Prince Fluffy Kareem. Humbled.

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I'm sure it's been on here before, but here's a bump. These guys work with the pyramid and working horses of Cairo. They have a website and FB page. I am constantly humbled by the way they take in horses in such an appalling condition - starving, horrendously injured, rubbed almost to the bone - and they get them back to health, and help the owners to keep them that way - and if the owners can't or won't they buy them and keep them. If they can't help them they put them to sleep, often buying them to do just that.

The horses on this picture are skinnier than most of the welfare cases we see in the UK - and yet in Cairo these horses are still being ridden, driven, and worked. Prince Fluffy Kareem, you are doing such important and inspirational work out there. H&H forum people, if you have a strong stomach, have a look at their work, and if you can, spare them a bit of dosh - you can set up a small standing order which will help with their rent, or you can sponsor one of their rescues.....
 
But have you seen this?
Egyptian horse charities warning...Long, very long.
2 posts by 2 authors
Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
16/02/2013
Other recipients: Ride...@endurance.net
I've been very skeptical of a lot of the groups who were going to "save the starving horses of Giza" for a very long time and have gotten internet stones thrown at me for it. But I live here, I know the businessmen (I will NOT call them horsemen) in the Nazlit Semman area of Giza and there has been a huge upsurge of these sorts of groups since the revolution.

Some of them were relatively misguided efforts on behalf of charities from outside Egypt, like Princess Alia's charity (from Jordan) that was distributing bags of yellow corn to some of the guys in the pyramids area in the spring of 2011. In the first place, yellow corn is hardly the feed of choice for starving horses. It's expensive, too high in sugar, and likely to cause founder. On the other hand there was little chance of horses being damaged by it because 90% of it never made it near a horse. It was being bagged up in smaller quantities and sold in the market instead.

And to be honest, there are no more horses starving in Giza than there have been horses ridden to death in Giza in the past when tourism was booming. The bottom line there is that horses in this area are viewed as disposable assets and if they are not needed, generally they aren't just starved to death, but water (which is free) is denied to them so that they die of thirst. Nice people, those.

Recently we've had groups coming to help the pyramids horses and some of these groups have been useful to the horses. Cairo Farriers and some of the other vet groups have come and done shoeing, trimming, dentistry and other patch up work on pyramids horses and this has certainly helped the horses that they saw. Last winter was a busy time for groups like this and some of the local entrepreneurs saw a good thing and hopped on the band wagon. This was the point when I really started noticing because I ended up with one of the mares rescued from the pyramids by some of the workers.

Sheba is a 14 hh mare, about 6 yrs old, who must have weighed in at about 200 kg when she was purchased by one of the workers. She had scars all over her body, open wounds and someone had beaten her on the face with enough force to break the orbit of her right eye. The rescuers thought that they had a place for her to heal at a stable run by an English woman and her Egyptian husband in Hurghada (a diving resort on the Red Sea that is in the desert and a good long haul for anyone needing to bring in feed from the Nile Valley...not really a great place for stables). It didn't exactly run as planned. Although apparently the couple had registered as a charity in the UK, they were well aware that there was pretty much no one on the ground in Egypt to check up on them. Money sent to them for the upkeep of Sheba and a number of other horses who went to the stable was used for the keeping of the owners' horses, as was the medications and equipment sent by the sponsoring groups. When they were called on this and local people went to check, they found that one horse had been definitely sold back to the pyramids, and a few others had been abandoned in the desert. Sheba was one of the lucky ones in that someone found and recognised her and got her back to Cairo where she was being boarded at a stable (near the pyramids again) but at least under the watchful eye of one of the group members. When this person had to leave Egypt to deal with personal matters in the UK, they looked for a more stable home for her and that's where I came into the picture. When I got her, about 6 months after her initial rescue she weighed in at about 270 kg, as opposed to a gelding about the same size here (Wadi for anyone who knows my horses) who was about 380 kg. The fact that she was still so thin can only be due to severe neglect, as Sheba is one of those golden horses...an easy keeper...who gained weight so quickly I had a local vet do an ultrasound as I was worried that she was pregnant.

