Arabische Pferde IN THE FOCUS 4/2020 (Vol. 24) - public

Zucht
means that emphasis must also be placed
on maintaining those lines that do not correspond
to current fashion - and this fashion
today means the "ideal", shaped by the Saklawi-I
line. Another guiding principle is that
beauty and functionality are not excluding
each other, but where breeders only focus
on beauty, functionality is lost - and that is a
path of no return.
Philippe Paraskevas did not have this awareness
from the beginning. He started his original
breeding program without a clear vision
of where it would lead. It took time until
he developed a breeding alternative to the
mainstream, but then he began to collect
the best specimens of some rare bloodlines
and started to breed with them - always in
an effort to preserve their peculiarities. He
has thus dedicated himself to preservation
breeding in the truest sense of the word, including
- or above all - the preservation of
non-commercial lines that are easily lost in
a market-oriented environment.
Preserving Sire Lines
Today Philippe Paraskevas is probably the
only breeder, alongside El Zahraa, the Egyptian
state stud, who maintains all three Egyptian
sire lines. However, he maintains them
with a different focus than the state stud,
where around two thirds of the stallions belong
to the Saklawi-I line, a line that has supplanted
the Gamil El Kebir and above all the
El Deree lines worldwide. Here at Paraskevas,
these last two lines are particularly well looked
after, the Saklawi I line he recently added
for the sake of completeness.
The Gamil-El-Kebir line split into two branches
at the beginning of the 20th century via
the two stallions Ibn Samhan and Ibn Rabdan.
Paraskevas’ chief sire Ghallab El Ateya
(Rizkallah / Shameya) * 2002 belongs to this
latter line via Ibn Rabdan. He was shown to
us proudly ridden by Maarouf Sirhan, the
trainer, during our visit. Ghallab goes back to
Anter, who became known in Germany as the
sire of Gharib. According to Paraskevas, this
line is characterized by excellent riding characteristics
and above-average movements.
They are rather strong, rounded horses with a
lot of girth depth – so, the long-lined, elegant
Gharib clearly falls out of the role and is probably
more like his dam Salwa in conformation.
Ghallab’s most important son at the stud
is Shaer Al Nile, who is ridden for us by 12-year-old
Ziad, a grandson of Hammad Rabeii.
Also, Shaer Al Nile is “round” like his sire, but
his face is a bit more “modern”. We are also
introduced to a Ghallab great-grandson, the
three-year-old Tag Al Ola (by Shaer Al Nile) in
which the extremely large nostrils are noticeable
when in motion, which gives the face a
lot of nobility. Apart from that, he stands in a
square format and is characterized by a good
top line and correct legs, he also knows how
to carry himself in motion. As a highlight, the
Ghallab son Faress El Ahlam and the grandson
Gawad El Nile are ridden in front of us,
this time as "dancing horses", as is traditional
in Egypt. Both stallions are characterized by
extremely strong hindquarters, which allow
them to keep this piaff-like exercise for several
minutes. We see a total of 12 descendants
of Ghallab in the first to third generation and
slowly we understand the description of this
line given at the beginning.
Now one might wonder why a breeder has 12
stallions from the same line? Basically, they
are a gene reservoir, because twice in the
past Paraskevas had almost lost a sire line
when the chief-sire died without a corresponding
number of offspring to replace him.
Paraskevas does not want to face this fate
again - therefore he keeps a large number of
stallions.
Tahseed el Leil (Nahedd / Sehr El Leil Hoor)
*2014 - damline / Stutenlinie El Kahila (Kohailan
Krush)
14
El Deree – the Outcross
The second sire line of Paraskevas is that of El
Deree. This line is only represented by five (of
31) stallions in El Zahraa (see AP 1/2020, p.
12), in Germany it was once present through
Morhaf, but is now completely extinct here.
El Deree was a "desert-bred" and he was a
superior racehorse, bred by a Bedouin tribe
in the Al Jazirah (Syria) and thus has a different
origin than most of the other horses of
the EAO / RAS / Inshass, many of which came
from Saudi Arabia. This makes him an ideal
"outcross”. El Deree set himself a monument
with his son Sid Abouhom, whose daughters
Lubna, Mouna and Mabrouka out of
the legendary Moniet El Nefous brought her
dam line to world fame. Today the El Deree
line always goes via Akthal, and so the two
Paraskevas stallions Zay Al Hawa and Sawwah
go via Ibn Akhtal, while Ala Baly traces
via Ibn Akthals half-brother Aybac back to El
Deree. Zay Al Hawa inspires me with his clearly
contoured muscles - the racehorse from
back then really seems to shine through. And
the legs, too, are dry like in a desert-bred. Ala
Baly shows perhaps more overall harmony in
his body, while he was presented to us very
dynamically under the saddle.
To complete the stallions, representatives of
the Saklawi I line also found their way into
© ARABISCHE PFERDE - IN THE FOCUS 4/2020