WF in Sweden
Although there had been some imports of Icelandic horses to Sweden since the early 1900´s it was not until the late 1960s there were some large-scale imports of Icelandic horses to Sweden.
In 1972 a first attempt was made to start a national association for Icelandic horses in Sweden. It did not go well, and factions were created in the association. One group thought that the Icelandic’s should be made into a good children’s pony with the aim of breeding out the extra gaits. Another group wanted the opposite and wanted to protect the uniqueness of the Icelandic horse as the only tölting horse in Europe.
The association dissolved and a new attempt was not made until 1975. This time it was successful and SIF was founded! A small, brave group of enthusiasts created the first statutes and breeding regulations.
After a few years, purebred Icelandic horses began to be registered in Sweden. In the beginning the registrations were complicated as many of the horses that came with the big imports in the 60’s had no papers with them. But SIF was strict with the pedigree requirements from the start, which means that doubts about the horses’ pedigree in the first registered horses are negligible.
The first mating report for an Icelandic horse in Sweden. This report is from 1970 for the stallion Snæfaxi frá Páfastöðum, who was the father of Hrafn 802 frá Holtsmúla
At SIF’s annual meeting in 1990, it was decided that the association would set up a registration office, which opened in February 1990 with a full-time secretary working on the association’s administrative tasks.
Initially, SIF’s office was located in a town named Floda in the western region of the country. In 1995 the registration office was moved to Degeberga in Skåne in connection with a major reorganization of the horse register, in order to coordinate it with the Icelandic system Fengur. SIF’s office continued to grow and in 1998 the office moved to new premises in Tollered outside Gothenburg. In the early 2000s both SIF’s office and the registration office were moved to Strömsholm into the same building as the Swedish Equestrian Federation.
For a long time SIF was included in the Swedish national horse breeding association, who was officially in Sweden the breeding organization for Icelandic horses. When SIF started to use WorldFengur to register the studbook for Icelandic horses in 2004, conditions were created for SIF to become an independent breeding organization, which came into reality in 2005.
Since then, WorldFengur has been the system used to register all Swedish-born Icelandic horses and to issue horse passports.
(above) From a breeding show in Sweden 1988. Hreggviður Eyvindsson is holding the horse and Dr. Þorvaldur Árnason is judging.
(right) Göran Häggberg, one of the pioneers in the Icelandic horse world in Sweden and one of the founders of SIF. Here he is riding the stallion Svalur frá Glæsibæ, who also had a great impact on Swedish horse breeding.
Click here for more information about Icelandic horse breeding
Text and photos: Heimir Gunnarsson
