Henry Babson will Fay-el-Dine

Henry B Babson was born on the 1st December 1875 in Massachusetts to Augustus ‘Gus’ Babson and his wife Laura Margaret Babson [nee Davis] and grew up in Seward County, Nebraska.

He moved to Chicago at the age of 17 and whilst working at the 1893 World Fair he encountered his first purebred Arabian horses brought from the Middle East for exhibition and decided that some day he would own such horses himself.

Babson was an entrepreneur and an investor in photograph technology and became wealthy by selling innovative products and due to his success in business and investments he was able to travel internationally and ultimately fulfilled his dream and became a notable breeder of Arabian Horses. He hired the famous architect Louis Sullivan to design his country estate and in the 1930s began to import Arabian Horses to the United States.

Babson obtained Arabians from England, Poland and most notably Egypt. He began to travel in search of the finest quality Arabian Horses in 1930, travelling to England, France and Spain but was unable to purchase horses of the quality he sought.  In 1932, when he was 57 years old he made his first major importation from Egypt of two stallions and five mares from the Stud of Prince Kemel al Dine and the Royal Agricultural Society of Prince Mohammed Ali.  The horses in these studs were descendants of the impeccable collection of Abbas Pasha and his son Ali Pasha in the 1800s.  In his farm near Grand Detour, Illinois his horse breeding operation began.

BINT BINT DURRA 892 ~ 1930 chestnut mare by Ibn Rabdan (Rabdan [El Azrak] by Dahman [El Azrak] x Bint Gamila by Ibn Nadra) out o Bint Durra (Eid [desert bred] out of Durra by Saadoun) Dahman/Kuhaylan strains.

BINT BINT SABBAH 894 ~ 1930 bay mare by Bayyad (aka Baiyad) (Mabrouk Manial x Saklawi II [Farhan] x Bint Gamila by Ibn Nadra) out of Bint Sabbah (Kazmeen by Sotamm II x Sabah by Mabrouk Manial)  Dahman/Saklawi stains.  Actually a replacement mare for a mare that, for some reason, was not able to be shipped from Egypt.  She ended up being an integral part of the breeding program.  It is thought that Bint Bint Sabbah is the source of rabicano or 'Arab roan' pattern found in some Babson Arabians.

BINT SAADA 893 ~ 1930 chestnut mare by Ibn Samham (Samham II by Radban [El Azrak] x Om Dal by Sabbah) out of Saada (Mabrouka Manial (see above) x Mahbouba by Bark) Saklawi/Kuhaylan strains.

MAAROUFA 895 ~ 1931 grey mare by Ibn Rabdan (see above) and out of Mahroussa (Mabrouk Manial (above) x Negma by Dahman [El Azrak]) Saklawi/Kuhaylan strains

FADL 896 ~ 1930 grey stallion, full brother to MAAROUFA (see above)

METSUR 962 ~ 1932 a chestnut colt (Rustem x Bint Serra) imported with his dam and sadly died shortly after his arrival and was never used at stud.

In 1938 & 1939 Babson imported four Arabians from Poland to cross on his Egyptian-bred stock. In 1940, 1941 & 1958 he imported a small number of English-bred Arabians via farms in Canada and England.

Over the years Babson-bred horses excelled in the show ring. Respected for his contributions to the Arabian horse breed in America, Babson served as President of the Arabian Horse Registry, which is now part of the Arabian Horse Association from 1949 until 1957.

The most notable of Babson’s imports was the stallion Fadl, who went on to sire the Champion Fa-Serr, who is a major genetic source of the colour black in modern Arabians. Fadl’s most famous son, however, was the half-Egyptian – half-Polish stallion Fadheilan, sire of the legendary Champion of the 1960s, Fadjur, the grandsire of Khemosabi, a National Champion both in hand and under saddle, who was one of the most significant Arabian sires of the 1970s and the 1980s. Today Fadl is found in all Straight Babson Egyptian [SBE] horse’s pedigrees.

By the early 1960s, Babson decided to concentrate his breeding program solely on SBE. He kept his breeding stock that was descended from his original Egyptian imports and sold his non-Egyptian bred horses. He then began to cross some of his stock with the new Egyptian imports that began to arrive in the US in the 1950s & 1960s, primarily the descendants of the stallion Nazeer. After almost 40 years of breeding, Babson died in 1970 and his breeding operation continued until 1999.

Babson’s most enduring legacy was his contribution to the Arabian Horse breed. Babson bloodlines are noted for producing Arabian Horses of substance with calm, steady, trainable dispositions, used for dressage and endurance riding as well as many other disciplines in both the US & Europe. Horses strongly influenced by Babson breeding are generally darker in colour, mostly dark bay, liver chestnut and black. Approximately only 250 Arabian Horses today are pure, direct descendants of the Babson Egyptian imports and are referred to as Straight Babson or Babson Egyptian Horses. However, Arabians with Babson-influenced bloodlines number in their thousands, both in what are known as Domestic pedigrees [Arabians with ancestors imported to the US prior to 1944] and Straight Egyptian pedigrees [Arabians with ancestors all tracing to Egyptian bloodstock].