A true story about a girl and a horse

On a cold September evening when I was browsing through Facebook I came across an advertisment where a beautiful grey horse was for sale (see video).  Since grey is my favorite colour and team Steinunn ​needed more good horses for the hotel riding tours I decided to take a closer look. 

​Unfortunately the horse was based in East Iceland and 700 km from my home consequently I did not have any opportunity to try the horse but I made some calls and found out this would probably be a perfect horse and he was at a good price too.  So I took the chance and bought the horse. 

​He came to my stable a few days later with a trailer and we rode him for few days before he was introduced to some other of my horses at the president´s backyards. He stayed there for a few weeks , just getting to know the other horses until I took him into the stable to start riding him on a regular basis. 

At the same time I decided to help a 13 year old girl in my community whose parents do not know anything about horses but this girl had been on many riding courses and had gotten the „horse-fever“.  We immediately thought that our horse Íslands-Blesi would be the perfect match as my daughter Lóa got him when she was 12 years old and he is her former competition horse. So we went to pick up Blesi for her and started training them together.  After 6 weeks of me being nervous (it is a big responsiblility to be a „foster/horse mom“ for a child)  we came to the conclusion that she and Blesi were not a good match, there was no true connection between those two and we finally gave up.  But we were already fond of the girl so we were trying to find another horse for her. 

And there he was, the grey one I had recently bought for our tours.  Should we give it a try?  On their first riding together some magic happened.  One could simply tell it was the PERFECT horse for her.  It was love at a first sight for both of them.  And since then she has been riding him every day, in all kinds of weather, I am not nervous anymore and have found out that this grey horse is a gem.  He has such a lovely temperament, forms beautifully under the saddle and only wants to tölt.  A perfect horse for our tours.  BUT then I got a call from her parents – would the grey one perhaps be for sale?  Valdís (the girl´s name) will celebrate her confirmation soon and Refur (the grey horse´s name) would be the best gift ever.  I did not have to think for long, you simply do not see such a big love between a horse and a human every day. 

Yesterday Valdís got her best present delivered to her home.  It was a very touching moment, everyone present had tears in their eyes. It came as a surprise to Valdís so she had the most tears.  

​I am SO HAPPY for both of them.  As for the hotel riding tours I am sorry to say there will be no grey Refur joining us but there might a a new palomino mare…….

Text:   Steinunn 
Photos:  Soffía Dögg Garðarsdóttir (Valdís mother)  www.skreytumhus.is  (photos of Blesi / painting by Helma, a confirmation gift to my daughter)