A visit to a Norwegian Fjord Horse ranch in Sweden
by Ann Sigford
-----Original Message-----
From: ASigford@aol.com [mailto:ASigford@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 8:38 AM
To: fjordhorse@mailing-list.net
Subject: Been gone - fjords in Sweden, and Norwegian book
This message is from: ASigford@aol.com
Hello!
I've been gone for a month or so in Sweden and Norway and have a couple of
comments to share. I visited a fjord breeding "ranch" in southern Sweden,
called Taghusa Fjordstuteri, run by Bodil and Henning Olsson. They have 3
stallions, one light and two medium build. They used to have four stallions
-their senior stallion, Gullmar, lived to be over 30, and stood at stud until
the end! One of their studs, Dacke, has unusually prominent withers.
I was surprised to learn that there are only about 50 registered fjord
stallions in Sweden. They gave me a little stallion catalog that sounds a
bit like the "book" some people on the list were talking about. It is black
and white, inexpensively copied in 8 1/2 x 11, folded and stapled in the
middle. They highlighted the year's outstanding performance horse and also
the year's outstanding breeding horse, with about a page each. They also
highlighted one big show with 3 pages and several photos. Also other show
results. Then there was a three page educational article on horse behavior.
Then, get this ... 4 pages of debate on aspects of their evaluation process!
Just like us. Also info on evaluations of mares. There was other
miscellany, then the catalog section.
Their stallions were rated ELIT (based on offspring as well as the stallion),
A, AB, B and C stallions. Each stallion had a photo (about 3" x 5"),
pedigree back three generations, stallion line, owners and location,
offspring and their sex, measurements, rating, numerical score, and comments
from the ratings. Comments seemed quite objective. For example, of Siljar,
one of Taghusa's stallions, rated AB, the comments read (in Swedish of
course), "remarkable representative of the breed, elegant, ordinary back,
ordinary bones, toes out in front, athletic build, remarkable trot." In
other words, the bad with the good. For the senior stallions, with more than
15 offspring, there were complicated tables listing, for a given stallion,
numbers of offspring, their sex, what % evaluated to what level, etc.
For you vehicle fans, Henning has about 20 vehicles; about a dozen of which
are drivable! What amazing sleighs, wagons, carts, carriages, gigs ....
They also have Nord Svensk horses. If you're not familiar with that breed,
they are fairly tall somewhat drafty horses. They are dark, with feathers,
beautiful full wavy manes and tails, and animated leg action. Nowadays
instead of farm work, they mostly pull carriages. The people there say they
are "one-man horses" unlike the fjords, who are "every-man horses." Does
anyone know of any Nord Svenskers in the US?
I enjoyed my visit there very much, and traded them one of our fjord horse
caps for one of theirs. By the way, they did complain about their fjordhorse
organization, in that it didn't promote the breed as much as it should, had
people with strong opinions etc etc, (just like us). : - )
Finally, I came home via Norway and picked up the beautiful Norwegian book
called Fjordhesten - Menneskevennen (roughly, The Fjord horse - people's
friend). I'm not sure - perhaps someone reported on this earlier. Its a big
beautiful book with lots of pictures including some from the US. For
example, there is "Gale Wave" on Woodland's Dustin! The caption says they
compete against "tradisjonelle cowboyhestar" (I bet you can guess). Also a
photo of Harold Jacobsen with Dragtind. So for whoever wanted to know about
fjord books, that's another one.
Enough for now.
Ann Sigford, happy to be back in Minnesota
asigford@aol.com
----------------------------------------------------
A follow-up posting
----------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: karin wennas [mailto:karin.wennas@unt.se]
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 1999 4:26 PM
To: fjordhorse@mailing-list.net
Subject: Swedish Fjordstuteri
This message is from: karin wennas <karin.wennas@unt.se>
Hello there Ann Sigford and the rest of you List People,
this is Sweden calling.
I loved reading about Ann's trip to Sweden. Maybe you all would be
interested in looking at Tåghusa Fjordstuteri's homesite on the web, the
address is:
http://www.torget.se/users/a/atoded/index.htm
And if you would like to visit the Swedish Fjord association, the address is:
http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-71776/
There might be a slight problem with the language for some of you, but you
could at least look at the pictures.
Bye from Karin Wennås in Sweden
with Fjordies Blunder and Bux
karin
