Name: Hekla
Icelandic horse names tell you which country a horse is from and the farm where they were born. Hekla was born on a farm in south Iceland and raised with the herd, spending summers loose in the highlands until she started her training at four. Like many Icelandic horses, she loves snow and cold weather! Hekla especially likes winter because it brings relief from her summer eczema. Summer eczema, or sweet itch, is an allergic reaction to plants and insects that don’t exist in Iceland; it is not currently possible to know which horses will develop these allergies when they go abroad, and once a horse has left Iceland they can never return. We spend most of the year working to manage Hekla’s symptoms, and also helping her immune system learn to deal appropriately instead of making her miserably itchy. Happily, we are seeing improvement year after year, and we have a regimen of care and medications to minimize her allergic reactions.
Hekla did have some training before she came to us, but since she was only six and had started her training at four, we have gotten to watch her learn and grow so much! She was always a fun little pony with a lot of spirit (she was named after a volcano, after all), but now she shows a maturity, strength, and pride in therapy that we could only hope for.
