Chocolate Abys are the black sheep of the Aby family. Very few Aby breeders will admit that they exist. Many see them as not being real Abys, since most acknowledged chocolate Abys today were created using another breed to introduce the chocolate gene. Cats not descended from these out-crosses that were actually chocolate or lilac could have been misidentified as red, sorrel, ruddy, or fawn. The majority of these cats are no longer alive, or available for inspection, and it is impossible to verify their color. The color in photographs can be very deceptive due to lighting, background color, and the photo processing. In some cases we have to rely on the memory of people who have seen or owned the cats. Anyone who has tried to match paint or fabric, without a sample in hand, knows how unreliable this can be. Individual observations can vary greatly, depending on one's frame of reference, but those observations can give us food for thought.
Early mentions of red Abyssinians that are ancestors of today's Abys are quite sparse. In fact, some of the earliest Aby foundation cats weren't Abys at all. One, in particular, was a cat known as Ras Brouk, or Mr. Brooke's Red Self. This cat, presumably of a solid, non sex-linked color, was introduced to the Aby breed in the late 1920's by Mr. H. C. Brooke to improve the color of the ruddy Abyssinian. Almost nothing is known about this cat, including it's parentage. Mr. Brooke doesn't even mention him in his own book, "The Abyssinian Cat" published in 1929. Tim the Harvester, a ruddy, is the only cat on record as being sired by Ras Brouk. A ruddy son of his, Woodrooffe Ras Seyum, pictured at left, was born in 1935, and was considered one of the best Abys of his time. He sired in England before being exported to the United States prior to 1938. Other offspring from Tim, that stayed in England, helped establish some of the early British lines. One curious thing about Ras Brouk. In the 1972 CFA yearbook, Dr. Rosamund Peltz states that this cat, generally thought of as one of the original sources for the red/sorrel/cinnamon gene in the Abys, had been described as being chocolate in color.
Early generations of Abyssinians probably had a good number of cats that we would today not consider Abyssinians. One born in 1929 was Woodrooffe Nigra, a self, or solid, black. Another, born in 1933, was Woodrooffe Leo, a self red. This was a separate incidence of a self red in the Aby genepool, since as far as we can tell, Ras Brouk was not an ancestor of this cat. An early red Aby was Nona's Red Chiki, born in 1943. She was a blending of the lines descended from Ras Brouk, and the lines that produced Woodrooffe Leo. Her pedigree also shows that her maternal grand-dam, Miss Melodious Venture, was a Siamese. Chiki appears 9 times in the ancestry of Taishun Kephra, a red male born in 1960. Also appearing in his pedigree are both Bruene Achilles, a ruddy, and Nigella Contenti, also a ruddy, though some sources claim he was red. These two cats, or their grandsire, Croham Abeba, are behind most red Abyssinians. Many of Kephra's offspring were exported from England to contribute to Aby breeding programs all over the world. The first British Champion red Abyssinian was CH Bernina Heidi, born in 1964.
1964 was also the first year that CFA accepted the red Abyssinian. Prior to this, red Abys bred by Francis Schuler-Taft (Selene), and the Cowells (Du-Ro-Al) were show as exhibition only. Du-Ro-Al Sorrel Sue of Pallady was acquired by Marge Pallady. A daughter of this cat, GRC Pallady's Sun Song was the first red CFA Grand Champion, and received an award for Best Abyssinian female. While there doesn't seem to be any modern day descendants of these two, cats descending from Sun Song's sire, CH Three-D Danny of Pallady, are quite widespread. One line that descends from Danny is the Darken line, bred by Michele Guthrie in the 1970's. Her cats, especially CH Darken's The Red Machine, figure prominently in Sandra Thompson's Highsteppers line. In 1998, I sold one of my sorrel girls to Michele (Guthrie) Gauthier. She contacted me looking for a kitten descended from her Darken breedings. While the sorrel kitten I sent her, CH Leotie's Red Return of Darken, was a very good colored cat, Michele told me that she didn't have the dark color that she remembered having on Red Machine and her other reds. Red Return descends from a full brother of Red Machine, CH Darken's In The Red.
