SHAPED BY SHETLAND

Since childhood I’ve had favourite breeds of horse, longing to one day have my own Connemara or Arab, without ever giving much thought to the concept of breed or the meanings I attached to animals based on their breed identity. As I travelled around Shetland, I quickly learned that local stories of breed were very different. I was told that to understand Shetland breeds I needed to know the history of crofting, how people and animals had learned to live together.

At 60˚ north, where the islands’ small areas of fertile ground are surrounded by acres of rough heather hill, and gale-force winds scour the land, making a living from agriculture on Shetland is a challenge. Each croft would only have a small patch of cultivatable land and shared