OTW - The Frisco Mari Family

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THE FRISCO MARI by

Mary Jane

Parkinson

The Mari family, breeders of Arabian horses. Left to right: Frisco with *Szarza, Clara with Granada, Rose with Bella Rosa, and Dorothy with SDV Santiago, in this 1967 photo.

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131 ▪ ARABIAN HORSE WORLD ▪ JULY 99

T H E F R I S C O M A R I F A M I LY EXIT

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The Mari family, breeders of Arabian horses. Left to right: Frisco with *Szarza, Clara with Granada, Rose with Bella Rosa, and Dorothy with SDV Santiago, in this 1967 photo.

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THE FRISCO MARI by

Mary Jane

Parkinson

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131 ▪ ARABIAN HORSE WORLD ▪ JULY 99

F o u n d a t i o n Frisco Mari brought a certain aesthetic sense of European romance and artistry to the breeding of Arabian horses. His first opportunity to apply those sensitivities came in 1952. Earlier that year, he’d felt the intensity of a prolonged Daddy-we-want-a-horse campaign as mounted by his three daughters. But that’s Chapter 16 of the story of the Mari family and Arabian horses. Back to the early influences on Frisco.

Frisco’s father, born in Florence, Italy, and his mother, born near Valencia, Spain, met and married in Mendoza, Argentina, and Frisco and his three brothers were born there. When Frisco was a small child, the family moved to his father’s family home in Italy, then a few years later to his mother’s finca of several hundred acres in Spain.

Pietro (Frisco’s father) enjoyed an expansive career as a landscape architect, designing golf courses and beautiful and elaborate estates in France, Germany, and England. His popularity was no doubt enhanced by his ability to speak six languages. “Smartest one in the family,” Frisco remembered. Pietro’s work occasionally took him outside Europe. On a trip to Morocco, the king, in appreciation of his excellent design work, gave him an Arabian gelding. Back home in Spain, the gelding became a part of the pageantry of bullfights, as Pietro rode him at the head of the parade of picadors before each fight. Frisco’s concern about the welfare of animals kept him away from the corridas, but the elegance and beauty of the Arabian stayed with him.

After a few years in Spain, when Frisco was nine, all the Maris came to the United States, settling in Connecticut. Frisco’s first job in the United States paid 50 cents a day as water boy for a ditch-digging crew. When his salary was raised to 75 cents per day, he felt he could live like a millionaire.

Pietro designed gardens and grounds for important estates on the eastern seaboard and Frisco often worked with him. By 1916, Frisco was employed by a Southampton, Long Island, firm that built golf courses; when the owner died, Frisco took over the business. Through the excellence of his work, Frisco was soon wooed by Chicago millionaires who wanted Maridesigned golf courses in their area, then lured to Los Angeles to build golf courses and to landscape palatial homes.

At San Clemente, California, Frisco worked for H. H. Cotton who utilized Frisco’s skills in developing a home on a 300-acre site on the beach, part of an 86,000-acre land grant from the king of Spain to the Dominguez family. The Cottons were horse people and had one of the finest Thoroughbred farms of the day. Through that horse interest, a second exotic

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Arabian came into Frisco’s life. Mr. and Mrs. Cotton traveled to Arabia where, as Frisco recalled in 1982, “the King of Arabia, Ibn Saud, gave Mrs. Cotton an Arabian mare. Back home, the Cottons didn’t quite know what to do with the mare, so they offered her to me. I told them I couldn’t speak Arabic, but I took her home. I didn’t breed the mare, but kept her until she died in 1935 or 1936.”

Meantime, Frisco now had a family. In the mid-1920s, he married Rose Mae Coleman, a young lady from the Midwest; they settled in Burbank, California, and became parents to six children, three sons and three daughters. The daughters — Clara, Dorothy, and Rose, in order of appearance — were to become the Arabian horse force in the family.

Frisco designed more golf courses, in California and in Florida, then settled into a new job, as superintendent of maintenance at the legendary Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He still consulted on golf courses, and he designed a polo field and golf course for cracker-barrel philosopher and humorist Will Rogers at his home at Santa Monica and designed some of Los Angeles’ most beautiful golf courses of the day.

The Ambassador job became one of the most expansive in that Frisco became acquainted with some of the Hollywood crowd. Many were dinner guests at his home as Rose Mae developed her own reputation as a gourmet cook. “Dorothy Lamour came to dinner. She wanted to adopt Dorothy. Al Jolson, all of those,” Frisco recalled. “Jackie Coogan and Mae Murray came to the hotel. I played golf with Howard Hughes for several weeks before I realized who he was. Just a helluva nice guy, I thought, and then someone told me he was a multimillionaire. I was a little embarrassed because I’d offered to get him a job at the golf course. He thanked me and told me he could probably find something. Mae West and Bing Crosby came to the Ambassador, and Marian Davies asked me to deliver messages to William Randolph Hearst for her. Hearst played at a pitch-and-putt course I designed at the hotel.”

