Asil

By CE Foxwell

The story of a young family struggling to preserve their Arabian stud whose lives become entangled with the magical world of the Unicorns through their star Arabian mare’s rare Asil bloodline. The adventure unfolds with 10 yr old Tom accompanied by young colt, Pasha, on a quest taking them across the length and breadth of the country. Together they have to succeed in their desperate mission if they are to save a life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CE Foxwell
• Release date: Jul 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476208893

Book preview

ASIL

by B B Beckett and C E Foxwell

Copyright 2012 B B Beckett and C E Foxwell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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This book is dedicated to Sarah Percival, an inspiration, and to Cloudesley’s Karimah, a true Asil, whose photograph appears on the front cover.

Preface

The Arabian Horse

The Arabian is considered to be the oldest pure breed of horse in existence. Many of the hot-blooded horses in existence today owe their influence to its bloodlines. Indeed the thoroughbred racehorse of today can trace its ancestry back to three Arabian stallions: the Byerley Turk, the Darley Arabian and the Goldolphin Arabian.

An Asil Arabian is one whose pedigree can be traced back generations with absolute certainty. To award an Arabian horse the title of Asil (pronounced: asseel) is to give it the highest possible honour as it means that it is purebred of true desert origin.

The correct physical attributes of an Arabian Horse are: a long arched neck and a deep body culminating in powerful hindquarters with a high flag-like tail carriage; the head should have a slightly dished profile with short inwardly pointing ears, a broad forehead with large expressive low set eyes tapering down to a fine muzzle with flexible nostril.

There is another subtle spiritual quality that not every correct Arabian physical specimen will have. An eminent Sheikh has this advice, that before looking at the horse you must ensure that it had the five specifications of character: Courage, Intelligence, Stamina, Spirit and above all ‘Nejabat" (a word that means a mixture of nobleness, gentleness and aristocratic ethics). The wise Sheikh believed that if a horse lacks these virtues, no matter no how pleasing he is to the eye, he is a worthless horse not worth your time

Chapter One

And God took a handful of Southerly wind, blew His breath over it and created the horse.

Bedouin Legend

Cottam House was approached by a long winding drive with tall hornbeam hedging either side. A gracious Georgian sandstone building, it was set idyllically off a small country lane nestled amongst various ancient barns, cart lodges and a magnificent old-fashioned stable block in a parkland setting.

Although it could not be described as a stately home, it nevertheless had an old world charm and evoked thoughts of another era. One could just imagine a country squire back from a days’ hunting returning to this place; a hive of activity in the stable courtyard, with dogs yapping and steaming horses being washed down. Everything had been beautifully planned out by architects to make ease of living a priority and a pleasure.

The Calthorpe family had owned Cottam for generations and the children Tom, ten and Anna, eight, saw past the shabbiness of previous neglect and revelled in the light airy rooms with their peeling wallpaper. Theirs was an active outdoor lifestyle. Tom with his mop of brown hair and lean athletic frame and Anna with her blond curls would often be found in the elegantly restored stable yard helping their mother, Rachel with the daily chores. Rough old clothes were the order of the day as helping meant getting dirty; mud, horse hair, muck – a fact of life that everyone simply got on with.

The children loved messing about by the river which flowed through the grounds of Cottam House. They had grown up with it in the background of their lives and knew to treat the water with respect. There was an old weathered boatshed in the garden with an ancient but river-worthy punt in it. They had taken it out a few times on the quiet and loved the independence and sense of adventure it gave them. Indeed, Anna, with her pretty freckled face was a determined tomboy and always trying to outdo her brother by daring feats such as climbing to the top of the old oak tree halfway down the drive, and climbing onto the roof of the hay barn. Rachel had to rescue her children on several occasions but believed in giving them the freedom to enjoy an adventurous lifestyle in the way that she had done as a child. In fact her mother, Grandma Alice, had tumbled to these goings on but turned a blind eye, ‘better lawless than listless’ was her feeling about children. They were lucky where they lived, down quiet country lanes which meant that the children’s independence could be encouraged; biking down to an elderly neighbour’s house on errands was a particular favourite with Tom and Anna.

The family’s relatively carefree existence at Cottam, however, had been shattered a year ago when Robert Calthorpe was tragically killed in a car crash. To make matters worse, his financial affairs had not been in order and this meant that the children had to move schools and that Rachel needed to enlist her mother, Alice’s help with the children whilst she returned to work part-time as an intensive care nurse at the local hospital.

Rachel now relied heavily on Tom and Anna’s help with the animals. Their specialised Asil Cloudesley Arabian stud had begun to take