The Story Behind The Pyramid Society Reference Handbooks
by Judith Forbis
There is wisdom in the saying: “with all thy getting, get understanding.” However, if one is trying to research certain subjects, and there is precious little information available, knowledge and understanding are more difficult to attain. This was obvious to me in 1959 when my husband Don and I became enamored of Egyptian Arabian horses. Reference books, particularly pictorial ones, were rare.
We were living in Turkey during the late l950s and were also traveling throughout the Arab world in our quest for the classic Arabian horse. In search of knowledge we corresponded with various Arabian horse authorities, including author and Arabian horse historian, Carl Raswan. He told us to go to Egypt, and there we would find the horses of our dreams. However, we could not find any pictures of these horses he claimed to be those for which we were searching. His books, The Arab and His Horse, and Drinkers of the Wind provided glimpses of Ibn Rabdan and a few other early Egyptian horses, as did Lady Wentworth’s Authentic Arabian Horse, but that was it.
In 1959 when we reached Egypt, and saw the horses at El Zahraa - the Egyptian Agricultural Organization’s stud farm, our eyes were opened. Here were the magnificent Arabians we’d been searching for as depicted in old lithographs by DeDreux, Vernet, Adam, etc. During this first visit Dr. Mohammed Marsafi, the Manager of the Stud, presented us with the book History of the Royal Agricultural Society’s Stud of Authentic Arabian Horses by Dr. Abdel Alim Ashoub, published in 1948. It contained many photographs of the Society’s early bloodstock and explained the various families bred by the RAS - prior to its being renamed the EAO - after the revolution in the early 1950s. We avidly studied this book trying to understand the differences and similarities in pedigrees, type, and families. Patterns in breeding began to emerge as we photographed the living horses and related them to the foundation horses in the Ashoub book. Some horses noted in that publication were still living, such as Nazeer, Moniet El Nefous, Bukra, etc. In an
Very first advertisement for Volume 1 of the Pyramid Society Reference Handbook of Straight Egyptian Horses, November 1973.
effort to educate and publicize Egyptian bloodstock, from 1959 onward, I wrote articles for Arabian horse magazines and illustrated them with photographs of these foundation horses and newly imported bloodstock. However, magazines are short-lived. Books remain alive.
In the meantime, during the mid 1960s, a few Egyptian Arabians had arrived in the US and were capturing the interest of American breeders. Bint Maisa El Saghira, imported and owned by Gleannloch’s Doug and Margaret Marshall, and Ansata Ibn Halima, imported and owned by Ansata and shown by Gleannloch, were crisscrossing the
country and gathering championships at shows wherever they went. Breeders and trainers wanted to learn more about these “new” Egyptian imports that were gradually entering the country and winning in the show ring. In addition to advertisements, more educational material was needed.
As imports continued, The Pyramid Society was established in 1969. The primary object of the Society was the preservation and perpetuation of the Straight Egyptian Arabian horse. To further inform the public, and to solidify the purpose and definition, some permanent records needed to be established. The idea of a continuing series of reference handbooks came to mind. These would provide a pictorial collection of currently-bred Egyptian Arabian horses from now on, including images of earlier bloodstock whenever they could be obtained. Thereafter, breeders would have information at their fingertips - unlike when others of our generation began their venture into Egyptian Arabian horse breeding with minimal literature available and no way of visually comparing various horses.
The Founders of the Society agreed the handbooks would be a major historical and contemporary contribution to the breed. Board members James Kline and I agreed to collaborate and take on the challenge of producing the first volume. Additionally, the handbook would become a source of revenue for the Society, as up to that time, only the limited membership dues and generous contributions from certain individuals kept the organization afloat. Since then, the handbooks have continued to be a valued income producer and current source of information.
It so happened that on Mr. Kline’s farm property in Whittier, California, was a shop building he had leased to a local printer. Together, we began working on the concept for the first handbook, knowing that right next door it could be printed and the printing process overseen.
We wanted the book to be user-friendly, clean and simple. Good photographs of horses only - no people to distract from the horse - so that researchers would get a reasonably good idea of the horse pictured. Also included was a three-generation pedigree, the name of the breeder, and some of the horse’s show wins if any. A listing section was also provided so that a breeder could list whatever number of horses they owned or wanted to list in a separate non-pictorial section.
