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The Estonian horses in Muhu

Finding the Estonian horses was sheer luck. It happened when my husband was given a lift with a couple of people who had taken part in some meeting with him. Even though the car journey was short, he managed to mention his horse hobby, which inspired one of the passengers to tell about a horse farm situated across the Bay of Finland on the Muhu island, where you could gallop to your hearts content along really long paths across fields and near the sea. Hearing about this, I immediately searched the place on the web and succeeded in booking us a four day Easter holiday on Tihuse Horse Stable (see also Facebook).

The owner of Tihuse Stable, Martin Kivisoo, is known for his efforts to rescue the Estonian horse breed by taking special care of the remaining original individuals surviving through the soviet regime and eventually multiplying them into a healthy stock of Estonian mares and stallions. Today there are over 300 Estonian horses roaming on the farm’s pastures, and many of their offspring are already living elsewhere and abroad. About 80 of these hoofed animals, who live happily in herds all their life, take riders on trails of various lengths through open fields, juniper forests and magical meadows of wild flowers, past traditional windmills and idyllic hamlets surrounded with stone walls to protect them from deer and wild boars who also live on the island. The horses are a friendly, colorful lot with some very beautiful gray, white, black and smoky hair and mane color combinations, Martin’s special project. (See also Hevonen odottaa ratsastajaa and wikipedia.)

Martin takes pride in providing good and friendly services to visitors, even when they come in small numbers, and I can can testify for this: once, when we visited Tihuse, we were the only customers for the weekend, but we could do all the riding we wanted and were served like the king and the queen with breakfasts, lunches and dinners made and sauna heated for us every day, and Martin himself tending the fire in the stove to keep our room warm and telling us stories of the spirits of Muhu during mealtimes.

One of the regular treks includes a visit to an island where the one to three year-old foals spend their summer.

Some videoshots in Youtube from Muhu by Philip Dean:

Easter 2011
October 2011 (when Viva was left behind and got worried)
October 2011 (Philip galloping with Viva)
May 2012 (when our horses were spooked by deer)

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