NEGMAA

Negmaa (*Ansata Ibn Halima x *Bint Nefisaa) as photographed by Jerry Sparagowski

Negmaa was a 1970 mare, bred by Gleannloch Farms. Sired by *Ansata Ibn Halima; she was out of *Bint Nefisaa (Nazeer x Nefisa), whom Gleannloch had imported in 1962. What is really interesting about this particular pedigree are the multiple lines to Farida. Both *Ansata Ibn Halima and *Bint Nefisaa trace through their maternal lines to Farida, however, Nefisa, the dam of *Bint Nefisaa traces back to Farida additionally through her sire, Balance (Ibn Samhan x Farida).  Interestingly, Farida traces to the 1880 mare, El Dahma, through both the tail female line of her sire (Saklawi II) and dam (Nadra el Saghira).  Combined with the additional lines to Saklawi II through stallions like Gamil Manial and Mabrouk Manial, the pedigree is super concentrated for the influence of El Dahma. 

Negmaa was one of two full sisters to El Hilal; the other sister being Nourah, foaled in 1971, the same year that Negmaa was sold to the Jamesons of Ranch Ruminaja, for whom she produced the mares, Ruminaja Afifa and Taza Jaliya, as well as stallions like Ruminaja Atallah, Ruminaja Rasul and Ruminaja Cherif, all sired by Shaikh Al Badi. She also produced Ruminaja Omar, by *Ibn Moniet El Nefous. Somewhere around 1983, Negmaa was sold to Imperial Egyptian Stud, producing Imperial BtNegmaa and Imperial Nasreena, both sired by Moniet el Nafis. She also produced Imperial Orastar and Imperial Oralamah, both sired by *Orashan, as well as Imperial Alishihab (by Ruminaja Ali) and Imperial Safemaa (by *Ibn Safinaz), whom I was fortunate to meet in person many years later and really liked.

Up until the time I met her, my Arabian horse experience was limited to the horses that I read about in the few books that I owned like The Classic Arabian Horse by Judith Forbis and within the pages of Arabian Horse World Magazine.  I was young, not even in my twenties, when I visited Imperial Egyptian Stud for the very first time. This visit forever remains a powerful, deeply-moving experience, the impact of which I still feel today. You can imagine the "larger-than-life" persona that some of these horses possessed and meeting them face-to-face, is comparable to meeting a Hollywood movie star. The impact that the experience had on my Arabian horse life was significant, as it not only intensified my love for the Egyptian Arabian horse, but more importantly; I was able to visually, connect the information that I had been reading and studying. It was in this visit that I started to develop preferences for a particular type of horse and also, for the combination of bloodlines that I felt were more consistent in producing this type. 

Negmaa was uniquely different from the rest of the mares in the Imperial broodmare band and very quickly, became my favorite of the horses that I had seen, up to that point. She was not a tall horse in stature but her body mass was such, that while standing next to her, she felt like a bigger mare than she actually was. It was her body that caught my attention and held it, as I had never seen a horse quite like her before. She was voluptuous, perhaps even rubinesque, her substance, balanced by flowing, gracefully circular lines. She was close-coupled, wide in the back, broad in the chest, possessing an old-world type like the horses depicted in the paintings which hang on the walls of museums throughout the world. She was protective of her foal and studying her was a little more challenging but her neck was of a nice shape but not long, her head was not extreme or even exotic, it was clean and of a nice shape, short and wide and her eyes were larger in size and luminous. She was a pretty mare and because she was also flea bitten, the speckled color enhanced her timeless look. At the time, I was not well read, as I am today and when I think of Negmaa, all these years later, I wonder if I was in the presence of a Nejdi type, as Lady Anne Blunt had once described: 

"the Nejd horses have short necks, short bodies, good shoulders and a very good tail carriage. Their heads are better than the Anazeh's in every respect the Arabs admire: the heads are not too large, but neither too small, a great width between ears and eyes and between the eyes, but not between the ears; the profile concave below the eyes."  

Do you know that "Negmaa" means a heavenly body that shines in the nightime sky with much brilliance, like a star and, is also used with another maning, that of a source of inspiration? I was really captivated by her and thought she was the most perfect Arabian in the world, until...I met Ansata Imperial, who was so amazingly similar to Negmaa, it was like experiencing deja-vu. I remember feeling confused for a few seconds, thinking that somehow, I took the wrong turn and ended up at Negmaa's stall again. In hindsight, maybe because of the multiple lines to Moniet el Nefous in his pedigree, Ansata Imperial possessed a little more stretch than Negmaa did. However, I think this may have been a very subtle difference between them, as it was really amazing how these two horses were more similar, than they were different. 

Over 35 years later, Negmaa continues to inspire me, as her name suggests and I lament the opportunity (if it even existed) to have bred Negmaa to Ansata Imperial, for a 5th generation pure-in-the-strain Dahman Shahwan foal (Foal-Negmaa-*Bint Nefisaa-Nefisa-Helwa), safeguarding the tail female line that runs back to the Ali Pasha Sherif mare, El Dahma.