This last photo from 1990 or 1989 of the late Mustafa al-Jabri (on the left), Radwan Shabareq (on the right) and my father, Gen. Salim Al-Dahdah marks the end of the 40 days of celebrating Mustafa’s legacy as a major breeder of Arabian horses. May he rest in peace surrounded by his beloved horses, Mahrous, Ihsan, Basel, Halah, Nawal, Hallah, Ameenah and all the others which he loved and cherished so dearly.
So today my wife made me take a break from work to see the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo. I enjoyed the visit. In the evening I checked the website of the museum and found this reference, about the collections in its library: “The late Prince Youssef Kamal collection is in the Museum library with the French Expedition famous Déscription de l’Egypte.” That’s the son of Ahmad Kamal Pasha (APK), who inherited his father’s stud of Arabian horses, and sold it to Prince Mohammed Ali, Lady Anne Blunt (who bought three mares) and others in 1907. I will go back to the library to check out this collection, and look for horse-related materials.
I was always intrigued by the scarcity of references in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence to her encounters with the Dahman Shahwan horses of the lines of Nadra El Kebira and Obeya, compared to her numerous references to horses from the lines of Yemama (Saqlawi Jadran ibn Sudan), Roga El Beda (Saqlawi Jadran, no marbat mentioned) and Freiha (Kuhaylan Mimrah) at the stables of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq and Prince Ahmad Kamal. This is by far Egypt’s most famous and globally prevalent strain today, yet it is the one we know least about from contemporary sources. The most explicit of these scarce references occurs during a visit to the stables of Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq at Manial on December 22nd 1908, where she records seeing “a beautiful grey Dahmeh Shah. the prince got lately from the Khedive who had her dam from A. Pasha Sherif (she had a foal 3 weeks old with her)“. This is either Nadra El Kebira or Gazza. Another reference is from one year earlier, on December 17, 1907, also during a visit to the Prince: “There was a handsome white horse from the Khedive, a Dahman — sire Seglawi, which headed the list of horses.” Could this be Farhan/Saklawi II, who…
The entry in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals about her last visit to Ahmed Pasha Kemal’s stud (shortly after the Pasha’s death) on March 10th, 1907 is extremely informative. It was the last of several visits of Lady Anne’s to that stud, she remembered a lot of the horses from her previous visits, she spent a long time looking at the horses (1.5 hours), and she was accompanied by “Ali Effendi the old Kurdish manager”, Mahmoud who then went under her service and of course Mutlaq. Her description of the mares and stallions in that Journal entry comes four days after the acutal visit (which was on March 6th), and is precise and detailed as usual. Look at the comments of that blog entry for comment’s and speculation on my side about the horses in this entry of Lady Anne’s Journal, some obvious and some not so obvious. Here is the full text of that entry (italics are Lady Anne’s but bolds are mine): March 10 Now about the Ahmed Pasha Stud. Was received there by Ali Effendi the old Kurdish Manager, and Mahmud, and spent about an hour and a half looking round. The first mares in the row, a chestnut Nowakieh,…
While perusing old handwritten notes I found this bit of information, from a conversation with Radwan Shabareq: “Dr Iskander Qassis had four Krush mares which he got from Abu Husayn Khattab (the premier horse merchant and expert in Syria in the 1950s) who in turn got them from his father who had in turn obtained them from Mijhim ibn Mhayd. They were from the Krush of Al-Sane’, which was the best Krush marbat of the Fad’aan (woul ne3m).”
This is the transcription of a conversation with Jean-Claude Rajot, in 2013, whom I had asked what master breeders Robert Mauvy and Anatole Cordonnier thought of Denouste: Here is what Jean Claude had to say: “Robert avait fait des recherches et Cordonnier aussi. Ils en ont parle une seule fois devant moi. Le point faible dans le pedigree: Aissa, par Bou Maza et Kebira. Le cure avait perdu les papiers. Cordonnier avait le meme entraineur de courses que Denouste.” Les juments favorites de Mauvy: Guelmouna par El Nil, Fadd’a, Iaqouta, Izarra. Il avait fait saillir Fadd’a par Asfour mais elle n’avait pas pris.
I am b ack and will resume the series of photos on Mustafa al-Jabri’s horses, by backdating a few entries until we reach today’s.