Sólvangur Icelandic Horse Center is about as authentic an experience as you can get while seeing Icelandic horses. This is a serious horse breeding and training facility, run by a mother and daughter, Elsa Magnúsdóttir and Sigríður (Sigga) Pjetursdóttir. After meeting them, my guess is that Elsa and Sigga are some of the most knowledgeable people about Icelandic horses in the world.
Local Icelanders come to train with Elsa and Sigga. And the farm trains some of the best Icelandic horses to enter international competitions. But the championship training process here is heartbreaking. To keep the Icelandic breed pure, no horses are allowed to be imported into Iceland. This has been a rule since the year 982. That’s not a typo: The rule has been in effect for over 1,000 years.
Because of this, the world championships for Icelandic horses are not held in Iceland. They are in Germany. Sólvangur often trains and sends horses to compete. They send an Icelandic horse to Germany to compete … which means the horse can never come back to Iceland! Every year they send a horse, and every year the horse is then sold to someone else, and never comes back to Iceland. I find this incredible. [Read more…] about Visiting the wonderful Sólvangur Icelandic Horse Center
