Tahawi revelations

In the past few months, and following the inclusion in the Al Khamsa Roster of the three Egyptian mares of Tahawi breeding at Hamdan Stables, Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat, a small and informal working group was formed. Its core members include three people from Egypt: Yasser Ghanim Barakat al-Tahawi, Mohammed Mohammed Saoud al-Tahawi, and Yehia Abd al-Sattar Eliwa al-Tahawi; one from Europe: Bernd Radtke; and three living in the USA: Jeanne Craver, Joe Ferriss and myself. There are others, too.

One consequence of the formation of this working was the recent designation by the Board of Directors of Al Khamsa, Inc of about of 15 of the surviving tribal Tahawi horses as “Al Khamsa Horses of Interest”. You read about this on this blog, and you will hear more about it in the future. It is certainly a first step toward the recognition by Al Khamsa of other tribal horses (e.g., Syria’s, Saudi Arabia’s, Bahrain’s) in the Arabian horse’s original homeland. It will probably have other consequences on the Egyptian Arabian horses, too.

Another related consequence of this group working together and exchanging information was the uncovering of previously hidden information, discover new information and make a number of educated guesses about a number of foundation horses of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization (EAO) and the Inshass Stud of the Egyptian kings. In doing so, the working group relied on various sources of information, including connecting the dots with previous research, the knowledge of its own members, stories from living Tahawi elders, field work done by Bernd in the 1980s, audio interview of Tahawi elders who have since passed away, and above all, stacks of historical documents and papers found with various members of the Tahawi clan.

Some of this new information will no doubt rattle previous solidly held beliefs, claims and comfortable assertions about these foundation horses, and will probably be subject to heavy controversy, if not opposition. Yet, all the new facts, but also the new hypotheses which are not yet facts, are positive, and reinforce the status of these EAO and Inshass foundation horses as original asil Arabians of the highest status. In the end (almost) everyone should be pleased.

For now, the working group will stick to the hard facts, and hold off before sharing the hypotheses, until further (ongoing) evidence such as mtDNA tests and new original documentation, is produced, so that the hypotheses become facts.

In any case, you will hear about these revelations in a much anticipated book on the Tahawi and their horses by Bernd Radtke, forthcoming in the summer of 2012. So stay tuned.