The previous post triggered some memories, which I am eager to put in writing so they don’t vanish — especially as my father, now 86, cannot be persuaded to write his memoirs. Starting from the mid-1980s, my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, would regularly take me with him to the Beirut racetrack, l’Hippodrome du Parc de Beyrouth. He was a longstanding member of the board of the racetrack’s supervising organization, the Societe pour la Protection et l’Amelioration de la Race Chevaline Arabe au Liban (SPARCA). Henri Pharaon had founded SPARCA in the 1920s and had led it most of his life. He also owned the largest number of racehorses at any given point in the racetrack’s history. Other notable SPARCA members and large owners included Moussa de Freige and Saudi Royal Prince Mansur ibn Saud. I only have faint memories of my earliest visits to the racing stables of Henri Pharaon and Moussa de Freige in the mid 1980s. These involve prancing horses, slender grooms, heaps of alfalfa, white plastic chairs, tea cups and endless conversations between adults, with their dose of foul language. They also involve sounds of neighing, horse farts, horses nervously pounding the metal doors of their boxes…
Just a note to say that the author of one of the obituaries of Henri Pharaon (1901-1993) in the Independent is wrong about him hailing from a Triestine family. The Pharaons are originally from Damascus, and one of their branches emigrated to Egypt then Trieste, which was then the only outlet of the Habsburg Empire on the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed a reader issued this correction: MAY I add to Professor John Carswell’s evocative memories of Henri Pharaon (10 August, further to the obituary by Robert Fisk, 7 August)? writes Rosemarie Said Zahan.Pharaon did not come from an old Triestine family which had emigrated to Egypt. The family came from the Bekaa in Lebanon, but one member, Antoun Kassis Pharaon, emigrated in the middle of the 18th century to Egypt, where he soon rose to become the substantial figure of Customs Master (Le Grand Douanier). He strongly advocated the Red Sea overland trade route from Europe to India via Suez (long before the canal was built), and in so doing, was helpful to many European traders. In 1784, he left Egypt and settled in Europe where he was given the title of Count of the Holy Roman Empire. His descendants are…