It would take a book to evaluate the full legacy of Riffal in Australia so a few tantalising examples is all there is room for here. Suffice to say bays and browns of a distinctive Queen of Sheba stamp are in no danger of dying out in the lands down under.
NAUFAL (1916) (Sotamm x Narghileh) bay/brown stallion. The main source of the combined Queen of Sheba and Azrek type left in Straight Crabbet breeding. Photo from Crabbet Arabians album.Riffal's sire Naufal was kept at Crabbet all his life but his progeny were not retained. Riffal himself was bred at Hanstead in fact. His blood eventually returned to Crabbet via the big, powerful chestnut Oran, who was a very different type. Naufal's only Crabbet daughter to breed on was the mare Rishka (from Rishna by Nureddin II). She did not remain at Crabbet but went to Ireland where she was bred to Radi and Rissla's son Irex. Her bay son Risheem (by Irex) went to Australia where he has a small but quality group of descendants, although they are mostly greys of a more Skowronek type. His full sister Wardi most closely resembled Naufal and a thin line of descent is hanging on from her in England via her daughter Wadiha (by Naseel). Wadiha's full sister, Katina, was a successful broodmare for the Lewisfield Stud in the USA but the type does not seem to have survived to the present.
Naufal's sire Sotamm and half brother Kazmeen were both sold to Egypt. They were not prolific but their contribution was significant. The Old Egyptian imports made by Henry Babson to the USA in the 1930's included two fine, breedy bay mares. They were Bint Serra, a Sotamm daughter (whose dam was bred by Lady Anne Blunt at her Egyptian home at Sheykh Obeyd), and Bint Bint Sabah, a Kazmeen grandaughter. Small, smooth, refined bays, browns and blacks continue to pop up wherever the Babson Egyptian blood is used, even making it over to England via the imported stallion The Shah.
The Egyptian state stud (EAO) is best known for the meteoric success of the progeny of the stallion Nazeer (Mansour x Bint Samiha by Kazmeen), but he passed on a distinctive type all his own. The Kazmeen grandson El Sereii and his son Tohotmos continued the compact, bay look of Sotamm, however, and the Nazeer line has had some stunning results that revert to this type when combined with the Babson bays. A thin line to Astraled's son Rustem has also survived via such horses as the big, black and extremely athletic Gharib, sold to Germany. This horse shows certain similarities to some members of the Riffal progeny in Australia. We think so often in terms of separate bloodline groups that it is easy to forget how close the relationship between them often is.
An Overview
It would be a mistake to expect these various families to be identical to each other. Over the generations they have been combined with different lines and this, and the various priorities of the breeders involved, has grafted different traits onto the underlying legacy. In Egypt it was the fineness and the smoothness that was emphasised, in England style and movement while, in Australia, the taller reachier look of the Astraled line was stressed through combinations with sires such as Sindh. There are certain themes in common, however, which owe a significant and visible debt to Queen of Sheba and one of her most successful mates, Azrek. These themes are a definite, dry refinement, flamboyant style and a distinct family look, usually bay, that defies analyis. Queen of Sheba and Azrek were a formidable combination in their day and now, over a century since they were foaled, the legacy still lives on.
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