Mohamad AL-Sheikh's Arabian horse stud, Al Sheikh, has only been in operation since 2016 – and it's already setting the industry standards, having quickly established itself as a leader in its field. With twenty stallions and mares and two sites – in Israel and in Belgium – the stud has seen immense success in a remarkably short period of time. Having won a silver in its first year, the stud has now amassed almost thirty medals – most of them golds and silvers.
Mohamad is very well known on Instagram with a strong following: Instagram.com/mohamad.shekh
Mohamad is of Arab descent and was born in 1990. Mohamad's success story began when he founded his first start-up business which specialized in sleep cycles in 2001, while he was still attending high school. This initial business was later acquired by a Chinese company. Mohamad graduated in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Management.
He is also a highly successful businessman and angel investor. He has previously invested in businesses such as IT companies, health sector companies as well as real estate. He has now invested over $7 million into more than 44 companies. His investments mainly focus on start-up companies and those in their early stage of development.
In addition to his business expertise, Mohamad is also a qualified – and passionate – horse trainer. This, again, is incredibly important to the success of an Arabian horse stud. Not everyone is aware that it's not only the appearance – achieved through careful breeding – of an Arabian horse that's judged during shows and championships. Points are also given according to other highly specific criteria, such as behavioural characteristics: the horses need to be elegant, intelligent, agile, confident, and able to move and act in a certain way. Most of this is down to the training, although the bloodline's also important.
The four show-horses that Mohammad's stud has been entering for championships over the past four years are the best proof of how successful the entrepreneur has been with this original venture. For instance, the oldest of the show horses – a ten-year-old bay stallion named Equator – has won a silver or a gold medal in every championship into which he'd been entered, and achieved the highest score in the Paris World Championship in 2018.
