Homer Davenport - Arabian Horse Breeder

Arabian Horse Breeder

In addition to his cartooning, Davenport is remembered for personally playing a key role in bringing some of the earliest desertbred or "asil" Arabian horses to America. A longtime horseman, he had been captivated by the beauty of the Arabians brought to the Chicago World Fair of 1893. Upon learning that these horses had remained in America and had been sold at auction, he sought them out, finding most of them in the hands of Peter Bradley, a millionaire and horseman who lived in Hingham, Massachusetts. Davenport initially bought some of these horses outright, but then went into a partnership with Bradley. He also purchased horses from the Crabbet Park Stud in England.

In 1906, Davenport obtained financial backing from Peter Bradley and used his political connections, particularly with President Theodore Roosevelt, to obtain the diplomatic permissions required to travel into the Middle East. He gained support from key officials in the Ottoman Empire, notably the Sultan himself. Combining his memory and cartooning ability with his international travels, in the process he produced one of the few images of the sultan, a man who was generally unwilling to be photographed or have his image drawn. With several associates, he traveled throughout what today is Syria and Lebanon, and successfully brought 27 horses to America. Most were registered under the name of Bradley's Hingham Stock Farm.

Of note was that Davenport not only was able to purchase stallions, which were often available for sale to outsiders, but also mares, treasured by the Bedouin and often not for sale at any price. One reason was due to his (possibly accidental) decision to breach protocol and visit Akmet Haffez, a Bedouin who served as a liaison between Ottoman government and the tribal people of the Anazeh, before calling upon the Governor of Syria, Nazim Pasha. Haffez considered the timing of Davenport's visit to constitute a great honor, gave Davenport his finest mare, a war mare named Wadduda. Not to be outdone, Nazim Pasha gave Davenport the stallion Haleb, who was a well-respected sire throughout the region. Known as the "Pride of the Desert," Haleb had been given to Pasha as a gift in recognition of his liberal camel tax. Haffez then personally escorted Davenport into the desert, and at one point in the journey, Haffez and Davenport became blood brothers. Haffez helped arrange for the best-quality horses to be presented, negotiated appropriate prices, and verified that their pedigrees were asil. Davenport chronicled this journey in his 1908 book My Quest of the Arab Horse.

The impact of these 17 stallions and 10 mares was of tremendous importance to the Arabian horse breed in America. The organization is now the Arabian Horse Association. While what are now called "Davenport" bloodlines can be found in thousands of Arabian horse pedigrees, there are also some preservation breeders whose horses have bloodlines remain exclusively descended from the horses he imported. Today, the term "CMK", meaning "Crabbet/Maynesboro/Kellogg" is a label for specific lines of "Domestic" or "American-bred" Arabian horses. It describes the descendants of horses imported to America from the desert or from Crabbet Park Stud in the late 1800s and early 1900s the bred on in the US by the Hamidie Society, Randolph Huntington, Spencer Borden, Davenport, W.R. Brown's Maynesboro Stud, W. K. Kellogg, William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon Stud, and "General" J. M. Dickinson of Traveler's Rest Stud.

Davenport was also a founder of the Arabian Horse Club of America (now the Arabian Horse Association) in 1908, and was its first president. The organization formed due to political changes within the American Jockey Club which had ended its policy of registering Arabian horses. One reason for this policy may have been due to Davenport's cartooning; he portrayed Jockey Club President August Belmont in an unfavorable manner.