"He would have been left here to grow big and fat like many Sudanese rich men. How would history have been?" he asked, shaking his head at the thought. One thing seems certain, he said: Swift would have remained well cared-for and fed.
He remembered bin Laden "as a very shy and humble person, really. But also a determined person, I guess."
A keeper looks after Swift Like the Wind, a horse owned by Osama bin Laden in the mid-1990s, at a racetrack on the edge of Khartoum.
(Photos Evelyn Hockstein -- The Washington Post)
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_____Crisis in Sudan_____
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Q&A: Darfur A brief explanation of the issues and current humanitarian situation in Western Sudan.
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Photos: Continuing Crisis
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Photos: Sudan's Rebels
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A Peace Force With No Power (The Washington Post, Dec 11, 2004)
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Sudan Calls for Normalized U.S. Ties (The Washington Post, Dec 6, 2004)
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Danforth Says He Left Position At U.N. for Personal Reasons (The Washington Post, Dec 4, 2004)
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Ambassador to Leave U.N. Job Next Month (The Washington Post, Dec 3, 2004)
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Darfurians Could Lose Land They Fled (The Washington Post, Dec 3, 2004)
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Bin Laden was meticulous about his horses and bred Swift himself, mixing an imported Arabian horse with a Sudanese thoroughbred. Turabi said the resulting mare had problems because "she's not really Arabian and not really a thoroughbred, but more of a retarded breed."
He laughed when asked if that problem was like Sudan's, not really an Arab nation and not really African, but somewhere in between. "Maybe so," he said.
Inside the chain-linked stall where Swift lives, several stable boys gathered one recent day, unfazed by the attention the horse was getting. "Sheik Osama, yes. We know," said one of the boys, looking extremely serious.
Turabi, walking the mare near the turtle pond, said he preferred animals to humans. "Man is the only animal I know that kills for no reason. I should know. I have tried it," he said. "I know all animals: leopards, lions, goats, elephants, crocodiles. . . . None of them act like that."
Below a skyline pierced with green-and-white mosques, the dusty track sprawled on the edge of town. Turabi pointed out the stables built by British colonialists, and a vacant thatched hut where race fans once placed bets before that activity was made illegal in 1983 under Islamic law.
And then he put Swift to bed, shutting the large metal doors behind him.
