> > Do you know what he's talking about when he refers to a character type > > called the "Origin". > > He made up a quite a few character types and put Icelandics and Fjords > in the 'Origin' group.
Thanks for the kick in the pants Virginia--I stopped reading this book about 2/3 thru b/c I got busy w/ other things. I need to finish it! However, he does imply that not all Icelandics fit into the Origin subgroup. He also makes the statement that "at a tolt, three legs are always on the ground and therefore the danger of sinking deeply (into marshy wet ground) is lessened, that is why a horse tolts." So his knowledge of soft gaits is limited. And he claims that "another survival technique has developed in marshy regions: fighting instead of fleeing." So his claim is that the Icelandic horse has lost much of its instinct to flee b/c it couldn't run from danger and so had to adapt to fight back. But I've always heard that the Icelandics lost their flight instinct b/c of being on an isolated area for 1000 years w/ no natural predators to flee from. So while I think Hempfling is wonderful--I think anyone who advocates natural, non-forced, bridleless training is great!--I think his knowledge of Icelandics is pretty limited. Robyn S
