SPONS: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW FROM THE HATE CLUB

**For the Ease of our dear reader, lets say this is Iti's text, & this is Martin's text.**

I think Spons deserves a separate post just because there have been so many contradictions with that horse that make him one of the most memorable horses that I have encountered. Let's put it like that, Spons is definitely aware of the power of negative attention biases and uses it like a pro.

I do not remember exactly when I tried Spons the first time (I do. I definitely do.), but what I did know before even seeing the horse was that previous guides used Spons to prank new guides. The prank was to put innocent unaware guides, who had no experience with Icelandic horses before, on Spons and convince them into thinking that the gate you experience on Spons, is the magical Icelandic gait that everyone talks about. I didn't have the heart to do that, so when Axelle arrived at Solhestar, we went on our first ride with some of our best horses and Axelle was yelling the whole time in her strong French accent: "OMG, it's so comfortableee!!!!"

Knowing now that Spons was a prank horse, it makes it even funnier how I ended up on him for that godforsaken afternoon tour. I was set to ride Red, and at that point still pretty fresh on the company ground (around a week in, but only my second time in Rvk) with the absolute full knowledge that good, steady horses weren't the boss' usual style for investment--and Red was on loan, as a potential investment horse. So if the boss could easily throw money down for someone like Nagli, the fact that he wanted a trial period for Red had me slightly worried. The 17 person tour group was mounted, safety speech was done, and I had to tighten my girth and get on. I could not, for the life of me, get Red to stand still so that I could get on, and the boss (who randomly happened to be there on this particular afternoon, which he normally was not--maybe once every other week) runs over and holds Red's head and scrambles at me to hurry and get on. I'm about to swing up and the horse is just really prancing and bouncing on his back legs, so in a moment of courage and swing my leg back to ground and just flatly tell the boss "I am not riding this horse today. I do not know the tour route yet, I will have to be in the front, I am not riding him." The boss looks at me, goes "OK. You ride her horse then." and points to Axelle. Always a good sport about having her horse taken from underneath her, but considering the last time this occurred I found myself on Naglí experiencing a worse fate than my original ride, I was a little concerned. I hadn't been warned about Spons, other than Axelle mentioned to me while dismounting that I will need to go faster than slower in the speed ups. We switch horses, and set off down the trail towards the next two hours.

In all honesty, between the stable, photo stop, and the first tölt, I was doing fairly fine. When I wasn't internally yelling at myself to do better and not look like a bad rider, I was trying to distract myself by chatting with the tourists--which in turn calmed my body language down and relaxed Spons too. No one in the group wanted to slow down, so we all entered the speed up portion of the tour together, Iti and the front, Axelle in the middle, and Me at the back. I remember the exact point I realized things were about to get really shitty when both of my feet came out of the stirrups, I began desperately clenching my legs in effort to stay on the damn horse in front of the group, and I started to recite bible verses in my head. The three red flags no horse rider wants to experience. After our first speed up Axelle circled back with a grin on her face and said "sooooooo do you like?" and I said "Axelle. I'm being so beyond seriously serious, I think I am going to fall on my ass if I keep riding this horse. I can not figure out how to balance. What is going on." and all I got in return was "hahahaha it'll be fine, you'll be fine, it's funny, it's spons!"

After the third speed up I finally understood what she meant in the beginning, and realized if I didn't want to sit a slow trot, I would have to ask for a fast trot and rise, or canter him. The rest of the tour went largely better as I finally enjoyed speeding around the corners and up & down the line at a slow canter. Back at the barn, I dismounted swiftly and with a smile said to Spons "try everything once, and you're a once type of guy."

Even though Spons didn't have ANY tölt in his system, he still managed to make Axelle and Lisa fall in love with him in a way that both of them fought over the right to ride Spons on tours, which gives hope to a lot of people out there that do not fulfill different expectations that society puts on us and think that they are going to be alone forever. Well, if Spons managed to make girls fight over him, you definitely have hope. Lenny hated Spons, which was one of the downsides of being part of the Spons hate club, because Lenny was there as well, but luckily he never attended the meetings :D Well, Lenny in general hates all the uncomfortable horses which means that these are the ones that girls are forced to ride. What a gentleman Lenny is, right?

