Dr Mohammad Al-Nujaifi with his winning Iraqi Arabian Al Dahis.

Dr Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Nujaifi’s family have been breeding horses since the family arrived in Arabia in 1638. Keeping the tradition going at their stud farm in Mosul has not been easy – the wars and internal strife of the country have taken their toll – but horses have remained an abiding passion throughout his life.

Dr Al-Nujaifi, the Chief Advisor to the Speaker of the Iraqi House of Representatives, has a Doctorate in Agriculture from Oxford University and divides his time between Iraq and Europe. He has a property management company in the UK where his children attend school.

The owner of many successful purebred Iraqi Arabian racehorses, he is often to be found in winner’s enclosures at home in Iraq as well as at major race courses, particularly in the UK, Sweden, France, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States.

The breeding of Arabians has inevitably suffered over the past two decades, but it continues nonetheless, and Mohammad Al-Nujaif is committed to ensuring his country’s bloodlines survive and flourish. As Vice President of the Iraqi Arabian Horse Organisation, Chairman and international representative of the Registration, Stud Book and Rules Committee, he is ideally placed to continue with his mission.

His latest work is “The Purebread Arabian Horses of Iraq: Myths and Realities“