Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. I will keep readers posted on how this dialogue evolves. Comments will stay because they are the readers’.
Someone from the EAO contacted me and asked me (nicely) to remove these two posts. I have a good relation with EAO management that’s based on mutual trust, so I have agreed. We will be taking that discussion off-line and starting a constructive dialogue on the future role the EAO sees for these Bahraini stallions. I will keep readers posted on how this dialogue evolves. Comments will stay because they are the readers’.
While visiting Egypt for week a couple weeks ago, I spent a morning at the Egpytian Agricultural Organization’s (EAO) stables of El Zahraa in Ein Shams. I was joined by my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, who lives in Beirut, and came to Cairo to spend a few days with me. EAO Director Ali Said welcomed us, and we spent three hours visiting the stallions‘ stables as well as the mares‘ paddocks. The magnificent grey stallions Harras (Kisra x Hebat El Nil) , Serag El Din (Mourad x Safinaz) and Baydoun (Gad Allah x Bint Ibtisam), in that order, were both our personal favorites. Too bad I did not bring my digital camera with me.. The photo of Harras below is from the Asil Club’s website.
Even the otherwise ultra-standardized pedigrees of Egyptian Arabians can yield a surprise or two. That of the mare Bint Nafaa and her descendents, with their cross to El Gadaa, a horse bred by Fad’aan Bedouin leader Miqhim ibn Mahayd, and later raced in Egypt and used by Hamdan stables, is a case in point. The stallion Ghandour (ca. 1930) is another. Ghandour was reportedly sired by Merzug, a good racehorse owned by Mahmoud al-Itribi at one point, out of Lady Anne Blunt’s Jazia (Sahab x Jauza), a Kuhaylat al-Krush. Jauza is one of my all-time favorite Asil mares judging from the one picture I have seen of her. Ghandour was also raced by Itribi Pasha before being used by the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) of Egypt as a stallion. The RAS History book has him as “an imported Arab and very good racer, owned by the late Mahmoud Pasha El Itribi”. A quick search on Itribi Pasha on the net yielded meager results: a list of Egyptian Pashas mentions him as a notable from the Daqahliya farming area by the Nile delta, who was granted the title of Pasha in 1919. I recall seeing a photo of him somewhere. That said, Ghandour was the sire…
It tends to change every other day. For what it’s worth, here is today’s top ten: 1. Reem al-Oud, (Ubayyan Suhayli x Ubayyah Suhayliyah) desert bred from the Shammar tribe, born ca. 1980 2. Reema, (Ma’anaghi Sbayli x Hamdaniyah Simriyah) desert bred from the Aqaydat , born ca. 1975 3. Jauza, (Dahman Shawan x Kuhaylat al-Krush) desert bred from Mutayr, born ca. 1910, imported by Lady Anne Blunt to her Sheykh Obeyd farm in Egypt 4. Bismilah (Besbes x Berthe), a Jilfat al-Dhawi, bred by the French government at the Pompadour stud, born ca. 1985 5. Sahmet (Hadban Enzahi x Jatta), from the strain of Murana, bred by the German government at the Marbach stud, born ca. 1960 6. *Turfa, (Ubayyan al-Hamrah x Kuhaylat al-Khorma), bred by Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud at the Al-Khorma stud, imported to the USA by Henri Babson, born ca. 1930 7. *Bint Maisa al-Saghirah (Nazeer x Maisa) , a Dahmah Shahwaniyah, bred by the Egyptian government (the Egyptian Agricultural Organization) at the al-Zahraa stud, born ca. 1950 8. Sayfia, desert bred from the Fad’aan tribe (Ma’naghi Sbayli x Ma’anaghiyah Sbayliyah), born ca. 1985 9. LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla), a Kuhaylah, bred by Carol Lyons, born ca. 1980 10. Ceres (Aramis x Dharebah),…