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/<strong>2020</strong>, 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 - <strong>IN</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>FOCUS</strong> 4/<strong>2020</strong>
Zucht Stutenlinie / damline El Kahila (Kohailan Krush) 1 - Loa Loa El Sahab (Ashham / Likka El Sahab) *2014 2 - Naghamat el Karawan (Habib El Rooh / Razane) *2012 3 - Tohfat el Nile (Gawad El Nile / Razane) *2015 4 - Horreyat el Shark (Agad (EAO) / Razane) *2016 5 - Doaa el Karawan (Ghallab El Ateya / Dikkhet El Karawan) *2014 4/<strong>2020</strong> - www.in-the-focus.com 15
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