Seeing Arabian Spots at the Circus, 1907-1914

We recently looked at a number of silent films (most filmed in California) that featured "Arabian" horses that were not really Arabians. It was not uncommon for entertainment promoters in the late 1800s to early 1900s to call a horse an "Arabian" when, at least demonstrably, it wasn't what breeders of the day would have called an Arabian. 

Certainly there had been horses imported to the United States before and during that time period, but there weren't many of them scattered around, and the Arabian Horse Club registration system wasn't established until 1908-1909. 

The public flame of desire to see an "Arabian" horse was doubtless fanned in 1880, when General Lewis "Lew" Wallace (1827-1905) published his novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It has been called "the most influential Christian book of the 19th century," but it also made people dream of seeing Arabian horses.  (In 1881, President James Garfield appointed Wallace as US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, expressing a hope that it would inspire Wallace to write a sequel to Ben-Hur.)

Back then, calling a horse an "Arabian" often meant that it was exotic-looking, and/or that it performed in a circus, rodeo, or stage production wearing a costume. We see a couple of examples of these Faux Arabians in newspaper advertisements and photographs of circus horses in the early 1900s.

Los Angeles-area newspaper ads in 1907 and 1908 reported that the famous Sells-Floto Circus Menagerie was wintering in Venice, California. People could take the train to see a circus performance and look at the camp with all the animals.

Los Angeles Herald, 1 March 1908.
I think they meant "menage horse act" rather than "manage."

Throughout the year, the circus would travel the country by train, with a grueling schedule so busy the performers may not have known where they were on any given day.

Part of the Sells-Floto equine troupe back then was a horse billed as an "Arabian." He had a graceful head, and he wore a tasseled bridle like Arabians from the desert might have.

He looked not unlike an Arabian might have, until you looked at the rest of him. He had a wealth of "leopard" black spots on his white coat.

The first image I've found of him is from 1907. He isn't given a name in this promotional montage, but his spotting is obvious.

In 1912, his stage name was Omar Khayyam. His exotic costume included plumes, little flags along the top of his mane, and several tassels. The circus took out a full-page ad in the local newspaper for their performances in Wichita, Kansas.

By 1914, the leopard-spotted horse's stage name was Kiddo, sometimes spelled "Kido." He was billed as a "Pure Arabian Horse."

He appears in this undated postcard image as "Kiddoo."

Source: eBay

Omar Khayyam/Kiddo/Kido/Kiddoo was not the only spotted "Arabian" Sells-Floto used in the early 1900s. Now entering the Sells-Floto big top, a team of four of the twelve (or fourteen, depending on which newspaper article you look at) "Celebrated Ben Hur Arabian Horses," each with a few black spots across its hindquarters.

Sells-Floto was capitalizing on the scenes in Lew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur, mentioned above.  In the book, the horses' owner, Sheik Ilderim, introduces Judah Ben-Hur to the team that pulls his chariot. Ben-Hur looks at one of the horses when it enters the Sheik's tent:

A head of exquisite turn—with large eyes, soft as a deer’s, and half hidden by the dense forelock, and small ears, sharp-pointed and sloped well forward—approached then quite to his breast, the nostrils open, and the upper lip in motion. “Who are you?” it asked, plainly as ever man spoke. Ben-Hur recognized one of the four racers he had seen on the course, and gave his open hand to the beautiful brute.

The chariot race itself was almost as thrilling in the book as it was on the big screen, first in 1925 and again in 1959:

 ...Above the noises of the race there was but one voice, and that was Ben-Hur’s. In the old Aramaic, as the sheik himself, he called to the Arabs,

“On, Atair! On, Rigel! What, Antares! dost thou linger now? Good horse—oho, Aldebaran! I hear them singing in the tents. I hear the children singing and the women—singing of the stars, of Atair, Antares, Rigel, Aldebaran, victory!—and the song will never end. Well done! Home to-morrow, under the black tent—home! On, Antares! The tribe is waiting for us, and the master is waiting! ’Tis done! ’tis done! Ha, ha! We have overthrown the proud. The hand that smote us is in the dust. Ours the glory! Ha, ha!—steady! The work is done—soho! Rest!”...

 The people arose, and leaped upon the benches, and shouted and screamed...  They had seen the transformation of the man, and themselves felt the heat and glow of his spirit, the heroic resolution, the maddening energy of action with which, by look, word, and gesture, he so suddenly inspired his Arabs. And such running! It was rather the long leaping of lions in harness; but for the lumbering chariot, it seemed the four were flying. When the Byzantine and Corinthian were halfway down the course, Ben-Hur turned the first goal.

AND THE RACE WAS WON!

