Lady Anne Blunt’s grave

Today was an important and solemn day of my two-year stay in Egypt. I found the Cairo cemetery where Lady Anne Blunt is buried and the old lady who guards it led me to her tomb. The “noble lady of the horses” was right there. I had a thought for many of you, and wished you were there with me. Few minutes of silence and then I walked back to the car. I did not take pictures.

SEA Zay el Amar 2002 Hadban stallion in Egypt

By far my favorite stallions at Mrs. Barbary’s Shams El Asil farm are the 2002 bay Hadban stallion Zay El Amar (SEA Halawat Zaman x Meshmesha by Anas x El Anood by Akhtal) and his own sire the 1998 grey SEA Halawat Zaman (SEA Shams El Asil x SEA Set el Hosn by Lokman a.k.a. Ibn Adaweya). Perfect conformation, muscular stallions, with high withers, deep girth, sloped shoulders, good bone, short backs, plus all the rest, the result of 50 years of selection. Mrs. Barbary is a master breeder for sure. Photo below by Ahmed Nashaat.    

Finish line photos of Ahmad Ibish’s horses at the racetrack

  From the collection of his grandson and namesake Ahmed Ibish, Jr, who writes: These are some photos of winning horses of Ahmed Ibish, you can identify them with the previous photos, by horse shapes and numbers. It’s a pity no names preserved. I can only recollect my father describing how some of his father’s horses “took the Primo.” As to the racing track I can not be sure, is it that of Beirut or Alexandria? No clue. Mostly Beirut, simply because it could not be practical for him to transport his stallions all the way to Alexandria for the sheer purpose of racing. He used to go there for rather selling some of them, and given his old age in the photos I do not think he would have taken the burden. I only can remember how my father spoke of the exquisite method of training and weight loss (Tadhmeer) Ibish used to apply on his horses. He also said that he was a stern man who would not utter a single word about these secret methods. But in general he was close to the Bedouin tribes of the Syrian desert, hence he learned most of his techniques.  

Rare photo of Prince Kemal El Dine Hussein’s funeral in 1932

This rare shot is from the Facebook page “Ahl Misr Zaman” which I thoroughly recommend you to follow. It’s a great window to Egypt’s past. King Fuad of Egypt and the Sudan heads the procession (in black, towards the right). The page notes that Prince Kemal El Dine was offered the Egyptian throne upon the death of his father Sultan Hussein (who ruled 1914-1917) but he turned it down, so his paternal uncle King Fouad ascended the throne.

Mohamed Sherif Pasha

The other day I was on the 16th floor of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance (the one where they have this impressive portrait gallery of all former ministers of finance), and I saw a painting of Muhammad Sherif Pasha (with a tenure date around 1840, don’t remember exactly), with the mention “father of Ali Sherif Pasha”). I was reminded of this upon reading the December 8th, 1910 entry of Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals, where she mentions that “on the conquest of Syria the plan was — Mohd. Ali’s plan — to have Egypt for himself and his heirs, Syria for M. Sherif (his Minister and Govr. of Syria) and Yemen for Kurshid.“

Hope springs

From Carrie Slayton, a fellow Arabian horse preservationist (thank God for these angels): “Polynesia LD foaled a lovely bay Sharp filly April 23rd,sire is the Davenport stallion Fire Dragon LF. She will be named DI (Desert Ice) Pele, for the Hawaiian volcano goddess”.  That’s the same pedigree as this horse, three generations of Davenports on top, and a particularly close tail female line to Manial’s Mahroussa. Photos below from Carrie.