There were many straight Babson’s to choose from in the late 60’s.  Why did Walter choose Daal Aba?  We know Walter had carefully studied pedigrees for years before making his first purchase so we can only conclude that he was a visionary from the start.  Walter recognized that to continue breeding the Babsons as a closed group 30 or 40 years from then he needed to keep his future breeding options open.  This meant staying away from Fa-Serr and Fabah blood as long as he could and this became an important compositional theme in Masada pedigrees.   Walter saw that the direction of straight Babson breeding would eventually produce a bottle neck resulting from too many crosses to these two stallions, too much of a good thing, similar to the problem with Nazeer in new Egyptian pedigrees. Thus, he recognized that his breeding group would eventually become an “outcross” within straight Babson breeding, enabling the closed group to successfully remain so for years to come.  The last living non-Fa-Serr/Fabah blooded Babson mare, the lovely bay Masada El Aba, died earlier this year.  Another important compositional theme for Masada is using stallions whose pedigrees positioned the original Babson imports up close, thus returning to the original sources in as few generations as possible.

 What was the objective of the Masada breeding program?  Daal Aba’s pedigree is the Masada Rosetta stone.  Some breeders have focused on creating the “perfect Arabian head”, or the “look at me” show attitude, or the “ideal tail carriage”.  Walter wanted to bring back the endurance horse of the Bedouin; an ideal most of us will unfortunately only read about but never have the opportunity to truly know.  Walter wanted first and foremost the old desert type Arabian with a ‘tent’ disposition.  Combined with this calm and sensible personality was a requirement for superior athletic ability, which translates into straight strong legs with dense strong bone and short cannons, sloping shoulder angles, short strong backs, deep heart girths, a desert type croup with the tail set right on top, a perfect equilateral triangle between point of hip, stifle and buttock, good withers, elegant long necks rising from the shoulder, a long mitbah, connecting the head and neck, and a clean throat latch.  Walter always felt getting a beautiful head and eye on the horse was the easy part, and the icing on the cake.  (This is easy for Walter to say, since he managed to include this in the Masada package as well!)  The key notes that

Daal Aba’s pedigree possessed to produce this Bedouin endurance horse were the stallions Faddan and Fay-El-Dine, both Saqlawi Jidran Ibn Sudan in strain, combined with the proven endurance mares *Bint Bint Durra and *Bint Bint Sabbah, both Dahmah-Shahwaniyah in strain.

Fay El Aba, dam of Daal Aba.

 Faddan was noted for excellent action and often appears close up in the pedigrees of successful endurance, park, and dressage winners.  Unfortunately, very little Faddan blood remained within Sheykh Obeyd bloodlines so Walter concentrated his efforts over the years on compounding this element as much as he could.  Miss Jane Ott remarked in her famous ‘Blue Catalog’ that Faddan was probably the best Babson stallion ever bred.  Fay-El-Dine, a magnificent gray stallion, was the first born Sheykh Obeyd foal of both his famous parents, *Fadl and *Bint Serra I. Fay-El-Dine is also remarkable in that he is the sire of 10 producers of National winners from only 55 registered foals.   Preservation breeders nearly always list Fay-El-Dine, along with Faddan and Khebir, as the best Babson stallion produced.  *Bint Bint Durra received commendation in The Arab Horse, May 1937: "Mr. Babson's *Bint Bint Durra, the mare class winner, a dark chestnut with straight hard legs, was of rare symmetrical proportions and strength, as well as grace of body...(Her) expression was that of the ideal Arab, gentle and generous, as if they would give all they had to a good master."  Mr. Babson wrote: "*Bint Bint Durra is prepotent as a brood mare - outstanding under saddle in the hands of anyone."  She only had 5 foals of which 2 stallions by *Fadl have no living Al Kkamsa descendants.  Last, but certainly not least, is *Bint Bint Sabbah. *Bint Bint Sabbah distinguished herself in many endurance rides. It was written in The Arab Horse, May 1937: "The third prize winner, the Arab mare *Bint Bint