Icelandic horses: disaster on ice

I saw a gif of this a few years ago and quailed. Yes, I quailed. Not to be confused with kvelled. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. There is a complete version in the video below, but I am not sure you want to see it. I watched it - the parts of it I could watch - through my splayed fingers.

It soon becomes apparent that the water is not terribly deep, only coming up to the horse's backs, but that poses problems of its own. Trying desperately to gain a footing, the horses flail violently. Broken legs and hypothermia were a dread here, because these horses are small - ponies, really, though accustomed to harsh conditions and thick-coated. This is ice water, however, and they are soaking in it for God knows how long.

I want to tell you, and I WILL tell you, that all of them were rescued, though no one was remotely prepared for this sort of thing. There was much criticism of having this many horses run on the ice at the same time. It's some sort of traditional race held every year, but with global warming - well, never mind. I promised never to write about that again.

The shock and horror of this tiny clip still resonates. It seems like a disaster without a solution, but these horses are plucky and tough. They must have good grips in their hooves, too, or the ice would have proven too much for them.

The Iceman Cometh: equine salvation

OK, so. . . I did find more info on that disastrous "horse crash" I posted yesterday, in which a dozen horses (later identified as Icelandic and only the size of ponies: their riders' feet nearly touch the ground) fell through the ice in a sickening row like so many toppled dominoes. It's shocking to watch, and at first it seems completely hopeless: how to drag a dozen terrified horses out of icy-cold water before they succumb to hypothermia? The rubbery ice immediately begins to sink, which makes matters worse.

But notice: the horses have their feet on the ground, thank God, so they at least don't have to tread water.

To back up a bit: these horses were displaying a gait called tolt: a sort of running walk which is supposed to be unique in the world, but to my eye looks similar to the gaited saddle horses from the States such as the Tennessee Walking Horse. Even at these flying speeds, they always have a hoof (or two? Can't see) on the ground. The riders sit completely level, but this isn't unique either: take a look at a good Western rider (even in an old John Wayne movie: his horsemanship was top-notch) and you'll see the same thing.  

I found more instances on YouTube of many horses parading in a row (and most of these videos had Icelandic text so I couldn't decipher them), so this must be their traditional method of displaying them. They're not racing, as some sources have said. They have special shoes with something like cleats on them to gain traction on the ice, but it seems to me these people were too trusting about the relative thickness of that ice and the possibility of cracks. Placing tons and tons of weight on ice in a straight line is asking for disaster.

I found a video too poor-quality to post from a show (a guilty pleasure of mine) called Untamed and Uncut which draws much scorn from my husband (and he watches some pretty hokey stuff of his own, and I never say anything). It features close encounters with every kind of animal, disasters and near-disasters with wildlife and tame-life alike. The announcer goes on and on about certain catastrophe and gruesome death in a histrionic way, though everything is always resolved by the end.

This video gave me more information: when the crash first occurred, there was much thrashing around and panic. Actually, the horses were calmer than the people. Each rider tried to pull his/her horse out of the water. It was chaos. Then a man they called The Iceman (don't have his name, and don't have all those little symbols to spell it anyway) arrived on the scene and quickly organized the disaster.

All the riders formed a co-ordinated team to pull out one horse at a time, determined by a sort of triage (which horse was shorter, which horse was in the most distress?). Then the Iceman had a brilliant idea that no one else ever would have thought of.

Obviously the horses were unable to gain a foothold on soft, sinking ice. There was much mad scrambling and wasting of energy. Then he decided to make himself the foothold. He got down on one knee under the water, lifted the horse's forehoof and placed it on his knee. Instinctively the horse thought, foothold, and pushed up and out and freed itself.

Impossible, you say?  Remember, these horses were almost completely submerged in water, so they would be much more buoyant than usual. They weighed considerably less than a full-sized horse, perhaps by 200 pounds. They had special shoes on, and while they probably shredded the guy's knee, it would help them overcome the inevitable slipperiness.

This was an example of fast and innovative thinking which saved equine lives. It's horrible to think of having to destroy a horse slowly succumbing to hypothermia because there's just no way to get him out.

I've seen many videos of  the "tolt" gait in slightly different forms, and the horse just flies, but it's not unique, and whatever the custom in Iceland, it should never be performed on ice. Never mind that "nothing like this has ever happened before" (and that's another one of those idiotic "truisms" I am going to attack in a future post: the "fact" that if it never happened before, it will never happen in the future.)

As I have said so often before, anything can happen to anyone at any time. And it can even happen to shaggy little horses on the ice.

(Spot the non-Icelandic horse! Hint: he once got stuck  in the mud, and could run very fast to the barn.)

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