Icelandic Horse

The Icelandic horse is a hardy breed that originated from Iceland, and is a pretty sturdy horse that can withstand the extreme weather conditions of its native homeland.

Many of the stud farmers retain their horses in herds, on the semi wild farm properties so the horses have to fend for themselves, foraging for food and living in the extreme weather conditions.

This manor of keeping horses is pretty common particularly in Iceland.

The Iceland horses are popular for their special gaits, among them their trot and there are specific competitions for this breed to show off their distinctive paces.

The Icelandic breed rarely grows more than the permissible limit for the pony, being 148 cm. The Icelandic horse is regarded with love and reverence on the island as it has a history of over 1200 years.

The Icelandic horse, if exported the horse or any progeny are not allowed to return to the island as the risk is too great that they may be mixed with other breeds, or bring back diseases not common to the local herds.

This has resulted in the Icelandic breed being on of the purest genetic horse breeds, in the world. The breed is free from interference by other horse type outbreeding for over 800 years. The Icelandic horse is now the third most popular horse breed in Sweden.

History

Between 870 and 935 AD, Iceland was settled by travellers from places like Norway, where the colonists brought their own horses with them. The first of the noted settlers, who moved to Iceland, were the Norwegian chieftains Ingolfur and Leifur who moved there in 871, bringing their livestock, including cattle and horses. These horses today are considered the ancestor of the Icelandic horse.

Even people from other parts of Scandinavia, Northern Britain and Ireland moved to Iceland, the horses they brought with them, from these countries were included in the breeds that form the basis for the Icelandic horse.

Presumably, many of these northern European ponies were wild horses, perhaps Tarpan or descendants of them. The Celtic horses being the basis for many of the British pony breeds, seems to be at the heart of the Icelandic horse.

Settlers often let their horses graze in communal pastures and in this way the horses mingled far more quickly resulting, in a quicker development of the Icelandic horse.

Documents from Iceland have shown that the Vikings held the Icelandic horse in high regard because of its rideability. The documents also show there was a conscious breeding programme which placed great emphasis on the breeding work during the year 1000AD.

900 years ago there was an attempt to refine the Icelandic horses with oriental blood, which was catastrophe causing long term degeneration in the equine strains.

The Althing, the world’s oldest parliament, passed a decree that the import back to Iceland of Icelandic horses bred or sold abroad is prohibited. This has meant that the Icelandic horse has become one of the world’s oldest pure-bred horses, where the breed has retained its pure blood status for over 800 years now.

Even today, it is strictly forbidden for exported Icelandic horses to return to Iceland. The island horses was often the only available means of transport on the island available to the settlers who often revered the horses as gods and considered them to be symbols of fertility.

The peoples of Iceland sacrificed a white horse in certain ceremonies, and most of the countries folk tales include tales of horse’s, folk tales from Iceland contain mostly horses. 930 and 1262 saw written tales of bloody battles between the Icelandic stallions, as the fighting was a way to evaluate breeding stallions.

Over the years, four different types of Icelandic horse breeds have developed, although they do not exhibit many differences between the horse types. A heavier type of horse was conceived primarily for farming and driving, and was the most divergent from the breed norm having a bit more mass.

Many of the horses were bred for meat production since the cold climate meant that farmers could not stay with cattle. The best known type of Icelandic called Flaxofoi was born and raised in the Southwestern parts of the island. The horse looks very much like the English Exmoor pony.

The best known area for the breeding of Icelandic horses was Skagafjordur where the first selective breeding programme was begun, started in 1879.

The focus of the programme was on the horses gait in order to make them easier to ride. The road network was not fully developed until after World War II so well into the 1900s the Icelandic horse was still the main way to get around in the very varied and demanding terrain in Iceland.

This required that the horses would be comfortable to ride. Interest in Icelandic horse exploded in the 1960s in the rest of Europe even though there were horses imported from Iceland earlier than that.

The first Icelandic horses in Sweden were imported during the late 1800s but it was not until 1960 that horses were imported on any scale.

During this time, no one was really aware of how the horse’s new gait would perform, and many of the horses were still wild and unbroken. The Swedish Icelandic Association was founded in 1975 and currently has about 6000 members. Some horses have the gait better developed than others for which they are certified.

Today the Icelandic horse is very popular both for pleasure riding and special gait competitions. In Sweden, the Icelandic horse, is the third most common horse breed with a head count of approximately 125 000 horses.

Iceland is still a very big horse nation, with approximately 100 000 Icelandic horses and only 250 000 inhabitants. Each year about 4,000 horses are exported from Iceland, of which about 500 of them to Sweden. Farmers in Iceland still farm their horses in the large free range herds which can consist of up to 300 animals.

Attributes

The Icelandic horse in winter
The Icelandic horse has a calm temperament, is firm and therefore well suited for riding, because of the horses nature has resulted in the belief that the Icelandic horse is an easily ridden race, which is not necessarily true.

