Icelandic Horses

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In the 800's Viking settlers headed for Iceland, stopping off in Britain to collect Celtic wives, but brought their horses with them. Since then, the Viking horses have maintained pure bloodlines, not crossed with any other breeds. The Iceland horses are small, 13 to 14 hh and fine built in an amazing range of beautiful colours. They were used as transport and for work until the 1920's and now are used for tourism. There are lots of horse breeders in Iceland, with properties of up to 600 hectares on which they can run herds of more than 50 horses. Horses can be tamed or untamed and broken or unbroken when they are sold. There is a central stallion stable to improve the quality of the bloodlines, with more than 60 horses that breeders can hold shares in. Watching 47 Icelandic horses in a holding yard, I was amazed at how calm and quiet they were. In the mares and foals yard, two month old foals wandered up for a sniff and pat, and the mares were untroubled about strangers amoung them. Icelandic horses are amazing.

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Photos

Patiently waiting
in the holding yard

A spare horse
on a training ride

Husey Stable
and day yard

Track Room
for 40 riding horses

Comments

[Jen]

Nice
Love the horsey post. Wouldn't it be lovely to travel the world and visit horses everywhere.

[paid to travel]

Visiting horses
Visiting horses as an itinerary would be awesome. Volcanoes is my first criteria, but in Spain we will be in Andalusia!

[elayne]

a horse for your birthday
if only one would not be enough,, plus the air con to keep them cool..

[paid to travel]

Birthday horses
They would need many companions to keep from getting lonely. Our back yard is not quite big enough.

[Astrid]

Húsey
Very nice memories! Thank you Astrid and Carolin

[paid to travel]

Well Met
The people you meet along the way are part of what makes travel delightful.