FEIF unites people in their passion for the Icelandic horse

FEIF is the International Federation of Icelandic Horse Associations, representing Icelandic Horse associations in 22 countries.

Here you will find practical information about the international work within FEIF: meeting invitations and minutes, WorldRanking, World Championships, Youth Cup, Youth Camp, names and addresses of FEIF officials, rules and regulations for free downloading and links to the web sites of the FEIF member countries.

We hope you will enjoy visiting our site and please contact us if you have questions to ask or information to give!

One of the missions of FEIF is to focus on horse welfare – and one of our goals is to put the welfare of the horse first in everything we do. This is clearly described in the General Rules and Regulations with reference to the FEI Code of Conduct. FEIF would like to stress the importance of this part of our mission.
There is a growing focus on injuries on horses in sport – specifically oral wounds and other wounds.

The responsibility for the welfare of the horse lies, without any doubt, with the rider of the horse. Many riders are not aware that their horse is injured (for example oral wounds), and it is in general up to the rider to be educated and get the relevant experience and knowledge to be able to avoid injuries – and if an injury happens – to treat it and not mistreat the horse because of personal or other ambitions of the rider. It is for all riders a lifelong activity to be educated and learn about all relevant aspects of horse riding and handling in order to manage the horse in the best possible way.

The responsibility of the trainers and instructors is to help and educate the rider so that horses are not injured and that the correct equipment is used properly and that wrong equipment is not used.

The responsibility of the organisers of sport, breeding and gæđingakeppni events is to secure, that all relevant precautions are taken to avoid injuries of the horse, and that the necessary consequences are implemented if an injury on a horse is discovered.

The responsibility of the judges is to look upon it that riders take horse welfare serious and to implement the relevant consequences (e.g. warning, disqualification with or without publishing on the FEIF website). Sometimes it can be a though job for judges to decide whether a warning should be given or not and what the consequences should be – but this is a part of the duty of a judge and we all expect that the judges take their responsibility very seriously – and, therefore, we are also obliged to support the judges in their job.

Finally our individual responsibility is is to adhere to the current rules but also to use our “common sense”, and to show proper horsemanship.