RE: RE: Re: Of a handful of dates and Arabians

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <maryanne@ratbusters.net>]

There is a lot of romanticism about the "desert Arabians", but most people
forget that horses in the Middle East WORK on limited rations. We can't grow
hay here; there isn't enough arable land. So our horses get used to getting
by on whatever they can eat and as a result tend to be smaller and sometimes
thinner than horses in countries where you have more choice in the diet.
There is actually quite a lot of controversy among the Egyptian Arabian
breeders in Egypt as to whether an Egyptian Arabian is the same if it's been
bred and raised in the US. Some of the breeders here, recognising that the
gene pool is getting too small, have imported straight Egyptian horses from
the US and Europe. They do look much more "lush" than our local horses. The
fine skin and the "dryness" that some breeders talk about in the build isn't
the same at all. That said, the people who went to the Arabian penninsula to
find horses had to recognise a good horse from the bone and muscle
structure...they sure weren't beauties.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@ratbusters.net
www.ratbusters.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Corbelletta, Antonio [mailto:Antonio_Corbelletta@affymetrix.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 12:24 PM
To: 'Susan Garlinghouse'; ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: RE: Re: Of a handful of dates and Arabians


The whole desert Arabian thing is highly romanticized, I remember reading a
book on the English that when to Arabia and first saw the Arabian horses.
They were appalled at the horrible condition they were in and the horrible
conditions that they were kept in.  Even the at the best studs.  Thank God
they were better horsemen/women to know good horse flesh and rescued some of
the breeding stock to bring back to the world.
My vision of the the Arab war horses is that they were ridden into battle
and the the ones that did survive were probably eaten after anyway.
Tony

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