February 8, 1882: “I had a visit from Zeyd of Kasim. He was riding a fleabitten Dahmeh Shahwan, a fine mare with good hocks. He said she belonged to a certain Aga, she came from Ali Pasha Sherif from Abbas Pasha’s horses, is six years old. The Aga is afraid to ride her, she jumps and shies and he asked Zeyd to ride and teach her — break her in, in fact. Her head is remarkably good and she seems good tempered. I like her looks.” Who could that 1876 mare be? Certainly not the dam of *Shahwan, who was apparently still with Ali Pasha Sherif when Shahwan was bred (so in 1886). What about this other one, born in 1881? March 14, 1892, at Ahmed Pasha’s: “There is a little white Dahmeh Shahwanieh, 11 years old which they say has never had a foal and I should like to try getting her… Yanko said there had been no luck with the Pasha with that strain”.
So my beloved old Jadiba (Dib x Jabinta by Jadib) went to her retirement home on Christmas Eve 2014, thanks to Monica Respet’s help and friendship. She was the Christmas gift for a family with small children. I wish her well. My only regret is not to have been able to breed a replacement daughter. I will always regret that September 2011 failed AI breeding attempt to a stallion born in 1979. The semen was dead when it reached the mare, and she never cycled after that.
A photo of my 2011 Wadd Al Arab (Triermain CF x Wisteria CF) from about a year ago. I like the way he is turning out, especially the broad forehead, the small pricked ears, the small muzzle, the good shoulder, the distinct withers, the short back, and the balance in general. I hope to breed him this year or next. Earlier photos at 3.5 months here.
This framed photo from the Cairo Museum of Agricultural Museum was not labeled, and was hanging too high on the wall. I could not identify it.
The splendid Arabian stallion Shahwan, purchased by Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt in 1892, was foaled in the possession of Muhammad Sadyk Pasha, who was given his dam in foal by Ali Pasha Sharif. He is the maternal grandsire of Ibn Yashmak, through whom he finds his way into modern Egyptian pedigrees. I found the trace of Muhammad Sadyk Pasha (1832-1902). He was a senior military official — a Lewa, just like Ibrahim Khairi Pasha, owner of Badaouia –, a geographer, an explorer, and a military engineer, graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, as well as the president of the Egyptian Geopraphic Society in his later days. He undertook four journeys to Hijaz and Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which he described in great detail in a book, “al-Rahalat al-Hijaziyah”, translated as “Journeys to Hijaz”. He was reportedly the first person to take photos of the two holy cities, which appeared in Oriental and Western publications. Muhammad Sadyk Pasha was the treasurer of the Pilgrimage (Hajj) caravan on two journeys. Click on this superb Biritish Museum link for a more complete bio, a photo of him, and a selection of his wonderful photographs. Saudi Aramco also has an article about him.
Another photo from the same source, this one has already been published before. [Update: it was published in Lady Wentworth’s Authentic Arabia Horse, courtesy of the Egypt RAS]
This is Bint Radia (Mabrouk Manial x Radia), also from the Agriculture Museum. This photo I have seen in a book before, just don’t ask me where.
Photo of Khair (Ibn Samhan x Badaouia) also from the Agricultural Museum. Has anyone seen this one before? Is it in RAS Volume 1?
Last spring, my wife, who by now knows Cairo’s cultural gems well, took us to the Agriculture Museum, housed in the palace of Fatma, daughter of the Khedive Ismail, in the Doqqi neighborhood. You can click on the links to learn more about the museum and its treasures; here my objective is to share with you this wonderful photo of the RAS stallion Mansour (Gamil Manial x Nafaa Al Saghira), the sire of Nazeer, Sheikh el Arab, Bint Farida, Roda and others, hanging on the wall of a museum room entirely dedicated to RAS photos.I may be wrong but I don’t think this photo (my photo of the framed photo) has been ever published before. You can see the Prince Mohamed Ali blood in the photo (especially Dalal, Mansour’s grand-dam), and you can see why Nazeer and *Roda looked the way they did.
What a balanced, well-built, harmonious desert-looking mare. You can see the influence of both *Hamrah and *Haleb on her. She was by *Hamrah out of *Meleky (*Haleb x *Hadba). Does anyone know where this look can be found in today’s Davenports?
That’s a recent shot Darlene Summers took of my CSA Baroness Lady (Sab El Dine x Takelma Rosanna by Prince Charmming), a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah of overwhelmingly Egyptian lines, with 6 generations of Egyptian sires on top of the old Crabbet female line. She is in foal to Monologue CF, a stallion of Davenport lines, due in August 2015. She is one of six asil younger (17 years old and less) mares of that Ma’naqi Sbaili line in existence in North America. Her sister and a maternal cousin of hers are with Jacquie Glasscoe Choate in Texas, and three other mares, all daughters and grand-daughters of this mare, can be last traced to Janice Park’s South Springs (SS) program, which line-breeds to El Reata Juan (Julyan X Mist Aana by Hallany Mistanny), and produces mostly blacks. She will need to go to a good preservation home, to make space for the new foals coming in the summer. If you know someone who is interested, let me know.
From Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals, January 9th, 1908, at Prince Yusuf Kamal’s sale of the horses of his father, Prince Ahmad Kamal who had died the year before: “Besides my three and Ghazala, a handsome but very slight of bone Keh. Memrieh was sold to somebody Bey”. Lady Anne bought three bay mares/fillies at this sale; the Journal entry mentions that this Ghazala was a Kuhaylah Mimrihiyah bought for one of the Egyptian royals, Omar Bey Sultan, by his racing associate Jacques Valensin. No other horses were sold at this sale. The herdbook of Prince Mohammed Ali, dating from after 1912, lists the mare Donia: “Origine, Prince Ahmed, achetee par Mohamed Pasha Abou Naffi; Cadeau; rentre a Manial 10 Dec. 1912.” I wonder whether that “handsome but very slight of bone Keh. Memrieh” is Donia, and whether this “somebody Bey” is “Mohamed Pasha Abou Naffi”, then only a Bey. Here’s a hypothesis: Mohamed Pasha Abou Naffi bought this mare at the above sale, either in foal to a stallion from Prince Ahmad’s or later bred to a stallion of Prince Yusuf, his son; four years later, he gifted the mare to Prince Mohamed Ali, but retained the resulting filly known as Nafaa after him.