Soon Frisco and Rose Mae moved their family to a 40-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley, where they raised walnuts and grapes. There Clara, Below left: Joraba (Al Farabi x Tera by Chepe Noyon), the Maris’ first mare, produced ten Mari-bred foals, eight by Ferseyn and two by his son Regis. Here is Joraba with Bellamo, her 1960 Ferseyn colt.

Below right: Four generations of Mari Arabians, left to right: Tera (Chepe Noyon x Ripples by *Mirzam); her granddaughter Belleza (Ferseyn x Joraba); daughter Joraba (by Al Farabi); granddaughter Bella Rosa (Ferseyn x Joraba); and great granddaughter Anabella (Ankar x Bella Rosa).

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Dorothy, and Rose — in the usual ways of young girls — began reading horse books and, it naturally follows, began begging for a horse to ride. Sometime early in 1952, they extracted the promise of a horse, then specified an Arabian horse. “We started looking at mares,” Dorothy recalls, “and went to the few shows of those years. At a show, we saw Dr. and Mrs. Claude Steen’s stallion Jedrazal (Jedran x Ghrazal by Alnaschar) and thought he was just beautiful.

Then in the show program we found the Steens’ ad for a mare in foal to Jedrazal, and she became our focus in the pleading for a horse.”

Frisco knew when he was outnumbered, knew what he had to do to keep peace in the valley, and as a single parent — Rose Mae died in 1943 — wanted to keep his children happy. “I had a pickup and we all got in and went to Anaheim, where the doctor kept the horses,” Frisco recounted in 1982. “He took us out in the hills and there was that mare with about ten or 12 other mares and foals. She was a nice mare, so I said, ‘What do you want for her?’ He told me $3,500. I said, ‘Doc, I got a lot of ground, but not enough. I can’t take them all. No, no, I just want one.’ The doctor laughed, but pretty soon I knew he was serious, so I said, ‘Well, I was joking.’ I had no idea! We were used to paying $40 to $50 for a horse to work on our ranch.

“So we went home and that night I heard the kids talking in their room: ‘Daddy says he loves us. How can he love us when he doesn’t give us just one horse when we ask him for it?’ So I thought ‘Oh, my God,’ and the next morning at six o’clock I get in my truck and go down to Anaheim and talk to the doctor. I gave him a check for the mare and asked, ‘Well, when can you deliver her?’ He said, ‘When we catch her.’ The mare had never been handled.”

Back at the Mari home, there was great rejoicing and a scurrying about to provide appropriate stabling for this jewel. The girls’ design for a stable kept two carpenters busy. A trainer from the Kellogg Ranch soon had the mare trailer-trained, and Joraba was delivered as promised.

Within a few months, Joraba (Al Farabi x Tera by Chepe Noyon), a 1948 chestnut, foaled the chestnut colt Alabar, sired by Jedrazal. “We didn’t keep that colt. Couldn’t because we had spoiled him too bad,” Dorothy remembers.

Then came the mare Fawzia (Antez x Sura by Oman) who foaled Fallah (by Alla Amarward), and a weanling filly Ferditha (Abu Farwa x Ferdith by Ferseyn). The Maris, within months of their first purchase, had outgrown their two-stall barn.

With two mares, the Maris had breeding decisions to make. In 1952, even in Southern California, Arabian stallions were not exactly thick on the ground, and the search began. Frisco and his daughters looked at the stallions at the Kellogg Ranch, looked over the stallions owned by the Roy Jacksons at Orange, California, talked to fellow breeders, and checked out the prospects at the few Arabian shows.

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Above: Bella Rosa (Ferseyn x Joraba), foaled in 1953, soon got the Maris into the show world. Trainer Bob Smith showed her to two important wins as a youngster: Reserve Champion Mare at the 1955 Southern Cal Fall Show and the same title at the 1956 Southern Cal Spring Show.

Left: Regalis, one of eight full siblings of the FerseynJoraba cross, brought in show trophies for the Maris.

Here he wins in a 1957 show in western pleasure as a three-year-old, with trainer Johnny Hayes.

The full sisters Carida Mia and Cara Mia (El Kumait x Bella Rosa by Ferseyn) represented the Maris’ blending of the Ferseyn and Farana lines.

Show year 1970 was one of Carida Mia’s best years. Rose, above right, showed her to champion mare at a Southern Cal show and to wins at the Sierra Empire show and the Southern Cal Half-Arabian Show. Cara Mia, above left, was a winner the year before.

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Ferseyn brought recognition to the Maris as breeders, and the Maris gave Ferseyn a fresh start in life as a breeding stallion. “The cornerstone of our program,” says Clara.

“All of us recognize that if it weren’t for Ferseyn, we would have been just another little cog on the wheel.” In 1978, Frisco remembered: “Ferseyn had a good life with us. He never went without food or care. I have very good remembrances of him, will never forget that horse. People said I’m crazy to love that horse so much. But I’m not, not when you have something like that. Maybe there were better ones, but I don’t think so.

