Icelandics in The Great American Horse Race

In 1976, 91 riders (there is some disagreement as to exact number of riders) and
a 450 support team participated in the Great American Horse Race. The race was
for 3,000 miles from Frankfort, NY, to Sacramento, CA and was scheduled to last
over 100 days. Each rider had two mounts. Vet checks were done 4 times a day.  Icelandic horses had a spectacular showing in this extreme long distance race.

http://creativecats.sectorlink.org/gahr/gahr.html

Riders in the race originated from all over the US, Canada, Germany, Austria,
France, Switzerland, Iceland and Australia. Horsebreeds represented
were:"Spanish Mustang, Arabian, Morgan, Saddlebred, Standardbred, Pony of
America, Pinto, Icelandic pony, half Orlov trotter, Mule, Appaloosa, Palomino,
Thoroughbred, an Albino, Quarter Horse, Connemara pony, Paso Fino."

http://theequestrianvagabond.blogspot.com/2011/02/great-american-horse-race.html

The winner of the race was Virl Norton, riding the mules Lord Fauntlerroy and
Lady Eloise. At the beginning of the race, Virl cautioned, "Watch the mules.
They're tougher and can take the tough terrain better than a horse," he said. He
felt his mules could match the Arabian horses at endurance because this was
going to be a long race, not a fast one.

http://virlnorton.madmoosestudio.com/articles_read.php?id=4


Here's a link to an interview with Norton's son Pierce who served as general assistant during the race.

"Because about a quarter of the way into the race, in Kankakee, Illinois, Virl Norton and Leroy went out ahead of all the Arabians.  
 

"He’d always said that he hadn’t planned on taking the lead that early. Everyone ran their horses down a little bit sooner than he thought, I guess," Pierce says. "You know, soon as we got into the lead, there was a long way to go. But we were going in the right direction. The lead was getting longer."

And so, days before the finish, it became clear that a mule was going to win the Great American Horse Race."

https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2016/09/09/virl-pierce-norton-horse-mule-race

A link to a 1976 Sports Illustrated article about the race.
https://www.si.com/vault/1976/07/12/615375/miffed-and-also-mulish

All of the remaining top 22 places went to Arabs or Arab crosses except for :

7th Appaloossa
9th Conamarra ponies
10th mules
13th Icelandics (Johannas Hoyos)
16th Pinto/Thoroughbred
21st Icelandic (Walter Feldman)
22nd Appaloosa
http://creativecats.sectorlink.org/gahr/gahr.html

Per Robyn Hood, TTouch trainer and a Canadian breeder and trainer of Icelandics http://www.icefarm.com/ ,participated as support crew during the race. As Robyn commented, "During the GAHR the organizers liked to put the Icelandics near the entry to our camping site because our horses looked so good. We fed them as much hay as they could eat and about 6 pounds of grain a day. They were very fit but not thin."

http://great-american-horse-race.iceryder.net/

There is a book available on Amazon about the Race:

The Great American Horse Race of 1976: A Photographic Documentary by Curtis Lewis

What an interesting bit of history!