Mid-century (1950's) there was an over-abundance of Icelandic Horses, no longer useful due to mechanization and automobiles. A few people decided to take advantage of the large number of horses going to slaughter. They took boatloadsful to Northern Europe, to sell them to the Europeans in a "Save from Slaughter" campaign.

The Europeans didn't have any gaited horses at the time, and the poor conformation was accepted as "normal". Not only as normal, but sometimes attributed to the "gaitedness"!