Naseem Al Rashediah: The 2020 Gold World Champion Straight Egyptian Stallion

Naseem Al Rashediah (Al Adeed Al Shaqab x Nabaweyah Ezzain)

Naseem Al Rashediah is a 2014 grey stallion, bred by Mr. Rashid A. Rahman Al Jasmi of Al Rashediah Stud in Bahrain. A son of the late Al Adeed Al Shaqab (Ansata Halim Shah x Sundar Alisayyah); Naseem Al Rashediah is out of  Nabaweyah Ezzain (Ansata AlMurtajiz x NK Nakeebya), a bay mare bred by the late Mr. Usamah Alkazemi of Ezzain Arabians in Kuwait.

At first glance, what I found interesting about Naseem Al Rashediah's pedigree is that he is a pure-in-the-strain Hadban Enzahi stallion, as both Al Adeed Al Shaqab and Nabaweyah Ezzain trace in their tail female line to Venus, an 1890 chestnut mare who was imported into Egypt for Khedive Abbas II. What's even more interesting is how these sources of Hadban blood are combined in one horse, as on the sire side, the source of Venus runs through the AlBadeia breeding program and is brought forward by Imperial Egyptian Stud.  While on the bottom (the dam side of the pedigree), we see the Venus source run through Dr. Nagel's Katharinenhof breeding program and is brought forward via the Ezzain breeding program. I know that some enthusiasts will scoff at the pure-in-the-strain designation, however, when you look deeper, that's how you will discover that the strain designation is further strengthened with every line to Nazeer (Mansour x Bint Samiha), which is also a line to Venus. Between sire and dam, there are approximately 63 lines (give or take) to Nazeer! Not to mention that the stallion, Madkour, brings in more Venus blood (through Kamla) and the stallion, Nejdy, brings another line to Venus through Lotfeia. If I add all the sources of Venus blood, through Nazeer and Kamla, there are approximately 66 lines to Venus! 

The great equalizer in the pedigree, establishing common ground (as an outcross or alternative source of blood) on both sides of the pedigree, is the Dahman Shawan stallion, Ansata Halim Shah, the sire of Al Adeed Al Shaqab and the paternal great grandsire of Nabaweyah Ezzain, however, Ansata Halim Shah also appears in NK Nakeebya's pedigree an additional four times (3 times in the 5th generation and once in the 7th generation, through his son, Salaa el Dine). If you haven't picked up on what I just said, this stallion, Naseem Al Rashediah offers straight Egyptian breeders a very concentrated source of Hadban Enzahi and Dahman Shawan breeding through the mares Bint Samiha (Kazmeen x Samiha), Ragia (Ibn Rabdan x Farida) and Bukra (Shahloul x Bint Sabah).

NK Nakeebya (NK Hafid Jamil x NK Nabeelah)

The maternal granddam of Naseem Al Rashediah is the mare, NK Nakeebya (NK Hafid Jamil x NK Nabeelah), who was an important broodmare for Ezzain; her daughters have also produced well and in turn, their progeny are maturing into influential roles for other straight Egyptian breeders. Mr. Usamah Alkazemi once said, "NK Nakeebya was a heavenly gift, a super producer with whichever stallion that was tried."

Nakeebya is a stretchier mare, with a lot of scope. Looking at Nakeebya, one cannot help but notice the added length to all of her lines in her body. She has a fabulous long neck, well set on her body, longer, well-muscled forearms, shorter cannons, a deeper heart girth, a strong and smooth topline and generous, powerfully muscled hindquarters. Many of these qualities are the phenotypical characteristics that we observe in her grandson, Naseem Al Rashediah.

Naseem Al Rashediah's dam, Nabaweyah Ezzain (Ansata AlMurtajiz x NK Nakeebya)

When NK Nakeebya was bred to Ansata AlMurtajiz, she produced Nabaweyah Ezzain, who matured to become a National Champion mare of Bahrain and a wonderful broodmare for Mr. Al Jasmi, as evidenced by her son, Naseem Al Rashediah. It is important to point out that Nabaweyah's full sister, Safeyyah, remained at Ezzain, producing beautiful foals for Mr. Usamah Alkazemi. 

NK Nakeebya, owned by Mr. Salah al Turkit of Alward Arabian Stud in Kuwait, powerfully illustrates why a mare is considered influential within a breeding program. As an individual specimen, she is a beautiful mare in an extraordinary way but she has produced daughters who are better horses than she is. Her continuing influence or rather, her vibrant legacy, is a powerful lesson demonstrating what is the role of a foundation mare within a breeding program, that is, a mare who consistently produces a level of quality, far greater than her own. It is a very exciting time with regard to the number of up-and -coming horses, as we wait and wonder specifically over the influence that her grandson, Naseem Al Rashediah, will exert on our global community of straight Egyptian breeding.

