Last year, I posted a photo of the grey Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Sultan, one of the Syrian government stallions at the stallion depot of the Veterinary Unit of the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture in 1958 (Syria’s then equivalent of the EAO). Now I am posting this photo of Sultan’s mate, the Hamdani Simri stallion Hassaan. Photo from Hazaim Alwair. Judging from these pictures and others, the Syrian government appears to have maintained of asil stallions at this time. I was told that when in the late 1950s Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser offered it the stallion Amro (Nazeer x Amara by Kheir x Zahra by Hamran II), many Syrian breeders shunned him because they felt the government stallions were better.