Whats the difference between an Egyptian Arabian and a Straight Egyptian Arabian?

Question

Whats the difference between an Egyptian Arabian and a Straight Egyptian Arabian?

Answer 1

This website gives the answer to that question:

http://www.pyramidsociety.org/about.htm

Excerpted from the Pyramid Society page:

"To qualify as a Straight Egyptian, as defined by The Pyramid Society, a horse must (1) be registered or eligible by pedigree for registration by the Arabian Horse Registry of America AND (2) trace in every line of its pedigree to horse born in Arabia Deserta; AND (3) trace in every line of its pedigree to a horse which falls within one or more of the following categories:  (a) owned or bred by Abbas Pasha I or Ali Pasha Sherif: (b) used to create and maintain the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS)/Egyptian Agricultural Organization (EAO) breeding programs, with the exclusion of Registan and Sharkasi and their lineal descendants (c) a horse which was a lineal ancestor of a horse described in (a) or (b) above; and (d) other than those excluded above, a horse conceived and born in a private stud program in Egypt and imported directly to the United States and registered by the Arabian Horse Registry of America prior to the extension of the EAO's supervision to private Egyptian stud programs as reflected in Volume 4 of the EAO's stud book.

"Registrations prior to 2005:

"An Egyptian-Bred (also known as Egyptian Related) horse, as defined by The Pyramid Society, is: (a) one who was produced either by breeding a Straight Egyptian stallion to a purebred Arabian mare who is not Straight Egyptian OR (b) one whose grandsires are both Straight Egyptian, and whose dam is a purebred Arabian who is not Straight Egyptian.  Only horses of certifiable ancestry are eligible for classification as Straight Egyptian or Egyptian-bred as defined by The Pyramid Society, and therefore are also eligible for Society-managed programs. "

It's essentially an issue of what kind of papers the horse has.  With all due regard for those who love Arabians, and bearing in mind that I owned and loved an Arabian horse for 20 years, a lot of people in the Arabian horse business are completely harebrained bonkers over the "purity" of the lineage their horses come from.  You have people who advocate for "pure Polish" breeding;  people who will rave about the purity of their horses' "Crabbet breeding;"  some time back there was a fad for "Russian (Tersk Stud) breeding."  

While I understand that some of the people who are trying to "preserve a pure lineage," the bottom line is the horse itself.  Please bear in mind that Sheila Varian's legendary stallion Bay-Abi was initially scorned by many Arab fanatics because he wasn't "pure" anything.  He was part Polish, part Crabbet, part Kellogg, and I'm not sure what all else.  He was also one of the most hellaciously dynamite beautiful athletic typey Arabian stallions ever to walk this earth, and a sire of so many champions and outstanding horses that his influence will go on for decades yet to come.

Now some people maintain that Arabians with a high percentage of Egyptian breeding are too high-strung and flighty to be very useful, and it's true that I've met my share of Egyptian Arabian horses that were absolute ding-bats, but some of the most useful Arabs I've ever known were also Egyptian-bred.

Basically, what you're dealing with in the Egyptian vs. "Straight" Egyptian issue is a matter of paperwork and certification more than anything.  The horse himself (or herself) should be what you're looking at, not the papers.  This is particularly true if you want the horse for riding, rather than breeding.  As Norm Dunn, head of the Arabian horse program at Cal Poly Pomona used to say, "You don't ride the papers."