Long Ago and Far Away

I am always concerned over the presentation of long-ago horses on this blog, as I have learned that most people don't care about horses who are found so far back in the pedigree and yet, ancestry.com is so widely popular among people who are eager to discover their roots! So, consider for a moment the horses bred by Dr. Hans Nagel and the reality that without *Shahwan, there would be no Hanan and therefore, all of the horses who are part of her remarkable family would also not exist. THAT is the importance of a long ago horse in today's DNA sleuthing world.

*Shahwan is brought forward in the straight Egyptian gene pool through his daughter, Yashmak, who is out of the mare, Yemama, an Aziz daughter out of Bint Ghazieh. Yashmak was bred to another Ali Pasha Sherif-bred horse, the stallion, Feysul (Ibn Nura x El Argaa), producing a colt who was named Ibn Yashmak. He, in turn was bred to Risala (Mesaoud x Ridaa) to produce Bint Risala, one of the horses purchased from Crabbet by the RAS in 1920. So, in 3 generations, *Shahwan through his great granddaughter Bint Risala, had a profound effect upon straight Egyptian breeding through Yashmak by Sheikh el Arab (think of *Serenity Sonbolah), Kateefa by Shahloul (think of Alaa el Din) and Yaquota by Balance (think of *Sakr).

*Shahwan was bred by Ali Pasha Sharif, as was his sire Wazir (Zobeyni x Ghazieh) and Dahmah Shahwaniyah, his dam.*Shahwan was purchased by Lady Anne Blunt in 1892, when he was already 5 years old. Lady Anne Blunt described *Shahwan as having “the unmistakable Ali Pasha Sherif stamp, so fine in all ways, beautiful shoulders with excellent action, tail erect in the air." Initially, Lady Anne Blunt took *Shahwan to Sheykh Obeyd and after a few months, decided to export him to England, to use in the program at Crabbet Park instead. The trip to England was long and not without challenges for *Shahwan. For 10 days, in very rough and stormy seas, *Shahwan journeyed from Alexandria to Marseille. Arriving in Paris, he was shipped by train to Calais, where he crossed the English Channel and once ashore in England, he traveled by train to Three Bridges, walking the last few miles to Crabbet Park, arriving full of his unique Arabian presence, with his tail curled over his back. Lady Anne Blunt used him in her program for the next three years, even turning down an offer made by the French Government to purchase him. He was shown locally, earning a 2nd place in the stallion class. You may not be impressed by this statistic but you need to understand popular opinion in this day and age, as grey-colored horses were not looked upon favorably by horsemen. Most people wanted darker, solid colored horses, like bays. As a matter of fact, *Shahwan's body color was the main reason why he was not retained by Crabbet Park, as by 1895, the Blunts decided to sell him.

Flash back to 1893 and the World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. The Turkish government had sponsored a group called the Hamidie Society, who presented an authentic Bedouin exhibit, including 45 desert-bred Arabian horses. When the Hamidie Society went bankrupt, the horses were sold at auction and J.A.P. Ramsdell of Newburgh, New York purchased the grey mare, *Nedjme, remarked as being the best of the Hamidie horses. Already an Arabian horse owner, J.A.P. Ramsdell was fascinated by the breed and did everything in his power to become more familiar with the horses. So, when the news that the Blunts wished to sell *Shahwan reached him, Mr. Ramsdell did not hesitate to purchase him, as he wanted a grey stallion to breed to his grey mare. In America, the newspapers reported that *Shahwan was "the most beautiful and typical Arabian horse in the USA" an underscore to what Lady Anne Blunt had said of him, five years earlier, about his unmistakable Ali Pasha Sherif look. A year later, in 1896, *Shahwan's photograph appeared in the March issue of Harper's Weekly, a popular periodical of the time.

And now, even though it is a whopping 124 years since *Shahwan's American importation, he remains important not only for his genetic connection within straight Egyptian breeding but also, because he was the first Egyptian Arabian horse to be imported to America. The next wave of Egyptian breeding would not make its way into America until 1932, when W.R. Brown and Henry Babson imported Egyptian horses bred by Prince Mohamed Aly Tewfik, Prince Kemal al Dine and the RAS. And maybe, *Shahwan had something to do with that too, inspiring both men to travel to Egypt and look for horses that looked just like *Shahwan.