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Arnthrudur Heimisdottir, commonly known as Lukka.
Lukka lives in Iceland, where she breeds, starts and trains horses. She is born in 1971.
She lives in the north of Iceland, in the area of Skagafjörður, which is renowned for it's good horses. Langhús is her farm, where she lives with her husband Þorlákur, her son Heimir (born in December 1999), and her in-laws (Sigurbjörn and Bryndís). This is a family farm, where the animals are almost raised like on a biological (???) farm, except for the fact that fertilizer is bought. The 35 dairy cows, 40 horses and 20 sheep roam in big pastures and lead as free an existence as the weather in Iceland allows, but of course some of the animals have to be in barns in the wintertime. There are more animals on the farms, like ducks and dogs and more.
Lukka has always loved all animals, and has always been drawn to horses
like they were magnets, even
though she's from a non horsey family. There is only one breed
of horses in Iceland, the versatile and
5 gaited icelandic horse, so it was never a question what breed she'd
choose as a profession.
teenager. When she was 25 she went on a 12 month course at the renown Hólar riding school in Iceland,
where various aspects of breeding, raising, training and showing Icelandic horses are thought. She graduated
by going through the difficult FT-exam, where the students get several totally green youngsters (that are not
even halter trained), and 10 weeks later the youngsters have to pass a test where they are longed, ponied,and ridden in walk, trot, tölt and canter out on trails, with a rider they've never had on their backs before.
Later Lukka has been using all opportunities to learn as much in natural horsemanship as possible. She
worked in Canada with Linda Tellington Jones' sister, Robyn Hood, for a summer, learning the Ttouch and
Tteam techniques. She's also been introduced to the work and methods of many other trainers, and
integrates much of it into her horse training.
Lukka finished a bachelor's degree in Agriculture at the university
of Hvanneyri, but decided to choose to
work with the love of her life, horses, rather than work in science.
It seems like teaching is her profession,
she's been teaching children, training dogs, training horses, putting
up an educational web site, and lately she's
starting to travel to America to give clinics.
Lukka feels that the goal of training each horse should be to find the
way that is easiest for both horse and
trainer, to help the horse reach it's full potential. The finished
horse should be relaxed, supple and willing to
work, and if methods like f.ex. clicker training or round penning or
dressage help the horse to learn and
understand in a positive way, she uses them, but does not take shortcuts.
She adjusts the training to each
individual, both the methods she uses and the length of time it takes
to train the horse. She wants though the
finished horse to be a horse that understands the "language" of the
average rider, not a horse that can't be
ridden unless you've studied a certain training method for years.
She also feels that there is no one right way
to train a horse, or one right set of tack, the only route is to look
for the way to the heart of the individual
horse you're training.
Arnthrudur Heimisdottir (i.e.Lukka).
Langhus, 570 Fljot.
Island (Iceland).
