The Magical Tale of Ansata Abbas Pasha

I stood there looking through the bars of his stall. Suddenly, I felt out-of-place, the intensity of the moment was so overwhelmingly surreal, it was crushing me. I was standing in front of the real live Ansata Abbas Pasha, a straight Egyptian stallion I recognized from the many photos I had seen in books and magazines. Yet, here we were, Ansata Abbas Pasha looking at me, as intently as I, was looking at him. As I waited for my guide, I was afraid that someone would tell me that they changed their mind, my visit was cancelled and to get in my car and leave. It seemed like I had been waiting for a long time. Nervously, I tried to distract myself by recalling all the things that I had read about him but it was no use, my mind wandered elsewhere. Perhaps, for another person, the waiting was only a tiny fragment of time, mere seconds tick.tick.ticking away. I tried to rationalize the longer wait, as there would come a day when I would need to remember meeting the prince of the desert, the catalyst of a personal renaissance and subsequent transformation back to the real me, whom I had lost along the way. 

My Beautiful! My Beautiful! That standest meekly by, with thy proudly arched and glossy neck, And dark and fiery eye.

Those long ago words echoed through my head, as my fingers slowly traced his silhouette. He was different from the other *Ibn Halimas. His face a bit longer, a bit more narrow and yet, the longer lines flowed, uninterrupted, harmoniously from one to another. The head, meeting the elegant neck, set at an angle to form the mitbah, clean, roomy and graceful…flowing, flowing, flowing…the line of his proudly arched neck flowing down like a gentle river, until it was met with the pronounced bump of his wither, drawing attention to his laid-back shoulder and his deep and powerful chest and finally to the place of magic on his back, the place where a saddle would sit, a throne for one worthy to sit upon his back. Winston Churchill once said, 

"when you are on a great horse, you have the best seat you will ever have." 

He studied my every move, with great interest. What was he thinking? He was, after all a stallion, no surprise that he might be alarmed at the stranger that had invaded his territory. Could he see past the person that was trying to hold it all together, only to discover the red hot mess I was inside? Or was he thinking of places he visited, friends he had made and then, goodbye? Was he thinking of Illinois or Paris? Germany? What other places had he known? In 1966, the Babson Farm purchased Ansata Abbas Pasha, an outcross for their straight Egyptian breeding program, made up entirely of the horses that were imported in 1932. For 10 years, Ansata Abbas Pasha lived the life of a breeding stallion, in the charmed, almost magical, serene setting that was the Babson Farm. Jarrell McCracken, who had purchased a number of Babson Horses, started to inquire about Ansata Abbas Pasha and for 5 years, he persevered, until 1970, when the farm, returning to only the lines of the horses imported from Egypt in 1932, sold Ansata Abbas Pasha to Bentwood Farm. In 1976 Dr. Nagel of Katharinenhof, accompanied by Dr. Nagy of Babolna, went to Bentwood Farm to purchase Mohafez (*Ibn Moniet El Nefous x Ahroufa), a nine month old colt for Dr. Nagel’s breeding program. While they were at Bentwood, they saw Ansata Abbas Pasha and immediately loved the horse. Shortly thereafter, Ansata Abbas Pasha was invited to compete at the Salon Du Cheval, and in 1979, Bentwood sent Ansata Abbas Pasha to Paris, where he was named the Reserve International Champion of the show. Recognizing the European interest in the horse, Dr. Nagel, together with Marbach and Babolna, leased Ansata Abbas Pasha for a period of 6 months. In 1981, Ansata Abbas Pasha went to Germany, to Katharinenhof to breed a limited number of mares for Dr. Nagel, Marbach and Babolna. In the following year, the world had new horses to marvel over: Mameluk, Sherif Pasha, Farid, Nasrodin, Abbas Pasha I, Maha, Aida, Simeon Savion, Mubarka, Nasra, 229 Abbas Pasha. And so, here I was, in front of this majestic horse, a living, breathing poem of the Saqlawi strain, a full brother to the nationally acclaimed Ansata Ibn Sudan and a piece of living Egyptian Arabian horse history, his sire and dam arriving in America, the same year of my birth.

“Ansata Bint Mabrouka was one of the great mares of all time. Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but I think those who saw her, would have to agree.” - Judith Forbis

Here I was in Texas, standing in front of her first foal, who had spread her influence throughout America, Europe and beyond. 

In the book, THE GOOD GOOD PIG, written by Sy Montgomery, she shares a story about a local legend involving Amazon River dolphins. Assuming the disguise of a human, these dolphins, shape-shifters, would seduce real humans to follow them back to the enchanted world called "Encante", at the bottom of the river. A place so beautiful, that all who visited, chose never to leave. 

“I wanted to follow them back, down, deep into the watery womb of the world, to the source of beauty and desire, to the beginning of all beginnings-and through their story, to show again the power of animals to transform us, to lead us home to Eden, and to remind us we can always start anew.” 

As I drove away from Bentwood, I kept thinking of  Ansata Abbas Pasha. Almost 40 years have passed since that day and still, I find myself thinking about him. He was an overwhelmingly kind horse, wise as a result of the cultural experiences he lived through. So, no surprise that someone like me would spend alot of time thinking about him. He was, after all, a thinking horse and Encante, that also was him, deep at the core of his being, he was the source of beauty and desire in many people's lives. What a gift his life was!

***I'm really not sure who the photographer was, I want to say it was the late Johnny Johnston, who photographed many of the Bentwood horses in the same style. I love the photo by the way. This is how I remember Ansata Abbas Pasha, as we stood face-to-face in the stallion barn, looking at me, as intently as I was looking at him.***