The consul arose; the people shouted themselves hoarse; the editor came down from his seat, and crowned the victors....

Not content with having plain literary-Arabians-turned-flesh, however, the Sells-Floto Circus embellished their teams of chariot racers with a fanciful backstory.

Sells-Floto "Arabians," circa 1905-1906

"The Ben Hur Herd of Arabian Stallions of the Black Eagle Feather" were said to have been the property of the "Sultan of Turkey," who decreed they could only be shown in America if their "native keeper, Abdulla Ibn Achmad" remained with them -- except when the newspaper article cited their origins with the "Sultan of Morocco."  And importantly, they had spots on their hindquarters, "as if some barbaric spirit had dropped upon them black eagle feathers." 

Some of the horses' heads in the photo above look like they might have had Arabian blood, but not if the spots on their hindquarters were real. (Perhaps the spots were painted on, to add to their air of mystery?)

The "Ben Hur Arabians" were promoted as having been "exhibited at the horse show in Chicago in 1902."  I'm not sure which horse show that might have been; it's possible the circus promoters were referring to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which featured the appearance of real Arabian horses from the Middle East, counting on the public not to remember the year. (I'll put a photo of these Arabians at the end of this post.)

They Sells-Floto "Arabians" were also said to have "almost human intelligence." They were 15 1/2 hands high and weighed 1100-1250 pounds each.  Press promotion for the horses was lyrical:

"It was such horses Gen. Lew Wallace had in mind when he idealized the chariot race in his novel 'Ben Hur.' Therefore they have been called the 'Ben Hur' troupe of royal Arabian horses. 

"Only animals of the battle spirit were suitable as chariot horses. In these furious contests the horses put their lives at stake as well as the charioteers."

In Los Angeles in 1908, a Sells-Floto "Arabian" demonstrated the claim that he and his fellow spotted horses had "almost human intelligence." With tongue in cheek,  the Los Angeles Herald newspaper reported the story of the "sixth sense" of one of the Sells-Floto "Arabian" horses, Barney. Barney revealed to a group of Shriners that the Sells-Floto horses would help them fundraise for their annual "sircus." 

Los Angeles Herald, 15 March 1908

***

The "Arabian" horses in MGM's 1925 big-budget classic silent film "Ben-Hur" (which predates the 1959 color version with Charlton Heston) were probably more closely related to purebred Arabians than most of the circus horses of that era. At least one was a Shagya-Arabian! 

Still photo from the 1925 silent film "Ben-Hur"

Here's my blog post on them:

https://californiahorsehistory.blogspot.com/2024/04/part-six-some-arabian-and-not-really.html

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Many thanks to my friend, Arabian horse researcher and author extraordinaire Tobi Lopez Taylor, for pointing me to the story of "Kiddo." Tobi's blog is here:

https://musingsfromthemaresnest.blogspot.com/2024/

The Library of Congress website neatly summarizes the history of the Sells-Floto Circus. Its roots were literally a dog-and-pony show:

https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670645/#:~:text=The%20Sells%2DFloto%20Circus%20was,into%20the%20American%20Circus%20Corporation.

History in Photos tells more:

https://historyinphotographs.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-the-sells-floto-circus

You can get a sense of the Circus' itinerary by looking at this brochure from its 1906 season online. Pages 25, 26, and 27 include photos of the "Ben Hur Arabians."

https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/p15990coll5/id/3430

General Lew Wallace's family home in Indiana has been preserved as a museum and history center. 

https://www.ben-hur.com/

You can read Ben-Hur here for free:  

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2145/2145-h/2145-h.htm#chap58

Here are the (real) Arabians at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair:

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Capturing the Kellogg Arabian Stallion *Raseyn in Art

*RASEYN at the Kellogg Ranch, 1926

W. K. Kellogg bought the Arabian stallion *RASEYN (Skowronek x Rayya) from the Crabbet Stud in England in 1926, adding the stallion to his herd in Pomona, California. (*Raseyn has an asterisk * before his name, to indicate he was imported to the US from another country and registered with the Arabian Horse breed registry in this country.) 

The first example I find of *Raseyn posing for an artist is in 1929, when sculptor Annette St. Gaudens visited the Kellogg Ranch, art supplies at the ready. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZhqxVdSnI

(We also know how *Raseyn's name was pronounced through this and other old newsreels: sort of like "Ra-SEEN.")

Ms. St. Gaudens had homes in Claremont, California and in New Hampshire. Newspaper accounts said the sculptor had planned to take it back to New Hampshire with her, cast it in bronze there, and exhibit it in New York. 

