> >>Gunnar is Icelandic and his wife Stephanie is American. We did > briefly discuss horse bolting and not wanting to stop. He said in > Iceland all they want is for them to go and go really fast. A lot of > large farms with really great > competition riders never teach the horse to stop or stand still to get on. > > how about horses that are sold to the USA...do they take the time to > teach them these "USA manners" before they are shipped? > > Raven Hello Raven, My horse Blessi was an import. I got him directly from the Icelandic importer. Directly imported, Blessi was very confident, very trusting, people oriented, respected people's space when led, and was nicely gaited. However, he did want to go and go, did not have good brakes, did not stand still when mounted. (We have worked through everything but he still sometimes has "sticky brakes" and some times he stops on the exhale of a breath and stilling of the seat--go figure.) The only time Blessi took off on me was in the early days (although we had a lot of discussion early on about stopping from a walk). I had a brilliant idea to hook a water bottle off those neat eyelets on the Icelandic saddle. As I was half mounted in my typical klutzy manner, I knocked the water bottle which thumped against his side, he took off, the water started thumping harder, I started yelling, he started going faster, and about 30 feet down the road, I fell off. He started grazing about 10 feet away from my landing site. I am not sure that counted as "bolting" or "owner stupidity." When I had him a little longer, he got used to my klutzy ways and my desire to only walk. I rode him over to a fence one time to pick up a riding crop, lost my balance, and accidently whacked him in the butt with the crop. He started to gather himself up for a leap forward but paused, almost as if to ask do you really want this, which gave me the opportunity to say "Easy, easy, whoa, who." He never moved. The other factor that may contribute to imported Icelandics bolting is the import process itself. It must be stressful on the animals. I was having a riding lesson on Blessi in the first two months that I had him. The instructor picked up a lunge whip to use as a hobby horse to show me how to weight my seat and legs to bend the horse in a circle. Blessi took six side steps under me, came to halt, and started trembling. He has never reacted to anything like that. In the US, I knew the importer and the people who had contact with Blessi so I know the lunge whip was never used inappropriately. I can only guess that the whip may have been used during the import process at some point. It took about 3 weeks to get him desensitized to the whip.
Regards, Pamela
