The Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Yemameh/Yamama was the dam of the Crabbet foundation stallion Mesaoud, and the progenitor of the female line of Saqlawi Jadran that runs through the world famous Mahroussa and her offsprings at Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq of Egypt, many of which were exported to the USA and Europe and founded important families there. Yemameh/Yamama (same spelling in Arabic, different pronunciation depending on whether it’s pronounced in Egpytian Arabic or Classical Arabic) was from the breeding of Ali Pasha Sharif and went to the Khedive Abbas Hilmi II in his Qoubbeh/Koubbah stables. Wilfrid Blunt entered the following entry in his diary: “11th Jan. [1896] — Took Anne and Judith to Koubbah to see the Khedive. He received us with great empressement… and showed us his stud. He has got together some nice mares, but nothing quire first class, except two of Ali Pasha Sherif’s, one of which is our horse Mesaoud’s dam, a very splendid mare, with the finest head in the world. He has bred some promising colts and altogether the thing is well done.” The veterinary records for the Khedivial Stud offer the following additional information on the mare’s production: 2 July 1900: “The colt ibn Yamama is…
Did you know that Mohammed Ali Foundation had deposited the archives of Khedive Abbas Hilmi (II) at the University of Durham? Michael Bowling, who had know this for years, suggested one of us visit at the first occasion, and I had the chance to go there last February, and spend 2.5 hours looking for references about Arabian horses. One of the more interesting things I found were the veterinary records of all Khedivial Studs (Montazah, Qubbeh, Ras El Tin, Ismailia, etc). These are handwritten, and are available for four years: 1898, 1900, 1904, and 1907. Records of veterinary visits cover horses, donkeys, cows, buffaloes, small cattle, and birds. Horses include Arabian horses, but also horses imported from North Africa, Switzerland, and Austria, among other places. I copied the sections relevant to Arabian horses, and came back with a wealth of information that, if analyzed in the context of existing information from other sources, can add to our – scant – knowledge about the Stud of Abbas Hilmi. I will be writing about some of these discoveries in subsequent posts. Stay tuned.