Norwegian Forestry horses

Childrens' Horse Camp

Riding

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Norwegian horses

Today there are 3 different Norwegian horse breeds:  The fjord horse, the North Norwegian mountain horse, and the Forestry horse. In addition to these three, the national horse breed of Iceland, the Iceland horse, descends from Norwegian viking horse.

The topographical profile of Norwegian landscape shows immense varieties between the different regions of the country:

The most famous Norwegian landscape, as known by tourists, is the long west coast to the Atlantic ocean, where Fjords and Mountains are the keywords. In this steep landscape, the Fjord horse was developed. It is one the worlds oldest horse breeds, and it is probably quite closely linked to the ancient North Asian wild horse.

It has medium long legs, medium long back, the neck is rather short. Typical for a Fjord horse is very solid muscle settings, both in the front and the rear part. Yet the skeleton is rather light. The most important ability for a Fjord horse is to pull and carry as much as possible in steep and difficult landscape. Therefore medium is the keyword, - they are medium tall (growing too tall they will loose the balance), and medium heavy (growing too heavy they would not be able to move much up and down).

In the north of Norway the main component of landscape is mountain. People live on only small stripes of flat land along the shores of the ocean. This is the region of the North Norwegian mountain horse, which has got the same general features of body shape as the Fjord horse, but it is remarkably smaller. This breed descends probably  originally also from the viking horse, like the Iceland horse, but it does not look like the Iceland horse today, the reason being  contact with Finnish culture from about 1600, and the Finnish national horse, the Finnish cold blood trotting horse, being crossed into the North Norwegian mountain horse.

In the south-eastern regions of Norway, we find in the middle a big high mountain plain, the Hardangervidda. From the edges of this plain, starts the broad and long valleys of Norway, and in the easternmost region, along the Swedish border, we find the districts of the biggest woodlands, which is in fact the westernmost part of the Siberian taiga.

In this region the Norwegian Forestry horse has been developed. Through generations this kind of horses have been used for farm work, carrying loads up and down between the mountains and valleys, as riding horses, for driving with sledges in the wintertime and first and foremost they are famous for their skills when used in forestry. 

Though they are very strong with heavy muscles, they are surprisingly light-footed and fast trotters. With long and strong legs, a long body with big muscle settings in the front part, yet the skeleton not being too heavy, they are perfectly fit for working in deep snow.

Norwegian forestry-horses are famous for their mental skills as well. They are intelligent, gentle, very patient  and get deeply devoted to their owners. In Norway we use the expression “cold  heads”, meaning that these horses are not easily scared.

 Booking / info:

Midtskogen Gård, Post: 2411 Elverum, Norge

Telefon: ( +47 ) 624 17594 E - mail: eva-av@online.no