El Dahma is the foundation mare of the most prized tail female line of Arabian horses worldwide. Yet she remains shrouded in mystery. She was a mare from the Stud of Ali Pasha Sharif of Egypt, born around 1880, no color given, and was known only by her strain name as “The Dahma”. The little we know about this elusive yet extremely influential matriarch is summarized here. The information in this link comes from three sources: first, the book known as the “RAS History” (page 33), which is the official name of Volume I of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization (EAO) studbook, published in 1948; second, an early herd book of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq of Egypt, which mentions that this mare, “the Dahma”, was a gift from Ali Pasha Sharif to the Khedive (the viceroy of Egypt, then Khedive Tewfiq the father of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq and of the next Khedive Abbas Hilmi II). third, Carl Raswan’s Index. However, given that Raswan’s was not a primary source, and that he did not mention his primary sources, I will take the liberty of discarding it for the purposes of this discussion. El Dahma seems to have produced at least four horses at both Khedive Tewfiq and his son Khedive Abbas Hilmi…