The Beauty of an Angel

*Malekat El Gamal with her Moniet el Nafis sired colt, Imperial Amir Nafis

*Malekat El Gamal, a 1968 grey mare, was imported by Imperial Egyptian Stud. She was bred by Sayed Marei of AlBadeia Stud in Egypt and was sired by the Nazeer son, Waseem and out of the Nazeer daughter, Nagdia. Yes, Waseem and Nagdia were paternal siblings who when bred together, resulted in a most extraordinary mare, who by virtue of her sire and dam, was also 50% Nazeer, the same percentage one would assign to her if Nazeer were her sire but he wasn't, he was her grandsire, no matter which side of the pedigree you are looking at. No matter how old I get, the 50% gets me every time. Malekat's dam, Nagdia, was a pure-in-the strain Hadbah Enzahiyah, the result of a Bint Samiha son (Nazeer) bred to a Bint Samiha grandaughter (Zahia). Combined with Waseem, *Malekat El Gamal is triple Bint Samiha (Kazmeen x Samiha), approx. 31.25% of her genetic influence comes from this mare. What I also found interesting is in her tail female line. Her dam, Zahia, is out of Samha, a Bint Samiha daughter, sired by Baiyad (Mabrouk Manial  x Bint Gamila). Samha was a maternal sibling of Nazeer but what I found so interesting is that Samha,  like her great-grandaughter, Nagdia, is pure-in-the-strain Hadbah Enzahiyah. That's two pure-in-the-strain combinations in the first few generations of *Malekat El Gamal's pedigree.  While our breed tradition is to assign the strain by dam line (last line in the pedigree), which in this case, as we have pointed out is a super concentrated source of the Hadbah Enzahiyah strain, a quick comparison/contrast of her pedigree confirms that the majority strain influence was Hadbah, 40%. However, *Malekat El Gamal was also 25% Kuhaylah Mimriah, thanks to the two Mansour crosses (Nazeer's sire)  and equal parts (12.5%) Kuhaylah Rodaniyah, Saqlawiyah and Dahmah. If I were to add the Kuhaylan sources through Mansour and Malaka, the Kuhaylan percentage grows, to rival the percentage of Hadban strain influence. I was fortunate to meet *Malekat El Gamal several times. I loved the mare, as evidenced by the many blogs that I have been inspired to write about her, even a poem. She was traditional in her look, that is, of a Bedouin-bred horse or, an old world horse, maybe I would stop short of saying the word "baroque". *Malekat's body was compact, comprised of circular lines. Carl Raswan called horses like *Malekat El Gamal 3-circle horses, meaning their bodies could be divided equally into 3 circles: from the point of chest to the wither, from the wither to the hip and from the hip to the point of buttock. *Malekat El Gamal, in her physical appearance, did not embody Hadbah type, she was, in my opinion, a Kuhaylah.

Her body mass or rather, her substance, which she possessed in abundance, gave her a somewhat masculine appearance. She was broad of chest and equally wide in her haunches. No matter where I stood, whether by her head or  with my arm draped over her hindquarters, she was wide, deep and powerfully muscled.  And yet, for as powerfully built as she was, she was so beautiful, especially in the details of breed type. What I wouldn't give to be able to stand next to her once more, lost in the wonder of her angelic, black eyes.