Bahraini horses outside the royal family

Ahmad Saffar from Bahrain told me the other day that wealthier Bahrainis from the ahali — the population, so not royals — kept marabet of Shawafan and Wadhnan until the 1970s, when they turned to Thoroughbreds and part bred Arabs for racing. They had obtained these strains from Southern Iraq — presumably the area around Basra and al-Zubayr.