
"Wonderful Arabian Horses Presented
to General Grant by the Sultan of Turkey"- note that this is the same
pose of *LINDEN TREE (in background),
with same pyramids and palm trees, as in another photo which follows. (Courtesy
Linda Sale)
CHRONOLOGY
1873 - *LEOPARD foaled in the
desert
1874 - *LINDEN TREE
foaled in Abdul Hamid II's stables,
Constantinople
Before 1878 - * LEOPARD presented
by Jedaan Ibn Mheyd to Turkish governor
of Syria
March 1878 - General U.S.Grant visits stables of
Abdul Hamid II and is presented
with *LEOPARD and *LINDEN
TREE.
May 31, 1879 - Stallions arrive New Haven, Connecticut
Summer and Fall 1879 - Stallions exhibited at fairs
Late Fall 1879 - Stallions stabled at Gen. E.F. Beale's
Ash Hill Farm, Washington DC.
1889-1883 - Randolph Huntington breeds Clay
mares to stallions.
1883 - *LEOPARD registered to
J.B.Houston, New York, NY
*LINDEN TREE
registered to U.S. Grant, Jr., New York, NY
Stallions shown at New York Horse Show, *LEOPARD
placing first
1884 - Stallions again shown at New York Show, *LEOPARD
again first.
1888 *NAOMI imported by Huntington
*LINDEN TREE
sold to Generl L.W. Colby and taken to Beatrice, Nebraska
1890 - ANAZEH
foaled
Linden Tree Park founded in Beatrice
1893 or 1894 - *LEOPARD ridden
in militia parade by General Colby,
probably in or around Diller, Nebraska
|
|
 An
addition to this version of the story has the original "Linden Tree,"
chosen by the Sultan, injured before he could be shipped, and replaced
without the Sultan's knowledge with our registered *LINDEN
TREE.
In any
event, Chard published a facsimile of a letter from Grant to Huntington
documenting that he was given two stallions from the Sultan's stables,
and Huntington himself eventually tracked down their origin in more detail.
In his 1885 book on the subject of the Grant horses, Huntington says that
"I believed, as will any American, that they must be of the highest
possible type. No empire or nation would insult herself by presenting to
so great a man, also the one representative man of so great a nation as
ours, an inferior gift from its native animal life. General Grant's Arabs
had to be the purest and best." According to Chard, "breeding
the two horses to the same mares produced offspring with such different
characteristics that Mr. Huntington was convinced that there was a blood
difference, so he began a deliberate search, which after eight years, resulted
in information that confirmed him in his convictions and established the
facts that Leopard was a purebred Arabian and Linden Tree a purebred Barb."
*LEOPARD
was a Seglawi Jedran, desertbred by the Anazeh, foaled in 1873 and presented
by Jedaan Ibn Mheyd of the Fedaan Anazeh to the Turkish governor of Syria.
(Some accounts list Ibn Mheyd as the breeder, but Carol Mulder, with typical
caution, makes the distinction that we only know he presented the horse.)
This governor then presented the horse to Abdul Hamid II, who in turn gave
him to General Grant.
Recall
that in the same year of 1878, the Blunts were traveling within the Ottoman
Empire, and found that they could not gain access to the best horses of
the desert Bedouin while in company with Turkish officials, as the Bedouin
feared confiscation of their stock in the name of the Sultan. Presenting
that potentate with an inferior specimen would have been a most risky course
of action--he owned his subjects' lives as well as their horses--so we
may safely assume that *LEOPARD was accounted a high-class
example of Anazeh breeding.
|