Ahmed Elsawy

A Stud manager oversees the proper care of horses, supervises employees, and maintains buildings and grounds. They may work in many facets of the equine industry. Showing, racing, breeding, and boarding operations generally have a stud manager to handle the care of the horses and management of employees. For the Aachen issue 2020, I had the pleasure to interview doctor Ahmed El- sawy from Egypt. He was happy to walk me throu- gh the main aspects of his profession as a manager and veterinarian at Alwakeel Stud. Hello doctor Ahmed. Just to set the scene with our readers, will you please give us some back- ground to you, your family and education? My name is Ahmed Elsawy. I’m 28 years old, I was born and raised in Port Said, a pretty small city in the North of Egypt located in the Mediterranean Sea. I’m the eldest out of a family of four children. I studied Veterinary Medicine at Suez Canal University in Ismailia, then I did my internship at the Equine Hospital in Cairo. I did some externships in diffe- rent places as Bait Al Arab in Kuwait and Sharjah Equine Hospital in the United Arab Emirates as being an equine vete- rinarian means you have to develop your skills constantly. When and where did you first meet an Arabian horse? Who was he/she? I remember the first time I saw Arabian horses was at a Horse Show at Al Ra- bab Stud in Egypt in 2016. I was com- pletely fascinated by and intrigued with the beauty of the horses as well as the at- mosphere. That was a turning point for me per- sonally, from then onward I knew all I wanted was to work with Arabian horses and wanted to work in en- vironments like that. After that, Mr. Ahmed Abdelrazek gave me the chance to have training with Ara- bian horses at his Al Bawady Stud, while I was doing my internship. I learned a lot from Dr. Ivan Cintora originally from Argentina, who was working there and introduced me to veterinary work. In my vacations or free days, instead of going back home, I was going to join Dr. Ivan as much as I could to have more training with him. I’m always grateful to them for giving me this chance. The horses which I first met were: Wasfeya, Sarah and Tamim Al Bawady. Tell us about early stages of your career inside of the Arabian horse industry. Since we didn’t have horses or large animals in my city, just the rural areas around it, I had to move to the city of Cairo. I star- ted my career by working for charities and animal welfare with ‘Baladi’ horses as we call them in Egypt. In 2017, I started working as a resident at Al Farida Stud where I met the Icon Imperial Baarez. Working there gave me many openings and introduced me more to the equestrian community in Egypt. You can feel the truly love and passion to horses there and it was a great expe- rience as I learned a lot from the other veterinarians there espe- cially Dr. Rafael Leite. After that, I worked for Al Baydaa Stud as a resident too. It was a great experience where I could really see the quality of details. In 2018, I got the job offer from Alwakeel Stud, so I moved to Iraq and started this new challenge. When and how did you become stud manager at Alwakeel Stud? I started working at Alwakeel Stud in 2018. They contacted me as they are the first official Stud in Iraq and they asked me to work with them. I was excited as it was going to be a new adven- ture and new experience. Also it was a big step for me because I started everything from scratch by myself in a different culture and a new market. What’s Alwakeel Stud’s vision and mission in the Arabian horse world industry? Alwakeel Stud is owned by Mr. Mohamed Hassan Alwakeel. He is a business man leading the aviation business in Iraq and working in the tourism industry as well. He has been passionate about horses since he was young. In 2017, he was in Egypt with some friends and got the chance to see some Arabian horses, since then he decided to follow his passion and he established the stud and started his journey as a breeder and his father sup- ported and encouraged him to do that. It was very challenging as there were few registered horses in Iraq. As you may well know the lovely Iraq suffered a lot becau- se of the wars and real hard time. Moreover, horses got stolen and eaten but also used by ISIS to escape, so most of the registe red and good horses in Iraq were victims. We would love to thank Eng. Omar Sakr, owner of Sark Ara- bians, Eng. Maha Ibrahim owner of Ezzaman Stud and the mighty breeder Mr. Hassanain Alnakeeb for all their efforts in supporting us to overcome the obstacles we encountered at the beginning and for their valuable advices. Last but not least, Sheikh Ahmed al Thani - owner of Al Waab Stud and Mr. Tareek Hamdy - owner of Al Farida – who helped us with their guidance and refinement of our collection. The idea of creating an Arabian horses stud in Iraq was very challenging and our goal was to restore the history of Iraq in this field, revive the Iraqi market, establish a good breeding program with different blood lines and