The Kellogg House on the campus of Cal Poly Pomona now has her sculpture of *Raseyn, closed away in a cabinet with trophies won by some of  the Arabians and Percherons of the Kellogg Ranch. They took little *Raseyn out for his photo shoot during the 75th anniversary of the Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch; his picture appears in Mary Jane Parkinson's The Romance of the Kellogg Ranch.

We also see *Raseyn in this 10-plus minute newsreel film. (Be sure to come back here to finish the story, after you get lost in this film.)

https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/MVTN/id/5355/rec/13?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1JTFDxQQrJLjzlZaig8UbnLNLTx2sB7fPxVa48WF2P19m8R8TTaBpnXAI_aem_AaZqQAPcwKLR-dh7PRebZPicO8Aj6uZjgF2X51tBADfykOfvZ_cr-8hJoV9FEuJerFynwJ_ozzP6P7icw8we04jT

The beauty of this video is that we can see *Raseyn in action, almost throughout. At about 8:03 we see *Raseyn and Antez at a trot and canter under saddle. 

*Raseyn was a favorite subject for other artists. Here he poses with his friend Miss Gladys Brown (Edwards) in 1934. 

In later years, GBE created an iconic etching of *Raseyn. This copy is on display at the Al-Marah Arabian Horse Galleries at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

Wesley Dennis tried his hand at drawing *Raseyn for Esquire magazine in the 1930s. Since he apparently lived in Massachusetts and Virginia, Dennis may have been using a photograph as reference, rather than having visited the Kellogg Ranch himself.

Sculptor Lawrence Tenney Stevens (1896-1972) also captured *Raseyn, this time in an Art Deco style. There's one small copy in the Kellogg House on the Cal Poly Pomona campus, and another one in the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, also on the Cal Poly Pomona campus.  

WKKAHL notes that Stevens created the portrait in 1934.

Why do I think it was *Raseyn who posed for sculptor Stevens?  Because of two articles that ran in the Palm Springs, California Desert Sun during World War II.A local insurance broker and realtor, Herbert Samson, had been given a copy of the equine head study by Stevens, who had lived in the area.  Samson boxed up the artwork to send it to Stevens and stored it in the trunk of his car. Then thieves stole the box. 

The November 10, 1944 issue of the Sun did not name the Kellogg Arabian...

But a later issue of the Sun, did. The paper repeated Stevens' appeal for the return of the horse sculpture on December 1, 1944, and this time the reporter identified the subject of the art.  

Interestingly, the newspaper didn't spell *Raseyn's name correctly. They spelled it like the city in Wisconsin: "Racine."

"It all started some years ago when Stevens was a resident here and a close friend of Herbert Samson, modelled Racine, famous Arabian stallion at the Kellogg ranch near Pomona." (emphasis mine)

I have never been able to find out whether that stolen copy was recovered. 

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The W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library website is here:

https://libguides.library.cpp.edu/wkkahl

The Kellogg House website is here:

https://www.kellogghouse.com/

When the Circus Came to Monrovia, November 1925

 

Monrovia, California Daily News,
16 November 1925

Traveling circuses were an important form of entertainment in American cities in the 1920s.

Before the four rings were filled with people and hundreds of animals for two performances daily, young Monrovia, California horseman Merle H. Little (1906-1975) took his camera and went to look at the arrival of the Al G. Barnes Circus in his hometown in November 1925.

Here's what Merle saw:

A water wagon, with elephants, a zebra, and a buffalo. 

A pair of zebras.

Eight Shetland Ponies pulling a circus wagon.

Part Six: Some Arabian (and Not Really Arabian) Horses in Silent Films, 1921-1926

Historically, the motion picture industry has been good at telling exciting tales that also reinforced cultural, ethnic, racial, and gender stereotypes. Some of the films mentioned in this blog post may fit that description.

But the horses working alongside the actors and film crews didn't know about stereotypes; they were just doing their jobs. 

This story is about the horses.

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Some Arabian (and Not Really Arabian) Horses 

in Silent Films, 1921-1926

Part Six

In this series, we've been looking at Arabian horses that worked in American (and a few foreign) silent films, and also at some horses who were simply playing the parts of "Arabians."

Anna, not an Arabian, with Rudolph Valentino
in the 1921 silent classic "The Sheik"

Valentino on Jadaan, an actual Arabian,
in the 1926 sequel "The Son of the Sheik"

Now we turn our attention to a silent classic that featured horses imported from Europe with Arabian blood, although they weren't purebred Arabians: the 1925 classic "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ."

