Sometimes it's good to change routines and today I went for a walk with List instead of taking a ride. In fact we have been quite busy riding inside and doing our homework after lessons with Veronika. So to get our heads free we were lazy today and took a relaxing beachwalk.
List is not used to the sea and the beach is a big mystery to her. Especially the coming and going waves are suspicious and could be an enormous horse-eating monster, so better take care and watch them closely ;-) At least she was ready to get her feet wet (my feet got wet too...)

Early in the morning we went to Saltvík to get Negla ready for Mývatn Open. As usual she had slept lying and was quite dirty and her tail tangled. After cleaning her and collecting all the stuff we´d need for her during the day, we put her and Greifi, Svanhildur´s horse, in the trailer, which went with Tommi and Svanhildur and went to Mývatn. In Laxamýri we picked Sigga up, who was gonna spend the day with us.
The weather promised to be quite fine, cold but sunshine.

After arriving and getting everything ready it was time for Ingólfur to warm up. He had to start in the second group. María Marta and Jóhannes, both members of our riding club, were in the first group. It went well for them and they went both to the finals. Ingólfur and Negla had a bit trouble when they had to show speedchanges. Fast tölt was fine, except for a small part where Negla hopped. They got 5,33 final score and place 8. I think it was a good experience for both of them and Negla is on her way up.
María Marta was the winner of Tölt B, the other members of Grani were in places 6-8. Not so bad over all.

The horses in Tölt A were good to really good but got higher marks than comparable horses in Tölt B. Looks like the judge wore his pink glasses...
My personal favourite was Nanna frá Halldórsstöðum, which landed in second place behind Saumur. Nanna showed easy, flowing tölt and was dancing on the ice. Wonderful to watch her, that´s the type of horses we should breed!

The stallions in Stóðhestakeppni were interesting to watch. Everyone special in his personal way. Blær and Mötull frá Torfunesi showed the stronger built and powerful looking type, some of the others the more sporty modern type. Blær seems to be a perfect, soft and willing ridinghorse. His rider Erlingur was not moving at all in the saddle.

Speedpace was the last test on Mývatn and the horses indeed were speedy! We saw a lot of good pace, well ridden on fast horses. There were of course some, that had difficulties and one or another that should prepare himself and his horse better at home.

Around 5.30 we started our journey home, tired, with around 600 pictures in my camera and looking forward to a hot shower. There was just one obstacle between us and our shower: frozen pipes in Saltvík which meant: no water for our horses. The shower had to wait, water for the horses is more important. We were lucky and not alone in Saltvík so everybody helped to defreeze the pipes (with electric heaters and all other tricks we could think about) and after 1 hour or so everything worked fine again and we could finally go home and take a shower!

I attach a pic of Ingólfur and Negla and one of Nanna ;-)

In the morning we went to Holmavað to help Bensi and Ella to muck out the stable of the 1year old sheep. The thick layer of shit was cut into pieces with a spade and then stapled on a pallet to dry outside. Later this will be teared into pieces and used to smoke salmon and lamb. In my opinion, this method is giving the tastiest results ;-)
Kátur, Bjarni´s and Elsa´s dachshound, which is our guest at the moment, went of course with us and had a busy day in the countryside. So much to see, smell and do! Mirra and Pollý were playing with him, he used the chance to bark at the sheep, eat something I don´t wanna know what it was (didn´t look good) and roll over in a lot of smelly things (fortunately he rolled over in some nicesmelling hay too).
Mysa, our sheep, seems to be a colourchanger! She was nearly white in spring when she went to the mountains, came back grey and is changeing now again to white. Interesting to watch all these changes. We hope she´ll get some healthy lambs in spring and maybe one will inherit her colourchangeing!

We used our 2 days winterbreak in school to drive List and Magnús to Kiddi in Helluland and ride with him. Both horses really enjoyed to change the environment a bit and were very willing and forward through the rides.
It was a pleasure to watch Ingólfur and Magnús both on tölt and trott. A true Gæðingur I´d call Magnús. He reminds me very much of his father Geisli!

Sigurjóna and Fanney were so kind to allow us to use their horses, so we could go for a ride on ice with Kiddi. That was partly spooky as it was quite warm the days before and the ice had melted on the surface, but frozen again during night. So there was just a thin layer of ice on top, then water and then thick ice underneath. The horses were breaking the think layer with every step, not really giving us a secure feeling. They actually didn´t mind ;-)
On the way home the brothers Móli (in ownership of Fanney) and Svörður (Sigurjóna´s horse) showed that they are not old at all and competed who´d be the fastest on tölt.

It was a nice stay and we will be back to go for another ride soon!