produce high quality off-springs to compete internationally and see the Flag of Iraq flying high. As to start, we built one barn of 20 stalls, imported 9 Straight Egyptian horses from Egypt, then we got few more from Ger- many and The Netherlands, we started a small breeding pro- gram and we were lucky with the off-springs, so we managed to create a market in Iraq. Later on we made our expansion by establishing more barns, bigger paddocks, more facilities and we imported more horses from Egypt, Qatar, UK, Belgium, Germany and U.S. Now, we own more than 60 horses and the size of our farm is around 16 hectares. Our vision is to spread awareness about the Arabian horses in Iraq and support the horse industry, equestrian community and new breeders in Iraq. We encourage them to own horses and help them establish their own breeding programs as for now the market in Iraq is still in it’s beginning compared to other Gulf countries due to shortage of registered horses but also the difficulties with importing and shipping since the price of shipping is relatively high. So, we took solid steps in making a uni- que program and supporting whoever wan- ts to take his/her first steps with Arabian horses in Iraq. And maybe one day we’ll have a good influence on the breed worldwide. In the past two years, we have been working carefully on our breeding program and choices of bloodlines to achieve producing correct refined horses and setting a plan to create a stud one of it’s kind in Iraq and lead the market there. With good contacts and social networking, Alwakeel Stud is getting to be known all around the world not just Iraq. We are establishing the first equine ho- spital in Iraq since forever. Inshallah, it will be fully equipped and meet the in- ternational standards and I hope that it will be ready by the end of the next year. We are also planning to establish the biggest horse club and riding school in in Baghdad and whole Iraq with ju- mping arenas, endurance and also are- nas for Arabian horses shows. So, more people will get closer to horses and get used to deal with them and Inshallah it will have huge impact on the Iraqi com- munity. I can tell that Mr. Alwakeel is influenced by Al Shaqab and Al Rayyan Studs and he is trying to follow the same steps. He is having huge respect to Sheikh Hamad al Thani and consider him as his idol. Hopefully, we would make huge difference in Arabian horse industry in Iraq and the Middle East. Which bloodlines are mostly bred there? We did our best to different bloodlines as we wanted to start with a wide gene pool but with very refined selection of bro- odmares and breeding stallions out of Nagel through Qusar, and Birkhof Studs’ mares such as: Sakr, Al Farida, Ezzaman, Al Bawady, AlBadeia, Al Waab, Al Rayyan and many other studs had a great impact on our selection of broodmares. Do they own a special collection of mares and stallions? I believe we have some impressive collection. We own Aziim Al Amaar who is SE Gold Champion in Scottsdale 2020. We also have Moez Ezzaman, who is the unanimous Gold Champion Yearling Colt in Egypt 2018. He is going to compete internationally soon in his first appearance worldwide. Both are hosted and trained by Miles Buckley Training Center in England. We have our uprising star Noah O. by Naseem Al Rashediah and out of Nowara’s Glam by Kais Al Baydaa Dania Al Qusar by Majd Al Qusar out of Mawiia Al Qusar, who became the Silver Champion Junior Filly in her first appe- arance in Arabian Horses Show in Erbil 2019. Sana Ezzaman, the Unanimous Gold National Champion Yearling Filly at the Egyptian National Show 2018. Last but not least, the filly who we believe she will leave a great impact on show-competitions and will represent our breeding program, her name is Meshmesha Alwakeel by Shahzad Ezza- man and out of NTK Mareya. What are your primary responsibilities and du- ties as a stable manager in a normal week? As a veterinarian, I take rounds in the stables to check the hor- ses, the beddings, the feedings and the water bowls. After that, I start with treatment of the sick horses if we have, and follow up with them. Reproduction work as follow up with breeding and the deliveries. We check the quality of food for horses and the quantity as I set the amounts by myself and the feeding time of each meal during the day. I check the paddocks and the stables. Checking vaccination time, de-worming programs, records and some office work. Managing the stables of Alwakeel Stud with professional standards is more than simply mucking stalls feeding I suppose... What are your priorities for presenting your stables to clients or outside visitors? Definitely, I started everything with Mr. Alwakeel from scratch and it’s wonderful to see the stud in its current state. We got to know the Iraqi market and young breeders’ intere- sts with time, so we have a protocol with our guests as we take them for a round through the stables, around the paddocks and show them our off-springs, mares and stallions and help them