History of the Phara Arabian

History of the Phara Arabian

"Like most of you, we were drawn to Arabian horses because of their beauty and their user-friendly attitude. This was our breed of choice in the late 50's and we started with Arabians which became successful show horses.

By the early 60's the breed's growing popularity was attracting Saddlebred trainers to many of the large Arabian farms - the Saddlebred farms were on the decline because the big high gaited horses were not really user-friendly. They couldn't be shown without a professional trainer with the strength of a wrestler and the foresight of a high roller - they were hard work. The irony is that these trainers brought with them that same Saddlebred concept. It would soon become apparent the true in type Arabian was being re-molded into a Saddlebred version in appearance, action, and temperament as well. We felt it was a shame to see this wonderful pure Arabian breed becoming compromised. Not a good idea, we thought, to take up the same tactics which caused another breed to decline.

At the 1964 Texas Fall Show in Dallas, where the 1964 National Championships were held, we saw the most illuminating examples of the hype type, showing the bigger, plainer "moving machines" in many of the classes, exciting the crowd, and the judges were going along with it. Then, in the large Most Classic Arabian class, we witnessed an unforgettable incident. The judge was about to be swayed into pinning one of these plainer, bigger, hyper horses, when he came to a most artistically perfect classic Arabian standing quietly and naturally in the lineup - no need for this one to be "on fire" to be impressive. This was the two-year-old Lewisfield Sun God, a brilliant chestnut beauty we had first seen as a yearling who had so inspired us that, after learning we could not purchase him, was the basis behind us changing our entire breeding program in an effort to duplicate this awesome horse.

Lewisfield Sun God was named Most Classic Arabian of the show that day, and won the Reserve Champion Junior Stallion title as well. This young stallion needed no show gimmicks. He was as perfectly beautiful standing in his stall as he was in the show ring. He didn't need a slick handler to make him appear to be the most classic Arabian - he just simply was that.

His head was the most extreme we had ever seen, with proportioned features as an artist would dream up, and his overall structure was reminiscent of the early Gladys Brown Edwards trophy model. His quiet gentle attitude was intriguing. This colt gave us renewed hope for our future with this breed. We imagined that if we could breed horses with the look of Lewisfield Sun God we could continue in the Arabian business for many, many years to come. No matter what fads would come and go, there would always be a market for a horse like that." ~~Annette Weber

And she was right - 45 years later the Phara breeding program remains strong - and healthy. The demand for Phara Arabians has withstood the test of time, it has held strong through all the importations and fad breeding.

The Phara Vision

To preserve the classic elegance of the PUREBRED Arabian horse by line-breeding small family groups, in the Bedouin tradition, with special attention to the importance of the mare.

Please click HERE for a series of pages that will take you through the history of the Phara Arabian, beginning in 1963 and taking you to the present day.