Survivor Wins First Prize at British Championships

HOFSI FROM PENTLAND HILLS

Hofsi is a grey Icelandic gelding born in 2003 at Pentland Hills Icelandics, Carlops. In 2005 he developed chronic equine grass sickness and the terrible story of how he fought this disease and lingered between life and death for weeks, is written up in the PHI website (www.phicelandics.co.uk).

Hofsi has continued to mature and behave normally over the years and has become a lovely horse to ride and handle. So much so that we recently decided to put him in to the British Championships for Icelandic horses held on 24th/25th June at West Tarf, West Linton. This is an international qualifier for the World Championships to be held in Austria this year.

As he has never been on an oval track and competed before, we entered him in the novice four gait class. It so happened that his dam Alfta from Pentland Hills was also competing against him which added a bit of extra excitement to the day!

Hofsi came first in his class in the qualifiers (beating his dam hands down although she did win a different class) and second the next day in the Finals. This is a great achievement for a horse that we nearly, but didn’t quite give up on and who had fought so desperately to stay alive for weeks, cuddled up night after night in the deep straw to his very best friend the big farm cat

From keen competition to family fun – my granddaughter Lauren who is 8 years old has started riding him in the hills about the farm. He is so gentle and considerate when she is on board and lowers his head for her to put on his bridle. Hofsi will always be a very special horse for us.

Jill Noble