He was the best that was.” Three photos of Ferseyn: As a youngster, bottom right, probably at Reese’s; above right, soon after he arrived at Sol de Villa with (left to right), Helen Mari (Frisco’s second wife, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Ashton), Frisco, Clara, Mrs. Ashton, and Rose mounted on Ferseyn; top left, a muchused and typical head shot of Ferseyn at the Maris. (A similar shot graced the cover of the March 1963 Arabian Horse World.)

Then they made the decision that was to provide decades of direction to their breeding program. Herb Reese, onetime manager of the Kellogg Ranch, was again involved. He’d sold the Maris the mare Fawzia and had encouraged Clara, Dorothy, and Rose in their interest in the Arabian breed.

Again, Frisco tells the story: “We went to Herb Reese’s place in Covina.

Reese greeted us by saying he would show us the two most beautiful Arabian horses in the world. He didn’t say three. He said two. So we walked to the barn and he presented Abu Farwa and Alla Amarward, both sleek chestnuts, beautifully groomed. The girls loved them, but I soon left. I’d spotted a pretty grey stallion in an orange grove at the back of Reese’s property.”

The meeting of man and horse at that moment established one of the strongest and longest-lasting bonds in the breed. The stallion Ferseyn (*Raseyn x *Ferda by Rustem), then 15, represented some of the best of Crabbet and Kellogg breeding.

“When I saw the little guy,” Frisco continued, “he just hit me. Just like you go to a store and see an outfit and you say that’s the one I want. You must own it.” When Frisco came back to the barn and related his enthusiasm for “the little guy,” he found Reese a reluctant sell. He continued to tout his “two most beautiful Arabians in the world,” even offering to let Frisco book his mares to them for $50 (Ferseyn’s breeding fee), rather than

the usual $75 fee. Reese suggested Frisco was making a mistake breeding to Ferseyn, but Frisco was not to be dissuaded. “No, Mr. Reese, I will pay you $75 and breed to Ferseyn. I want that little horse. Maybe I’m making a mistake, but I love the little guy.” Reese finally agreed.

With two more foals on the way, the Maris began looking for a new ranch and found a 173-acre hilltop site in La Puente, once owned by John Flowers and Ed Boyer, early breeders in the Los Angeles area. Much of the ranch was planted to orange trees, and the Maris added horse facilities. The family used a part of Frisco’s given name — Francesco Marinello Sol de Villa Gadea — for the name of their new home: Sol de Villa.

The first Mari-bred foals arrived in July and August 1953. “We hit the jackpot with that cross,” Frisco remembered. Joraba produced a chestnut filly the family named Bella Rosa and Fawzia delivered Ferzayn, a grey colt.

The Sol de Villa operation became Frisco and his three daughters. By this time, Frisco had long abandoned the thought that the girls’ passion for horses would wear out with time. They wanted more horses, promised to take care of them, and were true to their word. “Daddy told everyone we did the work and he paid the bills,” Clara remembers, “but as the months

THE FRISCO MARI

went by he became more and more interested in the horses and in the breeding of them.”

The Mari girls got into horse breeding as a business, not a hobby. In school, they studied every aspect of animal husbandry and farm management they could and used Sol de Villa as a laboratory/workshop for their courses. All became versatile in the daily routines of care and could pinch-hit for one another. Then they developed their specialties: Dorothy, the trainer; Rose, the star show rider; and Clara, who put the conditioning miles on the horses.

Newspaper feature writers had a field day with the story of Frisco and his three daughters operating a farm in a Los Angeles suburb. (The family also raised cattle, pigs, and sheep.) “This was long before the days of women’s lib,” Dorothy Mari remembers, “and young ladies weren’t expected to make the decision to do something they love.” One newspaper writer commented that the thought of what romance and marriage could do to the working arrangement of Sol de Villa would be disturbing to anyone but a Mari. The daughters felt that men who became involved with them would soon be thoroughly indoctrinated into Arabian horses — if they didn’t already love horses — and Frisco had promised that if they married he would just buy a larger ranch and each family could have a home on each corner.

After the discovery of Ferseyn and the merit of the cross on the Mari mares, the Sol de Villa mares were bred to Ferseyn each year, new mares added as they were purchased or reached breeding age. Finally, Frisco and the girls, particularly Clara, wrung from Reese the promise that Ferseyn would never be sold to anyone but the Maris. “Well, all right,” Frisco thought, “but make it snappy, quick.”

Then, six long and impatient years after Frisco first fell for “the little guy,” the phone call came. Clara recalls the day: “Over the years, I’d reminded Mr. Reese of his promise to give us first refusal on Ferseyn and gave him our promise of our love for the horse and a good home for the rest of his life. But I couldn’t quite believe it when Mr. Reese called. I quickly called Daddy at work, who said yes, tie up the deal, then just as quickly got back to Mr. Reese.”

The Maris made a bit of Arabian horse history that day, both in terms of speed of response and the price paid for Ferseyn. The Arabian grapevine soon featured the story that Frisco paid the highest price for any Arabian of any age up to that time, handing over considerable cash plus eight registered Polled Hereford cows that Reese wanted, the equivalent of $20,000 in 1958 prices. At the same time, many questioned the wisdom of paying a large amount for a 21-year-old stallion, even though he’d gained recognition as a sire by that time.

