This article and its following parts will give a brief overview of chief sires at El Zahraa in the late 70’s and early 80’s. El Zahraa’s most influental sire that was heavily used prior that period was the grey Nazeer (Mansour x Bint Samiha) who was born in 1934 and died in 1960. He was so important to the Egyptian breeding that many descendants were heavily inbred to him. Therefore, the stallions listed in this series can be categorized by either having two or more lines to the Mansour son or having at least one line to him.
Beside these, El Zahraa kept two sires without Nazeer blood that will be covered in part 5 of this series.
The dominate color of the sires in El Zahraa during that period was grey. Nevertheless, the farm owned four (dark-)bay stallions and one chestnut stallion.
Aseel
First stallion to be presented in this series is Aseel, born in 1962. Aseel was a grey Dahman Shahwan stallion by Sameh, born in 1967. According to Dr. Otto Saenger, Aseel was a very harmonic stallion with one line to Nazeer through his dam Inas.
Inas was a good broodmare at El Zahraa where she produced the mare Bint Inas. Bint Inas was exported to Dr. Nagel’s stud, then to Hungary and became a value broodmare at Babolna stud. There she gave birth to her most notable son: Ibn Bint Inas by Ansata Halim Shah.
Aseel’s sire Sameh was born at Inshass Stud. He sired the stallions Sultann and Ibn Hafiza but he is more notable through his daughters: While Salha, Romanaa II, Deena and Serenity Sonbolah all became excellent broodmares at stud farms in Germany and the U.S., his daughter Azza I was kept at El Zahraa to continue the El Dahma line through the Durra family.
Aseel, going by the name of Saheby at the race track, sired Rihan, a stallion exported to Switzerland where he was standing at Hanaya Stud of Mrs. Nayla Hayek. Aseel’s most notable son however was El Mareekh (x Rawayeh), exported in 1979 to the U.S. where he was 1981 Scottsdale Top 10 Stallion and US Nat Top 10 Stallion of 1981.
Aseel sired also the stallion Hagras (Haya by Ikhnatoon) whose granddaughter, Hebat Allah Al Badawy (Ibn Arabia Sakr x Hoboub) was Egyptian National Gold Champion Mare in 2009.
El Moutawakil
Another Sameh son standing at El Zahraa during that period was El Moutawakil, born in 1964. He was a long lined stallion out of Bint Bukra, a Dahman Shahwan like Aseel above.
Bint Bukra was by Nazeer and out of Bukra. Bint Bukra, born in 1957, was full-sister to the mare Husnia, or better known as Ansata Bint Bukra, born in 1959. Ansata Bint Bukra became foundation mare of the famous Ansata Stud of Don and Judith Forbis.
Another famous product of that mating was the stallion Ghazal. Ghazal was exported to Germany in 1955 where he left excellent foals, especially in combination with Hadban Enzahi (Nazeer x Kamla) daughters. His son Saher out of the Hadban Enzahi daughter Sahmet, was chief sire at Marbach state stud and Best in Show at Verden, DE in 1973 and at the DLG Fair in 1974.
Bint Bukra (1957) also produced another full-sibling: the mare Nagwa. Nagwa was the dam of Menha (by Mohawed), exported to Germany and foundation mare of Olms’ Hamasa Arabians. Menha was the dam of Hamasa El Fagr (by Farag) who was exported to South Africa. There he won the National riding class at the Arabian Horse Show in 1990 and was three times South African National Halter Champion (1985, 1986, 1990).
El Moutawakil’s most notable foals born at El Zahraa were exported. One was the grey mare Toka (x Tomadera), acquired by Ursula Poth’s stud in Germany. Her daughter U.P. Tamanny (by Messaoud) became foundation mare at Lunzenhof Stud, Germany, the home of World Champion Stallion Al Lahab.
Another daughter by El Moutawakil was Ayat (x Amna) who produced foals for Mr. Smarius, Belgium, among them the stallion Azal “S” (by Fikri).
Further reading
Dr. Otto Saenger: The stallions of El Zahraa – About the breeding conception of the Egyptian state stud, in Arabische Pferde issue No.2, May-July 1980, pages 135-137.
Judith Forbis: The Authentic Arabian Bloodstock, 1990.