The Icelandic horse in Iceland, are trained by professional trainers to be the forward going horses people so admire. Although the Icelandic horses are small, they are strong enough to bear heavy, adult men.

Any Icelandic horse that has left the Island may not come back again, because of the risk of infection and the desire to keep the breed pure. The people who sailed to Iceland could only bring a few animals and it made sense that they would only bring, the best animals they could get, with them.

It is highly likely that the horses brought to Iceland were excellent riding and working horses .Horses were brought to Iceland for about 70 years, but in 930 the importation of horses into Iceland was prohibited. This has led to the Icelandic horse is the most purebred horse in the world.

There are in Sweden, many riding schools and riding stables which only have Icelandic horses. It is a bit special to ride an Icelandic horse, compared to other breeds or cross breeds.

The Icelandic horses are usually safe and confident under the rider, especially if the rider is confident. The Icelandic horses special gaits make it a sought after ride as well.

If you are not a confident rider for the horse, it can be stressful and difficult to handle, just like all other horse breeds. Imported Icelandic horses are at risk of developing eczema as a reaction to, it is believed, Ceratopogonidae.

There are many different perspectives on why the eczema develops, but it appears mostly in summer. There are covers used to protect the horse, but it is a sensible practice to protect a newly imported horse until it has acclimatized and their immune system has settled in to the new environment.

The Icelandic horse has plenty of mane and tail, and often has a thick winter coat. Their Height at the withers is on average of 136 centimetres, but there are horses ranging from just under 120 to over 150 centimetres, and although the horses are of a pony height they are considered horses.

The legs are short and strong with very durable hooves. The head is quite large and heavy in comparison with the body and shows that race is primitive and without influence from other horse breeds.

In Sweden, the Icelandic horse is in third place on the list of most popular horse breeds. Today most of the Icelandic horses are used for riding, from recreational riding to gait competitions. The horse is still used in Iceland as a working horse, in agriculture, as transport and to drive sheep from horseback.

Gaits

The Icelandic horse is known for its extraordinary gaits, and the Icelandic horse has five gaits of the rule, gallop, walk, trot, and a unique 4 beat gait called a tolt which is a pace basically exclusive to the Icelandic breed. The last pace is called a flying pace which is a very fast 2 beat pace.

The tolt is exhibited naturally by some horses and can be see by foals playing. There are also a few individuals who have no natural tolt, but sometimes it can be trained or developed by working the horse to improve the gait.

The flying pace race horse must exhibit a good fast pace, and the horse must exhibit cadence, rhythm and tempo, the tempo is important followed by good leg action and conformation.

To experience the pleasure of seeing well trained Icelandic horses, in a fast paced tolt on the racetrack can be impressive, even for people not familiar with horses.

The first horse races were held with Icelandic horses In 1874. There are several special saddles that are suited to the Icelandic horse gaits and in addition there are special bridals which consist of a simple neck piece and noose called the hannoveransk muzzle.

There are other specially developed items of tack. The saddle for instance is cut to be a bit further back on the horse’s withers to allow freedom of movement of the horses shoulder.

The Icelandic terms for the gaits are called fetgangur the walk gait, the Brokk or trot, the tokke or gallop, flugskeio is the two beat pacing gait and the four beat tolt unique in Sweden.

Pacing is a very rapid gait, and the tolt is often very convenient fluid riding gait and as the horse always has one foot in the ground.

Colours

The Icelandic language has no fewer than 15 basic words for Icelandic horses and their colours and colour combinations, Icelanders put great store in being able to have a wide selection of colours for their horses.

All colours and color combinations are allowed, even unusual colours such as black with a white mane and tail, or combinations of colours not found in other breeds.

Farmers in Iceland do not tend to have an emphasis on color, but at some breeding farms there is an effort to specialize in certain colours, such as the stud Kirkjubea in the South of the country, which breed horses with a very distinct fuxfarg with almost white mane and tail.

About 20% of the horses are chestnuts, often with a star or blaze. Approx. 40% are black and brown or black-brown with some red in their coats and 10% are skimlar.

Other colours include black, grey to brown horse with dark eels and black mane and tail, the Pinto with panels of colour, the palomino and the roan with white hair.

In the Icelandic horse breeds there are several recessive colour genes that generate the “pale” genome, which create horses with distinctive coat patterns.

One example is the silver gene, which gives horses the so-called silver color or vindott, where the horses’ manes and tails are bleached to silver while the body’s main color is darker, often a reddish brown, black and brown or completely black.

There are many different colour variations amongst all of these colours, for example their local names are rodfux, graskimmel, red and musblack and others with some horses called konstantskimlar, where the horses change colour with the seasons.

These horses are brown or chestnuts, but after they loose their winter coat it usually comes out much lighter and more white.