Coming soon: new information on El Nasser
I feel I have been maintaining a fairly uncontroversial blog – so far. But it did not escape me that the only times I broached slightly contentious topics (the issue of an international registry for Asil horses, and the piece on the myth of Kuhaylan Jallabi in Egyptian breeding), readers’ interested was sparked, comments reached the double digits, a lively discussion ensued which went on for several days, and visitors’ stats skyrocketed. Well, not quite.
Anyway, time to spice things up… hence the sexy title.
El Nasser was until recently one the most controversial topics in Asil Arabian breeding. Was he Asil? or wasn’t he? A passionate debate, albeit one based on very little information had been raging for about thirty (thirty!) years before fresh information contributed to the inclusion of the horse in the Al Khamsa roster six or seven years ago, thanks to the patient efforts of many, including yours truly.
As usual, many more claimed undue credit for this, but hey, such is the reality of life; there are those who do the work, and those who take credit for doing it; I’d rather belong to the first category, where competition is less intense. The inclusion of El Nasser automatically led to the addition of 3,000 plus Arabian horses, most of them of Egyptian bloodlines, to the roster of Al Khamsa. The Asil Club had accepted El Nasser many years before, albeit on the basis of disputable information.
The bottom line is that there is every reasaon to believe that the horse is Asil, and that his inclusion and that of his descendants into the Al Khamsa roster is good news.
Since then, new information has surfaced, which I believe will further bolster his Asil status. This information is hitherto unpublished, and although I seriously doubt it will make any difference to those making big bucks on the showring with the sons and grandsons of The Ministril, Thee Desperado, and Thee Infidel, the purist breeding community (the converted this blog preaches to..) will no doubt welcome it. Keep an eye on the next few posts.
Hi Edouard,
Personally I think that there are few things that asil arabian enthusiasts enjoy more (excluding the horses themselves of course) than an interesting, open and wide ranging discussion. I am looking forward to a thought provoking and possibly surprising debate.
Mike
Hi Everyone:
I just wanted to give you all a “heads-up” regarding the pedigree’s for The Minstril and any of his progeny on allbreedpedigree.com. Someone has gotten into the pedigree database and written some very rude and nasty comments into the pedigrees.
Ralph
My first curiosity about El Nasser was in 1974 when I saw *Ramses Moufeed, sired by the El Nasser grandson, Nasralla(Shahriar). He was a 4 year old at the time and at a major class A show and I was very impressed with him. This was long before the Minstril, and before I became involved with Al Khamsa which was just beginning in 1974. Since 1971 I had become fascinated with the Egyptian imports but was just learning and I was unfamiliar with his pedigree. Later I bought a Blue Catalog about 1975 and then joined Al Khamsa in 1976 and found that this horse was not in either roster. Some years later, in the early 1980s, an Al Khamsa breeder had leased a stallion tracing to El Nasser and tried to make a proposal to Al Khamsa to accept otherwise eligible descendants of El Nasser but the proposal failed. No one else got involved for quite a while until in the early to mid 1990s when Hansi, Edouard, and later myself, got involved with El Nasser’s proposal which eventually succeeded. Most convincing of all was the work Edouard had done. My argument for El Nasser is the same as others that I have proposed successfully which is that El Nasser is an equal contemporary to a good many other Al Khamsa foundation horses, to which the reasonable assumptions had already been applied. For this particular horse, El Nasser we owe the most gratitude to Edouard for its acceptance into Al Khamsa. While I know looks should never be a criteria for accepting a horse into Al Khamsa, I have seen a good many El Nasser descendants since 1973 and personally I have always been comfortable with his provenance and his descendants. Sadly most of the other sources of El Nasser before The Minstril have fallen into obscurity, which is a real shame because many were good contributors. It is sad to think the undeserved controversy over El Nasser would diminish what he had to offer through multiple descendants. Given that El Nasser’s own quality was known to be good, it is too bad that he comes to us largely from a narrow line of popularity. Good males from Nasrulla’s line offer the sire line to Ibn Samhan via Balance, the same as Zarife and Kheir do.
Ralph,
as I have commented elsewhere, the best thing to do when finding something incorrect (or rude) on allbreedpedigree.com is to correct it. Anyone can write into that database; one need not be a paying member.