Harwin Arabians is one of only three Arabian stud farms in the landlocked Southern African country of Zimbabwe. Owned by myself and my mother, Bridget, we are a small, boutique stud located approximately 40 miles south-east of the capital city of Harare, in the farming district of Marondera, famed for its soils and sub-tropical climate making it ideal for crop farming. Aside from breeding Arabian horses, our family are generational tobacco farmers and have been farming the crop in the country since 1980.
Our journey with the Arabian horse and love of the breed started in the late 2000s when the first horses of Arabian blood joined our family, namely a purebred stallion – Mount-Sharshar Shikari (Mount-Sharshar Silver x Syferpan Irish Rose), imported from South Africa and of old English/Crabbet bloodlines – and an Anglo-Arabian mare, Starwood Ky (Minhab Ky Maktub x Kwaraguza Shah Yen).
It was later, as a 17-year-old boy on a visit to an Arabian stud in Bulawayo, that I crossed paths with a chestnut stallion with a large blaze and huge soulful eyes. In that moment, I knew I had to have him. A year later, this dashing stallion was safely tucked away in our stables. Bred by Rickie and Paula Taylor of Taylor Ranch Arabians in Utah, USA, his name was TR Veritas (Nariadni x Muscalean) and he was imported into Zimbabwe as a yearling colt. Selected by Linda Masterson to head her Tehama Arabian Stud, most notably known for producing the world champion mare Tehama Ballalina (Tehama Na Sidaqa x JJ Shai Majestic Queen).
Veritas was the first ever stallion of pure Russian breeding to be imported into the country and one of the first of the bloodline to be imported into the Southern African region. At that time, our horses were used purely for riding, and although the occasional foal was bred, official stud-scale breeding only began later on. It is also important to note that, due to the economic climate of the early 2000s, many breeders had either disbanded their breeding programmes or emigrated with their horses. In turn, this had a domino effect on our Arabian society, the Arab Horse Society of Zimbabwe, which, due to the lack of active breeders in the country, eventually became dormant and ceased functioning altogether.
Fast forward a couple of years, and after much discussion and consideration of how we could make it work, mum and I made the decision to pursue our long-awaited dream of establishing our own purebred Arabian breeding programme. We already had the stallion, TR Veritas; now, we needed to find the right mares for him and consider the traits and qualities we wanted to produce. With very few purebred mares available locally in Zimbabwe at the time, we looked to our neighbouring countries of South Africa and Namibia to source our foundation mares. Our mares have been very carefully selected, with the end goal of producing good-quality, well-rounded horses that would excel in both halter and ridden disciplines. Our selection criteria has always focused on choosing mares of substance, height, athleticism, movement, and type, true to the Arabian breed standard.
The first mare to join our stud was FS Tallulah (Simply Red SC x Tai Bey Brittney) in 2021, a South African bred Bey Shah (Bay el Bey x Star of Ofir) granddaughter with a lot of type. With a successful showing career to her name, we bred her to TR Veritas to produce our first purebred Arabian foal, MH Viviana, who would be awarded the 2023 WAHO Trophy for Zimbabwe.
It was during Tallulah’s pregnancy that we encountered the issue of how we would register her then unborn foal, which proved to be a challenge in itself as we did not have a functioning breed registry and studbook. After meeting two fellow like-minded breeders who had also started breeding programmes, the lengthy process of re-establishing the Arab Horse Society of Zimbabwe began.
First, we contacted WAHO, the World Arabian Horse Organization, to renew our Registering Authority membership. The WAHO team were, and continue to be, so incredibly supportive in helping us find our feet again. The next step was to turn over a second volume of the Zimbabwean Arabian Horse Studbook in order to bring the studbook up to date. This volume had been sitting in draft form for over 20 years and had some vital missing information which required months’ worth of intensive investigating to get it to the point of submission to WAHO and then to publication, which happened in the last quarter of 2022.
With the Arab Horse Society of Zimbabwe once again an active member of WAHO and our studbook up to date, Zimbabwe once again has a fully functioning Arabian studbook and breed organisation, allowing breeders the opportunity to register their horses once more.
It was during this time that mum and I kindled a great friendship with Dr Barbara Scholz and her husband, Dr Henning Du Toit of Charlottenberg Arabians in Namibia. Through this friendship, we purchased the Janów Podlaski bred and born mare, Czartana (Ganges x Czartawa), who we imported into Zimbabwe in December 2022. Originally purchased at the Pride of Poland summer sales in 2014, with her fiery personality and attention demanding charm, Czartana adds some valuable Polish blood to Harwin Arabians. More recently we acquired her daughter, Charlottenberg Czartilla, sired by Charlottenberg Constantin (El Nabila B x Chapmar Cleopatra) and bred by Dr Scholz.
Following Czartana’s import, a fifth-generation Zimbabwean-bred Arabian mare, Shania Shelina (Tehama Ali x Shania Shania) joined our stud. This mare is of particular significance to us as through her dam-sire, Tehama Na Sidaqa (Thee Cyclone x Banghor Darica), she is a close relative to Tehama Ballalina. Shania Shelina is the only blood relative of this World Champion mare in the country.
