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Recently (like within the past 10 years) Egyptian Arabian breeders here 
began importing Egyptian horses from the US and Europe to replace blood 
lines that were lost during the grand exportation days of Forbis, 
Marshall, and the like.  This has been seen by most of us to be A Good 
Thing since the gene pool for this line of horses is pretty small 
actually. The bad part of the importation has been a version of the 
Golden Rule that has allowed imported horses to be 'quarantined' on 
farms so we are seeing some wonderful new strains of strangles and so 
on also imported.

Egyptian breeders are among the most rabid on purity of line, but when 
you look at the horses that were initially brought here, they were 
brought from all parts of the Arabian peninsula, and as such have all 
sorts of genetic backgrounds.  Those from Syria and Iraq are often much 
taller and leggier showing signs of Akhal Teke blood. A tall leggy 
horse is described as being an Iraqi, in fact.  Those from the southern 
end of the peninsula are often smaller.  Most of the purebred horses 
here are about as suited to endurance as poodles are to dogsledding.

A lot of people who want Arabs for riding use our baladi Arabs who have 
been bred for work.  Some of them show signs of the British 
introduction of European horses to 'improve' the bloodstock in Egypt in 
the early part of the 20th century.  You will see some massive but 
typey Arabs pulling carts loaded with 3 or 4 tons of iron in some of 
the old parts of the city where trucks can't navigate. I have a little 
hummer who is worth his weight in gold that looks for all the world 
like a New Forest Pony in winter. So there is a lot of mixing in the 
baladi population.

From what I've seen of Arab (human variety) mind sets, horses were 
likely bred first for performance and second for purity in the old 
days. THEN the stories of the horses' purity were created. Not to be 
cynical or anything, but a working horse is a working horse and they 
WERE working horses.  I'm not sure that the label 'pure' is really 
suitable to the situation, but it is more a case of 'restricted' or 
'defined' or something to indicate that you started with a mix and have 
limited the outcrosses.  I can say that my Rat Terriers are 'pure 
American Rat Terrier' but that in itself is such a goulash of dogs that 
the term 'pure' is pretty laughable. I just tell people here that they 
are American baladi dogs that have been bred to do a particular job.

Maryanne
Cairo

On May 17, 2005, at 2:52 AM, Sisu West Ranch wrote:

> "...But I will say that I am pretty proud of my 'pure' horses with 
> their genetic
> consistency.  When I look back over the few years I've been breeding 
> and see
> the quality and type of what I'm getting, I'm pretty happy and feeling 
> no
> inclination to "let anything else in" in my program...."
>
> Of course you are justifiably proud of your program.   You carefully 
> pick, from the available gene pool, those horses you feel will work 
> for you.  You will never use, nor will anyone try to make you use, any 
> horse you do not approve of.
>
> My point is that the decisions as to which horses to admit to 
> registries is often made on the basis of the golden rule.(He who has 
> the gold rules). Some things I have read indicate that Wendy's 
> favorite Arabian sire, Raffles, had a suspect granddam.  If this is 
> true, many American Arabian horses can not trace all lines to the 
> desert.  While some breeders avoid using these bloodlines, I have not 
> ever heard a call to remove all of these horses from the AHA and call 
> them "half Arabs".  Even if someone produced undenyable scientific 
> evidence that these bloodlines contain northern European horse genes, 
> economics would prevent their removal from the AHA
>
> My other point is that people use loaded words, that often obscure the 
> realities of a situation.  Pure is good, impure is bad etc.  My half 
> Arabian horses are not "impure" in the sense that polluted water is.  
> Purity for its own sake is not the basis for a breeding program.  
> Superior genetics is. Depending upon the breed, the breeder, and the 
> objectives of the program different people will make different 
> selections from what they consider to be the relavent gene pool.
>
> Ed
>
> Ed & Wendy Hauser
> 2994 Mittower Road
> Victor, MT 59875
>
> (406) 642-9640
>
> ranch@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
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