on endurance/distance rides and some
of them were won by purebred Arabians so you can track some of the horses
that way.
I also try to flag pictures and info that I see that I may want to refer
to later. One of my on-going projects is the development of a multimedia
database/CD-ROM of all the CMK horses and their descendents. I'm
constantly soliciting pictures and materials and working on the project.
I'm posting this to the endurance list since even though it's not
specifically about endurance it is important for breeders of endurance
animals to be able to look back at where the horses came from.
Oogie McGuire - oogiem@dsrtweyr.com
Weyr Associates - Multimedia and Web Authoring Services & Consulting
Desert Weyr - CMK Arabian horses & saddle mules for endurance and show
Voice (619) 788-6671 FAX (619) 788-6742
http://www.dsrtweyr.com/~desertweyr/