Thereafter, we added two further mares to our programme, the first being Spirit Garnet (XA Fames Venture x Arare Shaklans Jewel), a mare with an interesting pedigree of Spanish, Egyptian and Polish breeding from South Africa. We sourced the Polish-bred Charlottenberg Złota Bibi (Ascot DD x Złota Rola) from Namibia, who joined us shortly after. Złota Bibi was an import in utero from Michałow Stud in Poland via her dam, Złota Rola (Laheeb x Złota Orda) who was pregnant with her when she travelled over to Southern Africa.
In May 2024, Veritas passed away at the grand age of 27. As heartbroken as we were, he had a well-lived life and left a lasting impact on not just Harwin Arabians, but on the Arabian industry in Zimbabwe as a whole. Prior to his time with us at Harwin Arabians, much of his progeny were exported to neighbouring African countries for riding and breeding. With us, he has three offspring remaining at the stud – a son and two daughters: HA Vhalentino (ex Khwareno Ghala), MH Viviana, and HA Veralin (ex Shania Shelina). Veritas is greatly missed and remembered fondly.
This loss meant that we encountered the challenge of not having a breeding stallion in a country where artificial insemination with frozen semen is not particularly viable due to the difficulties with importing it. The only option was to purchase a new stallion, and where better to look than in Namibia, where we had purchased the bulk of our foundation mares from. There we found Skai Sodashi (EKS Ameer x Sidi Hazika), a paternal grandson of the world champion EKS Alihandro (Marwan al Shaqab x OFW Psylhouette), and a maternal grandson of the well-known South African sire, Sidi Scorpio (Magnum Chall HVP x Sidi Moonlightning). He joined us in December 2024 and was selected due to his true-to-type conformation and pedigree. Plus, through his dam-sire’s dam, Sodashi traces to TR Scarlet Scorpion (Nariadni x HK Kuzata), a three-quarter brother to our TR Veritas. Sodashi’s first Harwin-bred foals are due in March 2026.
Harwin Arabians produces horses of a proven blend of Russian and Polish breeding. On average, we breed one or two foals each year, ensuring that each foal born here is raised with the utmost individual care and attention.
Breeding horses in Zimbabwe is no easy feat and comes with its fair share of challenges. Although we have an ideal climate, with a lengthy hot summer that generally receives good rainfall and a relatively short dry winter, the environment is also ideal for diseases, particularly the lethal African Horse Sickness (AHS) which has plagued our region for decades. Horses rarely survive infection from AHS and, at present, there is only one laboratory, in Pretoria, South Africa, that produces the approved vaccination.
2025 has been a particularly exciting year for us. It began with our trip to the United Arab Emirates to attend the WAHO Conference in Abu Dhabi, which we attended as the Registering Authority Member delegates for Zimbabwe. We owe the utmost gratitude to HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the Emirates Arabian Horse Society for their generosity in hosting us. We truly had an incredible week attending the conference, meeting so many interesting people within the industry from across the world, and joining in discussions that play a vital part in the future of this special breed. This was also the first time that Zimbabwe was able to send delegates to the conference in well over twenty years, a truly significant step for the Arab Horse Society of Zimbabwe. During our visit, we toured Al Zobair Stud in Sharjah with Emma Maxwell and met Zimbabwe’s pin-up girl Tehama Ballalina, an emotional and memorable experience. We are so grateful to the Al Zobair team for this opportunity.
July ushered in our annual Zimbabwean National Arabian Championships, held just outside of Harare. The show was months in the making, and we had the privilege of having Glenys Lilley from Australia judge the competition, held in conjunction with the Namibian National Arabian Championships that took place a week prior to ours. We took along six of our mares and fillies to the event and each one was crowned with either a National or Reserve Champion title. It was a real tearjerker moment for us both as breeders and owners! HA Veralin brought home the titles of Zimbabwean Reserve National Champion Foal and National Champion Liberty Foal, with both classes combined with fillies and colts. MH Viviana came home with both the National Champion Junior Mare and National Champion Junior Liberty Mare titles. Charlottenberg Czartilla won her age category for fillies aged three-to-four years and was Reserve National Champion Junior Liberty Mare. Charlottenberg Złota Bibi came home with the National Champion Senior Mare title and National Champion Senior Liberty Mare titles, while Czartana was named Reserve National Champion Senior Liberty Mare. Shania Shelina was third in her senior mare class and was named National Champion Purebred Novice Riding Horse. We are incredibly grateful to our entire team of grooms, who worked relentlessly to help us get our horses prepared and conditioned for the show, and our support network of family and friends who came along to support us.
Being in the Southern Hemisphere, August marked the start of our breeding season and with it, a new arrival. This was the colt foal HA Ghazi (FS Thunder x Spirit Garnet). He adds the renowned blood of WH Justice (Magnum Psyche x Vona Sher-Renea) to our breeding programme, who traces to him through his sire.
With spring and summer reaching out before us, we have much to look forward to over the coming months. Visitors are always welcome, so please just reach out to us. We’d love to introduce you to our beautiful Arabian horses, in our beautiful part of the world.
PRE-ORDER NOW! The History of the Arabian Horse in Zimbabwe by Matt Harwin, due out February 2026.
