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why are there so many horses in Iceland? That works out to more than 1 horse per 3 people. How do they manage them in the nuclear winter and for feed?
The post in this blog (http://www.spoiltvictorianchild.co.uk/2004/07/mms-gone-to-iceland.html) claims that Icelandic horses have "proportionally the largest genitalia of any horse in the world". Is there anyone that can confirm/deny? I think this is worthy of including in the article if it's true. -Njk 12:30, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Tim O'reilly, of computer book publishing fame, has some horses in his personal bio. Are there any other prominent owners?
I hear that most people actually don't eat horse meat any more...this should probably be changed because it represents an outdated cultural stereotype. Discussion?
Icelanders don't eat horse meat regularly. It was banned when Icelanders became christian, in 1000! It is rare that horse meat is for sale in supermarkets, but it is every once in a while. But you couldn't say that Icelanders are a predator threat to the horse.
The Icelanders I met were quite adamant about calling them horses rather than ponies. Can the "pony" thing in the first sentence be cited, or should it be removed alltogether? The rest of the article never once refers to it as a "pony"; it even compares it to "other breeds of horse" so the article seems to contradict itself. Esn 00:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
No matter what the Icelanders *want* to call them, they are ponies. Their ancesters are ponies http://icehorses.net/ancestors.html They have pony characteristics http://icehorses.net/pony.html Therefore, I would change the part that says "Because they can be pony-sized..." to something like "Because they ARE pony-sized..."
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Montanabw said: "Maybe pony DNA, but I've had breeders bite my head off when calling them ponies! Going with what the breeders and registries call them."
Information on Wikipedia should be true, shouldn't it? Not just what people want to hear? We shouldn't go by marketing myths.
Check the European sites which accurately call them ponies.
http://www.amazon.de/Keine-Angst-Islandpony-Krista-Ruepp/dp/3314014023
http://www.research-projects.unizh.ch/p3439.htm
http://www.norway.com/directories/d_company.asp?id=6075
http://www.pferdeecke.de/wissen/rassen/island-pony.html
http://www.kindernetz.de/oli/tierlexikon/pics/druckversion.php?tid=38&reiter=steckbrief
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isl%C3%A4nder_(Pferd)
http://www.pferde.de/index.php?id=646
http://www.tiere-rassen.de/pferde/pony/island-pony/
http://www.pferde-wissen.net/island-pony.html
http://www.world-of-animals.de/tierlexikon/tierart_Islandpony.html
http://www.reitenonline.de/pferdewebverzeichnis/reitsportwebverzeichnis_registrieren.php
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Journals/Journal/450483 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iceryder (talk • contribs) 21:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
"There are roughly 80,000 Icelandic horses in Iceland[citation needed], and relatively few abroad, owing in large part to centuries-old Icelandic legislation that prevents any Icelandic horse from returning to the island once it has been taken to another land."
This statement is completely false, as there are now more horses located outside of Iceland than within the island. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.30.222.12 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 14 May 2007
The link for animations of the different Icelandic horse gates now leads to a 404 error. I don't know if it points to what is now the wrong page, or if it doesn't exist any longer, but if someone doesn't mind navagating around a page in Icelandic to find out, it might be worthwhile to do so and update the link appropriately.
http://eidfaxi.is/fraedsla/eindex.php?fraedsla=gangtegundir71.37.138.49 07:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the horse pictured in the gaits section is very dirty (looks like manure because of the location of the stains) and thought that this might be a turn off to other people. I have uploaded another photo that can serve as a cleaner replacement. Mrs. Clean 05:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Personaly owning and training icelandic horses I would use a better picture for showing the gate, and I would also have a picture og a horse in pace. It is not difficult to find much better quality competition pictures than that. Unregistered user 12:44, 24 July 2007
Well, since noone has responded with their own "competition" photo of the different gaits, I will post this one of an Icelandic tolting on a trail ride. Most of the owners I know do more trail riding than showing since there aren't that many shows to go to in the US. Mrs. Clean 04:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Montanabw said, in removing the Icelandic Horse Connection link (http://iceryder.net): "Sale sites, chat sites, link farms, etc. are NOT acceptable on wikipedia."
The site of eidfaxi should probably be removed since that is a sales site (filled with advertising), along with chat, and links to farms. And probably the registry sites, also. As well as the last link which is a personal sales site.