Being the new keeper of one of this FB group's rescues, I then became more aware of some other groups in Egypt claiming to be horse rescues. I don't advertise as one because I can't take in just any horse since I don't sell horses. There isn't a great future in Egypt for most horses once they hit a trough in health or performance. Most horse owners board their horses and can't afford the bills of an unusable horse PLUS its replacement. When horses come to me, they stay here until they die. They work to their physical capabilities giving lessons, pony rides to kids, being Barbie horses for little girls who like to brush manes and tails, or if they are fit, doing our more energetic rides (which are VERY energetic). My horses are between five and thirty-five in age, and the 20+ group mostly work on walk/trot rides in the countryside. Our 35 yr old is a Barbie horse par excellence and totally enjoys being led around and brushed by adoring little girls.

To get to the point, there is a group on FB soliciting funds to "rescue" horses in the pyramids, Prince Fluffy Kareem, (to be honest the name makes me want to retch) that is run by a Norwegian ex-belly dancer and a groom from Nazlit Semman. They take horrific photos of horses in the pyramids (and there are many horses there in horrific shape) and solicit funds and donated equipment to help the horses. They have bought a number of horses and installed them in a tiny stable somewhere near the Sphinx, but they are not terribly forthcoming on exactly where. Visits to the stable tend to have to be stage managed. One of the reasons for this is that the horses are doubled up Other horse charities who have collected equipment (fly fringes, nose fuzzies, girth covers, saddles, bridles and so on) have been a bit disturbed by the fact that when they brought things to PFK they were shown a stall filled with other donations. Asked why these hadn't been handed out to people who might need them, they responded rather vaguely that the "right" people hadn't been found. The pyramids area has literally hundreds of stables of anywhere from one horse owned by someone to take people for a ride at Giza to stables with close to one hundred horses, some of whom are registered Egyptian Arabians. It is, in fact, a giant horse market and most of the money is made in the buying and selling of horses and tack. Many of the horses are only a couple of years old, thus being very inexpensive and quite malleable psychologically, that are trucked in, tacked up and worked without any training, the hope being that someone with more money than brains or a soft heart will buy the horse for anywhere from 8 to 10 thousand LE (about $1200 to $1800)...generating a profit of about 6 to 8 thousand LE. Not too bad.

I don't want to feel bad that I've been aware of the fact that PFK is a major scam and I haven't warned friends about it. There are good groups who are trying to help the health issues of the horses and to educate the owners. The Brooke, The Donkey Sanctuary, Egyptian Society of Animal Friends, and others are all legitimate. PFK is not and most of the donations are being used to increase the wealth of the people running the "charity"...paying for travel to and from Egypt, accommodations, and other things such as camels and carriage horses to be used by the Egyptian partner at Giza.

So please, if any of you want to help some of the horse charities here, contact me. Back when the sheikhs were buying up a lot of American horses about 12 years or so ago, people asked me if what they were being told about retirement to pastures was true, and I told them that retirement pulling a cart in Iraq was far more likely. The Gulf simply doesn't have pastures. It's desert, empty, sandy desert. Most of Egypt is also desert. We live on and farm only perhaps 4% of our land, and the rest is uninhabited and pretty much uninhabitable. Egypt is a tough place for people, especially now with the economy in a tailspin, and a very tough place for horses. If you really want to help people in Egypt, come on over and visit. It is hardly as dangerous as the news enjoys making it out to be and we would all appreciate the tourism...and you will get some awesome discounts.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
msga...@gmail.com

Egypt Face to Face
www.alsorat.com
http://www.facebook.com/AlSoratFarm
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...s-Al_Sorat_Farm-Abu_Sir_Giza_Governorate.html

Weblogs:
Living In Egypt
miloflamingo.blogspot.com
Cairo/Giza Daily Photo
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Turn Right At The Sarcophagus
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Photos of Egypt:
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Greybird, every time I see that so called 'email' it makes me angry, especially when we can see the results.