***Originally published on September 29, 2019, this blog post is being updated to recognize Naseem Al Rashediah's significant win on October 18th, at the 2020 Straight Egyptian World Championships, Milan, Italy. Naseem Al Rashediah placed first in the four year old stallion class and in the stallion championships, was named the Gold Champion. Congratulations to Mr. Rashed A. Rahman Al Jasmi, Al Rashediah Stud, Bahrain.***  

Al Ayal Moniscione

I was watching the videos posted by Arabian Essence this weekend of the 2019 Italian Nationals and the Milan International B Show. My favorite horse of the entire show is number 100, the 2012 stallion, Al Ayal Moniscione (Al Ayal AA x Ariel Moniscione), bred by Buzzi Giancarlo of Azienda Agricola il Moniscione.

A son of the straight Egyptian stallion, Al Ayal AA (Al Ayad x The Vision HG); he has additional Egyptian lines (El Hilal, Shaker el Masri, Mohssen, Dalul & Aswan) through his dam, Ariel Moniscione (WH Justice x Anthea Moniscione), making him 60% Egyptian in blood. A Saqlawi strain stallion, his tail female line goes back to the Ali Pasha Sherif-bred mare, Helwa (Shueyman x Horra). As a matter of fact, his dam, Ariel Moniscione is a pure-in-the-strain Saqlawiyah, as her sire, WH Justice, traces in his tail female line to the Blunt's 1875 mare, Basilisk.

When you study the extended pedigree, a first impression may be that he is line-bred to *Padron but really, he carries, at best, only 10% of *Padron's blood. What I found really interesting  is the Spanish breeding that comes through A Fancy Miracle (the dam of Magnum Psyche, WH Justice's sire) and El Sher-mann (the sire of Vona Sher-Renea, the dam of WH Justice). *Estopa was a double Gandhy granddaughter, as her sire, Tabal, and dam, Uyaima, were both out of Gandhy daughters. A Fancy Miracle brings in more Gandhy blood, as well as Congo and Barquillo. El Sher-mann's dam, Gazira, brings in more Spanish blood, through the 1932 mare, Barakat (Fondak x Meca), bred by the Marquis de Domecq and purchased by James Draper of America. Over the years, it has become challenging to incorporate Spanish breeding. Through a variety of unfortunate circumstances (none of which has any bearing on the quality of the horse), Spanish Arabian bloodlines are not as plentiful, as compared to other bloodlines. When you find Spanish lines, combined in one horse, as it exists in WH Justice, it's a clever outcross breeding decision (which works so well with the common ground in the Polish and Crabbet blood that you find in Anthea Moniscione's pedigree) and perhaps, another reason for the substance we observe in Al Ayal Moniscione.

What I like most about this horse is his circular and compact body, which if divided into thirds, is of equal proportions. That to me, is the balance I look for in any Arabian horse. He's also NOT narrow; he's got a decent amount of substance on him without sacrificing breed type. In one segment of the video, he turns to the inside just a little bit and I almost fell out of my chair when I caught a view of his well-muscled and broad chest. He's got a nice neck, very traditional in length and well set, with a flowing line from his wither to the poll. His head is everything I look for, with prominence of bone and vein, presenting the ultimate dry, elegant desert horse head and all of this is intensified by his rosewater coat color. No horse is perfect but this particular stallion has come closest to matching the ideal horse image I carry in my head. And it appears that other enthusiasts agree with me, as Al Ayal Moniscione was named the Bronze Champion Senior Stallion at both the 2019 Milan International B Show and the Italian  National Championships. 

***UPDATE:  Originally posted on September 15, 2019****

Mystery: The Strainge Tale of the Jellabi

Al Nahr Modonna was a 1969 bay mare, a daughter of *Ibn Moniet el Nefous (*Morafic x Moniet el Nefous) and out of the straight Babson Egyptian mare, Bint Aaroufa (Fa-Serr x Aaroufa). She was bred by Jay Stream, back when his program was focused on producing straight Egyptian Arabian horses. When she was alive, she was considered Kuhaylan Jellabi by strain  but over the years, the combination of science, in the form of mtDNA analysis and the availability of newly-published information of a historical nature, for example, Lady Anne Blunt's notes (her Journal and Correspondence was first published by Alexander Heriot in January, 1986), revised our understanding concerning the Babson imported horses like *Fadl and *Maaroufa, who actually, are descendants of the mare Ghazieh and not, Jellabiet Feysul as we once believed. 

FROM THIS :

Al Nahr Modonna->Bint Aaroufa->Aaroufa->Maaroufa->Mahroussa->Negma->Bint Yamama->Yemama->El Argaa->Bint Bint Jellabiet Feysul->Bint Jellabiet Feysul->Jellabiet Feysul

TO THIS:

Al Nahr Modonna->Bint Aaroufa->Aaroufa->Maaroufa->Mahroussa->Negma->Bint Yemameh->Yemameh->Ghazieh

Considering that the source mare, Ghazieh was foaled in 1850, why does a change in one horse, who is located so far back in the pedigree, matter so much, you may ask?

