Symbols and Asterisks--Arabian Horses

From time to time, I get asked about the symbols that often appear next to Arabian and Half-Arabian names. They symbolize one of two things: either importation or award achievements.

The asterisk was used to denote horses imported into the US from other countries. In-utero foals bred in other countries also carried the asterisks. The official use of the asterisk was discontinued by the Arabian Horse Association, however, it is not uncommon to see people still use it to promote that their horse is imported into the US. The asterisks were always used before the horse's name.

*Bask+ was imported from Poland to the US in 1963.

Now onto the achievement awards, which are made up of the plus and slash symbols seen after the names. *Bask+ as seen above, has one plus symbol after the name.

There are six achievement awards:

Legion of Honor
Legion of Merit

Legion of Supreme Merit
Legion of Supreme Honor
Legion of Excellence
Legion of Masters

The awards are given based on points earned from Arabian shows, along with rated non Arabian show events including dressage, driving, eventing, racing, working cow, jumping shows, and many mor.

The way points are earned varies in rated non-Arabian events and it's best to just look at the AHA handbook chapter.

In Arabian shows, the "Class A" shows can be difficult to earn points. For example, winning a 4-7 horse class earns one point. Compare this to winning a regional level class, where regardless of the number of horses entered, 12 points are earned. A national championship gains 30 points.

It is certainly easier to accrue points on the regional and national level.

Back when the achievement award program was created, there were more purebred Arabians than half Arabians and it was easier for purebred Arabians to have competition and to gain points, so the number of points a Half-Arabian needed for an achievement award was set at a lower level.

Awards start at 75 points for purebreds and 60 for half-Arabians.

The other way the awards are broken down are different symbols for horses that earned points from a combination of in-hand and performance points with a minimum of each or just cumulative number of points (ie could be all performance or all in-hand). I'm choosing just to list the purebred number of points below.

Any combination of points:
Legion of Honor: + 75 points
Legion of Supreme Honor: +/ 150 points

Legion of Excellence: +// 300 points

Performance and In-Hand requirements
Legion of Merit: ++ 75 points (minimum 30 in-hand and 30 in performance)

Legion of Supreme Merit: +++ 150 points (minimum 60 in-hand and 60 in performance)

Legion of Masters: ++++ 300 points (minimum 120 in-hand and 120 in performance)

The other thing is that the awards can also be combined, so some horses will have a lot of punctuation!

The one downside of this program is that it is a yearly nomination. There are plenty of excellent Arabian and half-Arabian horses that are not nominated and don't earn achievement awards. The points can be purchased back after the show years for a higher fee if people are interested.

After several years of showing and training on my own, I was stoked that Chili earned enough points for this! The achievement awards become a permanent part of their name and are listed on their registration papers. I love the idea that years from now, someone could look Chili up and know instantly from her name that she achieved success in the show ring.

What they won't know of course, is that it took so much blood, sweat, and tears with her amateur owner-breeder-trainer.

Any questions about Arabian horse symbols?

Thanks for reading such a long post, but I wanted the chance to share an often confusing aspect of Arabian horses that are shared.

In Memory of Alex

How do you ever sum up the life of an amazing friend?

Simply you cannot.

1989 to 2020

How to summarize the impact a horse had on so many people in this time and especially me.

While I have failed to adequately blog for a number of years, I feel compelled to share the story of Alex and how he touched my life.

I first met Alex in 2006 at an auction at my university. I had originally conspired with friends to purchase one or two nice lesson horses to donate to the summer camp I worked for as a wrangler.

I had spoken to one of my equine professors and she went over a few horses that would be for sale that she thought would be a good fit. Alex, despite his charming good looks, was not on that list.

Alex in 2006, still with the auction number on his rump

But, as it was, I loved Arabians and Alex had no other bids. For a couple hundred bucks,Alex was purchased. I had no business buying a horse, nor keeping him, so the  camp picked him up.

Over the next ten years, Alex found himself as an amazing camp horse. I have so many stories that maybe I will continue to tell as I remember.

He was not a horse for everyone. While he was safe and not prone to misbehavior, he was forward. He had obviously had a good deal of hunter pleasure and basic dressage type training on him and so if someone was just balancing on his mouth, stopping could occasionally be optional.

But he was still a good boy. I often used him for special events as he was happy to be alone in front of an audience of four hundred kids and not even care. The camp would have theme weeks and often there were "bandits" coming into camp, demanding some or another. A chase on horseback would ensue (as seen above).

One year I was the bandit (in the above photos, I am such a classy bandit wearing the pink hankerchief).

Another time, it was my birthday and I was chasing the bandit across the parade grounds. I stupidly didn't plan my route, looked down as I was hand galloping in front of the children and realized there was a rock wall in front of me. I had visions of being lawn darted in front of an audience, but Alex neatly picked his knees up, jumped, ears up, and continued the chase. He knew his role to play in this little theater.

