Arabian horse breeding in Ionic

NOTE: This text deals with virtual Arabian horse breeding on a SIM game stable. Nothing whatsoever can be taken as a real-life information!

As mentioned in Ionic in English introduction, Arabian horse is the biggest breed in Ionic. This blog text discusses about Arabians in Ionic.

History in Ionic
Arabian is the biggest breed but also one of the oldest breeds in Ionic, it has been bred since 2004 when Ionic was created. Actually, the first Ion-foal ever was born in Feb 9th 2004 and it was an Arabian! The first Arabians in Ionic were relocated from Marinea, Virginia's previous stable, some were also bought from other stables and some invented (usually the term "to import" is used).

Importing Arabians has been very important part of the breeding and during the years, several dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of Arabians have been invented. Most of the present-day Arabians have a pedigree with Ionic Arabian lines. Both of the Ionic owners have also bought some Arabians with "foreign" pedigrees to help with the breeding and to bring new bloodlines into our Arabian stock. But as the number of Arabians is so huge, few Arabians bought every now and then do not make much difference... That is why we have to continue our "import more" policy.

Breeding and bloodlines
The Finnish SIM horse world did not pay attention to the bloodlines at first and that was the situation in Ionic, too. Later the bloodlines have been taken into the account but as many of the old horses cannot be counted anything but domestics, Ionic has not specified on breeding any specific bloodline. Nowadays the bloodlines are defined for all of the Ionic horses so nearly all of Ionic's horses are domestics with 2 or more different bloodlines in their pedigrees.

However, Polish (PPA), Russian (SRA), and Egyptian (SEA) are the most common bloodlines in Ionic, most horses have at least some part of those lines in their pedigrees. Spanish (ESP) and English (ENG, also called Crabbet) are more rare even though existent. Polish and Russian are the personal favorites of the owners and lately many imported horses have been Russian as it is generally more rare than Polish in Finnish SIM horse world.

Applying the real-life bloodlines in virtual Arabians is somewhat problematic (the Finnish SIM horse world does not use the RL horses as some SIM stable owners do in USA and other countries): the bloodlines were created by the biggest studs in the particular area. Especially clear this is with the English bloodline which is called as Crabbet Arabian in English-speaking countries. The term "Crabbet Arabian" reveals that the English bloodline was created by Crabbet Stud. How can English bloodline exist in the SIM horse world when we do not have the Crabbet Stud here? Good question, unfortunately we do not have any answer.

Instead of these real-life bloodlines, could or should we have SIM bloodlines, for example, Straight Ionic Arabians? We have bred virtual Arabians for a decade and for several horse generations, so we have made a some kind of an impact to the virtual Arabian horse and that might be called a bloodline.
In this case, the Ionic bloodline would be famous for the following qualities:
- They are quite big (average height at withers 155 cm).
- They are versatile sport horses, suitable for every possible discipline from racing to saddle seat and dressage.
- Their conformation is not very uniform but the most favored horse is harmonious and well-balanced, without any conformation faults.
- They are not overly slender or lightweight but sound and slightly robust. All kind of exaggeration in type or conformation is avoided.
- Their head is only moderately dished or sometimes straight. Extreme dish is not desirable.
- They are lively but easily handled, being not too hot-tempered.

Colors
Arabian has not a wide variety of colors, they come only in bays, chestnuts, blacks, and grays with one of the mentioned as a base color. Of course there are some rare rabicanos and sabino-like patterns caused by W-gene variations but no dilutions (cream, dun, pearl, champagne, silver) or other patterns (roan, tobiano, overo, appaloosa).

As both of the Ionic owners are some sort of color freaks, the inheritance of Arabian colors is kept as realistic as possible. A gray must always have at least one gray parent, two chestnuts do not produce a bay foal and so on. We have even gone so far that all the Arabians with picture (and thus their color is defined) have also a color genotype (except the W-gene variations). Of course, the foals will inherit their color and genes from their parents.

Even if we do play with genes and inheritance, we do not expect any other SIM horse owner to do that. If you buy a foal from Ionic, we will give you the list of possible colors according to the parents' genotypes and are willing to help with selecting the photo and recognizing the color, it is ok if you do not follow the color list. The color list is merely a recommendation, not a rule.

Names
In the beginning of Arabian breeding, the foals had "Ion" suffix in their names, like Fareed Ion and Khadija Ion, to be recognized as foals bred by Ionic. Later all the Arabians have got a two-part name (sometimes three-part) without Ion in it, for example, Ibenka Akbaru and Piekna Al-Rawya. The first part is the name of the dam line and the second part is the "own" name of the horse, it usually has the same first letter as the sire's name. This practice has some background in the real world as the Bedouins were very proud of their mares and traced the strains through the maternal lines.

Currently there are several dozens of dam line names in Ionic:
– Abriko by Abrikos GA (original Ionic mare)
– Amab by Amab Sharion (original Ionic mare)
– Anjum by Bint el Anjum GA (original Ionic mare)
– Ayda by Ayda Janan
– Aziza by Aziza al-Shama (original Ionic mare)
– Badieh by Moniet El Badieh GA (original Ionic mare)
– Bataarah by Bataarah
– Coral by Cinderella Siwan through Coral al Daydream
– Cosmetik by Cosmetika GA (original Ionic mare)
– Dheb by Zahnina through Dheba al Najya
– Doryn by Doryna GA (original Ionic mare)
– Elfat by Al Elfat GA (original Ionic mare)
– Fanya by Fanyah GA (original Ionic mare)
– Fiddat by Fiddat Aasifa
– Galaks by Galaksiya GA (original Ionic mare)
– Haday by Hadaya Jewel
– Hiyam by Surviver Apollo through Ghadah Hiyam LIA
– Ibenka by Ibenka (original Ionic mare)
– Jawahir by Jawahir Ziyad
– Jeza by Jezara GA (original Ionic mare)
– Jihad by Jihadu GA (original Ionic mare)
– Kabala by Kabalah GA (original Ionic mare)
– Karim by Bey Indyanna through Karimah Sahar al Najya
– Korel by Korel GA (original Ionic mare)
– Lyda by Lyda Ira GA (original Ionic mare)
– Mikeno by Mikeno Sumnah (original Ionic mare)
– Narza by Narzad GA (original Ionic mare)
– Nawar by Nawar Gulzar
– Ozir by Oziria GA (original Ionic mare)
– Piekna by Piekna Kobieta (original Ionic mare)
– Qismah by Qismah Mayrana
– Riww by Dernierna Morne Fronage through RIFA's Weintje Winona
– Roshnara by Jasminn through Celedith's Roshnara
– Saint by Cleopatra through Saint Elizabeth
– Simvol by Simvol GA (original Ionic mare)
– Solanka by Solankah (original Ionic mare)
– Syanid by Syanida GA (original Ionic mare)
– Takiyah by Valeriya through IS Takiyah
– Taktik by Taktika GA (original Ionic mare)
– Thaz by Thaz Mahjal GA (original Ionic mare)
– Uzac by Uzaca GA (original Ionic mare)
– Wadi by Wadi Ajouz GA (original Ionic mare)
– Xamir by Xamira GA (original Ionic mare)
– Yaron by Yaronia GA (original Ionic mare)
– Zitron by Zitronel GA (original Ionic mare)

- S