of the 

Straight Egyptian Horse

and of the 

The Pyramid Society, formed in 1970, is an organization of people who are interested in Arabian horses who have Egyptian bloodlines. It is not a registry. It exists to preserve and perpetuate Egyptian bloodlines. The Pyramid Society coined the term "Straight Egyptian" and came up with definitions of what the Straight Egyptian horse is.

El Masri Arabians encourages everyone who is interested in the Egyptian Arabian horse, or who owns Straight Egyptian and Egyptian related horses to join The Pyramid Society! It is a great organization that has wonderful programs for Egyptian horses.

An early definition of the "Straight" Egyptian horse, found in "Reference Handbook of Straight Egyptian Horses", Volumes I & II, was as follows:

It is a horse which traces in every line of his pedigree to horses listed in Egyptian Stud books and thence to Arabia Deserta. A horse which merely passes through Egypt cannot be considered "Egyptian". However, if a stallion or mare were to remain in Egypt for breeding, its progeny would be considered Egyptian, just as a person born in America would be considered American.

In "Reference Handbook of Straight Egyptian Horses", Volumes III through IX, the newer definition was established. The definition is an attempt to describe for us those purebred Arabian Horses that trace their heritage exclusively to the horses which were bred or whose blood was used as part of the historically established breeding programs in Egypt. These are horses whose blood is consistent with that which The Pyramid Society is attempting to perpetuate. 

This newer definition is the one we adhere to today, and it reads as follows:

1) is registered or is eligible by pedigree for registration by the Arabian Horse Registry of America; and

2) traces in every line of its pedigree to horses born in Arabia Deserta; and

3) traces in every line of its pedigree  to a horse which falls within one or more of the following categories of horses:

a) a horse owned or bred by Abbas Pasha I or Ali Pasha Sharif;

b) a horse which was used to create and maintain the Royal Agricultural Society/Egyptian Agricultural Organization stud books beginning on page 45 of Volume I and ending on page 230 of Volume IV, with the exclusion of the horses Registan and Sharkasi, as well as the lineal descendants of Registan, and the lineal descendants of Sharkasi, it being felt that Registan’s pedigree and Sharkasi’s pedigree contain elements that are not consistent with the kind of blood which The Pyramid Society is attempting to perpetuate;

c) a horse which was a lineal descendant described in (a) or (b) above; and

d) a horse, other than a horse having Registan or Sharkasi as a lineal ancestor, which was conceived and born in a private stud program in Egypt and which was imported directly from Egypt to the United States and registered by the Arabian Horse Registry of America prior to the extension of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization’s supervision to private Egyptian stud programs, as reflected in Volume IV of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization stud book.