Reese delivered Ferseyn to Sol De Villa in a small open trailer. He never owned a covered trailer and sometimes used an open truck to transport horses. Whatever the delivery mode, the sight stayed with Frisco for decades. “I wanted that horse worse than I wanted anything on earth. Boy, when he came up that hill, if I died right then, I died happy.”

Sol de Villa became a popular place for farm visitors, domestic and foreign. Here, in 1965, horse people — including Frisco, fourth from right — anticipate the presentation of the Mari horses.

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Like Ferseyn, El Kumait (Farana x Ghazayat by Rehal), right, came to Sol de Villa late in life. The Maris bred to him eight times, seven times with Ferseyn daughters.

El Kumait’s 1968 son Chianti (x Andrea by Ferseyn), below, was used four times, again with Ferseyn daughters or granddaughters.

Ferseyn on Sol de Villa soil continued to make California Arabian horse history. Frisco immediately raised his breeding fee from Reese’s $200 to $500 — an unheard-of price for those years — but that did not discourage the hard-core Ferseyn fans. Within three months, over 90 mares were booked at the increased fee. Frisco didn’t want other mares; he only wanted Ferseyn for his own mares, so he postponed most of the breedings until the following years. Frank and Helen McCoy, who had discovered the siring quality of Ferseyn much earlier, still brought Bint Sahara for several more of their never-miss matings, as did several other Southern California breeders.

At Sol de Villa, Ferseyn became the center of family activities as all family members shared in the care and love of him. “I took him half an

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Top three photos: To the Maris, Regis (Ferseyn x Farnasa) represented some of the best of their blending of the Ferseyn and Farana lines. (The two stallions were related in that Ferseyn was a son of *Ferda; Farana, a grandson.) In 1967, Dorothy showed Regis to an English pleasure championship in an all-breed show. Regis was sold in the early 1970s, then came back to the Maris, and Rose presented him at his thirtieth birthday celebration at the 1990 Santa Barbara Fall Show.

orange, peel and all, every morning, so he would feel at home after all the years living in an orange grove,” Frisco recounted. “He’d close his eyes, crunch down on the orange, the juice running down his chin, and I’d think ‘You sloppy face!’ He was happy and oh, I was so happy.”

At the Reese ranch, Ferseyn had developed an abiding fascination for the many fender-benders that occurred at the intersection that cornered the ranch, often rushing from his meal when he heard the crunch of metal, the shattering of glass, and the wail of police and ambulance sirens. Also at the Reese ranch, in moments of loneliness or dislike of the dark, Ferseyn learned to flip the light switches; later he added to the nighttime fun by letting himself out of his stall and roaming the ranch. At Sol de Villa, Ferseyn continued his escape-artist maneuvers and expanded on them by opening other stall doors, and the Maris would often awake to find all the horses out. Frisco solved the problem by putting snaps on the mares’ stall doors — Ferseyn eventually gave up on them — and letting Ferseyn roam the facility, all fenced so he could come to no harm.

Visitors came to Sol de Villa specifically to see Ferseyn, among them Alice Payne of Asil Arabians at Chino, California, sworn and eternal enemy of Reese and longtime devotee of the *Raffles branch of the Skowronek sire line. Clara remembers: “Alice spent about four hours looking at Ferseyn, then more time spinning her tales about the early days of Arabian horses. She came back often and developed a great fondness for Ferseyn and Bottom left: The daughters who pestered Frisco for a horse — just one horse — got him hooked on breeding Arabians, and for 20 years worked to make Sol de Villa a respected and admired breeding program. Left to right: Clara, Rose, and Dorothy, in the mid-1960s. “In the late 1960s and early 1970s, we stood five to six stallions and bred about 100 mares each year,” Dorothy recalls.

THE FRISCO MARI

acknowledged his good qualities, even though she didn’t particularly approve of his dam.”

Several years after the purchase of Ferseyn, the Maris learned about the condition of another oldster whose bloodlines they valued. El Kumait, age 25, found in skin-and-bones condition and barely able to stand on a California cattle ranch, was soon rescued. The Mari special care got the nearly toothless stallion back to good health and breeding condition. Like Ferseyn, El Kumait (Farana x Ghazayat by Rehal) was bred by the Kellogg Ranch, a blending of mostly Crabbet lines through the Kellogg imports and the imports of W. R. Brown at Maynesboro Stud.

To supplement the El Kumait line, the Maris bought three mares: his daughter Anamait (x Anaga by Rabiyas), bred by Elizabeth Vanderhoof, who owned Ferseyn as a youngster; and two mares from the Kellogg Ranch, Farlouma (Farana x *Malouma, a mare imported from Egypt), and Farnasa, a full sister to Farana. The story of the acquisition of Farnasa at age 24 points up the Maris’ habit of knowing what they like and pursuing that object with great determination. Frisco related the story: “The Kellogg people had not been able to get Farnasa in foal for about two years, and I wanted her, but they refused to sell. I went to their advisory committee meetings and hounded the ranch people about selling. Finally, they said, ‘Okay, Frisco, you can have her. Go home and get your trailer.’ Are you kidding? Every weekend for three months I’ve come here with my daughters and my trailer.

