The horses of the elusive Ahmad Ibish

My research project about Syrian horse-racer Ahmad Ibish is progressing well, but I am not ready to share the results on this blog yet. Ibish, of Damascus, Syria, was on the top of my list of influential urban Middle Eastern horsemen of the twentieth century, along with Henri Pharaon of Beirut, Lebanon, Iskandar Qassis of Aleppo, Syria, and a few others.  However, I can say a couple things about the horses he was associated with, at different times. I could find four of these, all stallions. The first, and perhaps most famous here in the US, was Aiglon. Aiglon was a Saqlawi Jadran imported by Ibish to Egypt for racing, around 1920, according to the export document for his daughter, *Exochorda, attested to by Dr. Branch, the Director of the Royal Agricultural Society of Egypt. *Exochorda, named after the ship that brought her to the USA, is of course best known as the dam of Sirecho. The second was El Sbaa. El Sbaa, a chestnut, was bought from Ahmad Ibish by a French government mission led by Madron and Denis at the Cairo Heliopolis racetrack in 1925, and sent to the French Stud of Pompadour where he was used as…

Photo of the Day: Bint Muhaira, ‘Ubayyah, USA

Yesterday, I posted the photo of the beautful Bint Turfara (Sirecho x Turfara by Fadl). Below is the photo of another foundation mare of the BLUE STAR program, her 1961 half sister Bint Muhaira (Sirecho x *Muhaira by Old Hamdani), a ‘Ubayyah. She was bred by the Searle Stud. Her dam *Muhaira (Old Hamdani x *Mahraa) was bred in Saudi Arabia, by an expat lady, Esther Ames, from two horses from the stud of Prince Sa’ud ibn ‘Abd Allah Ibn Jalawi, Governor of the oil rich province of al-Hasa in Saudi Arabia. *Muhaira and her dam *Mahraa were imported to the USA by Mrs. Ames. *Muhaira’s sire, the Old Hamdani (born around 1938), was presented by Ibn Jalawi to Mr. Thomas C. Barger, then CEO of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO, the state-owned national oil company of Saudi Arabia, renamed Saudi Aramco in 1988). Old Hamdani was apparently also imported to the USA, but he was never registered in this country. He was featured on this blog early on, here. As an aside: The stud of Prince Saud Ibn Jalawi (alternative spelling: Jiluwi) was really part of the group of studs of the House of Saud, not only because of the frequent exchanges of…