I also liked to use him to go through the sections in camp to wake the campers up since he was good natured and not prone to startling. One morning he proceeded to stick his head into the cabin and several tents. I can only imagine what those kids thought when they woke up a "neigh-bor" that was a little too close.

One of my favorite memories of him at camp was while an advanced equestrian camper was trying to learn how to do flying lead changes. Alex was absolutely schooled in flying changes and loved swapping leads, often a little too much.

I sent the gal down and asked her to do one flying change on the way down and one on the way back. As she held the reins and shifted her weight, a few too many times, Alex was merrily skipping along and changed leads five or six times. He never held a grudge as that poor kid finally figured out how to cue him correctly.


As Alex closed into his middle 20s, he started having issues holding weight at camp. I tried to figure out where he should go next. He was still enthusiastic, absolutely sound, and had never been lame a day in his life.

At this point, I had started getting involved in supporting a therapeutic riding program. What if Alex could become a therapy horse?

Alex took it like a duck to water. Nothing rattled him whatsoever about the usual therapy adventures of playing basketball off his back, getting objects out of the mailbox, hanging rings off his ears, or any of the other things we subjected him to.

He could carefully ignore excessive cues from his rider and listen to his handler, but then with an independent rider, would totally be game to teach a rider flying lead changes or the art of slowing down his fast trot into an acceptable western jog.

I have always loved the feeling of his gallop. He was a fast horse and in another life would have been an incredible endurance horse. He was difficult to tire out and even four or five hours in the saddle wouldn't slow him down.

A few years ago, while he was a therapy horse, I took a friend out into the hay fields riding. I loved the feeling of just letting him go and gallop, his hooves pounding the earth. I knew it brought joy to his heart. I never had to encourage him to go as he just loved to go. For those few brief moments, it brought us back ten years earlier to his younger years at the summer camp. Sky, rider, horse, Earth, all interconnected.

A couple of years ago, I nominated Alex for the Wisconsin Arabian Horse Association Ambassador Award. I felt that Alex truly was an amazing ambassador for the Arabian. In his years of service, he had introduced thousands of people to riding a horse. He had been a 4H horse, a university lesson horse, a camp horse and lesson horse, trail horse extraordinaire, therapy horse, and friend.

He was solid, dependable, strong, and sound.

I was so pleased when Alex won the award and was presented at a rated Arabian show and received his custom leather halter. I happily took the couple of photos seen above.

2020 has been a rough year for so many of us. I have been laying low and unfortunately putting off so many visits with friends and family. I do feel badly that I didn't have the chance to hug Alex one last time and let him know that I loved him.

His fifteen years of friendship didn't go unnoticed.

Strong Hands, Good Hands

I have often been told I have a strong handshake. I always thought that was a bit of a strange thing. What's there to a handshake besides matching the strength of the other person's grip?

At a lesson the other day that I had with a masterful dressage judge, SK, I realized that there is much to take from a strong handshake to change it into a good handshake, and subsequently a good feel of the reins.

The horse I was borrowing for the lesson was a very sweet, pony-ish Arabian/German Riding Pony cross. Good natured, but a bit of a bully with rooting or trying to pull the reins at a stop and just being heavy and a fuss at times.

I had always been told to not let an educated horse be a pulling by pushing, pulling, or rooting around to evade contact, but to be honest, I had never been told solutions on how to stop and not engage in a game of tug-off-war.


When pony would put his head up, she had me raise my hands and widen them. Her point was that it takes too much time to shorten the reins to correct him when he was being a pony, but raising and putting hands wider can be done the moment he begins to test.

Then she noticed my wrists and I learned that apparently my entire life has been a lie. ;)
My joints are all hypermobile and consequently I hold a lot of tension in various places. Apparently, I hold the reins by clenching my wrist and this puts a strong feel on the reins. I had never been told this by any instructor through the years. SK called me over and then spent a good ten minutes of gently gripping my hands to relax my wrist and to hold her hand in a gentle grip to achieve a pressure of 1 or 2, instead of the "10" level I started with.

She then moved to holding the reins by the horse's bit and having me feel what a one or two feels while holding the reins with my fingers and not by tightening my wrists.

I seriously had no idea.

Mind blown.

Photo of SFF to break up all the text

I'm sure elementary to some, but in a sport where people say feel is everything and there is this ambigious desire to develop feel, I had never had someone notice that the way I inappropriately hold tension effected the way horses carried themselves for me.

Off I then went, walk, trot, and canter and wouldn't you know that ponyboy was so much incredibly softer and swinging through his back. The walk developed more ground cover and the trot more impulsion. I was a little nervous when she asked me to canter since I had just established that I couldn't hold the reins properly, but she was quiet. I did as she asked and then she asked me to bring him down. Her commentary was that I had become an entirely different rider in the canter compared to the walk and even the trot.

So while I feel humbled about one of the most elementary things in riding, if I can slowly develop this feel, then it will be money well spent to learn from her again.