I'm also quite sure you've confused PFK with TEHP, TEHP being completely separate and non-affiliated with PFK in that letter.

The results Marte and the team get speak for themselves, and the fact you can see were the money is going on feed, field rent, medicines, employees etc etc. says a lot about how they spend their finances.
 
Frankly, when i can see a picture of a foal that is so skinny its legs cross at the hock then a few months later see the same foal fat and healthy running around full of life, i don't really give a hoot where the money came from.
 
There is so much photographic evidence for the work they do. That email (which I was unaware of) doesn't tie up or ring true. I'm always very sceptical of the motives of these FB charities, and was a long time watching, reading and learning before I started making a financial contribution to PFK. The pictures speak for themselves, particularly the before and after pictures. The lives of the horses in the Gulf will always be hard, but I believe these guys are doing good work out there.
 
The nastiness of that email is demonstrated by the fact that the slating of PFK starts by saying it "is run by a Norwegian ex-belly dancer" as if that matters one jot. I didn't read it all, because it just looks like a bitchy, nasty smear campaign. Which other posters have confirmed it is.
 
But how do you KNOW its not true, have any of you been out there to see for yourselves? I have been donating to PFK for a couple of years but only go on their facebook pages
 
I think what people need to remember is when PFK first started out they did make a lot of mistakes but they learnt real quick, Maryanne has changed her opinion on PFK who do wonderful work. TEHP have tried to discredit PFK so they can take over but that is never going to happen as Marte of PFK is referred to by the locals as an angel and Ashleigh Lotherington of TEHP as the angel of death.

If people can no longer find TEHP its because its been blocked to the UK, they are still going unfortunately, still being run by the activists, still picking up broken equines and taking them back to untold misery but its all been sugar coated for their supporters back in Oz.
 
Dobiegirl it seems you're saying the person who wrote that email has changed her view. Has she published a retraction of the allegations (not just of them making early mistakes, but being "a scam")?

I still think the "ex-belly dancer" comment was petty and bitchy of her.
 
Their Fb page is full of clear photos of horrifically sick and injured horses tracing their progress and showing the often wonderful outcomes. They answer questions fully and the frequent updates convince me they are 100% honest and genuine.
 
They are too public, too open to be a scam. They are organised, ask for donations but never beg, have regular events such as their raffles etc. I give to the Brooke regularly and PFK as and when I can. On a slightly irreverent note though, it has always made me giggle that Egypt needed a Norwegian belly dancer, coals to Newcastle?
 
I have supported this charity (PFK) from the start, and i always will. The respect they keep for the people they get the horses off is incredible, as i know even though their circumstances are different to ours, it makes me sick to see horses in such a state. Regardless of if any of us have seen it with our own eyes or not, the pictures they put on pretty much puts it right there in black and white, and to see people that dedicated and commited to saving (or ending when better) a horses life, will always recieve donations off me :)
 
It's a great charity as far as I can see. Other than that email (which I believe was part of a smear campaign) I haven't heard anything bad. I hate the name though! It wouldn't put me off donating but it is an awful name for a charity!
 
An equine dentist in my area that I have used once has been out to PFK, his name is James Shepherd and you can see his visit in photos on the fb group.
 
I think marte is still a belly dancer, but I used to jive and it has never affected my ability to care for rescue horses.
I have seen donations for pfk with my own eyes being packed for their journey to Egypt, unless this was an elaborate ruse I'm pretty sure they made it out there (and as usual Emma paid for her own flight).
The horses and other waifs and strays they take in are in a sorry state and the care they receive always goes above and beyond. It's a pity that they have to devote any time defending themselves and their coutageous work. Hopefully their charity status and their exhaustive transparency will prevent too much of this petty vitriol raising it's ugly (green) head again in the future.
Bish bash bosh send them some dosh
 
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