Gotland

Its history runs with the Goths, who were on Gotland around 1800 BCE and used the ponies for draft, driving and transport. When the Goths moved into Europe around 200 BCE, Gotland horses pulled their chariots. That migration carried through Germany, across the Danube and into Italy, ending with the sack of Rome in 410 CE. The ponies appear in sculpture and in runic inscriptions, and their genetic traces are visible in several European breeds.

The modern record picks up with feral horses documented on the island in the 1200s. A breeding center using Oriental stallions was set up in 1880, but by 1922 the breed was down to fourteen animals: one stallion, seven mares and six youngsters. The first studbook volume was published in 1943, Welsh stallion blood was brought in during the 1950s, the Swedish Russ Breeding Association formed at Visby in 1967, and the book closed to outside blood in 1971.

11.2 to 13 hands and 550 to 650 pounds. Dun and bay predominate. On what else is allowed, the sources differ: the Conservancy bars albinos, roans and piebalds, while the Swedish studbook rule as Wikipedia gives it bars blue-eyed creams, piebalds and grays.

The build is primitive: pronounced withers, a long back, a sloping croup, a deep chest and sloping shoulders. They are athletic for their size, and make good trotters and jumpers.

Docile and calm, rates the Conservancy, with a novice experience level, and very hardy and intelligent in its notes.

Hardy is the operative word. This is a breed natural selection shaped on a Baltic island; the toughness is original equipment, not a breeder's claim.

In Sweden the two jobs are children's riding and harness racing, which the breed is quick enough to make a sport of.

In North America they are riding and driving ponies, with a purebred population of a bit over one hundred and growing.

The island's ponies were long left to look after themselves. A 1776 account describes them running free in the woods winter and summer, feeding themselves with no tending, and Oklahoma State University's breed reference describes a free-roaming herd on the Lojsta moor. The Conservancy rates the breed very hardy, with strong legs and strong, hard feet.

One color caution for breeders: the same reference warns that two light-colored parents risk an albino foal, whose skin can be oversensitive to the sun and which is not as hardy.

The Livestock Conservancy carries the Gotland on its Conservation Priority List, where its page currently rates the breed Watch. Globally there are 6,000 to 8,000, most of them in Sweden.

The near-extinction of 1922, fourteen animals, is the number to remember. Everything since is recovery, and the studbook closed since 1971 is what keeps the recovered population one breed.

Registration traces to the Swedish studbook kept by the Swedish Russ Breeding Association, closed to outside blood since 1971. In the US the population is small enough that finding one is the hard part.

Check the color rules before breeding or registering: the lists of barred colors differ between sources, and a cream, gray, roan or piebald may not register.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.