Our conception of those who molded history (be they figures of equine significance or standouts in man's progress through the ages) depends largely upon which history we read or what so-called authority we chose to accept.

           So it is to some degree with the famed and fabled animal Skowronek, Arabian stallion credited with contributing more to the greatness of the modern Arab than any other individual of his breed. But, fortunately, Skowronek came onto the scene shortly after the turn of the century and for that reason his career is not so heavily veiled in mythology as many other immortals of the horses world.

           Fortunate, too, is the fact that two of his sons are still alive today, a tribute to the great stamina and virility of his bloodline and proof of the magic-like quality with which he passed his much-sought characteristics to his progeny.

           However, H.V.Musgrave Clark, of Sussex, England, who is one of the oldest Arab breeders in the British Empire, and a former owner of Skowronek, recently discredited this story.

           Skowronek was in the Clark stud shortly after coming from Poland. "He was purchased in Poland by my friend, the late Walter Winans," says Clark. "Winans sold him to me after he had used him as a model for various bronzes. Skowronek was actually in this country when the Russian Revolution was in full swing."

           Lady Wentworth of Crabbet Park stud subsequently acquired Skowronek and kept him until his death.

           History shows that Skowronek was foaled in 1909. He was a grey Kehilan Ajuz imported into Poland from Egypt¹ by the Antininy Stud of Count Joseph Potocki, which was founded before 1700. His sire was Ibrahim by Heijer out of Lafitte. The dam was Yaskoulka, a Kehilet Ajuz by Rymnik out of Epopea by Dervish out of Lyra.

           Clark's selection of Skowronek is understandable; for the wiry, intelligent and classically featured little horse had the quality of siring heavily-quartered, compact animals such as were much in demand at the turn of the century. However, they still retained other characteristic Arabian qualities.

           Skowronek was to the Arabian what Pete McCue was to the Quarter Horse. And maybe their sons had something in common. At least, Skowronek's owner knew something of the greatness of the Western cow horse; for as a New Mexico cattle rancher many years before, he had seen these "short horses" in action.

           We aren't trying to prove that Skowronek was a Western Quarter Horse; but it surely was not entirely coincidental that the former New Mexico cattleman Clark picked out a stud in England that subsequently was the grandsire of Arabians that are winning the money in open Stock Horse competition today.

           Arabian breeder Clark is proud of the fact that 45 years ago he was a cattle rancher in the Pecos valley, just a short distance form Roswell.

           "The West was a great place when I was there and I often wish I had never left it." he says.

           The J.V.Paynes are glad Clark liked the West and the Western type horse; for he was probably indirectly responsible for them being able to breed their type of Arabians, the Stock Horse type with an Arabian head and refinement.

           An insatiable desire to develop such bloodlines led Mrs Payne a year ago (Oct. 1949) to buy the ailing old stallion Raffles, with no assurance that a broken leg had properly knitted or that he was in breeding condition.

           Despite his extreme age and highly questionable virility, Raffles immediately interested Mrs. Payne when she heard he was to go on the block in a dispersal sale. She flew from California to the Roger A. Selby stud at Portsmouth, Ohio, to see him, bought him at competitive bidding and chartered an express car to bring him home. Today she feels repaid a thousandfold, for Raffles is breeding sound and feeling fine.

           It wasn't until May 1938, when his first stud colt was foaled, that anyone started to pay him much attention. This colt was the famed Indraff AHC 1578, a champion from the start and now senior stallion at the Al-Marah Arabian farm of Mrs. Peter Miller, of Bethesda, Maryland.

           Another of Raffles' finest sons is Rasraff, a blocky 1050 pound chestnut stud out of Rasmina, a granddaughter of Skowronek. He has won several Stock Horse competitions and is expected to follow in the footsteps of his Payne ranch stablemate, Shereyn, the fast little stud that took top money in the light Stock Horse open competition at San Francisco's Cow Palace in 1946. Shereyn, incidentally, surprised a lot of the quarter Horse people and took no small amount of money away from them by winning the Cow Palace show.

           In a sensational performance, he took top money in the National Stallion show open Stock Horse class at Waterloo, Iowa, in 1949, cleaned up at a number of local shows through the Midwest, then went on to the big American Royal at Kansas City and came off with third place, showing against the best Quarter Horses in the country.

           Raffles and his famous sire are just naturally putting that extra something into their progeny, especially as regards Stock Horse type Arabians. And the Arabian breeders are quick to grasp it. Mrs. Miller takes great pleasure in pointing to THE WESTERN HORSEMAN article which enthusiastically said: "Arraff showed definite superiority in the Stock Horse contest, but we were particularly impressed with him in the cutting contest...he may be one of those naturals...this grey gelding's efforts were certainly a credit to the breed."

           And Mrs. Miller assures us we haven't heard the last of Arraff and her other "working Arabians." She's very strong on Skowronek bloodlines and agrees with the authority, James P. Dean, that "few studs put it on 'em like Raffles." Dean, for 15 years with the Selby stud, is probably the nation's top authority on Skowronek, whom he terms "the greatest contributing factor to Arabians in America."

           Another Arabian authority, H.H.Reese, manager for many years of the W.K.Kellogg Arabian Horse ranch, similarly praises Skowronek. Reese, on a world tour for Kellogg, visited Lady Wentworth's Crabbet Park stud in 1928 and saw Skowronek.