My trailer is just outside. I’ll take the mare home right now.”

At Sol de Villa, Farnasa came into season within weeks. Frisco directed his daughters to breed her to Ferseyn at 5:00 p.m. on a particular evening, then if she were still in season the following morning at 8:00 to breed her again. Farnasa was “out of season” the following morning and in March 1960, from the one cover, she produced the last of her 15 foals, a grey colt named Regis who became heir apparent to Ferseyn. Two more mares were added: a *Serafix daughter, Lalumah (x *Subaiha, a desertbred mare) and Tera, the dam of Joraba.

Now the Sol de Villa breeding plan was in operation. El Kumait was bred to the Ferseyn daughters, and all other mares went to Ferseyn. But because Frisco believed in the addition of new fresh blood, one mare was usually sent out each year. In this process, Mari mares were bred to *Dar, *Druzba, *Ibn Moniet El Nefous, *Serafix, Ankar, *Talal, Azy, Nataf, Daufin, The Real McCoy, Gazarr, Karonek (a *Raseyn son), and the Ferseyn sons Ferneyn and Ferouk.

With Ferseyn safely stashed in his stables, Frisco was even more sure he had the best horse in the world. But a challenge to that belief came in summer 1960 in the form of a Dutch breeder. Dr. H. C. M. Houtappel of Rodania Stud at Laren, Holland, traveled to the United States to judge the U.S. Nationals classes at Estes Park that year. He bred mostly Crabbet lines, and he’d heard about Ferseyn, so he called Frisco to arrange a post-Nationals trip to the Los Angeles area. A part of Dr. Houtappel’s phone message

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The Maris made importation history when they brought in two mares and a yearling filly from Poland in January 1961. Frisco and Rose, bottom left, look over the two mares *Szarza (Ali Said x Salwa by Kuhailan-Abu-Urkub), the grey, and *Sabaa (Wielki Szlem x Sabda by Miecznik), shortly after they arrived. *Sabaa, shown with her daughter *Sabaria (by Comet), bottom right, produced six Mari-bred foals, sired

by Ferseyn or his sons. *Szarza, top, parades her first American-bred foal — Amerigo (by Ferseyn) — for the Maris.

expressed his admiration for Comet, a Polish breeding stallion.

Dr. Houtappel arrived at Sol de Villa early on a Sunday morning and quickly moved to the object of his trip. “After he watched Ferseyn stood up, trotted out, and at liberty and measured his head, his neck, all over, all he could say was ‘Unbelievable. Unbelievable,’” Frisco remembered. “He started to leave, then went back to look at Ferseyn again and pronounced him even better than he’d thought. He was just taken with him. I asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee or something. No, no, no. He didn’t have time for that. Then I reminded him that he was due at a Los Angeles hospital to observe a surgery. Not that I wanted to get rid of him. He said not to worry, and he stayed all afternoon and into the early evening. We gave him supper

F o u n d a t i o n and he’d eat a few bites and then rush back to the stables for another look at Ferseyn.”

After the visit, Dr. Houtappel’s talk about Comet still intrigued Frisco. If there was a better stallion than Ferseyn, a better sire line than that of Skowronek, then Frisco wanted to know about it. He’d already made contact with two ladies who through their efforts would bring a new dimension to the program. In another Los Angeles suburb, Gladys Brown Edwards maintained contact with Patricia Lindsay, an English breeder who had brought several Arabians out of iron curtain Poland. Frisco, GBE, and several other American breeders worked through Miss Lindsay to bring in the first private post-World War II Polish imports. The horses arrived in January 1961, and the three for Sol de Villa were soon at the ranch.

“Everybody said we were crazy to import mares,” Dorothy remembers.

“Patricia Lindsay went back to Poland and explained to the Poles how important it was to pick out good mares for us as this sale could open up a whole new market for the Poles. So she selected *Szarza and *Sabaa for us as a part of that first importation. Because Poland, as an iron curtain country could have nothing to do with the United States, all dealings had to go through English banks. Even then, there was trouble. When the horses got to the Polish border, their destination was discovered and they were returned

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to the studs. Later, they were somehow started out again and were put on barges at night and crossed the English Channel. Once they were in England, they were all right. They came by boat to New York, then van to the ranch.”

As Frisco had specified, the two mares he purchased (*Szarza and *Sabaa) were in foal to Comet, and *Sabaria (*Sabaa’s yearling filly) was by Comet. The mares foaled within weeks of arrival, and both were bred to Ferseyn for 1962 foals. This would give Frisco the comparison of Ferseyn and Comet foals he wanted to see for himself.

In 1962, *Sabaa produced the Ferseyn daughter Andrea who spent all her producing years at Sol de Villa, and *Szarza produced a Ferseyn son, Amerigo, about whom the world was to hear much as a show horse and a sire.

