Today marks two years of weekly “God of Wednesday” posts, and to celebrate I’m going to revisit my very first entry–not coincidentally the beginning of my very first book, A Good Horse Has No Color: Searching Iceland for the Perfect Horse:

CARRIED AWAY
I could hear the horses before I saw them, their hoofbeats the high slap of cupped hands clapping, beating the punctuated four-beat rhythm of the tolt, the breed’s distinctive running-walk gait. From our summerhouse, I watched them through binoculars. Pinpricks on the silvery wet sand, they shimmered like a vision out of the Icelandic Sagas, the medieval literature that had brought me to Iceland in the first place. Briefly the horses took shape as they cut across the tide flats: necks arced high, manes rippling, long tails floating behind. Their short legs curved and struck, curved and struck. I would watch them until they disappeared beyond the black headland and wonder who their riders were, where they went on their rapid journey. I wanted to go with them. 

Icelandic folktales warn of the gray horse that comes out of the water, submits briefly to bridle and saddle, and at dusk carries its rider into the sea. For me, it was the watcher who was carried away.

I’m happy to say I’m still carried away: by Iceland, its folklore, its sagas, its people, its language, and its horses. A Good Horse Has No Color is back in print, in paperback, and has been joined on my shelf by two more books about Iceland, The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman and Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths. A young adult novel based on The Far Traveler will be coming out this year, and my new nonfiction book, The Ivory Vikings, scheduled for spring of 2015, has a strong Icelandic focus.

Birkir and Gaeska, the two Icelandic horses at the center of A Good Horse Has No Color are still frolicking in my pastures, now ages 23 and 24, and have two younger stablemates, Mukka and Naskur, both from the American farm Alfasaga. In addition to riding them most days (when there’s no snow on the ground), I’m now collaborating with the horse-trekking firm America2Iceland to organize historical riding tours to Iceland. There’s still room on our Song of the Vikings tour this June 5-11: See America2Iceland.com if you’re interested. I’d love to show you the Iceland that inspires me. One of their trips even takes you along that same silvery wet sand, across the tide flats, past the black headland into … another world.

For me, being carried away by Iceland has been a wild and wonderful trip. I hope you’ll continue to come along for the ride.

The foals are born in spring/summer and stay with the mother at least until the new year (about 6 months) sometimes even longer, until spring. Sometimes the foals are handled the first days / weeks of their life (imprinting). Sometimes they are left alone until they are weaned and then they are handled for some time, maybe just few times, few weeks, or they are kept in the barn for the winter and then slowly get used to humans that way. With any of the above, the youngster will always remember being handled. After this, they are usually let out with the herd and not much done with them except worming and trimming 2-3 times a year, and until 3.5 or 4 years old when they are brought in for training. At that time, they are just a little scared but they still remember the handling at an earlier age, and are therefore curious, but not terrified.

So what has happened here is that the young horse is introduced to humans a little bit at young age and then they are let out in the herd where they learn to interact with other horses and show respect to the leader. The herd does not necessary have to be big but it is very important that there are some other horses. Being with a herd of horses allows the horse to grow up as a horse, and learn from the other horses. A big field is important because that way the young horse gets to move around more and develop muscles faster and better.

When we start the training we need to make them believe that we are good enough to become their new leader.

So back to the US. If people have the setup to do it this way that would be great, however we are not in Iceland and some things are very different. For example, here we need to vaccinate, we need to worm more often, and often are they on softer land so the hooves need to be trimmed more often. The young horse is going to be handled more than in Iceland.

So I say it is not a matter of if you handle your young horse, it is a matter of how you handle it. The youngster has to learn respect and follow a leader and if you don´t have a herd to do it with you have to do it yourself and you better start sooner rather than later.
What this involves is to make sure the horse respects your space. Don’t allow it to nip on you and be sure it goes away when you want it to. I think a good way to describe the correct relationship between a horse and owner is:

The horse should be happy to come to you………………but just as happy to go away from you.

Don’t forget the second part.

I recommend not feeding the young horse any treats out of your hand.

It is easier to train a horse that respects the trainer rather then a horse that is ‘’spoiled’’ and shows no respect at all. Remember that when you handle a horse and/or ride a horse you are a trainer. Because the horse is always learning and it is up to you to make sure it learns the right things.

My advice to you is to study about horse behaviour and try to handle your young horse correctly. It is not a matter of handling it much but when you have to handle it, then do it right. Or find a place where your young horse can be kept in a herd at least for some time.

