Here’s a look at some little horses who inspire big love in a lot of people.
Miniature horses have been around for centuries—their remains have even been found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. But the first known miniature horse breeding program began about 400 years ago with the royal Hapsburg family. A short time later, the horses showed up as an attraction at the Versailles palace zoo in France. And in the mid-1800s, the French empress Eugenie used miniature horses to pull her carriage.
But when the nobility in France and other parts of Europe fell on hard times because of peasant uprisings and rebellions, the royals didn’t have the money to maintain their tiny horses’ cushy lifestyle. The horses were mostly sold as pets, but some went to European traveling circuses, where the animals learned to do tricks. They also worked in coal mines, pulled peat carts, and plowed fields. And a handful of minihorse lovers kept refining or producing new breeds of small horses.
By the 20th century, most of the world had forgotten about miniature horses. But that changed in 1962 when an Argentinean breeder, Juan Falabella, sold three of his rare Falabella horses (which resemble mini-Thoroughbred/Arabian horses) to President John F. Kennedy, who gave them as Christmas presents to his children. Soon photos of the little Falabellas grazing on the White House lawn appeared on the covers of news magazines, and interest in owning mini horses skyrocketed.
Today, miniature horses are one of the fastest-growing types. The American Miniature Horse Association (AMHA)—the leading miniature horse registry—lists about 160,000 of them worldwide.
They come in nearly all colors—though not all sizes. Full-grown miniature horses must be no higher than 34 inches at the withers. Despite their small size, though, they aren’t considered ponies because minis still have many horse characteristics: thinner manes and tails, lighter bones, and proportionally larger heads than ponies. A typical mini eats about a half a flake of hay (1½ pounds) and a cup of grain each day. They weigh 250 pounds or less and usually live into their 30s, though some have reached more than 50 years of age. As a breed, minis are friendly, gentle, and intelligent.
They can have genetic problems, though. Most mini horse registries (including the AMHA) try to improve the lives of miniature horses by working to eliminate dwarfism from bloodlines. Although all mini horses possess some of the genetic markers for dwarfism, some breeders used to deliberately breed dwarfs to get the smallest horses possible. The practice is now discouraged because the dwarf gene causes painful deformities that cripple and even kill miniature horses. Seventeen-inch Thumbelina (officially, the world’s smallest horse) is a dwarf who only comes up to the shins of standard minis. Because her legs are proportionally smaller than her body and her head, she has to wear orthopedic fittings to strengthen her limbs.
Mini horses take on many of the same jobs and functions their larger cousins do. They make great pets, of course, and also compete in miniature horse shows where winners take home trophies and sometimes thousands of dollars. Minis are too small to be ridden by adults, so the owner usually walks alongside the horse. In a performance-class competition, people might run beside their horses while the minis jump small obstacles, or an owner might drive a cart pulled by the horse.
Some minis even work as service animals. In 2003, the Texas Veterinary Medical Association inducted Buttons, an eight-year-old miniature stallion, into the Texas Animal Hall of Fame “because of the happiness he brings by visiting local nursing home residents and handicapped children in north Texas.” At 32½ inches tall, Buttons is small enough to walk right into the rooms of patients to cheer them up. In one case, an elderly woman who had refused to speak hugged Buttons, cried, and spoke enthusiastically about her love for horses.
Other minis act as seeing-eye horses for the blind. Cuddles, a seeing-eye horse from Ellsworth, Maine, wears leather sneakers to keep her from slipping on floors inside buildings. It’s all in a day’s work for the 24-inch-tall, 55-pound mini who guides her blind owner.
And Rosie from Arizona visits schools for children with disabilities. The children, who might be intimidated by the size of a large horse, eagerly embrace Rosie. Properly trained, mini horses can help children with disabilities to stand and walk—they can even pull wheelchairs. Once the playthings of royalty, today’s mini horses are working hard to make a big and positive impact on the world.