Ferseyn lived the kingly life, watching over his mares from his stall at the end of the lane, enjoying his role as the center of attention for visitors, and playing games with Frisco. The two developed a pasture game in which Ferseyn would very slowly and cautiously walk up to Frisco and quickly snatch his hat. “And by golly, off he goes with my hat. And I’d yell at him, ‘You dirty … ’ and chase him a little. And he just had a good old time,” Frisco remembered.

In the fall of 1962, when Ferseyn was 25, he developed a tumor in his foot. Despite the best efforts Left: Amerigo (Ferseyn x *Szarza), the product of the Maris’ first breeding of a Polish-bred mare to Ferseyn, brought pride to Sol de Villa as a show horse and as a breeding stallion. His first time out got him his first championship (bottom right) — as a three-year-old when he was named champion stallion at the 1965 Santa Barbara Show. That same year, at the DAHA show at Del Mar, California, the judge exhibited a sense of the dramatic as he made his final selections in the stallion championship, putting Amerigo and *Ardahan side to side, head to tail, and finally nose to nose (bottom left) while he pointedly deliberated and the audience cheered wildly for one or the other. Finally, the championship nod went to *Ardahan (the lighter grey on right). In 1966, Amerigo went Scottsdale Champion Stallion, beating out all the top contenders, then capped his show career by going 1966 U.S. National Reserve Champion Stallion, a win that got him the cover of the January 1967 issue of Arabian Horse World. In 1977, when he was 15, Amerigo was named Buckeye Champion English Pleasure. As a breeding animal, Amerigo sired Khemosabi (x Jurneeka

by Fadjur), the leading sire in worldwide Arabian breeding, the leading living sire of champions, and a fourtime U.S. and Canadian National Champion.

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Right: Andrea (Ferseyn x *Sabaa) was the last of the Ferseyn daughters for the of several veterinarians (surgery and the fitting Maris. As Frisco noted, “A Ferseyn daughter is a joy forever.” Frisco had his of a special boot), the coffin bone collapsed favorites in Arabian horses — Fersara, Abu Farwa, Indraff, *Raffles and and the foot could not bear weight. Clara, *Raseyn (whom he visited often at Alice Payne’s ranch), the Crabbet stallion Indian Magic (whom he once arranged to purchase) — all of these after Dorothy, and Rose stayed with him around Ferseyn, of course. And he believed in Arabian horse people. (“Anybody that the clock, in three-hour shifts, for almost six loves an Arabian horse is a good person.”) Some Frisco favorites: Frank and weeks. Finally, the family had to accept the Helen McCoy, Daniel C. Gainey, Mark Smith and Charles Smith who trained at the Kellogg Ranch, fellow breeders Jim Kline and Dr. Eugene LaCroix, the fact that nothing more could be done for him.

Arabian breeders of Poland, and Gladys Brown Edwards (“the greatest lady”).

Frisco ordered a stainless steel casket, arranged for a veterinarian to put him to sleep, and went away for a few days. Ferseyn was buried on the ranch.

Pre-Mari, Ferseyn had a show career. All-Arabian shows were few and far between in those days and four or five shows comprised a large show season. At age ten, Ferseyn himself made his first showring appearance in 1947, at the third all-Arabian show sponsored by the Arabian Horse Association of Southern California. There he won the mature stallion class (33 entries) and was named Reserve Champion Stallion. The legend persists in Southern California tack room talk that Reese retired him from showing with that single win (preferring retirement to the risk of being defeated), but Ferseyn was apparently shown at Pomona in 1949 where he placed third and in 1950 where he placed fifth. At the Los Angeles County Fair, in 1949 or 1950, he won a halter class.

In 1966, Gladys Brown Edwards did her first sire line study, ranking sires of champions for the years 1953 to 1965. Ferseyn, with 33 champions, easily topped GBE’s list of leading sires and contributed to the Skowronek sire line as far and away the leader. Further, 13 sons had sired champions.

Ferseyn held that lead through 1968 when he was bumped to second place by *Serafix (also of the Skowronek sire line), relative positions they held through 1970 when Ferseyn went to third place.

The Maris had ten Ferseyn daughters, three sons (Regis, Amerigo, and Avanti), and three mares in foal to Ferseyn at the time he was put down.

Regis succeeded Ferseyn as chief sire. Amerigo was used, beginning in 1964, and El Kumait (who lived to be 32 or 33) sired through 1967. In 1966, a Ferseyn grandson, Fadji (Fadjur x Shia by Ferseyn), was purchased, so the Ferseyn-Farana blending of bloodlines went on. Through the 1960s, the Maris produced four to seven foals each year and gave them wonderfully Sire and sons: Chiaro, melodic Spanish and Italian names — Sevilla, Reginaa, Amadeo, Carisma, second from top, Sangria, Terrabella, Cyrano, Joya, Ferrari, Angelique, Fiora, Allegre, Chiaro, (Regis x Sarafina by and Chianti, for just a few. *Serafix), foaled 1971; Amoris, above, The decades have expanded the Arabian horse community’s (Chiaro x Carida Mia appreciation for Ferseyn. He’s recognized as the sire of 11 National winners,

by El Kumait), foaled ranging from halter to western pleasure to cutting. Twenty-four Ferseyn sons 1974; and Tommaso, right, (Chiaro x Bella (headed by Ferneyn) have sired 66 National winners (20 Champions, 16 Rosa by Ferseyn) at Reserves, and 100 Top Tens), and 26 Ferseyn daughters have produced age two months.

