by Alex Tinson
For the first seven minutes we simply could not see Theeba or hear the commentator call her name. As usual, the cameras also panned right back from the leader, yet we still couldn’t see her. The three of us wondered where in heaven’s name she was. Even other Abu Dhabi camels were well ahead of her, if she was still in the race at all.
At the seven and a half minute mark, something very odd occurred. A bright orange camel, which had been sitting at the rear of the race, suddenly made an appearance in the leading group. We didn’t recognise this orange camel, but it was going like a missile. She came from at least five or six hundred metres behind.
Then it dawned on us: this was Theeba. It seemed Rashid, had been so confident she would win that he had applied henna to her from head to toe before the race began. I had never seen this done. Trainers will sometimes henna the lower legs as a good luck charm, but Rashid had hennaed the whole camel. Unbelievable.
From then on Theeba came charging through, overtaking every other camel as if they were standing still. By the ten-minute mark she was in front and then she found another burst of speed. She took the race by a hundred metres and in the process set a record time of twelve minutes and four seconds over eight kilometres.
The three of us in Rashid’s majlis were jumping up and down like little kids in excitement, over the moon that Theeba had won. The race was finished. The season was finished. We had won the Golden Sword. Within minutes Rashid’s majlis was inundated with literally thousands of people. Every car, man and his dog headed over from the racetrack to congratulate Rashid. It seemed like almost every Abu Dhabi local was there, from the sheikh down, rubbing noses and shaking hands with the trainer and the sheikh. And so it went for a couple of hours.
Theeba’s win capped a meeting where we won ten of the sixteen Gold Cups up for grabs, my head trainer winning the bulk of them. We’d taken out the Golden Sword and smashed the track record. That all this happened in our home town of Abu Dhabi made it all the sweeter.
The achievement was commemorated in a special photo showing the Golden Sword and all the gold cups we’d collected over the 2013 season. In the middle of the photograph was the president, Sheikh Khalifa, with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Sultan and the uncles. It captured the centre of power in the UAE. In twenty-five years, this was the first time such an official photograph was taken and then published in the national press.
If we could have taken the same photo in 2014 it would have displayed double that number of Gold Cups and Golden Swords. But to me that photo is the breakthrough moment and it represents the pinnacle of success. It holds a special significance, too, because it is one of the last public photos of Sheikh Khalifa, the man who had employed me for over twenty-five years.
I keep it next to our first Gold Cup photo taken in 1996, a photo in which we look extraordinarily young and are boasting one lousy trophy. It’s a reminder that back then we weren’t even in the race, let alone competing.
Twenty-nine
A rich life
The year 2013 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Hilli Embryo Transfer Centre. When I arrived with Heath Harris and the boys, the camels used to trot for half the race and then slow down, until finally they walked across the line; we used to dream that a camel might even canter the whole way through, let alone gallop. In the league table of camel racing, we ranked well down the list.
In that time we have improved the speed of the camel from an average of thirty kilometres an hour to an average of forty-three kilometres an hour. A drone has even measured a camel doing a top speed of fifty kilometres an hour in the last half kilometre of the race—this is its over-the-line speed after galloping for eight kilometres. The lesson is that if you keep selectively breeding for speed, then a remarkable change occurs.
From an idea in the desert, the camel research centre has been developed virtually into a university, with some sixty lab and technical staff. On the way through we have pioneered five world firsts in camel breeding: they are the first birth of an embryo transfer calf; the first calves from frozen embryos; the first identical twin camel calves; the first pre-sexed embryo calves; and the first reported frozen calf using frozen semen and artificial insemination. It’s easy to reel these off now, but behind each has been years of thinking and sheer hard work.
We still only have around 3500 camels but, boy, are they something. We consistently win the biggest races. And it might only get better.
We have done a lot of work recently on techniques for freezing semen. This will come into play with our IVF research for what I consider to be the next frontier: producing superior milking camels.
The camel milk industry has been taking off. Again, it is an example of finding a new role for an ancient part of the culture. In the swish cafés of the UAE, patrons can now order up a camelcino to go. Historically, camel milk sustained the Bedouin when food was scarce. It is rich in vitamins and nutrients and is lower in cholesterol than cow’s milk. So there is great scope for milking camels to help populations in poorer countries as well as in the west, where there is a growing demand for its medicinal qualities. It has much higher levels of Vitamin C than cow’s milk and is considered by some to have an insulin effect, making it beneficial for people with diabetes.
I have many reasons to thank Heath Harris for finding me in the Australian outback that day in 1988, but this is perhaps the greatest: it has allowed me to cross the boundaries of race and religion, and create a life full of rich possibility. And not just for me, but for my family as well.
The passport of our youngest daughter, Madeline, records her place of birth as Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. That’s something she’s proud of. Whenever she flew over to visit me from her home with Patti in Florida, people would ask her where she was from. ‘From here,’ she would reply. ‘I’m from Al Ain.’
Almost thirty years ago I came to a young country where everything was possible. I was given a blank sheet of paper and the opportunity to write my own story, and I’d like to think I have also made a contribution to the way the UAE has changed. I know the country has changed me.