Spons wasn't only a bad tölter. If that was the case, we had plenty of horses that had learned that you can easily get away with not tölting, especially when you happened to be in this part of the line where Lenny guarded the customers. Lenny didn't even flinch when he saw customers bumping their eyes out on a trotting horse. But Spons was also an eternal troublemaker, an asshole (chicks really dig that), impatient and restless soul. His only plus in my eyes was the moment when we were putting customers on horses and Spons was trying to dig an escape tunnel (I can't tell you how hilarious it was. He would paw, and paw, and paw at the ground until the gravel turned into soil and turned into the cement foundation. The extremely concerend and worried looks and whispers of the customerse waiting to be assigned a horse always made me laugh. He did look absolutely feral.) and I could tell the customers that he must have been a miner in his previous life (the joke worked). Well, he must have done something wrong that he was downgraded from a person to a horse and I am not even surprised. Customers are drawn to him (because of the innocent, cuddly expression he falsely portrays in his empty eyes), but as soon they see him pacing back and forth + digging the ground they slowly step back toward normal horses. Even standing in a box where they didn't have a lot of wiggle room, Spons managed to cause a mess.

This particular move was a regular occurrence that happened while preparing the horses. As you can see, he is not aggressive, neither sexually nor physically. He is just Spons.

Please note on this particular morning, we were all quite tired and dreading a morning full of 18 tourists. The horses were quietly munching on their hay breakfast, we were organizing tack next to the boxes with the appropriate horses in them, etc. Iti and Lisa are bridling in the back of the stables and Axelle and I are in the front, and all we hear is an instant yell "NooOOOOO SPOOOOONS!! BAD SPONS! DOWN SPONS!". You can fill in the rest.

Riding him is another kind of experience. In terms of obedience, he is okay ( moment of silence for the 5 year old child the boss put on spons in the countryside one day--for a 20 person tour--that got the full-gallop experience off into the neighbor's open field next to the mountain for 30 minutes. Fly, Spons. Fly like the wind. ), better than Nagli, Mola, and some others that drive you crazy even while just walking (I would like to honorably mention Krona for the list as well, she really sucked to ride, and if it wasn't for the fact that she was always exhausted and could tölt well if you got her on a good morning, she'd be worse than spons. She was not a favorite at allllll, guides and cutomers alike ). But the f***ing attempt to tölt with him is the thing that f***s you up. Axelle and Lisa assured me that it is very good for your balance and when he is trotting, you can always lighten yourself. The f**k you can!!! Even the trot is so damn uncomfortable that when trying to rise, you feel like a walrus trying to play hopscotch - not elegant. And to add the cherry on top, there is this moment during the tour when you teach the customers how to tölt and how they should feel like gliding through the air, being capable of holding a full jar of beer without losing a drop and having to do nothing as the tölt is SO comfortable - you start tölting

and you feel all the judgmental looks from customers because you look like you are sitting on a f***ing pneumatic drill. And THEN you have to also turn around and check on customers, who are nicely sitting and tölting and you can't even see properly because all the bumping brings tears to your eyes and you feel ten times more stupid trying to rotate your upper body while getting your ass beaten up.

In conclusion, you either hate or love Spons, but being ignorant or neutral is rarely possible with him. An older guide told me that she suggested our boss long time ago to send Spons to the white house, but I am glad that I could meet such a horse so that we could bond with the members of Spons hate club through having heated arguments with Spons lovers. He is very beneficial also for other horses because you appreciate every horse that you ride after riding Spons. Even Axelle said that it is a relief to ride somebody else after riding Spons for several tours in a row. So we love to hate you, Spons!

As a token of our strange hate-love for Spons, but maybe also a product of our boredom, we decided Spons' best chance at finding true love was on Tinder. In a matter of hours Spons had more matches than maybe people in Iceland, and was getting hit on left and right! We'll include some of our favorites for the dear reader who made it this far. We almost convinced someone to accept Spons' married-at-first-sight proposal and to take him away so they could live happily ever after, but Tinder disabled the account--leaving us with both the hilarious screenshotted memories of his month of flirtation, and unfortunately Spons himself in the flesh. Moral of the story: Spons might get a lot of hoes, but the people with common sense who are really at the top know Spons just isn't it. Welcome to the S.H.C Tinder, glad to have ya.