Chicago Tribune newspaper heiress Bazy Tankersley founded Al-Marah Arabians in 1947 and to date has been the largest importer and most prolific breeder of Arabians in America. She established the Arabian Horse Trust, which serves as an educational foundation and research library, and which also licenses the Arabian Horse Association pedigree registry. For more than 40 years until her death in 2013, Tankersley greatly influenced Arabian circles, and her taste and ideas continue to help shape how Arabian horses are bred, marketed, trained and shown in the United States and Canada. A publicity shot for the 1959 blockbuster film “Ben-Hur.” The hero’s “white” team is pulled by four Al-Marah mares, all
*Indraff daughters.
Below: Dreamazon, foaled in 1977, was bred by David C. Bishop but later acquired by Al-Marah. Like Gai Parada, Dreamazon is intensely inbred to *Raffles and like him, is known for siring “extreme” heads. Both stallions have tended to sire halter...
Daniel Gainey’s breeding program, similar to Bazy Tankersley’s, in 1969 produced the stallion Gai Parada whose pedigree contains six crosses to Skowronek, of which three go through *Raffles. With correct legs, a cute “typey” head and flashy movement in...
*Count Dorsaz, another Al-Marah stallion, bred at Crabbet Park and foaled in 1945. Imported to Al-Marah in 1958, “The Count” sired champions in hunter hack, driving and English pleasure and was known for an easygoing temperament that
he passed to his...
Bazy Tankersley’s foundation stallion *Indraff, foaled in 1938. In all ways a stronger and more useful horse than his sire *Raffles, *Indraff sired champions in every athletic discipline including cutting, reining, endurance, English pleasure and...