In 2000 our dream came true – a Straight Egyptian mare! We had always admired these bloodlines, the incredible beauty of these horses and the ancient romantic history
which is connected inseparably with these Arabians.
Bint el Sahra – Arabic for "Daughter of the Desert" and lovingly called "Binti" – is a Hadbah Enzahiyah from the strain of the Bedouin mare Venus. Binti is free of Ansata blood – almost a rarity in Germany nowadays.
Her pedigree combines the Who-is-Who of the German Egyptian breeding programm: Her dam, the grey mare El Sahra Bint Inshraa, is – as her name indicates – a daughter of Inshraa who was imported from Egypt and the only offspring that Shaker El Masri had sired in Egypt before he himself came to Germany and founded the world-wide fame of the Om el Arab stud with offspring like El Shaklan, El Masra, Ibn Estopa and many more. Furthermore Bint Inshraa is the last daughter of the great Mahomed through whom Binti has further famous Egyptians in her pedigree like Hadban Enzahi, Ghazal, Moheba, Malacha etc. Binti's sire is the most beautiful, typey bay stallion Malik El Nil who is a son of Idrees who had unfortunately died so young, and the Tuhotmos-daughter Hania.
We saw Binti last summer at the "open barn day" on her home stud Baraimu el Sahra of her breeder Olivia Prehn. Binti was not shown since she was well advanced in pregnancy with her first foal (by Hakeel Ibn Kaysoon). When we fled from the cloudburst – it was raining cats and dogs outside – and strolled through the stalls, not expecting anything, we actually saw only her backside, a huge belly and her endlessly long, thick mane – oh, an Andalusian mare, we thought... When talking to Olivia we told her about the loss of our stallion and that we would like to have a mare now since keeping a stallion without an own farm is too difficult. A Straight Egyptian mare we would like to have, five or six years old, well broke to saddle or completely untrained – and, most important, in one or two years only. "Well, I have something for you!" Olivia said – by the way she's also a Saluki breeder (kennel Karoly) therefore we had an extremely well contact from the start -, led us back into the barn and straight to the supposed Andalusian mare who now in her immense grace deigned to turn her truly breathtaking head to us and so clarified the error regarding her breed. Such an enchanting mare, and with a pedigree to dream of – how could we find any sleep? She was in our mind the whole long way home and for the following weeks. When in August she gave birth to the filly that Olivia had longed for it was clear: we wanted to have her, and we were allowed to have her! Nothing more about waiting for one or two more years... After a further visit during which we could admire her extraordinarily springy, ground covering and correct movements we made it perfect – after weaning the filly Binti should travel to us in Hamburg. She came in the afternoon of the 14th December 2000, stepped down the trailer after an eight hours drive without any drop of sweat in her coat and demanded to take a good look on her new home. She settled down quickly and in the meantime attempts to become the boss of her small band of companions.
Her training makes good progress – she, who had never "worked" anything in her live, learned lunging within 5 minutes... we have rarely met such an intelligent horse before. In the meantime we have come quite far with ground training, Binti is already used to being saddled so that soon we will carefully start riding with the help of a competent trainer for western riding.
Binti is extremely fond of bananas which we of course gladly support by purchasing kilos and kilos of these practically wrapped fruit. She is very friendly with our Saluqis however is not very fond of other dogs. She indeed has her own ideas about how the world should function but luckily we have no problems to convince her in case of different opinions. How do they say – "you can order a gelding, you should discuss with a stallion, but you must ask a mare!" How true...
We are looking very much forward to our first rides through the country side – maybe she will follow in the footsteps of some of her relatives as there have been a good number of successful endurance horses from Inshraa's line..
BINT EL SAHRA, grey *14.07.1995
bntl sahra