The Magic of Thee Desperado

Magic Mon Ami (FS Bengali x Magic Mon Amour)

"Once this horse has taken possession of a person's thinking it seems to be impossible to escape again from the fascination surrounding this horse." - Dr. Hans Joachim Nagel, The Arabian Horse: Nature's Creation and The Art of Breeding

For a long time, I did not know who this particular horse was. I really loved the photo, it quickly became a favorite, however,  little did I realize at the time, the magnitude that a single photo would have in pointing out the continuing influence of just one horse. The photo had caught my attention, when posted to one of the social media sites like Instagram or Facebook. It was one of those rare moments, when a photographer successfully captures what it means to be an Arabian horse with a camera. No breed description can describe the hallmarks of the Arabian head, as well as this photo does. I knew of the photographer, Bukra, but I had misplaced her email address and well, you know, one thing leads to another and pretty soon, it becomes less important to learn the identity of a horse in a photo, as compared to the ever-growing list of things that I need to accomplish. I really couldn't forget the horse, as I had saved his photo to my work computer as "wallpaper" and I saw the photo every day. I like the expression of this horse very much, there's a softness that is inviting and the more I looked at his photo, the more I found to like.  His head is of the shape that I prefer, short and wide, with eyes placed lower in the head, as well as having the larger sized jowls that I also, really like. While not extreme headed, he does have a jibbah, which draws attention to a greater amount of width between his eyes, which as a matter of fact, you also see between his nicely-shaped ears. The shape of his head, together with his expression, conveys that this horse is intelligent, with a pleasing and willing nature! His neck, although shorter, has a very nice shape, well-crested, with a fine mitbah. His dark, pigmented skin is especially fine, accentuating the prominence of bone and veins, which intensifies the dramatic presentation of type, in a purebred Arabian horse. He's beautiful.

So, there I was, months and months and months later, watching an instructional video for improving search results on Google and I remembered this particular photo and decided to test the new techniques I had learned. Maybe I can finally learn the identity of this horse?  On an Arab guy's Twitter page, I found the photo and after translating his post which was written in Arabic language, I learned that this is a 2008 stallion, named Magic Mon Ami, bred by Fontanella Magic Arabians in Italy.

Naturally, with this newfound information, I was interested in learning more about this horse; specifically, my main focus was to look for the presence of Egyptian Arabians  in his pedigree. His sire, FS Bengali (Kubinec x Om el Sanadiva) has lines to Aswan (through Balaton), Shaker el Masri and Hadban Enzahi (both through the German-bred mare, Mohena, from the Om el Arab program). Additionally, there are two lines to older Egyptian blood, through the Babson imported mare, *Maaroufa (through the mare, Sadal Melik). However, all of these Egyptian lines are far back in the pedigree, only as close-up as the sixth generation and I felt that there had to be a prepotent Egyptian horse, closer up, to explain what I was seeing with my eyes.

Magic Mon Amour (Windsprees Mirage x Al Amyra)

Magic Mon Amour is a double granddaughter of Thee Desperado, the sire of Windsprees Mirage (her sire) and of BJ Thee Mustafa (the sire of Al Amrya, her dam). Now, it starts to make sense, as she is so classic in her good looks and even though she is a granddaughter, she reminds me of the Desperado daughters that I have been fortunate to meet. That's how influenced she is by Thee Desperado! In addition to Thee Desperado, Magic Mon Amour has a line to the Pritzlaff-bred stallion, Rasmoniet RSI (*Rashad Ibn Nazeer x *Bint Moniet el Nefous), as well as three additional lines to Aswan, through the Russian horses: Nega, Kilimandscharo and Nevada. She also has lines to *Maaroufa, to create more common ground with FS Bengali. When you add all of these Egyptian horses together, Magic Mon Ami has approximately 20% Egyptian blood, with half of that coming from Thee Desperado.

In studying Magic Mon Amour's pedigree, I just couldn't shake the feeling of déjà vu. The more I studied her pedigree, the more familiar it became. I had not only seen this pedigree before but I had studied it. I thought and thought and thought but for the life of me, I couldn't remember where I had seen the pedigree before. When I was working on the blog for Wolkenzorro+// and studying the pedigree for the Egyptian sources of the black color, it hit me, like a ton of bricks. How could I forget?

Magic Magnifique (True Colours x Magic Mon Amour)

I had been getting marketing-type emails, earlier this year, for a very lovely black stallion, a son of True Colours (Thee Desperado x Daheda), who is owned by Kathleen Ohlsson of Sweden Arabian Stud. Perhaps, you have been receiving the same emails too?  The stallion's name is Magic Magnifique and he is a maternal sibling of Magic Mon Ami, as both horses are out of Magic Mon Amour. They are actually a little more than half brothers, as True Colours has a line to Hadban Enzahi (Nazeer x Kamla) through his dam, Daheda, while FS Bengali has  Hadban Enzahi  through the Om el Arab stallion, Sanadik el Shaklan.  Magic Magnifique is an impressive horse. Not only is it  difficult to find black-colored horses with a high level of refinement and elegance but it is extremely tough to photograph black horses, manipulating the light to convey their abundance of beauty. My compliments to the photographers of Magic Magnifique, for the many wonderful photos taken of this most beautiful horse. I am amazed that the horse in the photo that I like, is a brother to another horse, the subject of an email that I also enjoyed receiving. In my mind, it underscores the consistency of a broodmare like Magic Mon Amour and for the family of horses she is producing, despite the variety of stallions that she has been bred to, beyond True Colours and FS Bengali.

I checked the breeding record of Magic Mon Ami and I found it interesting that he has been bred to daughters of True Colours like Zahira by Musica and Magic Roby. I am not sure if this cross has anything to do with how well his dam crosses with True Colours, as she also produced a younger full brother of Magic Magnifique, Magic Suleiman in 2010.

Windsprees Mirage (Thee Desperado x GL Lady Mirage)

The most interesting aspect of Magic Mon Ami's breeding record is found through another horse, the Italian National Champion Stallion, Windsprees Mirage, his maternal grandsire. Magic Mon Ami has been bred to Windsprees Mirage daughters and granddaughters, further intensifying the bloodline of Thee Desperado in the majority of his get, for example, Magic True Black (Magic Mon Ami x Magic Roby) has four lines, two lines on each side of the pedigree, sire and dam. And perhaps, the greatest lesson, beyond learning the identity of the horse in the photo, is witnessing the prepotence of Thee Desperado at work in these particular horses. Used in combination with a wide variety of bloodlines like Russian, Polish, Spanish, Crabbet, Davenport and multiple sources of American Foundation breeding; his influence is unmistakable, as we see in these beautiful horses, like Magic Mon Ami and Magic Magnifique.