SIRE LINE–SKOWRONEK PART 5, *RAFFLES,
LITTLE BIG HORSE
Not everyone, especially outside Britain, is aware that there were other breeds at Crabbet Park besides Arabians. Lady Wentworth also bred Thoroughbreds, Anglo-Arabians, and Welsh ponies. According to some sources, she bred Skowronek, who was himself a small horse, to his even smaller daughter *Rifala with the intention of producing a tiny Arabian stallion to use on her Welsh ponies. It was certainly the only time she resorted to such a close incestuous mating.
If that was the idea, she got exactly what she wanted. *Raffles (named after the British statesman Sir Stamford Raffles) was a perfect miniature edition of his sire Skowronek: a tiny, white, very typey Arabian stallion with huge eyes. Records of his actual size vary, but he was no taller than 13.3 hands. He would certainly have made an ideal sire to use on Welsh mares. There was just one little snag: he appeared to be sterile.
There was no way of repeating the mating, since *Raffles’s dam *Rifala had been sold to the U.S. when *Raffles was just two years old. She had been purchased by Roger Selby, one of the pioneers of Arabian breeding in the U.S. and for several years a regular customer at Crabbet Park. Between 1928 and 1933, Selby imported a total of 20 Arabians from England. *Rifala was one of the first and became one of his most significant foundation mares. Among others, she produced the stallion Image, whose line became one of the most prominent sire lines in the U.S. and will feature in a future installment.
“With great patience and dedication, they very slowly managed to get the little stallion to settle down and trust them.”
When Selby purchased another group of horses from Crabbet Park in 1932, Lady Wentworth threw in a gift horse: the small, pretty, but sadly sterile *Raffles. He was
