Video of Arab horse competition in Beirut, 1959
The link below leads to a video from the British Pathé’s Reuters Archive, showing parts of a competition held in Beirut:
LEBANON: BEIRUT: HORSE PARADE OF BEST ARAB STALLIONS. (1959)
The British Pathé’s description of the video is given below:
Background: The proud and nobly-bred Arab stallion came under scrutiny, October 10, during a competition in Beirut, Lebanon, to select the most perfect animal of the breed. Kuwaits’ ruler, Sheikh Abdullah Sabah, provided strong competition with horses from his Arab stock, but failed to outclass the entry from Iraq. According to age, the horses were placed in one of three sections, Winner of the section for animals over three years of age, was an Arab stallion, owned by Mr. Mirrahi of the Lebanon. A three-year-old Arab horse from Iraq won the intermediate class, for Mr. Mikkaoui. Iraq also claimed first place in the class for the under three-year-old, when a horse owned by Henri Pharaon was chosen.
Of interest are two of Edouard’s previous posts on Arab horses from Lebanon:
*LEBNANIAH ROSTER PROPOSAL TO AL KHAMSA (2009): Mentions the al-Mi’rabi family. Cf. “Mr. Mirrahi of the Lebanon” in the British Pathé text above; the British Pathé descriptions do not always have perfect spelling, and if working from handwritten notes, b > h would not be an impossible mistake to make.
GHUZAYYIL’S ENTRY IN THE ALDAHDAH INDEX: The final sentence says that “Ghuzayyil won a horse beauty show in Lebanon”.
The first horse in the video is very similar in my memory to Nouro, a Syrian Asil stallion born much later. Our late friend Joe Achcar sent me a picture of the young stallion in race training about 14-15 years ago. Unfortunately the picture is lost.
Best wishes,
László
I was looking at another Pathé video recently, of Arabians in the UK in 1932, and was struck by how similar some of them were to horses of today. Seeing that sort of continuity and familiarity of appearance across time is always neat. Alas that the picture of Nouro is lost, it would have been nice to see.