Legendary press baron William Randolph Hearst was also one of America’s leading horse breeders. Like his newspapers, that legacy continues today. San Simeon Arabians is one of America’s most important Arabian horse farms. The story of San Simeon Arabian horses goes back through generations of high-quality Arabians, beginning in 1930 with Hearst’s acquisition of the best Arabian horses in the Unite
d States and continuing over the years with the importation of stellar Arabians from the Middle East and elsewhere. Our horses today all have notable bloodlines, combining what Lady Wentworth called “the golden cross of Mesaoud and Skowronek” with desert-bred horses such as Zamal and Mounwer. When he started acquiring Arabians, Hearst—an excellent horseman who inherited his love of the best horses from his father, Sen. George Hearst—said he hoped “to improve Arabians in America, to supply other breeders with superior stock, and the perpetuate the pure Arabian blood.”
In the 1930s, Hearst purchased his starting stock from William Robinson Brown, president of the Arabian Horse Club. Brown, in turn, had acquired most of his stock from the Crabbet Park Stud of Lord and Lady Blunt, as well as from the desert. Hearst brought these horses to California, and through additional purchases with the help of Albert Harris, another president of the Arabian Horse Club, the San Simeon Stables began to expand. In 1947, Hearst significantly added to his Arabian stock by sponsoring an expedition to the Middle East to find and acquire 14 of the finest Arabians in the world, significantly improving the San Simeon Stables Arabian bloodlines. After Hearst’s death in 1951, his son William Randolph Hearst Jr. and his wife, Austine McDonnell Hearst, continued the high standards of breeding. That level of quality continues today under their sons, William Randolph Hearst III and Austin Hearst. For more than 80 years, then, one of America’s most famous families has been the stewards of one of the world’s most famous horse breeds. The San Simeon Arabians today represent the finest in equine heritage.
