>That's one thing I just don't get. Icelandics have NEVER been advertised in >that way over here, or in any of the ads I've seen from Europe. Why would >people promoting the breed in the US do that???? And come to that, why >would prospective buyers believe them? <
Hi Mic, Many of the Icelandic horse owners here got into Icelandics as their first horses, so no prior horse keeping experience / knowledge. Couple that ignorance with the appealing "mystique" surrounding Icelandics of being touted as soooo very different from all other equines because of the way they "evolved" -- more like dogs than horses, disease and trouble free -- blah, blah, blah. The myths just got more and more ingrained as those first owners romanced things further (because now they were importing and breeding to sell to others). They became the "experts" within the breed and mentors for the next set of buyers. You really had a case of blind leading the blind and like the sagas, myths were being passed on down until, well, ridiculous things were just taken as well-known "facts". It helped too, that subsequent buyers wanted to beleive they really had something exclusive and different from the myriad of other breeds here, so what they were told was very easy to swallow. They wanted to swallow it. : ) And early sellers / importers had some VERY stiff competition from other gaited breeds in terms of marketing the Icelandic to rise above in some way/shape/fashion. So, why not make them into some kind of completely trouble-free equine where all the typical problems of horse-keeping are "bred out". Another remember being told Icelandics don't spook because there's no predators in Iceland??? That was one of my personal favorites. The irony of our imported mare being almost hysterically wary of people (for the first two years she was with us) didn't escape me as there IS a predator of horses in Iceland: Man. -- Renee M. in Michigan
