PLACEMENT CATALOG
OF CRAVER FARMS HORSES

At Craver Farms it has been our privilege to have Davenport Arabian horses since 1955. What a joy it has been to be with these horses at their moments of beauty. And there have been sad times with them, too. That was part of the blessing. Now it is time to let them go, and the hard realization is that the time is passing when we can provide the shelter to them that God's creatures sometimes need.

The listing of horses presented here is part of our effort to place these horses in good homes where they will be appreciated as beautiful and unique horses.
Please look this catalog of horses over, pick out what you like, and contact us about any questions. Telephone calls are quick. E-mail is great. A visit is best of all. Bring your trailer.

Horse Listing

At Craver Farms we have specialized in Davenport horses since 1955. If other kinds of horses happen to be on the farm, we do not breed from them. Several concepts should be expressed at the start of this catalog: (1) Practically all Davenport horses are of moderate size (14 to 14:3 hands). Almost all of them have fine skin, big eyes, width between the jaws, compact conformation, attractive heads, large cranial boxes, good movement, and wonderful dispositions. These features are just part of being a Davenport horse. They occur with other horses, too, but we do not know of any other breeding group of horses where they occur so systematically.

Definition: The descriptive term "Davenport" by long usage in this country is taken to mean horses registered by the Arabian Horse Club Registry of America as entirely descending from horses imported from Arabia by Homer Davenport in 1906. Recent DNA testing (see next paragraph) indicates this group of horses may include minor tracings to the Hamidie Society importation of 1893 for the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair). This was also a collection of authentic desert horses from the same general area in Arabia as the Davenports and blends well with them. The two groups formed the basis for Homer Davenport's and Peter Bradley's own breeding programs.

Strain Breeding: Arabian horses in Arabia were considered by Arabian Bedouin horsemen to belong to different "strains" or families. These strains were assigned on a matralineal basis with each mare transmitting her strain to her offspring, regardless of the strain of sire. At Craver Farms, we have mostly followed the Raswan theories of breeding horses of the same strains to each other. For this reason, the tail female descendants of Reshan of the Kuhaylan-Haifi strain are usually bred to each other. The mare Schilla is the tail female ancestress of a number of horses shown in this catalog. Their strains would therefore be the same as hers. Schilla is registered as of the Saqlawi strain. Recent DNA testing indicates there may have been an inadvertant switch of identity between her dam, Saleefy #70 and the mare Freda #20 (*Obeyran/Zitra). If this happened, she would have been of the Hamdani-Simri strain as would her tail-female descendants. In this catalog, we have followed the registered strain of the mare as has been done historically for many years. These horses are systematically bred to each other with excelllent results and producing a distinct type within Davenport parameters. As far as we know, Davenport Arabians are the major breeding group anywhere routinely practicing same-strain breeding.