Do not use anywhere else without written consent from the artist.

(Bleh, I don't like the fact you can't write å, ä, ö in the title. And sorry for the ugly dA watermark.)

I'm doing a series of horse portraits, where I'll portray early important individuals in the development of the North Swedish Draft, their birth dates ranging from 1886 to 1925. I'll post a journal to feature them in once I've written down (and translated) basic information about the breed.

I'm starting things off with this boy;


Höfding 170

Born: in 1886.
Died: in 1907.
Color: Dark bay with a star, snip and white on the front left leg.
Height: 155 cm (15.3 hh)

Höfding was born in Norway (he was a Dölehorse), and imported to Sweden in 1892, where he ended his days in 1907. In Norway he went by the name of Böbrun, with registration number 351 in the Norwegian studbook.

As a popular and commonly used sire, Höfding produced several excellent studs and work horses in his lifetime.

The reason Swedish breeders imported horses from Norway, was because of the "cross-breeding hysteria" that happened here in the 19th century. Breeders wanted their goals reached fast, and bred their best mares to practically any heavily built stallion they could find or import. The offspring varied greatly in type, and most of the second generation individuals had big flaws (unpredictable temper being one of them). Meanwhile the original old Swedish native horse got very close to extinction. Luckily some people saw this and decided to set up a program to save the old, hardy native breed. As the horses in Norway and Sweden have always been closely related, and the Norwegian cross-breeding wasn't nearly as bad, many Dölehorses where imported to help rebuild the "lost" Swedish horse.

About the portrait:
I've devoted the last three days to this piece, and I must say I'm happy with the outcome. It's referenced from two old black and white photos of Höfding, so his coat color is pretty much a guess. In the stud book it says he has white on his front left, but I couldn't make it out from any of the photos, so I left it out. He could have had a bit of white on the side further from the camera anyway, ne?

So, any thoughts?