The story of my first foal

When I was 12 years old I bought a beautiful 5 year old palomino mare with a blaze named Klassík frá Steinnesi. She has always been tough and a very good trail horse. She’s comfortable to ride and has a nice tölt and fast pace. 

​On my 20st birthday my good friend Ari gave me a gift to take Klassík to the 1 prize stallion Sólfaxi frá Sámsstöðum. He is a beautiful grey horse with very good temperament and nice tölt. He competed a lot in T2 (loose rein tölt) and was sold to Denmark in 2021. Klassík was at his field for a couple of months and when we took her back to us she had a little foal in her belly.

11 months later my mother called me at 4 am and told me: Lóa come quickly, there is a new born foal outside. So rushed to my car and drove to the field. It was pouring rain and as we were not expecting the foal to come for at least another month we had to move Klassík and the newborn foal to another field.

When I saw the foal I thought is was a bay mare but upon further inspection it turned out that it was a grey horse. I thought long and hard for a name for him. I already had a name ready if it was a mare. After some asking around and thinking I decided on the name Víkingur or viking in English.

The name that i already had in mind was Valkyrkja or Valkyrie. A valkyrie ("chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who guide souls of the dead to the god Odin's hall Valhalla. But i decided on the name Víkingur since it also starts with a v and kind of has a similar meaning. 

Before the foal was born i was hoping it would be palamino since it is my favourite color, but then he was born bay with a star. After a few weeks in the sun you could see the bay color fading a little bit and some grey hairs coming. Now after almost 3 years he is slowly turning grey. His head is almost completely grey and there is a few grey spots on his body. ​

Víkingur has a good temperament just like his parents and I think he will be a great riding horse. I can´t wait start training him next winter and I hopefully he will be able to compete in Tölt T2 as his father.

Text and photos by: Margrét Lóa