It's a nice spring day, and Skutla is standing in the paddock soaking up
the sun. She stands a little apart from the other horses, because she
never likes to have any unpleasantness. We call her Saint Skutla,
because she does everything perfectly. She is 30 years old.
She was bred at Thverhold. She is pure Hindisvik breeding, which is a
very old and closely-bred strain carefully selected by several
generations of horsemen at Hindisvik. Hindisvik horses were considered
to be very beautiful, but hot. She came over from Iceland in 1977 in a
group of horses to be used for a handicapped riding program. She was
very, very good at her job.
Cindy Dunne wrote to me about Skutla:
"I knew Skutla when she first came from Iceland in 1977. She was
imported for a Handicapped riding program where I was working. I had
two favorite horses from the herd and she was one. She and I spent a
lot of time together. I had a severely handicapped sister (cerebral
palsey) who would ride Skutla. My sister was a quadraplegic and
extremely spastic so we would ride Skutla double on a bareback pad.
She loved it so much and had such a good time. One day I even rode
Skutla to my house and into my living room to visit Laurie. Skutla
was perfectly behaved (even my mother didn't mind) and my sister got
a
big kick out of it. Laurie has since passed on and I cherish those
memories of her very much."
The handicapped riding progam was ended, and the "Long Island herd", as
they came to be known, was sold and entered some very bad times. They
were neglected and some of them starved.
Anne Elwell writes:
"When the [Icelandic Horse] Federation was formed in early 1986 we
wanted very much to do something about this group of horses and were
working on several plans when one of the members, Dr. Jane Borish,
impulsive and gutsy, just went romping down to Long Island and
presented herself to the guy [who owned the herd] as a sweet but
gullible horse-lover from Pennsylvania who heard he had some of these
rare Icelandics and bought twelve of them for $5000. There were
three
that remained with him and I do not know what became of them. The
twelve that Jane bought were sold for $400 each to various people."
Stefan Sigurdsson, from Vesturbaer in Connecticut bought Skutla and one
of the others and took them home. Skutla raised 3 good foals for him,
and
helped raise his kids also. When we saw her at Stefan's, she was not
for
sale. In fact selling her had never been considered at all. But as
Stefan was showing us one of her colts, who was for sale, he told us how
good Skutla was - excellent gaits, wonderful temperment. Since the colt
was too young to be ridden, Stefan rode Skutla for us, even though she
had an unweaned foal and hadn't been ridden for many months. As they
tolted toward us, a tall elegant man on a pretty moving,
not-so-beautiful
little old mare, I said to Larry "That's the horse I want". I managed
to
talk Stefan into parting with her by reminding him that he had both a
filly and a stallion by her. When we came back to get her some months
later, after her foal was weaned, one of Stefan's kids said, "She likes
waffles, do you think you could give her some sometimes?". Hard-hearted
as I am, I just said "Sure" and took her away anyway. Those kids had
lots of horses and Skutla was destined to be mine!
She has been a wonderful horse for us. Stefan made me promise that I
would never sell her, but it doesn't take a promise to keep this
grand old lady. Lots of 4-H kids learned to clean feet on patient
Skutla. The only thing she objects to is having two feet picked up
simultaneously by two different kids. We taught her to pull a cart, and
she was so calm that our instructor could hardly believe she had never
been driven. She takes little children for their first pony ride.
She's retired now because of heaves. She gets the best of everything.
If there is only one pancake, she gets it. She gets to go out and mow
the lawn and drink from the pond and sleep under the apple tree. She
has
her own stall with her name on the door and her own yard for when the
other horses get too pushy. We have her son, also a paint, and the two
of them enjoy hanging out together. It's our privilege to give Skutla's
story a happy ending.
Stephanie Sher
Blasted Rock Farm
This article appeared in the new issue of Tolt News, Summer 1999.
Skutla's son, Flygill
Additional Photos of Skutla
Main Page
Email
rescue@icehorse.8m.com
or
iceryder@cableone.net