Since Hazza, Katya and Khaled have had two more children, a girl called Mahra and a boy called Zayed. So I have become a grandfather to three Emirati children. Being linked by blood to an Emirati family has brought me acceptance in a close-knit, somewhat closed society. After more than twenty years, this was the moment when I finally went from being an outsider to an insider. Since then everything has changed. It has given me a new status in the society. Now I am more likely to be introduced to other Emiratis as ‘Jed Hazza’, meaning the grandfather of Hazza, rather than Dr Alex, the camel vet.
I had always enjoyed the cordial respect of the locals, both because of my work with the camels and because I have stayed so long while others come and go, but being linked by blood has given me a unique status and taken that respect to a new level. I am generally treated more like a local. It is as though I have been brought under the camel security blanket, like the Bedouin.
I have five of my own camels being looked after out at a camel camp. They might become champions or they might not, but it’s fun having my own in the racing game. The sheikhs have already bought some of my camels, and maybe one day a sheikh will buy these ones. Or I might trade them for others.
Becoming part of the society makes me feel like a different person. I’m not making selfish decisions because I want to make a quick killing and get out of here, like most people do. Having a blood link to the Emiratis means I think years ahead.
This has given me a financial freedom I could never have imagined. In Dubai not so long ago, I picked up a Ferrari, in memory of my father. Dad was the most honest man in the world and would never have dreamed of spending a cent on such luxury. His one rush of blood was to buy a red Holden Monaro with black racing stripes, but he always said he was waiting for the day his superannuation came through so that he could buy a really flash car. Unfortunately Dad passed away before that happened, however I was now in a
position where I could afford to buy the Ferrari and so I did it. I dedicated it to Dad and the idea of living for the moment.
I have also bought a house in Cuba, which I can escape to every so often. I had always wanted to find an old Edwardian house in Australia to restore; I happened to find such a house, but it’s in Cuba. And it allows me to indulge my Hemingway fantasies.
I’ve also been able to pass the wealth around to those who’ve helped me so much in the past. People like our old Sri Lankan maid, Kanthi, who looked after our children when they were growing up. In her case I’ve been able to get her through some tough times, when it looked like she might lose her home in Sri Lanka.
Some of my friends have remained vets their whole lives. Nothing wrong with that, so have I, but because of the huge changes in the UAE I have had the great good fortune to be able to reinvent myself and put myself into situations where I am continually stimulated. This is the only place I could have done it.
The camels have provided a universal language that has helped me to break through political barriers to give assistance to people who need it. Through the HEF Foundation I have been able to get into everywhere, from Mongolia to Rajasthan, and even to sanctions-bound Iran, where I stood in front of a massive photograph of Ayatollah Khomeini and lectured students at Tehran University. Looking into the audience, to my surprise most of the vets in training were women.
Some of my vet friends have now retired, but I don’t want to. It’s not about money any longer, it’s just that I enjoy what I’m doing. Besides, now I am utterly comfortable in what was once a totally alien environment, with rules and protocols I could barely comprehend.
The first time I ventured into a majlis I was terrified. There were guns everywhere, and I had no idea how to deal with personal space. Should I shake hands or not? Sometimes I’d be walking with a sheikh and he would grab me by the hand. I learned that it was like dealing with the Queen: you can’t touch her, but if she touches you, fine. Now I’ve been going to sheikh functions for so long that some of my stories have become folklore, so when a new person comes to the majlis they’ll introduce me and use one of my stories, maybe from twenty years ago.
Will I ever return to Australia to live? I doubt it. It’s hard for me to do what I do anywhere else but this corner of the world.
At my present home I have assembled a new collection of pets: a bulldog called Winnie, a snake, a chameleon and two rainforest frogs, which are the best low-maintenance pets you can have. They survive on baby mice and cockroaches, which is quite handy.
The chameleon is truly the most extraordinary animal I’ve ever had anything to do with. I’ve called him Spock, because his hands have two fingers splayed out in a big V. He is difficult to take your eyes off, with his eyes rotating independently at a hundred miles an hour, while the rest of him remains perfectly still. Most animals are designed to make a getaway using speed, but the chameleon just disappears into the background and you wouldn’t know where he was. If you wear a pink shirt, he starts going pink. You can, by the way, still get chameleons at pet shops in the UAE, but it helps that I have a mate at the local zoo who is a dealer.
I am certain that living in a Muslim society has helped me come to terms with losing our two babies. The all-encompassing philosophy of Islam is that whatever happens is God’s will. There is a pervasive sense that you, as a mere mortal, cannot control your destiny or the destiny of your children. This ‘no blame/no responsibility’ approach can allay the guilt and the questions that can plague you in the dark times. If I can’t control what happens around me then, you might say, it is easier to surrender to my fate and move on.
Yet I have had many dark moments, when I couldn’t stop thinking about the two girls we have lost. My friends tell me that when asked how many kids I have, I will occasionally answer ‘five’. It never quite goes away, but now I find myself thinking how lucky we are to have three girls alive and doing so well. They live on different continents, with Katya in the UAE, Erica in Australia and Maddy in the USA, where she and her husband Jake have a baby girl, Katie. That makes grandchild number four. All my daughters are out in the world, which is a good place to be. And, courtesy of Erica, the Tinson bloodline of vets continues.
In the end, I have made good on my pact with myself to live a big life, like my Dad. And it’s all because I said yes to adventure.