The Icelandic Horse Connection has a thousand pages with valid informational and educational material about Icelandic Horses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iceryder (talk • contribs) 21:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
First off, I think there is some confusion between Iceryder.com, which is a poor quality commercial site with little educational material specific to the Icelandic horse and has been tossed off of here a couple of times, and Iceryder.net, which is a better quality site with some educational materials. To the extent that I got on autopilot and tossed one site, thinking it the other, not realizing that there were two, I apologize. That said, the first screen of Iceryder.net looks almost as POV and commercial as Iceryder.com until you scroll down a bit. That is weak web design, but not fatal.
In general, internal pages from commercial sites with educational information that is accurate and of high quality work particularly well as SPECIFIC FOOTNOTES to verify the factual information in the article, and this one desperately needs footnotes. See WP:Cite for how to do this. Toss in a few other people's materials and cite to book sources too, though. But please also read WP:NPOV and WP:No original research. If you read the wikipedia guidelines found at the "help" link to the left, you will see that I am not being mean, I am merely trying to improve this article, which is, frankly, a ways from the Wikipedia:good articles standard.
Thus, Iceryder.com is pretty much completely unacceptable, whereas internal pages at iceryder.net such as http://iceryder.net/info/index.html and even more so, those like http://iceryder.net/saddle.html can be quite helpful. (I will put ONE link from .net back to the ref list, it seems quite relevant) On the other hand, an article mirroring another site, like this: http://iceryder.net/backstudy.html should NOT be linked, but if the info was used in the article, the citation should go to the original publication, and so should any URL unless the original publication only exists in hardcopy.
A link the the iceryder.net site map would also not be acceptable under the wikipedia "no link farm" policy. (Thousands of articles, indeed! And wikipedia wants you do to the work of sorting through them for the reader!) Likewise, articles, for example, on Parelli training methods are POV for this article, though perhaps they could be used to improve the Parelli Natural Horsemanship article (which, by the way, desperately needs improvement!). In your case, red flags went up when "Iceryder" linked to Iceryder.net or Iceryder.com. To link to the home page of your own web site smacks of commercial self-promotion, whether you were doing so or not, which may be sad, but true.
The difference is basically between sites promoting a breed in general, with an emphasis on education, versus sites promoting an individual farm. Sites containing commercial advertising from multiple advertisers are not ideal, but when they contain reputable educational materials, especially when there isn't much else out there, the less obnoxious forms are acceptable. For example, the Google ads down the side of iceryder.com are not what disqualified it, it was the content of the site itself. To take another example, a forum buried within a breed registry site (there are member forums and marketplace pages in most registry sites) does not disqualify the whole site, but a link directly to the chat forum is not acceptable, nor would a link to a chat forum web site that was mostly ads, bulletin boards, chat rooms and a reprint of a wikipedia article for "educational materials" be acceptable.
Breed registries, even with some advertising (the best do not have advertising links on their home pages, though, looks tacky) are often the most knowledgable sources (though admittedly POV) on many of the rarer and more obscure breeds. Or at least, they are supposed to be (yes, I know, there are always horse politics;...sigh)
Basically, I tossed about a gazillion commercial farm sites off this page a while back, kept the ones that were legitimate breed organizations or seemed to go primarily to educational materials. I reviewed them all again, tossed one dead link. Basically, all the breed registries are legitimate registries as far as I can tell, there may be others. By and large, their commercial links are not on the home page, it's a separate link. Eidfaxi appears to be a major professional publication about Icelandic horses, there may be others, but it looks similar to other breed magazines, with some ads on the home page, which is annoying, but typical, and they do not promote a single vendor.
The link "some Icelandic horse articles" is the most marginal and most commercial, but it goes to an internal page that has primarily a short list of educational articles specific to the unique aspects of the Icelandic breed, and the sales stuff is off a different link placed at the bottom of the page. If the articles are inaccurate or of poor quality, there would be an argument to tossing the link, but this is an example of how a commercial site can be used.
As for the horse/pony question, your own site calls them "horses," acknowledging that "Horse" is an accepted term of art within the English language. I do not dispute that Icelandics have some "pony" characteristics. I also do not dispute the northern European DNA origins. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that English speakers and all the recognized breed registries of English-speaking nations that have been provided to date seem united in calling them "horses," as, apparently, do the official international organizations such as http://feif.org/ who, I presume, are the experts. The Norwegians and the German-speakers seem to want to call them ponies, (though one wiki citing another doesn't "count" as they have the same standards we do here) but in the case of the Germans, they apparently just raised the height of the German riding pony to about 15 hh! I am not going to quibble over cultural differences of opinion and especially usage in other languages.
