The Arabian Horses of The Al-Khalifa Family
The Al-Khalifa family of Bahrain has a long and proud tradition of horse breeding. For centuries, the family has kept a sizeable stud of horses, and many of the mares have become famous for their courage, speed, and stamina on the battlefield.
In the past, some individual mares of certain lineages were much coveted and appreciated if presented as a gift. Through the inherent generosity of the Arab people, many of these mares exchanged hands frequently. As a matter of honour, each Shaikh would give of his best, and only good mares were thus exchanged. Today, the descendants of some of the famous mares are still treasured more than others from less renowned lineages.
Selection of stud stallions is done by bloodline, performance, and conformation. Once a stallion is tested on a few mares and the progeny are up to standard, he will stand at stud for the rest of his life. No stallion is tried before full maturity, at the age of 7 years or more. Relatively few stallions are allowed to breed, and the excess stallions are used for racing, gifts, and police mounts.
No outside stallion is directly used for stud purposes. New blood was introduced indirectly by the high lineage mares received or exchanged with other Shaikhs from the interior of Arabia. When these mares were bred to local stallions, their progeny or grand-progeny sometimes qualified as studs.
The different strains or families of Arab horses are perpetuated through the mares, offspring always taking the dam's name regardless of the stallion's lineage. Although all the lineages found in Bahrain are equally pure, stud horses are chosen only from the lineages deemed most noble. The word "noble" here is the nearest equivalent to the Arab word "asil" and does not convey the exact meaning. All tribes recognise the inherent nobility of certain lineages, but the preference for some lineages over others varied from tribe to tribe.
In general, once a stallion has been chosen to stand as stud, his lineage becomes unimportant. The fact that he is chosen is the guarantee of his nobility.
In Bahrain, a new generation's tribal Shaikh would often favour a different lineage to his predecessor and would increase horses of his favourite family line. However, the ancient revered lineages maintained their supremacy in the long run, although unfortunately one or two of them have disappeared.
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In the past, no official written records were kept. The stud stallions were so few in number that their pedigrees were of common knowledge. The breeding of the mares that were circulated amongst the stallions was only of importance as far as their strain was concerned, registering each purebred became a necessity. As had been the practice of old, "may the fittest survive" registering of new foals is done at the end of each year. Later Bahrain started to keep up-to-date records of breeding and foaling dates.
In 1961, at the time of Shaikh Sulman's (born 1895) death, there were three stallions at stud: Old Dahman Alawwal, Jellaby Althaani (Speckled), and Jellaby Wasmiya.
Only a fraction of the Royal Stud Arabian mares have been included in the Royal Arabian studbook. Some of these mares were put on trial to see how they breed, while others not included had minor conformation faults, or were too old, or had too inconsistent breeding records. Some strains were omitted completely, while some individual mares had been omitted because their strain has been lost due to nicknames. In some instances, a mare had been rejected while her offspring is kept, or a mare was kept and some of her offspring were rejected.
Given names are allotted to all horses at the Royal Arabian Stud. All names start with the strain name. Given names were not allotted to horses which had died or been exported at the time of naming in 1993. Bahrain in general uses the strain names for all Bahraini Arabians.