Their heritage dates back 1000 years and they are associated with Vikings, but Icelandic horses’ versatility and good nature is what makes them appealing. RICK BAYNE has the story.
They may have a little bit of Viking in them, but Icelandic horses are more like the Labradors of the equine world.
That sweet-natured and docile temperament is what appeals to Amy Haldane, whose family became their first breeders in Australia.
The horses were introduced to Iceland about 1000 years ago by the Vikings and the country now fiercely protects the breed’s heritage, as does Amy.
There are only about 400 Icelandic horses in Australia and 60 of them are at Haldane Icelandic Horses at Tyrendarra in south-west Victoria.
The Australian Icelandic horses’ adventure started more than 25 years ago when Amy’s dad Roger Haldane and his brother Clyde imported eight fillies and a colt from a stud in Denmark.
“They had buffalo in quarantine in Denmark and there was room on the plane,” Amy said.
“Clyde and my dad were always after weird and wonderful things and they thought Icelandics looked good and would be great for kids in Australia.”
Amy has been working with Icelandic horses since 2006 and now owns the herd after purchasing it from her father last year.
Amy admits she was “horse mad” when growing up, even though the family’s large South Australian farm had angora goats, mixed breeds of cattle and sheep.
In 1989, the family moved to New Zealand to quarantine 300 alpacas it had imported from Chile, later returning to Australia to grow the breed. Amy continued working with alpacas, helping to start the UK alpaca industry.
When Clyde passed away in 2005, Roger inherited 34 Icelandics, and Amy returned to Australia to work with her sister Thea to promote and establish the breed in this country.
Roger and his wife Suzanne, who passed away in 2023, also imported Italian water buffalo, setting up dairy and cheese production in Yambuk as Shaw River Buffalo Cheese. They sold the buffalo and stopped making cheese in 2022.
Now Amy and her partner Shane Hill are looking to expand on her breeding and sales operation by opening the farm for tourists.
While visitors won’t be able to ride the horses, Amy wants to share the “magic” of the breed, along with the picturesque farm full of gum trees and koalas, beef steers that follow like pets, alpacas, sheep and goats.
Icelandic horses have been isolated to the Scandinavian country since being introduced by the Vikings. They are between 12 and 15 hands and are a gaited breed, which means they have two extra gears — the tolt, which is a four-beat gait unique to the breed and an extremely smooth ride, and the pace, a two-beat gait where the horses’ legs move laterally with a moment of suspension.
“Tolt is great because you can ride at quite a fast pace without being thrown around in the saddle and you don’t get a sore bum,” Shane said.
“They are sought after as a riding horse because they are very comfortable.”
This trait harkens back to the early years of Icelandic settlement.
“Tolt was kept because in Iceland they were riding a long way,” Amy said.
“They didn’t have a ring road to get around the whole of Iceland until the 1960s. If you were going a long way, you wanted to be comfortable.”
But it’s their nature that really appeals to Amy and Shane, a late convert to the world of horses.
“Icelandic horses have the best nature,” Amy said.
“They are like the Labrador of the horse world. For us, they are the ultimate pleasure-riding horse. They are versatile — good for recreation riding in the bush or on the farm or with your friends and they can do dressage, jumping, or be a farming horse.”
Shane wasn’t a horse person until he met Amy and her Icelandics.
“I was very wary of them,” he said.
“When I met and Amy and got exposed to these horses, they were just remarkable. Their energy is very calm.”
Haldane is the oldest Icelandic stud in Australia but still has to follow the breed’s home country’s rules.
Iceland has never allowed other horses on the island and vigorously protects the breed’s genetics. To be sold as Icelandic horses, they have to be DNA tested and registered in Iceland with an Icelandic name.
“They are very protective to make sure they don’t dilute the breed,” Amy said.
“They want the appearance, the genetics and the language around it to be very traditional. We can’t register a horse as an Icelandic horse unless we meet all those requirements.
“The breed’s genetics go back to the Vikings and it’s one of the purest genetics in the world.”
An international online database allows the Haldane stud to register its horses and check their pedigrees and also assists in avoiding in-breeding.
Amy has access to frozen genetics from overseas stallions and has also imported stallions for diversity.
“We breed for temperament and different sizes and type and also for health,” Amy said.
“We want healthy, robust horses that have good temperament and are easy to train and we also want to keep the gaits.”
Horses purchased from Amy’s herd helped establish a stud in NSW which now has about 100 horses and there are a few smaller hobby breeders around the country, but it remains a niche breed.
Amy completed a six-week summer course at the Icelandic Horse University Holar in 2009, returning home with an imported stallion named Haukur fra Studlum.
Although Iceland conjures up images of, well, ice, Amy says south-west Victoria provides a good environment for the horses.
“The south of Iceland is known for its wind and so are we,” she said.
“The horses cope with the heat. They’re sensible and go looking for shade. We’ve never had any problems with the heat.
“They’re outside in the snow in Iceland all winter and fend for themselves and dig for frozen grass if needed. They’re super tough and very sensible.”
Just like in Iceland, Amy and Shane like their horses to grow up in a herd.
“It’s really good socially for them,” she said.
“We handle them, but we don’t over-handle them because that can be worse. We don’t train them under saddle until they’re four years old and I tend to sell them before they come into training age.”
The herd has been split between farms at Yambuk and Tyrendarra but is being merged into the 25.5ha property at Tyrendarra called Little Eden, a place that’s living up to its name.