Hamza: A Memoir: The Family and its Legendary Hamdan Stables
Hamza, Ahmed S.
Synopsis "Hamza: A Memoir: The Family and its Legendary Hamdan Stables "
The history of Hamdan Stable, once the largest Egyptian Arabian Horse breeding facility in Egypt and home of Hamdan, the treasured stallion whose rescue by the author's grandfather preserved an entire line of important horses. The author recounts his family's ongoing dedication to the Egyptian Arabian Horse. Since the dawn of recorded history, Bedouins, beggars, emperors and kings have coveted the Arabian Horse. The Prophet Mohamed taught that "every man shall love his horse." From the time of Mohamed Ali the Great, through Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Cherif, rulers of Egypt collected and cherished their equine treasures. Jealously guarded breeding preserved the purity of the Egyptian horse; today, Straight Egyptian Arabians are known for their exceptional intelligence, beauty and elegance as well as their rarity, as they account for less than four percent of all purebred Arabians in the world.As the old rulers of Egypt died, buyers from around the world took advantage of the opportunity to purchase some of the horses. Some were exported to Europe and America; the others remained in Egypt with wealthy, royal and titled Egyptian families. Realizing the significance of its equine treasures, the Egyptian government in 1908 formed the Royal Agricultural Society (today known as the Egyptian Agricultural Organization), gathering the best descendants of the Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Cherif herds in order to preserve their bloodlines for the overall good of the country.Among the kings of Egypt who continued to collect and cherish these horses was King Farouk I. Exercising his divine right as ruler, he claimed the rights to some of the most beautiful horses in the country. Thus did the exceptional stallion Hamdan leave the RAS herd and come to occupy the king's Inshass Stables.Upon Farouk's abdication in 1952, his belongings, including his treasured horses, were dispersed. Ahmed Pasha Hamza, the author's grandfather and Minister of Agriculture as well as Minister of Supply in Farouk's government, acquired Hamdan and made the stallion the foundation of his own stable, Hamdan Stables, which would become the largest breeding operation in Egypt. The story of Hamdan's survival - and that of the stables - through further upheaval in Egypt is offered in this book by Ahmed S. Hamza, a former director of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization and a member of the current generation of caretakers of "Egypt's treasure."