           "He was just about perfect," says Reese, who is specializing in Skowronek out-crossing at his West Covina ranch in California. "He was very impressive, with gorgeous head and neck, high natural tail carriage, wonderful legs and straight action. He was, of course, very old when I saw him, but still a very superior animal. And he has bred along truer than any other line."

           Skowronek died a few years after Reese's visit.

           Lady Wentworth described Skowronek as an ideal specimen of the type which Abbas Pasha, viceroy of Egypt, spent a fortune developing. "No more perfect specimen has ever been imported to England," she wrote in one of her early works. "Lady Anne Blunt (her mother) spent the last 20 years of her life in a vain search for a horse of Skowronek's type," she said.

           Lady Wentworth later termed Skowronek "the sole surviving line"³ of the original Polish blood. Whether she ever actually turned down the reported $250,000 offer for him has never been substantiated, but the figure is often quoted.

           Arabian enthusiasts, too, point to the famed European endurance rides as proof of the kind of animals Skowronek's breeder developed. A Prussian officer, Lt. W. von Gaffein, mounted on a Count Potocki Arabian, took the gold medal for finishing with his horse in best condition in a race from Vienna to Berlin. The distance was 425 miles. The riders started Monday morning and finished Thursday noon, that is, 71 of the 117 starters finished. Forty-two of the other horses died along the way.

           That gold medal winner was the kind of blood Skowronek carried.

           Only three of Skowronek's sons ever came to the United States: Raswan, Raffles and Raseyn. Raswan, long-since dead, sired no foals here. Another son is believed to be in South America [Raktha was sold by Lady Wentworth to Mr. A. J. Botha of South Africa in 1951].

           James Dean has a very keen personal interest in Skowronek's son, Raffles, for he and Mrs. Dean never left the little horse's side for 16 long weeks when the game old stud lay in a sling with a broken hind leg in January 1949. They nursed him through colic, cramps and skin eruptions as he stood helpless. They watched him waste away from top condition to emaciation, and waited fearfully when the cast was finally removed. So it's understandable that they visit the Payne's at every opportunity, correspond regularly regarding Raffles'condition, and are happy that he staged a comeback and has such a good home.

           "He has the greatest stamina and recuperative powers of any horse I've ever seen," said Dean the other day as he visited at the Payne ranch. "And look at the beautiful, wide head, the deep jaw and that gay way about him, his long forearm and broad back. No wonder he has ability to sire horses with tremendous quarters."

           Dean is frankly unabashed at claiming Raffles is one of modern horsedom's greatest personalities.

           "And look at his daughters," he adds. "Cassandra, bred by W.C.Shuey, of Ashville, N.C., and owned by R.B.Field, of Leavenworth, Wash., has won every class she was ever shown in, and that includes the Grand National mares class at Cheyenne, the Crabbet award and the Jane Llewellyn Ott perpetual trophy. She's virtually unbeatable. Skowronek blood again."

           While Raffles' stablemate at the Payne ranch, Raseyn, is not active in the stud, he is a distinguished personage on the property and his bloodlines are being carried on there.

           He was about to be destroyed at the age of 26 when Mrs. Payne obtained him. She nursed him back to health with a special diet, and today he is in exceptional good flesh and may return to breeding condition.

           The Paynes had previously bought a son and two daughters of Raseyn in their efforts to obtain more direct Skowronek bloodlines. These included Rasmina, the dam of Rasraff and a granddaughter of Skowronek. She is now dead. However, Rasrah, a 20-year-old daughter of Raseyn and grand-daughter of Skowronek, is still alive. The former mount of actress Olivia de Havilland, she has foaled the Paynes' three mares: one by a son of Raseyn, one by a son of Raffles and one by Raffles.

           So it's easy to see that the Paynes are not just making conversation when they speak so enthusiastically of their program of intensifying Skowronek bloodlines. They are doing it.

(1) "(Skowronek) was foaled in 1909 at Antoniny Stud , owned by Count Joseph Potocki." p. 45 "According to Lady Wentworth [see page 307 in the 1962 edition of Lady Wentworth's "The Authentic Arabian Horse", originally published in 1945] his ancestry went back to Abbas Pasha I's Arabs, through his sire Ibrahim. [See Lady Wentworth's illustrated Pedigree of Dafinetta p. 63] Here she relied on the notes of her mother, which she made on a visit to Antoniny. In Poland no such assertion had ever been made, but simply that Ibrahim had been bought at Odessa in 1907. Dr Gustav Rau, the great German authority, reported his own visit to Antoniny in Sankt Georg and described the two stallions there exhaustively. They were Ibrahim and Massaud. He noted under the photograph of ibrahim: 'Seglawi stallion, imported Arab, born near Damascus', and under Massaud, 'Bred by Ali Pasha Sherif, Cairo'". Erika Schile The Arab Horse in Europe 1967 First American editionp. 45 .

See also "Skowronek's Pedigree and the Antoniny Stud by Count Joseph Potocki, son of Skowronek's breeder, published in the Feb. '58 issue of the Arabian Horse News.

See also Lady Anne Blunt Journals and Correspondence 1878-1917, Edited by Rosemary Archer and James Fleming published in 1986

See also:

Davenport
 
CMK

Early Writings

The Western Arab: '40s and '50s