Hrafnagil

Just over half a century ago the foremother of the Hrafnagil breed arrived on the farm when in the spring of 1954 Hjalti Jósepsson and his wife Pálína Benediktsdóttir bought the Hrafnagil farm. They owned a large number of horses where they formerly lived but had sold them all, except for one mare, before moving to Hrafnagil. This mare was given the name of Mósa as her colour was blue dun. Mósa was born in 1948 of the Böðvarshólar breed in the county of Vestur-Húnavatnssýsla (mid-west part of Iceland). This mare was gentle and sure-footed when it came to the gait according to Hjalti and later on Mósa was to be the very cornerstone of their horse breeding. Today it is fair to say that nearly all horses from Hrafnagil are bred from Mósa and the blue dun has always been dominating in the breed. Mósa was broken in and trained in her ninth winter and thought to be difficult at first but turned out be an excellent riding horse. Her offsprings turned out well and some outstanding such as Freyja 3108 and Jarpur from Hrafnagil. Also, it is only fair to mention Stóra-Mósa and Gam

la-Bleik's contribution as these two mares were quite prominent in breeding around the country. Freyja 3108 was born in 1956, again blue dun as many of the horses from Hrafnagil and sired by Svipur from Akureyri. She received first prize in the Melgerðismelar tournament in 1962 and the following comment from the judges: a light and good-willed horse with soft movements.

Two of the most known representatives of Hrafnagil breed are closely related to her, Hrímnir and Haukur since Hrímnir's father, Mósi was Freyja and Hvíti-Hrafn's descendant. Mósa, Haukur's mother, was also a descendant of Mósi and Stóra-Mósa.

A year later, in 1949, Jarpur was born and despite the fact that he only had two descendants he left a permanent mark in Hjalti and Pálína's breeding. He sired Steinka 3848, the mother of Hrímnir from Hrafnagil the thoroughbred of Björn from Varmilækur. With Steinka a new chapter in the selective breeding in Hrafnagil was written. Steinka was born in 1960 on the Hrafnagil farm, a dapple-grey descendant of Jarpur as stated before and of Grána from Vallarnesi in Skagafjörður. Grána was at the time pasture bred in Hrafnagil. Steinka was introduced in 1968 and came very close to winning first prize. Steinka was a great favorite with Pálína and Hjalti, a great personality and a true homebody. She had several descendants, many of them outstanding even though she was not bred to any known stallions at the time as she had difficulties producing offsprings outside her home pasture.

Hjalti and Pálína were very successful in their breeding and many excellent horses came into their possession during their lifetime. They were notably perceptive when it came to picking which of their home stallions to use again to continue and uphold their unique breed. Nevertheless, one cannot but wonder about the outcome if Hrímnir had not been castrated J