Until late 1975 the broodmares were kept at three different locations, each separate breeding place being the domain of one stud stallion.  The mares were rotated among the studs to avoid inbreeding too closely.  Although the majority of the horses are related through the stud stallions, no deliberate inbreeding is practiced.

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.  After the death of the old studmaster Fatis (in charge, from 1942 to 1974) 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.  After the decision in 1975 to cut down the ancient herd, up to date records have been kept 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.  In the records some older mares have no sire listed; it is preferred to leave it so rather than indulge in guesswork.

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.

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