Leisure Riding III
Leisure Riding and FEIF
Sharing your time with an Icelandic horse means to share your time with a friend and get closer to nature – explore new areas – meeting old and new friends – learning together with your horse – sharing good and bad times – growing together – enjoy life – participate in events – going on competitions – riding at shows – there are a lot of things to do together. Get inspired by us, the worldwide Iceland horse community.
To be interested in the Icelandic Horse means you will get friends wherever you go. Visit other countries got to Iceland Horse Events or just stay a while in the country where the horse comes from, Iceland. You will gain for life time just because of a very special, wild and friendly horse form the north.
News from the Leisure Riding department
Have you noticed our virtual rides?
The new virtual ride is all about collecting kilometers with your horse by riding the distance from the World Championships 2025 in Birmenstorf to Landsmót 2026 in Hólar. In the previous virtual ride the participants rode from their home countries to the World...
The winner of the FEIF Leisure photo competition has been chosen!
Congratulations to Jens Schaaf, with his picture showing Lilly, Abbi and Naela on the beach, which perfectly illustrates for us what “Leisure Time” with an Icelandic horse looks like. We wish you lots of fun with your World Championships tickets and would like to...
May 1st – International Day of the Icelandic Horse
This day should be duly celebrated in the Icelandic horse world. As last year, the Leisure Committee has set itself the task of flooding the internet with pictures of our fantastic Icelandic horses in order to achieve broad visibility for the Icelandic horse. The...
Me&My Horse
This is the centre of it all. The joyful hours of freedom with your horse. The happiness of developing together with your horse. The little breaks during the week, where you can focus on your horse and yourself. The Horse Profile comes into the picture here: to secure, that the rider from the very beginning gets the horse, that is most suitable for his/her skills.
Horse Profile Forms
Meet&Contribute
the joy of being part of something big as for example assisting as a voluntary helper at WC. It could also include being a spectator at WC having paid for the ticket! Any contribution belongs here.
Meet&Compete
Participation in any competition reaching from T8, to TREC, Tölt in Harmony, Hestadagar etc.
Meet&Learn
Any educational activity for horse and rider, ranging from horse-yoga, to cliniques and ordinary lessons. It may also be TREC or similar for beginners
Meet&Achieve
Sharing information, experience and solving difficulties, securing access, legislative achievements securing rider’s rights, safety etc
Meet&Tölt
this includes meeting for a joyful ride whether it is long distance Riding, Relay Rides, shorter tours etc.
What has happended in the Leisure Committee so far?
Over recent years more and more member countries of FEIF are beginning to look into Leisure riding. Surveys conducted within FEIF reveal that outside Iceland (more than 3000 respndents on a survey) the majority of riders are female and that almost all riders enjoy riding in nature either alone or in groups. The surveys also reveal that the character of the Icelandic horse is conceived as being of utmost importance: a controllable and cooperative spirit as well as being safe in interaction with children, mountain bikers, hikers and traffic in general are very important factors when choosing the right horse.
In 2017 the Leisure Committee has launched the Riding Horse Profile, which is a description of the character of any horse on any given day. The Horse Profile has been developed on the basis of material from a large group of member countries and together with educational institutions in Iceland. The Breeding Committee of FEIF has contributed to the work and the Education Committee and the FEIF trainers were involved.
In parallel herewith the members countries have increased focus on securing access to riding in nature. Rules and regulations are extremely different. The information collected on this homepage shall serve as inspiration between countries and people on how things may be done. Each country is encouraged to place information of relevant nature for leisure riders on the FEIF website under Leisure Riding.
Youth Award
See the countries who were “FEIF Youth Country of the Year”.
Get in touch
Contact the Youth Committee or find the youth leader of your country.
Regulations
Get the latest documents from the Youth Work department.