Also keep in mind that horses and ponies are all Equus caballus and, according to researchers such as Deb Bennett, the Forest Horse wild prototype appears to be a common ancestor of both modern horse and pony breeds in northern Europe, according to the Four foundations theory. Frankly, IMHO, the 14.2 hand "horse/pony" cutoff dichotomy is a rather false one, given that I have, for example, personally seen 13.2 Arabian "horses" and 15.3 Fjord "ponies." Chincoteague "ponies" are unquestionably horse in phenotype, and grow horse-sized under domestication, yet one could make an argument that the triangular head and heavy forelock of the old "Justin Morgan" style Morgan horse is pony-like. It's a silly argument all around.
Thus, in the English-speaking world, your view of the terminology appears to be a minority position, and while there could be a decent subsection in the article titled something like "Horses or Ponies?" that outlines the controversy, it appears that the weight of the evidence is in favor of the designation "horse." And a discussion of the DNA stuff is better placed under the "history" subheading anyway. The guidelines, particularly WP:WWIN are quite clear that we are not to be doing original research studies or promoting a biased viewpoint. So, if the most apparently reputable sources say it's a "horse," well, they are the experts, and even if I thought I was an expert too, I couldn't publish my own stuff here anyway.
So, my suggestion is that you take what appears to be a lot of extensive research and start footnoting the article. Take a look at the criteria for Wikipedia:Good articles (GA) status and see what you can do. I'd be glad to help. For an example of a horse breed article that obtained GA, see Arabian horse. If you want to see articles that may not have 95 footnotes but are still pretty decent, see Appaloosa or American Quarter Horse. Montanabw(talk) 02:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
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Montanabw said: "To link to the home page of your own web site smacks of commercial self-promotion". Just to be clear, in regard to the Icelandic Horse Connection website http://iceryder.net we do not selling anything (no horses, no saddles, no supplements, no charge for reading articles, no fees to join anything, etc). There is an Icelandics For Sale page, as a community benefit (no charge), for anyone to add their personal horse for sale.
We have an educational Icelandic Horse email discussion list with over 1200 members, with 2000 posts per month. We have the IceHorse Rescue, working with and trying to place rescue or rehab Icelandics. We have the Icelandic Horse Pajama Project (for children of poverty), as well as other community projects. We try to put a stop to the abusive practices in Icelandic shows. The email discussion list is the hub of the Icelandic Horse Community in North America.
"As for the horse/pony question...in the English-speaking world, your view of the terminology appears to be a minority position..." It doesn't seem to be a minority on the email discussion list of 1200 members (doubly more than the number of members of the registry), who easily refer to their Icelandic equines as ponies.
The "Horse" in Icelandic Horse or Fjord Horse is just a title. Prior to 1960 marketing, the Icelandics were referred to as Icelandic Ponies. http://iceryder.net/oldicelandic.html
"...the 14.2 hand "horse/pony" cutoff dichotomy is a rather false one, given that I have, for example, personally seen 13.2 Arabian "horses" and 15.3 Fjord "ponies." Absolutely; agree. My 14.3h Icelandic's height does not transform him into a horse; and my 14h Tennessee Walker will never exhibit pony characteristics. Height is not the determining factor.
Thanks for the exchange of ideas and the discussion!
Iceryder (talk) 09:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)IceRyder
Are you really sure that you want an image of size 300 × 269 pixels with really bad color profile as title image. Well, I just gave up an edit war on German WikiPedia and I see clearly the critics on my image even if it was regarded as featured image - but something else than the current image should be found definitely. Andreas Tille (talk) 06:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the odd sentence "This sort of behavior is simply not tolerated.". I mention this because it makes me suspicious of the whole of this edit: [1]. Someone should look into it.