As we did with the silent version of "The Ten Commandments" and its 1956 remake, we have to remember that we're not talking about the 1959 version of "Ben-Hur," with its gorgeous white horses:

We're talking about this one, from 1925, with its own gorgeous white horses:

At least one of the white horses that pulled Judah Ben-Hur's chariot in the 1925 silent version of the story was not a purebred Arabian, but it was closely related! Read on.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer began filming its epic silent "Ben-Hur," the plan was to shoot the entire film in Rome. However, production problems and political instability in Italy sent stars Ramon Navarro (Judah Ben-Hur, the good guy, driving the white horses in the chariot race), Francis X. Bushman (Messala, the bad guy, with the black horses), and the rest of the cast and crew back to Southern California to complete the film.  

Director Fred Niblo took the helm.

Chariot race from "Ben-Hur" (1923)

An article in the Venice (California) Evening Vanguard reported that, when in Rome, MGM had bought "48 genuine Arabian stallions...from the Empress stable in Budapest, Austria, and 18 of them cost $800 apiece." But the 48 horses may or may not have been purebred Arabians.

Venice Evening Vanguard, 6 February 1925

*** Post-World War I history sidebar: Charles I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia, was the "Emperor Carl" mentioned in the news stories. He was the last of the monarchs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; his uncle was Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The Archduke's assassination in 1914 was the most immediate cause of World War I. The "former Crown Prince of Germany" (see newspaper clipping below) was Wilhelm, the son of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm; they both abdicated in 1918. Charles/Carl died suddenly in 1922, and the young Count Franz Esterhazy, "the wealthiest aristocrat in Hungary" (see newspaper clipping below) bought his horses. Esterhazy already had a huge stable full of expensive horses, including some Lipizzaners. Esterhazy got into financial difficulties and, in 1925, his horses were auctioned off. ***

During the auction, each horse's pedigree was read aloud. The Vatican reportedly bought six white horses for Pope Pius XI. And MGM bought 48, in assorted colors, for "Ben-Hur." One news article said that four black horses purchased by MGM had been the "royal coach horses" of Emperor Carl.

Other newspaper articles named two of the horses, and that's how we can verify the breed of at least one. The two horses were identified as "Schagya the Fourteenth, the favorite horse of the late Austrian Emperor,  and Bascia, a gift from the emperor to the former crown prince of Germany."

San Francisco Examiner, 4 January 1925

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Grace Kingsley reported, "They have the most beautiful horses for the chariots I have ever laid eyes on.... They once belonged to the Emperor Carl of Austria and the former Crown Prince of Germany. The pure white horses, in addition to many brown and black steeds, were purchased in Budapest from members of royal families." 

The Daily Oklahoman newspaper provided more details, identifying Schagya the Fourteenth and Bascia as two of the white horses that pulled Ramon Navarro's chariot in the epic chariot race scene. 

The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), 21 December 1924

"Following the world war, Schagya was sold to Count Esterhazy and is credited with having won the first prize in one of the recent horse shows in Vienna.

"The pure whites, in addition to the scores of browns and jet blacks, were all purchased in Budapest from members of royal families... 

"Both Schagya and Bascia, with two other whites, also from the stud of the late emperor, will be attached to the chariot to be driven by Ramon Navarro, who enacts the part of Ben-Hur..."

Schagya the Fourteenth, at least, was not a purebred Arabian, but close. The mention of Austria, and the name "Schagya" (now spelled "Shagya" in the US), tell us the breed of the white horse used in the film. 

The "Empress stable" was actually "the Emperor's stable." Shagya-Arabians (part-Arabians) were developed on the military stud farms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, starting in the late 1700s. Arabian stallions from the desert were cross-bred with mares that already had a great deal of Arabian influence in their pedigrees. The goal was to develop a sturdy, elegant horse suitable for cavalry, harness, and parade use.  The breed is named for its foundation sire, Shagya, an Arabian stallion foaled in 1810 that came to Babolna, Hungary in 1836. He was such an outstanding individual that he appears in virtually all Shagya-Arabian pedigrees.

Once the production was moved back to Southern California, producer Irving Thalberg scrapped much of the Italian footage, and director Niblo went to work. MGM built a massive replica of a Roman circus on 45 acres near the intersection of what is now Venice Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard in Culver City. 

The chariot race, in part of the massive set for the 1925 film "Ben-Hur,"
in Culver City, California. (Public domain.)

The call went out for ten thousand (yes) extras to participate in shooting the chariot race. Several sub-directors worked with different sections of the extras in the stands, including William Wyler, who directed the 1959 version of "Ben-Hur." MGM employed 42 camera operators to film the race from various angles. 

Cameras mounted on a car were used
to film scenes from the chariot race in "Ben-Hur."
San Francisco Examiner, 22 November 1925. 