National winners (9 Champions, 9 Reserves, and 55 Top Tens). Amerigo Chiaro at age 28 is still at Sol de Villa, still brought the grandget glory to Ferseyn in a record-breaking way. He’s the sire breeding mares. of Khemosabi (x Jurneeka by Fadjur), four-time National Champion (two in halter, two in performance), all-time leading sire in number of foals, leading living sire of champions, and still fertile at age 32. (Frisco pronounced a two-year-old,” Rose Mari recalls. “We’d only had horses for three years, and Khemo a future National Champion the first time he saw him, when the that win represented the first acknowledgment of our bloodlines and what colt was just a few hours old.) we were trying to do. Then we went on with others and of course the Bella Rosa, a 1953 Ferseyn daughter, got the Maris into the showring highlight was Amerigo going 1966 U.S. National Reserve Champion mix. “The most thrilling win was Bella Rosa going reserve champion mare as Stallion.”

F o u n d a t i o n

The Mari daughters took turns staying home to mind the farm while others went off to shows. Clara went to the 1966 Nationals and recalls: “We were on pins and needles all those days. I still remember when Amerigo came out of the ring, just looking so great and I couldn’t help but thinking he should have won. I still remember running back to the stalls, following him and trainer Jeff Wonnell who showed Amerigo for us, Amerigo prancing the whole way.” Earlier, Amerigo went Champion Stallion at the Santa Barbara Fall Show as a three-year-old, his first show. “That was the most exciting, I think,” says Dorothy, “and it proved Daddy’s point about bringing over the Polish mares and breeding them to Ferseyn. The following year, as a four-year-old Amerigo was named Scottsdale Champion Stallion.

“I loved the old show years,” Clara reminisces, “because all the Arabian breeders were one big family. Everybody knew every other breeder, what mare was bred to which stallion, what each mare produced. There was not a lot of jealousy. We helped each other out. The McCoys were good friends, always saw them at shows, and Lee and Joe Guzzetta. Joe and my dad were like brothers. Two Italians, you know. And they would go to the shows, get a few drinks and they’d roam the barn aisles, arm in arm, singing away at the tops of their voices. Everyone trying to shush them, but they didn’t care.

They were having a ball. Daddy became a real favorite of many people, both at the ranch and the shows. And he could tell a story like nobody else.

Sometimes he would embellish a story a little, but everyone knew this, and thought ‘Well, that’s Frisco,’ and just enjoyed his excellent company.”

After nearly 20 years in La Puente, urban sprawl began to encroach on the Mari ranch, and Frisco announced to the family that it was time to move on. He sent the daughters on inspection tours. Finally, they selected what

B r e e d e r :

Top left: Sarafina (*Serafix x Ferditha ex Ferdith by Ferseyn) represented the Maris’ combining of the Naseem and *Raseyn branches of the Skowronek sire line.

Sarafina was a show girl: winning over 31 other weanling fillies at a 1959 Santa Barbara show (with Lee Vincent) and placing in jumping with Rose Mari at the 1966 Southern Cal Fall Show at Santa Barbara.

Bottom left: The Maris got into the racing scene through the lease of Talison (*Talal x Fiora by Regis) to Jim Kline of Kline Arabians at Chino.

At Santa Fe Downs in June 1976, Talison made the winners circle in a five and one-half furlong race in 1:11:4, as ridden by Amanda Oliver and trained by Victor Oppegard (fourth from left).

Bottom right: Sagunto (Regis x Ferditha), a double Ferseyn grandson, got his name (the main street in Santa Ynez) because he was the first foal at the new ranch and he became a jumper because Rose was teased by a jumping instructor that Arabs could never become successful jumpers. “I got some advice about training Sagunto from others, but nobody rode him but me,” says Rose. “One of the big thrills of our showing in Southern California was the 1978 Val Aero Flyers Puissance Stakes, a competition of three different types of jumps. The broad jump got to be an illegal fence of 4′-9″ and 7′-2″ wide; and the other one got to be five feet, Sagunto’s first time to jump five feet. Any jumps over five feet got you $150, so we came home with a bundle of money. A thrill to win and a thrill because we worked so well together. He owned me, not the opposite.” At the San Fernando Valley All-Arabian Show at Santa Barbara, Sagunto twice won the Kahlua Grand Prix, and at Nationals, he won four Top Tens. Sagunto’s dam Ferditha (Abu Farwa x Ferdith by Ferseyn), top right, one of the first Arabians purchased by the Maris, became a show horse and a broodmare for the family. Here she is with Dorothy, winning Champion English Pleasure at the Southern Cal Spring Show (at the Kellogg Ranch), one of her three 1958 English pleasure titles.