Btw, I think that the section's name should be spelled with a U, since that spelling is most often used in Iceland. Bob A (talk) 11:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
So does it have five or six gaits? I believe that in many languages/cultures there is no distinction made between canter and gallop, which would give ordinary horses three gaits and the Icelandic five – presumably this is where the lower numbers come from: essentially a translation error. However, in English-speaking cultures the distinction is normally made between the three-beat and four-beat gaits, and on WP we have articles or sections for both. I think we do really need to be consistent with the rest of the English WP – and if Icelandic pony horse breeders say five, that's a reason to explain their alternative way of counting, rather than to copy it and be inconsistent with other articles. All this assumes that Icelandics can gallop as well as amble and pace... Richard New Forest (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
--Malleus Fatuorum 23:31, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Incidentally, there is an article in (I think) Icelandic that appears to be a study of the DNA of the Icelandic and who the breed is related to. May be interesting to look up the English references, but probably later, not in the middle of an FA run. see here Montanabw(talk) 07:20, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Malleus! Your copyediting and comments are much appreciated. I apologize for taking so long to reply to them...RL gets in the way at the most inconvenient times :) Dana boomer (talk) 19:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone tell us what the typical Icelandic horse's ability to bear the weight of a rider is in kilos or pounds? Thanks. Dr. Dan (talk) 01:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I've heard that the Icelandic horse lacks the kicking instinct of the domestic horse. Can someone verify this? Retromaniac (talk) 05:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
This section seems to be missing a basic fact: the average life expectancy of Icelandics. It mentions a couple of outliers that lived to a record old age, but nothing about the average for the breed. (I believe it's fairly long, a third of a century, but we should have some authoritative statement.) T-bonham (talk) 11:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
For the record, I question the amount of "risk" associated with duplication of information in a non-linear, digital context. The main issue with Wikipedia is that slight (unintended) differences in a given piece of information (which should be unchanged from place to place) could be misleading, and that updating each instance (should new information become available) would be a potentially gargantuan task. If those two are major concerns here, I suppose the risk is, then, significant. J.M. Archer (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to question the statements 'Icelandic horses are late-developers' (in the initial paragraph), and 'The breed matures late' and 'structural development is not complete until age 7' in the Breed Characteristics section. Icelandics are 'Equus ferus caballus', and as such they not only share lifespans similar to all breeds (as stated above), all breeds have similar maturity rates, according to research done by Deb Bennett, among others.
Icelandics aren't traditionally trained under saddle until the age of four or five, true - the reasons often given are physical and mental maturity - but stating they 'mature late' implies that other breeds mature early, and from what I've read of Deb Bennett there are only minor variations in maturation rate between breeds (actually more height, neck length, and gender based). Other breeds are ridden younger, but that doesn't mean that they mature younger - she states no breed is skeletally mature before 5 and a half years old.
If stating their lifespan would be considered duplication of information in the horse article, would it not be the same for rate of maturity? Ruralgal (talk) 18:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
This is a very nice article, but I'm still left unsatisfied regarding whether all those gaits are useful in a natural environment. When out on their own, will these horses use all of those gaits in response to different circumstances? Does a horse with five gaits have better control over its footfalls to avoid sharp rocks or avoid slipping on ice? Wnt (talk) 18:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure how much I agree with the inclusion of the sentence "Natural selection has also played a role, as the harsh Icelandic climate eliminated many horses through cold and starvation." Doesn't this essentially just mean "Sometimes, horses die."? I don't mean to be facetious, but it seems an odd choice of content for the article's lead section --PenguinCopter (talk) 11:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
And to maybe replace the current, tiny herd picture:
-- Pitke (talk) 21:04, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
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Second paragraph is self-contradictory:
"About 900 years ago, attempts were made to introduce eastern blood into the Icelandic, resulting in a degeneration of the stock.[2] In 982 AD the Icelandic Althing (parliament) passed laws prohibiting the importation of horses into Iceland, thus ending crossbreeding. The breed has now been bred pure in Iceland for more than 1,000 years"
What does it mean? It says that it has remained pure for over 1000 years, but it also says that "900 years ago attempts were made to introduce eastern blood" and that in 982 importing of other horses was prohibited. It's written in a way that the event which took place 900 years ago happened before "more than thousand years ago"???????. Could this be clarified? 2.104.41.248 (talk) 19:41, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
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I understand that Iceland doesn't allow their horses/ponies to come back to their native home of Iceland once they leave? This doesn't seem right. However, I saw one of your horses/ponies doing the "toit" and I would like to know if you "score" your horses/ponies to enable them to prance around with high steps? If so, I have no use for people who do this to animals. These wonderful animals already do enough for their humans. So please do tell me if you do this to your wonderful animals. 2603:6081:3B06:700:C42B:88AB:F01A:499B (talk) 15:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)