Wadi Al Nasmat

Wadi Al Nasmat

Breeding Straight Egyptian Arabians in the USA

Alicia Midgett, founder and owner of Nasmat stud in Colorado, USA writes about the history and life nowadays with her 40 Straight Egyptians at Nasmat Stud. This farm is situated in the natural, unspoilt countryside where Arabian horses can enjoy their freedom whilst being raised in herds like just as in the days of their origins.

If I have to define my breeding program, I’ll answer honestly: it is a combination of carefully planned matings and a percentage of happy accidents.

Almost every year, one or more young colts that I’m still evaluating inevitably break out and breed mares. Because they are all bred within the philosophy of my program, I’m comfortable with those unexpected pairings. In many ways, I find them fascinating.

I’m curious about the mares’ choice of stallions, the decisions the horses make on their own, and what those unplanned breedings can teach me. Sometimes, taking a small step outside my carefully laid plans reveals possibilities I might never have considered.

Alicia Midgett

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by Alicia Midgett

It’s hard to believe we welcomed our 20th foal crop this year. 20 years has come and gone in the blink of an eye. This has been an amazing project, and I have learned so much. I am so grateful to have been able to experience this.

I’m not sure what possessed me to start this project. It just kind of happened. I had always loved horses, but I think my family hoped I would grow out of my desire to own a horse when I was grown.

I got my first Arabian when I was 29. He was a pure Polish gelding. Shortly after that, I would fall in love with a straight Egyptian stallion named Rafiq. He was a son of El Hadiyyah by Ansata Ibn Halima. Somehow, I became obsessed with the Ansata program when I was little. My dad travelled a lot for business and found a brochure from Ansata Egyptian Stud at one of the hotels he was staying in Arkansas, and he thought I would like it because I was into horses. He was right, and I named all my Breyer horses with the prefix and names. So, I was drawn to Ansata from the get-go, I purchased that straight Egyptian Stallion, and began to learn all about bloodlines. I never intended to breed, it just happened. I fell upon a beautiful little mare named SDR Hostan Granat, she was a typey compact near perfect little mare and I bred her to Rafiq in 2006 for our first foal. She was by Cajun Man who was an Ansata Shah Zahir son. I was incredibly nervous about breeding these horses by myself. I had limited horse experience, but as people proved to be completely unreliable, I took on the project by myself.

Since I thought Granat was a perfect little mare, I set out to find her sire and purchase him and buy any daughters I could find of his. The terms of the lease of Granat were that I would get a foal and send the mare back in foal. As luck would have the owner decided to sell buyer came for a pre-purchase exam and she failed a silly flexion test and I was able to purchase Granat myself. That year she had an incredible filly, Nasmat Aleftina. She was so special and one of the founding mares of our program for sure. She was a dark liver, chestnut, and we still see this colour in our herd of her daughters and granddaughters.

Aleftina ultimately suffered a pre-pubic tendon rupture that would take her life, but I was honoured to be with her when she took her last breath.

Over the years, we have focused on one Stallion at a time normally attempting 10 to 15 test breedings in a year and then evaluating the offspring. Over the past years we have landed on a very special Stallion, El Zilal Tamar, whom we imported from Gregor Pintar in Slovenia as a nine-monthold. His blood now saturates our herd, and we have many important daughters from him. Our stallion Jamal Al Rashediah, imported from the Netherlands, has also been an important piece in building a broodmare band that we want to take into the next generation.

For the past two years, we have exclusively been test breeding Nemty our son from NK Nabhan, whom we imported in utero from Germany after breeding our mare Al Ilha Taghira to NK Nabhan. We are very happy with his production so far, he excels in both temperament and type and consistently passes his marvellous qualities onto his offspring. Nemty has successfully crossed with all our bloodlines here.

I wanted to take this opportunity while celebrating Dr. Nagels 96th birthday this year and the success of his program to highlight Nemty and his role at our stud. Here we are presenting Nemty himself and some examples of his first two years of production. Hope you enjoy. We have some of his offspring available please feel free to contact me. q

“The foothills of the Rocky Mountains are where Wadi Al Nasmat is nestled near the city of Loveland, Colorado, USA. Out here at an altitude of about 1500m it’s