On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:19:23 -0400, you wrote: >This is very interesting, Virginia. I actually think there is some >truth in some of what he says for some Icelandics.
If I had read this 6 months ago, I would have had to disagree, as even though I've owned Icelandics for 20 years or so, I've not come across one that prefers fight to flight etc. But a few months ago a friend sent me a young stallion to baby sit for a while. He had been imported from Iceland last spring, and then just been started - slowly, enough to get him to the stage where you can sit on him and ride him a little bit, but not really any more - and my friend thought he needed some time away to think about things. My friend warned me he's very hard to catch, but I didn't think anything of it, having had lots of Iceland-imports who thought they were hard to catch but soon came around to my way of thinking. Hmmmm. This guy has been here about 3 months now. He's very, very sex-oriented, and it's virtually impossible to work with him when he's got his brain in his balls - we're waiting for the weather to cool down, then he will be gelded even though he has beautiful conformation and movement and he comes from really, really good bloodlines (father is Keilir fra Midsitju). He will come to talk to you in the field, and enjoys a rub, anywhere on his body. But try to get a halter on him and he's off, even with many hours of patience, resorting to bribes of food, and everything else I've tried. The only way to catch him without a battle is to drive him into a stable then lay the halter over a bucket of food so he halters himself. Once you have the halter on his nose, he's a perfect gentleman. He was supposed to go out with our young colts and stallions on the moor, but he jumped a 5ft barbed wire fence, a 7 ft deep ditch and a high bank, then swam across the lake to get back home near the mares... So I kept him with our old mare who can't have foals and doesn't come into season. All was fine. One day, I needed to move some mares, so shut him into the stable to do so - he's used to being in the stable, likes it there, plenty of nice hay etc. As the mares approached, some distance away, he went completely nuts and did his best to destroy the stable, which is fortunately made of block and concrete or it would be in bits. He could see other horses, he just couldn't shag them - my usual response to this behaviour would be to ignore the horse and let him learn that making a big fuss wouldn't get him anywhere, but he had his feet through the roof, 10 ft from the ground. Literally. I went to sort things out and he did his best to barge me out the way - and I don't barge easily. He got into the yard and tried to jump the gate. When I went to catch him, he ran at me, feet flying. It was a pretty scarey moment. I drove him back into the stable, got a halter on him, and he immediately calmed right down. Phew. But he's one horse that definitely does have more fight than flight - and too many brains for his own good. I'll be glad when he's gelded! Mic Mic (Michelle) Rushen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solva Icelandic Horses and DeMeulenkamp Sweet Itch Rugs: www.solva-icelandics.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes"
