Al Khamsa Spring Gathering
The Spring Gathering began with this Inside Al Khamsa email:
that were being offered as part of the event. Edie Booth spoke to us briefly about the Al Khamsa virtual booth at the AERC virtual convention, just held the previous month. Many of the photos have been placed on the Al Khamsa website for others to see. She thanked those who had participated by sending in photos.
All of you know the Al Khamsa Roster on our website. It is free to use, but its value is immense: five generation pedigrees, detailed information about the horse, three generation progeny listings, all lines traced to foundation horses and more!
Then it was the turn of the Al Khamsa Database Task Force (AKDBTF) to speak about the history, value and future of the Al Khamsa database and online roster. A detailed slide show was presented by Megan King, co-chair of the Task Force. It detailed how the database has changed from index cards kept in the 1960s and 70s by Diana Marston Wiener through digitization by Sara Jones, who maintained it for over 35 years until ill health intervened. Technology has advanced, and plans are for the database to transition from the current FileMaker Pro database to an online database system, which will be accessible on demand by new software.
Al Khamsa has provided this service for many years, free of charge to everyone. Unfortunately, it is not free to maintain. We need your help so that current and future users can continue to enjoy the Roster. Fifteen years ago, Randy Abler generously volunteered to create our software and maintain the Roster. He recently retired and we need to replace that program with up-to-date software. If we want to continue to offer the Roster pages freely— and we do—we need to raise a lot of money. Your donations are welcome anytime!
There were many questions and much discussion, and then, after a brief break, it was time for the eagerly awaited speakers.
And please join us for the Al Khamsa Spring Gathering via Zoom on April 10th to help facilitate this effort. A series of emails followed with teasers and explanations. So it was an eager group of attendees who showed up on April 10th to participate in the first independent programming of its kind by Al Khamsa. The Zoom conference began with a welcome and introduction by Al Khamsa President Monica Respet. Co-Treasurer Mary Gills explained some of the financial situation, and introduced the books 9
Dr. Samantha Brooks spoke about several major topics: Genome Diversity and the Origin of the Arabian Horse; Estimating Inbreeding and Relatedness; Pedigree vs. Genome, and an update on Juvenile Idiopathic Epilepsy (JIE) Research. It was an absorbing several hours, and kept the audience following along alertly so that they did not miss anything! After another short break, Dr. Elaine Carnevale spoke on a subject dear to all of us: Preserving the Genetics from the Older Mare. Those deeply involved with preserving endangered lines were especially fascinated by the amazing progress that is occurring in this field.