Al Nahr Mon Ami

Al Nahr Mon Ami (*Ibn Moniet el Nefous x Bint Fada), as photographed by the late Johnny Johnston

Al Nahr Mon Ami was a 1967 grey mare, who was representative of the breeding program that the late Jay Stream was engaged in during the 60's and 70's; that is, crossing *Ibn Moniet el Nefous (*Morafic x Moniet el Nefous), a stallion he purchased and imported from the EAO, onto select straight Egyptian mares, like the mares he had purchased from the Babson Farm. Al Nahr Mon Ami is out of the straight Babson Egyptian mare Bint Fada (Fa-Serr x Fada), sired by *Ibn Moniet el Nefous (aka IMEN).  She is a full sibling to the stallions, Al Nahr Montego and AN Monte Carlo plus the mares, Bint Bint Fada and AN Monica. What I find interesting today about Bint Fada is that she is pure-in-the-strain Saqlawi and if you study her pedigree, not only is she Saqlawi in both tail female lines (sire and dam), genetically, she is influenced more by horses from the Saqlawi strain, than by any other strain; as much as 50+%. While in her time, Bint Fada was not recognized as a Saqlawi horse, today, thanks to the science of mtDNA, we can appreciate the breeding to *Ibn Moniet el Nefous in a new way, as he is also pure-in-the-strain Saqlawi. 

Bint Fada (Fa-Serr x Fada), as photographed by the late Johnny Johnston

A quality that I appreciate in Babson horses is their substance. They are not narrow, they are generously proportioned, within flowing, circular lines. Carl Raswan coined the phrase "three circle horses" which is a good way to put into words, what one sees with the eyes.  Prior to the 1970's, Arabian horses were judged by a standard illustrated by Glady Brown Edwards in the early 50's:

I believe this standard also favored the conformation of the Babson horse with broad chests, well laid-back shoulders, a deep heart girth, all within a compact frame. When the standard was updated in the early 1970's, it favored the type of horse that resulted from crossing the powerfully built Babson mares with the stretchy frame of *Ibn Moniet el Nefous. The old horsemen/horsewomen of the time would refer to it in this manner: "*Ibn Moniet el Nefous 'opened' those mares up." The Babson program was a closed breeding herd, confined to breeding horses who descend in all lines from only the horses that Henry Babson imported from Egypt in 1932. While sharing common ground in their ancestral elements, the new Egyptian blood, bred in combinations that were a little different from the Babson horses, offered breeders the opportunity to produce a more modern phenotype, which was growing in favor around the world.

At this time, I was a young child, however, a voracious student of the breed. I had a strong desire to learn everything I could about the Egyptian Arabian horse, within the limitations imposed by childhood. I don't come from horse people, so my real world horse experience was through the written pages of the articles and books published by Judith Forbis, of the world famous Ansata Arabian Stud.  Much of what I understood, if not all I knew about Egyptian horses, came from Judi and specifically, within Babson lines, the straight Babson Egyptian mares that she chose, when she exchanged Ansata Abbas Pasha for those mares. Here, is where my love for the Babson/Halimas began. With all that said, you will understand my overwhelming appreciation for the Babson/Halima cross, especially in my later teenage years, when my knowledge of the Babson/Halimas was made more real by the horses that I personally met at Gail Hoff's training and breeding farm, Princeton Arabians, i.e. Pri Serr Sudan. 

People still have alot to say about Bentwood Farm, the breeding program established by the late Jarrell McCracken. Bentwood Farm, at the time, had the second largest breeding group of straight Babson horses, including the horses purchased from Jay Stream like Bint Fada and Al Nahr Mon Ami. At the time, breeders really didn't breed straight Babson Egyptian horses outside of the Babson program. This is exactly the reason why I appreciated the Bentwood program and the diverse opportunities that Bentwood created through these controversial crosses. It just made sense to me, to combine bloodlines that because of geographical location, had never been available to combine before. Where else could someone find Anter daughters crossed with straight Babson stallions and of course, straight Babson Egyptian mares crossed with stallions outside of the Babson program, like *Ibn Moniet el Nefous? You can therefore, understand the enthusiasm I possessed for the IMEN/Babson crosses, when I visited Bentwood Farm in the 1980's. They were the focus of my trip and no disappointment, they were my favorite horses. I still remember them, that is the impression they made upon me, as these horses more consistently fit within the mental image I had, of what the Abbas Pasha horse must have looked like. Slowly, I started to realize that the Egyptian horses who caught my attention were horses born from the blending of Babson lines with the newer Egyptian blood, like *Ibn Moniet el Nefous and *Ansata Ibn Halima.

Al Nahr Mon Ami was bred to her sire, as well as other powerfully Moniet-line stallions like TheEgyptianPrince and Moniet el Sharaf, for an intensification of that side of her pedigree. She was also bred to the Kuhaylan Rodan stallion, *Refky (*Morafic x Rafica). However, when Al Nahr Mon Ami was bred to *Ansata Ibn Halima, the cross resulted in a horse closer to my ideal, that being the most beautiful mare, AK Attallah. 

This mare was so beautiful, she made you wish that there were more versions of her. She went to the Maxwells in England and was bred to the pure Crabbet stallion, Indian Silver (Indian Magic x Dalika), producing the extraordinary mare, Aliha, who in turn, when bred to *El Shaklan, produced the unforgettable Atlantica. 

Aliha (Indian Silver x AK Attallah) with Emma Maxwell in the world famous photo taken at the 1992 European Championships by Betty Finke.

I also remember AK Attallah's daughter by Ruminaja Ali, Bint Attallah, bred by Dr. Charles & Judy Jones of Attallah Arabian Farm. Bint Attallah produced the incredible stallions, Phaaros and Tallahsman, as well as the beautiful mare, Thee Desperada, all bred by veteran straight Egyptian breeder, Judy Guess. I find myself, all these years later, still wishing that Al Nahr Mon Ami had been bred back within Babson breeding and especially to a stallion like Fabah (*Fadl x *Bint Bint Sabbah), who incidentally, was bred to her dam, Bint Fada, producing the stallion, The Shah, an immensly popular stallion in the UK.  I also wish that Ansata el Sherif had been bred to Al Nahr Mon Ami, given the success of the cross which yielded AK Attallah. Also, what both of these stallions have in common is Bint Sabah, the dam of the Babson import, *Bint Bint Sabbah and the dam of Bukra, the maternal granddam of Ansata el Sherif. Again, for me, these horses are a powerful reminder, in a very modern age, of the old world type favored, collected and bred by Abbas Pasha.

***This blog post was originally published in April 2021***