We have been using different fly sprays, RepellX, Tri-tec14, and now we are using Pyranha, which is supposed to be very good.

A horse has never developed SE at our barn, although I have seen some of it starting (maybe a little scab on the stomach). If this occurs, the horse goes into the group with the fatties, the horses we keep in most of the time (with their fans going and automatic fly spray 4 to 5 times a day). They are put out for a few hours every single day during the the time of day when it is hottest; but remember, it is during dawn and dusk when flies are most aggressive. It is not the heat that bothers the horses so much. Now, some people are going to say how bad a person I am to keep them in so much, or my horse does not want to stay in. Well, of course the horses like to stay out most of the time. I sometimes say that horses are like little kids: you give them an inch and they take a mile. If your kid had a sun eczema, I am sure he would like to be out more than you would let him. I am doing my horse a favor by keeping him in so that he doesn’t have a breakout. In the long run, it saves them a lot of grief, even though they might not appreciate it so much at the time. Personally, I look at the summers in the US like the winters in Iceland, where the horses are kept in away from the cole so that we’re able to ride them (because you don’t want to put a sweaty horse out to cold winter weather). During the winter, spring, and fall, your horse can be outside as much as you like him to be; we are only talking about 4 months out of the year.

Before letting them out, we put fly spray on them, and if there are some places where they have open skin or eczema, we put Swat on those spots. By doing it this way, every horse we have gotten with SE goes home almost completely free of it. I also believe that flies are attracted to the sweat of the horse, which is why we always hose them off with clean water after each ride, to get the sweat off and also to cool them down, of course.

I do believe that if you have a horse that does not have SE, you can make your care quite a lot easier than we are doing it. We are training these horses every day, and that is part of the reason we put them up in a stall. What you need to do is to have a shed for the horses in which they can get away from the flies totally; that does not mean a tree or by a wall. They need to be able to go into some place where there are no flies because I believe that SE does not start so easily if the horses are kept away from the fly’s part of the day so they can always recover between fly bites.

Here is something else that we need to keep in mind. As you probably have noticed, Icelandic horses (at least most of them) eat as long as there is grass in front of them, so it is not enough to provide them with this fly-free place if there is free access to it from the pasture. They will just stay outside and eat, even though the flies are eating them up. So either you have to close them in this place or do like one very good friend of mine here in Kentucky did after I advised him to do so.

He has a dry lot where there is no grass, only gravel or sand, just so it does not get muddy. He puts the horses in there every morning, and from there they can go into their stalls where the fan is going. These horses always go into the stalls, and they sometimes stay all in the same stall, even though there are two stalls, but they are totally bug free.

I can tell you another story about another friend of mine here in Kentucky. She has a few Icelandics. For the last couple of years, she has been keeping them in a pasture where there is no shade except for some trees, and there is also a dirty pond there. Two of her horses developed SE. Last summer I told her, “Next spring before they get SE, bring them up to the upper pasture where they can go into the barn and where there is no dirty pond.” She did that and they did not get any SE at all.

Here are my thoughts on SE:

• The important thing is to stop it before it starts.
• Take your horse away from the fly’s part of the day, even though he has no sign of SE. If he has a problem keeping weight on, you have to make it up with enough hay or grain supplements or both.
• Just by keeping an eczema-free horse inside away from flies for just half a day can have a great positive effect on keeping your horse from ever getting eczema, because he is not spending ALL of his time defending against flies.
• Wash the sweat off the horse after each ride.
• And, of course, use fly spray.
• If the horse already has SE: Keep him in most of the time, but make sure to turn him out for at least a couple of hours every day.
• Give him a bath once in a while!
• Keep fly spray on him, and always have the SE spots covered with something like Swat.
• Keep everything around the horse as clean as possible, and keep fans on him.
• Just by keeping the eczema horse in at night (especially at dawn and dusk!) makes a huge difference!!

There are two things that have been a common misunderstanding concerning the Icelandic horse. That is, they don’t need the same care as other horse breeds (e.g., can be left out 24/7 in some field with no shelter) because of their hardy nature. The other is they do not require any kind of grain or feed supplement. Although these horses ARE very hardy, and can SURVIVE under harsh conditions, that does not mean that they do not deserve the same care and treatment as other horses. Any horse needs a shelter from the sun and wind. The grass and hay in Iceland has many more vitamins and minerals than most hay in America. It is the high cellulose content in some hays that can cause founder, NOT because these horses cannot handle protein or good quality hay.

From the Courier-journal in Kentucky

From mbl.is in Iceland