In addition to the photos, we felt the definition of a Straight Egyptian Arabian Horse should be included, along with the purpose of the Society, and a historical background of this particular “breed within the breed”, as it has come to be called. A spiral binding was chosen so the book would lay flat when opened. A handsome Carle Vernet print of a Mamluke on horseback against a royal blue background - a color so often used in ancient Egypt - was chosen to illustrate the cover.
The question of whether to include the strains of each horse in the pedigree was a serious point of discussion: for example: *Ibn Moniet El NefousSaklawi Jedran, or Bukra - Dahma Shahwan, or Aswan - Hadban Enzahi. Mr. Kline believed that because the Arabian Horse Registry had stopped listing strains in their records, the handbook should follow suit, so they were not listed in the pictorial section pedigrees. However, additional ancestral reference pedigree pages were incorporated for research purposes, and these included the strains and families extending
back five generations. Other reference books and literature have since become available to record these strains and families so they are easily accessed by breeders today. However, mitochondrial DNA testing has revealed new information that is of interest to researchers and breeders and this will likely alter some previous records and considerations. Nothing is set in stone.
Members of the Society were few in those days, but our group was enthusiastic and glad to support the book. At that time, less than 1% of Arabian horses registered were Straight Egyptian!
Volume I, containing 120 pages, was published in 1973 - four years after the Society was legally formed and incorporated. This first edition was dedicated to Henry B. Babson who set the precedent in 1932 of importing horses from Egypt. He maintained these bloodlines until his passing and eventually his family closed the stud. A short history of Egypt’s Arabian horses was included along with information about The Pyramid Society; its purpose; Definition of a Straight Egyptian Arabian Horse; Setting a Precedent; Membership in the Society; and the Pyramid Trademark. A color sample of an EAO pedigree was also published in English and Arabic versions. Five-generation pedigrees of eight ancestral horses provided useful information. The pictorial/breeder/ owner section included the primary breeders of that time, while there were 48 breeders/owners who listed horses in the listing section. This included 16 of the 67 horses Lancer Arabians - the largest number ever imported by one farm directly from Egypt. Volume I was a success and set the precedent for future handbooks, but who would have suspected that the Society’s membership and interest in the Egyptian Arabian horse would prosper worldwide so that when Volume XII was printed it contained 528 pages and entries from breeders in countries around the globe.
Over the years the handbooks somewhat reflected the rise and fall of the Arabian horse market in the US, and the eventual worldwide renaissance of this horse. Volume II, published in 1976 contained 272 pages - more than double the first handbook, as interest in Egyptian Arabians grew in the US and more were imported. Volume III, published in 1979 increased to 430 pages, Volume IV saw the 1983 publication dramatically swell to 548 pages as the excitement for Egyptian Arabian horses (and the favorable tax exemptions of that era) brought in investors - many
of them whose interest was in tax write-offs rather than love of the horse itself.
Volume V, (1987) containing 444 pages, was a ring bound notebook - not repeated again in future publications because pages could be removed and continually lost, and pages wore out faster than the spiral bound versions. Volume VI, (1991) contained only 288 pages and indicated the dramatic change in the market after the tax law revisions when many investors began bailing out and the Arabian horse community as a whole suffered a dramatic reverse.
Volume VII (1994) was up again to 328 pages, while Volume VIII (1997) was down again to 288 pagessame as in 1991. Volume IX (2000) was back up to 348 pages, Volume X (2003) down again to 280 pages, Volume XI (2006) rebounded to 360 pages reflecting more interest by foreign breeders, and Volume XII (2011) reached 528 pages - reflecting comprehensive educational content and large support by breeders worldwide, including the Arab countries who had been rapidly buying up Egyptian-Arabian horses in Europe and the US. Thus the handbooks, to some degree, have reflected the global expansion of the breed, the market activity in general, as well as providing a valued historical record of the Society’s continuing purpose.
Today the Society is embarking on a slightly different handbook format, including more information, and the inclusion of farm profile pages so that years from now breeders can look back and get a glimpse of where the ancestors of their horses were bred. Breeders today often wish that illustrations of Abbas Pasha’s Dar Al Beyda Stables in Egypt during the mid-1800s, as well as the stables of other famous breeders of the early 20th century, were still available to us today.
While technology changes the way we view things from day to day, there is something about a book that will remain constant. Holding a book, one feels the energy of those who contributed to make it a living document. While the libraries of Alexandria lie at the bottom of the sea, still hiding their secrets from us, the handbooks are in the hands of breeders and libraries worldwide, thus providing a greater opportunity that copies will survive the ages no matter what the future brings.