Category: horses

In progress

In progress

Gyðja means Goddess. She is registered in the studbook – no. IS1096286632. Gydja is brown with a white star, and has beautiful red highlights in her mane, and in her very long tail. She is 13 hands high. She is known as My Mare Gydja or Giddy, and Roger used to call her Bambi on account of her big, kind brown eyes.

Gydja was born in 1996 in Iceland, and was imported to the UK in 2002, when she was six years old, where she lived with a lovely family. She was very nervous when she first arrived, and her owner spent a lot of time introducing her to the very different English countryside and gaining her trust. A few years later she was joined by Fleygur. Sadly due to a change of circumstances Fleygur was put up for sale, and came to his new home with us in Shropshire, leaving Gydja behind. However, two years later, when Gydja too needed a new home, there was no question – her owner wanted to her be reunited with Fleygur, and of course we were never going to say no!

As a ridden horse she was willing and bold (the early kind training really paid off!). I never knew her to spook at anything and she would go where ever I asked – including joining a parade down a High Street, followed by The Vikings of Middle England, and walking right past a marching band without batting an eyelid. She was really fast in gallop, but much more keen on trot than tölt.

Sadly, she had to be retired from riding at the age of 19 due to arthritis. Like the others she lives out 24/7, and lots of moving around is helping to keep her mobile and fit. Most of the time does doesn’t need any medication for her arthirits – though sometimes she overdoes the frolicking about, and can be a bit stiff for a few days. She has developed Cushings disease too, so her beautiful shiny coat is now more often greyed and brittle, but we have managed to avoid laminitis through carefully watching her weight, and with the help of medication.

She still has the same beautiful eyes and gentle nature though.

Svipur, aka Blondie, was born on 26 August 2007 in the UK. He is a palomino, and has one white foot, a faint star and a snip on his nose. He also has a white spot on his rump which isn’t mentioned in his passport – because his didn’t have it until a certain Big Fat Cob bit him on the bum when he first arrived!

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Fleygur, also known as Little Viking Horse, was born on 21 June 1999 in the UK. His parents names were Móna frá Sandhólaferju (mare) and Falur frá Gíslhoti (stallion). Móna is also Svipur’s great-grandmother!

He is black with a crescent moon shaped star and a snip on the end of his nose that looks like a fork of lightening. He is 13.1 hands high, and a stocky built, with a relatively short back and short legs, so he is strong. He is also very ‘forward’ – he doesn’t believe in walking slowly, and although he is very responsive to his rider, he can also get worried about things very quickly so needs a gentle but confident rider.

Fleygur means ‘flying one’.

Fleygur is five gaited, meaning he can tölt and pace, in addition to the usual gaits of walk, trot and canter/gallop. He can perform a fast tölt, though now he is getting older he has started to slow down – a bit!

Fleygur went to live with Gydja when he was a young horse, and became very bonded to her. Sadly, due to a change of circumstances he had to be sold. Because of his sensitive nature, and his strong bond to Gydja he was a challenging ride, and a few people had been to try him before Roger. Fleygur didn’t actually do anything wrong, but he kept trying to go back to Gydja and was shouting the whole time. I must admit that I thought Roger was a bit bonkers when he said he would by him – but Roger was adamant that he was a good horse, and he ‘didn’t buck, bolt or rear,’ despite being clearly upset. We had a difficult first few months with Fleygur, but he did eventually settle down and although he remained tricky to ride at times, and didn’t like to be away from his herd, Roger had years of fun with him. They did quite well in competition – achieving fourth place in the T1 Tölt class at their last show together.

Fleygur is very quick to learn – often only needing to be shown something once, even if it is not him that I am training! This happened when I was asking Svipur to walk over some poles at liberty. Fleygur watched for a while, then butted in and did it himself, waving is nose around at the end to ask for his treat.

He is such a special horse to me – because I find him so engaging, because he inspired my book and because he was Roger’s horse of a lifetime.

I still ride him from time to time, but he is feeling his age now, and so often were just go for walks together, where he can enjoy grazing the herbs on the road side.