In 1998, Michael Bowling published a hugely revolutionary article, What's In a Name? within the October issue of Arabian Visions magazine. I encourage you dear reader to follow the link embedded in the previous sentence and read the 2-part article, if you haven't done so already. It is an understatement, on my part, to say that What's in a Name is a wonderful article, when really, what I want to say is that it should be required reading for any seriously minded student of the Arabian horse breed.  One of the more interesting things mentioned in the article was a letter that Prince Mohamed Aly Tewfik had written in response to General J.M. Dickinson of Traveler's Rest Stud in Tennessee. You see, the General questioned the Kuhaylan Jellabi strain of the four Egyptian horses that he had recently purchased from W.R. Brown. General Dickinson knew of the stallion, Khafifan (Mabrouk Manial x Negma), now in Poland and a maternal sibling of W.R. Brown's Aziza and Roda, as well as Weil-Marbach's Jasir and the celebrated mare of Egypt, Mahroussa. How could Khafifan be recorded as Saklawi, when his full siblings were recorded  as Kuhaylan? The Prince responded to the General by writing that the Kuhaylan Jellabi horses descended from the Saklawi Jedran strain and that the family of these horses had been part of the breeding program of his family for eighty years! Beloved author, breeder and world renowned authority on the Egyptian Arabian horse, Judith Forbis, in Authentic Arabian Bloodstock, Volume I, wrote that despite being of the same strain, there was a difference in type between the grey-coloured horses from Prince Mohamed Aly Tewfik's breeding program and the horses owned by the Blunts, like the chestnut mare, Kasida, the granddam of Kazmeen. 

Raisuli El Pharo (*Ansata Ibn Halima x Al Nahr Modonna)

A change in the recorded ancestry of the Babson horses, in this case, the root mare and the strain, changes the perception or rather the understanding that we have when studying a pedigree in the present day, because now, when you look at Al Nahr Modonna's pedigree, you will realize that she is not a blend of the Saklawi and Kuhaylan Jellabi strains but rather, she is a pure-in-the-strain Saklawiyah Jedraniyah mare, as the tail female lines for both her sire and dam are of this strain.  And it's not just the perception that changes for Modonna but also, for her offpring, like her most beautiful son, Raisuli El Pharo, a 1976 bay stallion, sired by *Ansata Ibn Halima and bred by Donald and Joan Carley.

Raisuli El Pharo (*Ansata Ibn Halima x Al Nahr Modonna) physcially embodied the delicate balance between the Saklawi and Dahman strains.

When Walter Schimanski was alive, many Arabian horse enthusiasts considered him to be a noteworthy breeder of Dahman Shahwan strain horses. His breeding philosophy, carefully crafted after many generations of working within this strain, reflected the wisdom, study and experience that comes from knowing these horses as intimately as Walter knew them. Walter's instincts, as sharply defined as they were through blood, sweat and tears, allowed him, as a breeder, to dwell within that state of fragility, that is, that fine line of balance that narrowly exists between both strains, Dahman and Saklawi.

"Incorporating the Saqlawi type brings length back to neck and leg, which can be lost with intense use of Dahman and Kuhaylan strain types. It also yields finer bone structure and produces flatter and less prominent muscling. Too much Saqlawi can produce a long back and ears. Dahman type brings back an overall balance and harmony, including more dished heads and larger eyes, and shorter backs, but also has the tendency to produce shorter necks and legs, heavier muscling, and more bone."-Walter Schimanski

Raisuli El Pharo, although not bred by Walter, fits within the description of the horse that he described. It was this phenotype that inspired Walter to leverage both strains together, in order to produce horses that physically, were very much like Raisuli El Pharo,  the culmination of top-crossing a strong Dahman sire like *Ansata Ibn Halima onto a multi-generational Saklawiyah Jedraniyah mare like Al Nahr Modonna (*Ibn Moniet el Nefous x Bint Aaroufa). 

In hindsight, one wonders how we missed all of the signs that today, seem obviously pointed towards a Saklawi line of influence: Khafifan's recorded Saklawi strain in Poland's stud book, General Dickinson's questions of Prince Mohamed Aly Tewfik, the difference in type between horses of the same strain and the handful of breeders, who concentrated their breeding programs within the Kuhaylan Jellabi strain, producing multi-generational pure-in-the-strain individuals possessing a heightened level of refinement that is characteristic of Saklawi type: increased length in the back, legs, neck and head, instead of the broad-muscled, compact, rounder lines more often seen in Kuhaylan horses. And what became of the strain of Kuhaylan Jellabi horses, once bred and raised by the Blunts of England? Edouard al-Dahdah wrote in a 2008 blog concerning the Kuhaylan Jellabi strain horse, 

"the Kuhaylan Jallabi line of Jellabiet Feysul is extinct, as far as Asil horses are concerned. The last Asil horse of this line was the 1911 mare Kerbela (Ibn Yashmak x Kantara), bred at the Crabbet Stud by Lady Anne Blunt. The only place where Asil horses of the Kuhaylan Jallabi strain can be found today is the Kingdom of Bahrain. May they last forever."

***This blog is lovingly dedicated to my friend, Christine Emmert, who owns the exquisite mare, Kirbys Shadow, a Raisuli El Pharo granddaughter and dam of Al Ghazal by The Renagade and Noor Al Sahra by Imperial Al Kamar.***