Frisco considered “the worst-looking field you ever saw — all weeds” in the Santa Ynez Valley. Six months later, the spot had been transformed into one of the valley’s prettiest ranches, and the horses were moved in. One of Frisco’s last tasks at La Puente was to disinter Ferseyn and move him to the new Sol de Villa.

THE FRISCO MARI

Frisco did not give up easily on the old hilltop homestead. In 1982, he recalled: “The family moved. I didn’t. I just loved that place. So I stayed there all by myself for two or three weeks, slept on a mattress on the floor.

Then one morning the new owners came with the big tractor and said they were going to push over the house that day. All right, so I got my clothes, and I went. I tell you it broke my heart to leave that place where we got started.”

Frisco didn’t give up the Ambassdor Hotel job just because he’d moved many miles from the site. “Everything good that came to me came from the hotel. It is my home,” he noted in the 1960s. So Clara, and occasionally Rose, drove him several mornings a week to Los Angeles and his 25 acres of lawns and gardens.

Then, 20 years after the purchase of Joraba, changes came to the Maris.

In the December 1972 issue of Arabian Horse World, Frisco’s ad noted: “Due to my departing slave labor, I am now offering for sale bred mares who are top producers, fillies and colts, and breeding stallions.” The “departing slave labor” meant that Clara and Rose were getting married and leaving the ranch. The horses sold quickly, Regis going to Dudley White, Amerigo to Bud and Nola Miller of Emkay Arabians.

Prospective buyers were carefully screened. Frisco had to feel that the buyers would take proper care of the animals; if he didn’t, even very promising sales were turned down. Through the years, the reputation of the Mari Arabians was such that Frisco often sold horses sight unseen, and a healthy overseas market had been developed.

Frisco and Dorothy kept the Ferseyn-Farana (with a touch of Polish blood) program going, and owned some of the last of the Ferseyn daughters.

In 1982, at a Region 2 weekend-long function, Frisco was honored by members, fellow breeders, and guests who came to hear one more Frisco story, to experience his impish sense of humor, and to reminisce with him. Frisco enjoyed such good times in his retirement years, especially with his longtime buddy Daniel C. Gainey, now his neighbor. He generally kept himself busy, cleaning stalls, training horses, moving the irrigation pipes, tending his flowers and trees, and climbing in his truck and visiting friends in the valley. “Oh, I’m busy all the time,” he said, “terrific busy. I don’t work too hard, and everything is good.”

Frisco died in December 1986 at age 91. He’d loved Arabian horses for all those years and noted in 1982: “If I was alone and had those horses, I’d bring them in the house and stay with them. I’d just as soon sleep with them in the same stall. I don’t care what anyone thinks because I love them.”

Rose is now back home, and she and Dorothy are intensifying their efforts to breed the Crabbet lines, as always through Ferseyn and Farana.

Their stallion Anello was so named — Anello means “link” in Italian — because he combines the blood of all the Crabbet-line stallions the Maris have had: Amerigo, Ferseyn, Regis, Chiaro, and El Kumait. Chiaro (Regis x Sarafina by *Serafix), Anello’s grandsire, is now 28, and still breeding mares.

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Above: Legacys Cachet (Asil Legacy x Cinzana by Gentleman) came to Sol de Villa several years ago and foaled the filly SDV Amarige in 1998, the first foal of Anello (Amerigo x Anais by Chiaro). Sadly, Legacys Cachet was lost soon after the filly was weaned.

Left: “Daddy always told us that someday Ferseyn would be recognized for his contributions to the breed,” Dorothy Mari recalls. The someday came at the Horseman’s Gala in February 1997 when Ferseyn was inducted into the Arabian Horse Trust Hall of Fame. Here Rose (left) and Dorothy accepted the plaque for Ferseyn.

“When Chianti (El Kumait x Andrea by Ferseyn) died about three years ago, Rose and I realized that we’d have to breed some mares or lose the bloodlines,” says Dorothy. “We want to stay with the Crabbet lines because there’s just something about those horses — the dispositions, the attitudes — that other lines don’t have. We love the dispositions of the Ferseyn lines and our horses have some horse sense. We hope new people in the breed will recognize the value of those qualities.”

In addition to Chiaro daughters, Dorothy and Rose acquired Legacys Cachet (Asil Legacy x Cinzana by Gentleman), bringing in concentrated *Raffles breeding on the top and a line to Farlowa (by Abu Farwa) on the bottom. She foaled SDV Amarige (by Anello) in 1998, and a leased mare, Serraana (Serr Fadl x Redaana by Regis), is in foal to Chiaro and will be bred to Anello for her next foal.

Clara is still with horses, but not Arabians. She and her husband, a retired veterinarian, live at Versailles, Kentucky, where they raise Thoroughbreds. At Sol de Villa, Dorothy and Rose spend their time with living reminders of the richness of their growing-up years, as well as the promise of a future with Arabian horses. “Daddy just loved the horses and he loved the life we had with them,” says Dorothy. As Frisco noted: “We were very close. Because we had horses, no matter where we went, we all went together, and we all wanted to be together.”