This colt which Belgian breeder Patrick Vermuyten recently bought really caught my eye. He is from the Bint Kareema line, hence an Ubayyan by strain. Bint Kareema‘s (Rasheed BLNT x Kareema) is in my view one of the Arabian breed’s most underrated lines. Despite its very small numbers (mostly in Europe), it has consistently produced first class, well conformed, stlylish horses over the past fourty to fifty years mostly in Europe (e.g., Kauber Platte’s Hakeel Ibn Kaisoon). Unlike other damlines that become “worn out” over the generations — my friend Jean-Claude Rajot refers to these as “fin de lignée” — this line seems to be only getting better with time, if this colt is any indication. As an aside, Bint Kareema is one of the very few Straight Egyptian lines not yet accepted by Al Khamsa, due to missing information about the antecedents of the her dam Kareema, by a “Dahman” out of an “Obeya”. I have my own educated guess, which I wrote about some ten years ago. Today, an mtDNA comparison between this line and an Ubayyan Sharrak tail female line from the Tahawi,e extinct in asil form, but still represented in the general equine population, should help…