Early week speculations – by Kóki

In time, many things have changed because in the old days, people used common sense which was knowledge based on each person’s experience in work as well as play……

People would never have reached this far if they had not learnt from experience, and taken that knowledge and utilized it to make progress and leaving behind what was not applicable. With increased experience and knowledge, the things which earlier had not been possible, became easier to achieve, so that experience became the foundation for progress in every respect.

People learnt to make their own tools which were suitable for their work and therefore making it easier along with greater efficiency. Also, people were working closer with nature, learning from it also.

Old captains on Icelandic fishing boats sensed when foul weather was ahead, they red into the clouds and also they had a hunch where catch could be found. They watched the tide, the moon and the direction of the winds along with other things that an ordinary person with little experience did not have either the experience or the knowhow for. This fountain of experience was based on decades of work and, it taught them to evaluate the situation at the given time to be able to make the correct decisions.

Today, everything has become so academic. The meteorologist can surely tell you how the weather was yesterday, modern fish-finding equipment can find any fish tail which is moving around in the sea and highly educated economists pretended that everything was fine when the banks and entire nations grounded their economy.

Root of the problem
I am choosing this introduction into these speculations of mine in order to attract attention to the importance of experience. Those of us who are horse people today and are making a living off it and thankfully still base it on acquired experience in order to be successful. Sudden advancement often happens to people and  mostly it is luck or coincidence, but still a long lasting success in ones occupation is built on patience and tenacity, along with talent and the intuition which comes with years of experience.
Those people can solve the most unbelievable problems, often in a very simple way. If things are not working out, they do not blame it on the bridle or the shoeing and not the saddle either. They take a closer look at themselves and ask: What am I doing wrong?

Quacks
Today, it is in style to blame the saddle if the horse is not performing right, everyone wants to hear anything else than that the problem may be their own fault, and then the rest is easy for  the commercial traveler who, just by share coincidence has the correct saddle in the trunk of his car. The most unbelievable people suddenly have become specialists in the structure and kinesiology of the Icelandic horse, people stroking the horse take great amounts for pulling the tail of the horse or to knock it somewhere, most of these people have no experience as horse trainers, and they do not have long experience as vets for Icelandic horses either. People jump at these quacks, like they were called in the old days and pay great money for the whole thing, because, ordinarily these quacks need to come by more than once for the therapy work they do. Then, after all this people still have the same problem, because the real cause of the problem was something entirely different and definitely it was not because of the saddle, the horse simply had not been trained correctly.

Saddles for Icelandic horses

Do you know a professional rider, who needs to use a specially tailored saddle for each horse he rides? I do not. We need to keep in mind that we have a very special horse, as far as structure of the Icelandic horse is concerned. A great part of the Icelandic horse stock´s roots is based on the horses of Sauðárkrókur, which, as most people know have a rather short back. Also, the withers of the Icelandic horse is not built in the same way as the larger horses and all these things makes it more difficult to build saddles for the Icelandic horse than other horse breeds. Generally, there is less room for the saddle, the withers are low, leaning forwards and also the torso is large.

Generally speaking, the present Icelandic horse has good leg action, making it space necessary for the withers and shoulder blade, because it needs to be free from all inhabitations so that all movements continue to stay soft and inhibited. Therefore the saddle should not be positioned on the horses’ withers, which is a common site, at least here in this country.

Ástund was the first company which gave this problem its attention and started producing saddles fitting for the Icelandic horse, and that saddle was also comfortable for the rider. Later there were companies like Topreiter and Hrímnir who followed in the footsteps of these pioneers and continued the progress and became popular because the product was working. It can be declared that no company on the market today has as much experience in making saddles for the Icelandic horse as the above mentioned companies, and of course they are leading in the industry. Every step in the direction of progress has been in close cooperation with the best professionals we have, and therefore it is important for everyone who wants to buy a new saddle to get help and instruction to choose the right saddle, because often we are talking about considerable amount of money and therefore it is important that this choice is successful both for the horse and yourself.

Be careful what you choose
Greetings from Germany
Kóki.