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
Checklist “buying an icelandic horse”
Many years ago the FEIF Leisure Riding Committee developed the Horse - Rider - Profile to ensure a better matching of horse and rider. Now the Committee has set itself the task of transforming this profile into a practical and easy-to-use checklist to better meet the...
FEIF Leisure Riding country of the Year 2024
In 2024 – for the first time – FEIF honoured the “Leisure Country of the Year”! All FEIF member countries were invited to showcase their leisure work achievements and innovations. By submitting a short report, the participating leisure departments of the different...
Annual Leisure Riding meeting 2025
The participants of the FEIF Leisure Riding meeting 2025 worked on leisure initiatives for the year 2025. The day of the icelandic horse in particular worked very well last year, so the concept is taken up and developed. There will be a photo competition from all...
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.