The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers published special reports on the filming. Niblo overcame the ambient human, mechanical, and equine noise on the set by having his assistant, Charles P. Stallings, repeat his directions to cast, crew, and 10,000 extras using new technology developed by Western Electric:  a microphone, vacuum tubes, and loudspeakers. 

Newspapers reported that Hollywood basically shut down elsewhere on the day the chariot race was filmed, because so many A-list stars wanted to watch, dressed as Roman "extras." Like Cecil B. DeMille in the silent "The Ten Commandments" before him (see Part Four of this series), Niblo called out the cavalry --  54 riders and horses this time, dressed as Roman Imperial Guards, to act in the film and help with crowd control. 

Baltimore Sun, 27 December 1925

MGM was so pleased with the sound system, it built a special shed on wheels to house the equipment for future productions.

Back to the horses: Perhaps Schagya the Fourteenth and Bascia are in this still from the film.

(Public domain.)

I also took a couple of screen grabs from a copy of "Ben-Hur" on YouTube, so we can see what  they looked like.

I wonder what happened to Schagya XIV and Bascia, and the other horses from Europe, after "Ben-Hur" wrapped? Did MGM sell them, or did they live at the studio's stables in Culver City and appear, unnamed, in other films? 

Perhaps we'll never know. 

Or perhaps their stories are still out there, waiting for us to find them.

***

Unless someone who is a Shagya-Arabian expert reads this and enlightens me, it's going to be problematic to learn whether our new friend Schagya the Fourteenth was a stallion, mare, or gelding, because the Shagya-Arabian naming system is complicated. Suffice it to say, there have been several stallions whose names were listed as "Shagya XIV" over the years. 

And a Shagya-Arabian mare can carry her sire's name. For example, after World War II, several Shagya-Arabians, also known then as "Arab-Kind," ended up at the US Army Quartermaster Depot in Pomona, site of the former Kellogg Ranch. Two of the mares were called *41 Gazal II and *52 Gazal II -- after their sire, Gazal II. Four other imported Shagya-Arabian mares at the Pomona Remount Depot were named *95 Shagya XXVI, *98 Shagya XXVI, *113 Shagya XXVI, and *283 Shagya XXVI -- all after their sire, Shagya the Twenty-Sixth. 

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Thanks

Many thanks to Carol Woodbridge Mulder, Tobi Lopez Taylor, Dolores "Dee" Adkins, and Shay Canfield for their invaluable assistance in preparing this series. Information in this post came, in part, from the wonderful W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona.

Ben-Hur (1925)

Here's a short documentary on the making of the chariot race scene in the 1925 silent. You can see the white horses pulling the title character's chariot very clearly. And yes, the shots in this silent version are virtually identical to those in the 1959 version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G2QG1Rh7TI

The Internet Movie Database lists the cast of "Ben-Hur," credited and uncredited. You can see the names of the celebrities who became anonymous members of the crowd, and the names of some of the chariot drivers more famous for their work in cowboy movies.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0016641/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival website has a good summary of the film's history: https://silentfilm.org/ben-hur-a-tale-of-the-christ-2/

Here's the Motion Picture Academy's map of the site of the "Circus" in "Ben-Hur":

https://www.academymuseum.org/en/hollywood-past-and-present/filming-location-of-ben-hurs-circus-maximus?filter=

Shagya-Arabian horses

The North American Shagya-Arabian Society website  

https://shagya.net/shagya-arabian-breed

offers background information on the breed:

The Shagya-Arabian horse was developed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire over 200 years ago. The breed originated from the need for a horse with the endurance, intelligence and character of an Arabian but with larger size and carrying capacity required by the Imperial Hussars. Over time, Shagya-Arabians were utilized both as carriage and light riding horses....

The Shagya-Arabian was originally developed at the Imperial Stud at Babolna, Hungary. Failed experiments with Spanish and Thoroughbred blood eventually led the breeders at Babolna to a cross of native Hungarian mares with stallions of pure Desert Arabian blood. Shagya-Arabian bloodlines were also developed at the stud farms at Radautz (Hungary), Topolcianky (Czechoslovakia), Mangalia (Rumania), and Kabijuk (Bulgaria).  

The breed takes its name from the dapple-grey stallion Shagya, born in 1810. The Bani Saher tribe of Bedouins, who lived in what is now Syria, bred Shagya and sold him to agents of the Habsburg monarchy. In 1836, he became the breeding stallion at Babolna. Shagya was prepotent and appears in almost all Shagya-Arabian pedigrees.

You can find more detailed information on Shagya-Arabians in Bonnie L. Hendricks' book International Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds.

https://archive.org/details/internationalenc00hend/mode/2up