This feature, originally aired in 2018, takes you behind the scenes of Little America Miniature Horses, where being small is a big deal! From Hollywood stardom to youth programs, our minis have been capturing hearts for decades.

Watch the video to learn about:

• How our miniature horses found their way to Hollywood and TV stardom.
• Our past Thursday Kids Program, where young horsepeople bond with these incredible animals.
• What makes miniatures the horse for everyone—no matter your age!

While this story is a treasured highlight from our past, Little America continues to thrive today. With 130 miniatures and many babies on the way, we’re proud to carry forward our passion for these wonderful minis.

Share your memories with us or schedule an appointment to find your new mini!

Transcript

Reporter: Being small is a big deal here at Little America Miniature Horses.

Tony: They’re called the horse for everyone because I had a friend who was 97 who had about 45 miniatures, and then my daughter started showing when she was three. So they’re for everybody, whether you’re in your 90s or in your beginning years.

Kayla: They’re a lot of fun, but they’re all different. Yes, some like the camera; others prefer to be left alone.

Reporter: But at Little America Miniature Horse Ranch, there’s bound to be a horse for anyone. Sometimes they even end up on the big screen.

Tony: And he has a sister that’s two years old, and she took up a jet plane to Hollywood where she appears on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with another one that went with her. They’re two of our horses that Lisa Vanderpump owns. A young lady from Teen Mom OG, Farrah Abraham, bought his one-year-old sister.

Reporter: Tony Greaves has been raising mini horses for 54 years.

Tony: We have about 175 horses right now, and we usually have anywhere from 30 to 60 babies in a season. They have to be 34 inches or less to be registered with the AMHA [American Miniature Horse Association].

Kayla: They’re just really fun to be around. They all have their own little quirks and different personalities, just like people.

Reporter: Kayla is part of the Thursday Kids Program, something Tony’s daughter started over 10 years ago as a way for younger kids to get to learn more about the minis.

Kayla: I learned how to train your horse and how to establish a bond with your horse and how to get your horse to trust you and for you to trust your horse.

Tony: When we have shows, the kids will come out to work with the horses, getting ready. Some that are home-schooled will come out maybe every day to work with horses.

Reporter: I can see why they enjoy hanging out here at the ranch. And to put it in perspective, here’s me with a mini; here’s me with a Clydesdale! So now we have one of your favorite little minis here.

Tony: Yes, this is Los Arboles Idols Pequeno, but we call him PQ. My daughter actually bought him for me for Father’s Day two years ago. He’s really little and very correct to be as tiny as he is.

Reporter: Well, nice to meet you, PQ! Not for sale, by the way.

Tony: But maybe we’ll have some of his babies that you’d like.

Reporter: So what makes them so unique besides their size? There are open classes for showing.

Tony: Everybody can show in the open classes.

Reporter: And hey, good things do come in small packages.

Tony: Miniatures can take the place of a [full-sized] horse. So whether you’re young or old, a lot of people get into miniatures because maybe they’ve gotten to where they’re afraid they might be hurt by a big horse or maybe they don’t have the room that they used to have. They don’t want to ride.

Reporter: I’ve had a great time out here at Little America Miniature Horses.ther’s Day gift turned fan favorite. (Sorry, PQ’s not for sale, but his adorable offspring might be!)

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Lots of wonderful pictures. Take a look.

See more pictures here on the Optical Women’s Association website.

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BUDA – Tony Greaves was born in West Texas, Lamesa, where he grew up with Shetland ponies all his life. His mother said he learned to walk holding on to a halter of a little filly they called “dappled filly.” Greaves couldn’t say dappled at such a young age, so they settled on the name “Daffy.” He had her for many years until she died.

Greaves raised his first miniature horse, Greaves Big’Un, in 1963 when he was a senior in high school. In 1978, when the American Miniature Horse Association (AMHA) was founded, Greaves registered Big’Un at 15-years-old. His family always had Shetlands, but he always loved the smallest ones.

“When we would go to an auction or something, I would search the barn and find the smallest one and beg my dad to buy it,” Greaves said. 

When Greaves was younger, he had a comic book of Bozo the Clown. Bozo had a miniature circus of animals he carried around in his briefcase that would perform when placed on a table. Greaves said that that was the size of animals he wanted.

Photo by Amira Van Leeuwen
31” Melton’s Fantazon’s Boogie Nights.

He remembers telling his dad that he wanted to raise 22-inch horses.

“Oh, you’ll never get them that little,” his dad replied. 

“Well, I’m going to try,” Greaves said. And fortunately for Greaves, his father lived long enough to see him get his horses down to 28-inches.

Now, Greaves is continuing his dream.

“I had one stallion that I sold two years ago — I didn’t really want to sell him, but I had somebody who just absolutely had to buy him. I popped off and gave her a price that I thought she would never pay, and she did. He was only 24.5 inches tall, full-grown,” Greaves said. 

Greaves now has one horse named Jackpot, about one-year-old and 21.5 inches tall. According to Greaves, several buyers are interested in him, but he has held onto him because the horse’s father is 26-inches tall. Greaves thinks Jackpot will be about 23-inches tall when he is fully grown.

Little America Miniature Horse Farm is a family-owned miniature horse farm in Buda. Tony Greaves and his wife, Carol Greaves, purchased the land in 1995 and have registered over 1,500 horses. Greaves and his wife have two children and have been married for 56 years. 

The name was inspired by Greaves’s time touring with Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians in 1966 and 1967. 

“We did a lot of patriotic music, and I always loved patriotic music. Carol said, ‘Well, what about calling our farm Little America Miniature Horses?’” Greaves said. 

Initially, Little America Miniature Horses used the United States map as its logo, and then they came up with the logo of the horse head with a flag pattern.

“It’s worked out really well because we use flags when we go to the horse shows; we use flags on the stalls and we use flags in our advertising,” Greaves explained. 

One of the first expensive horses Greaves sold was to Paolo Gucci for $50,000.

While the COVID-19 pandemic was at the forefront of many business owners’ minds, Greaves said he thinks it ended up increasing his business because of their website because people had time to tour the ranch digitally..

“It just seemed like last year, I had more interest,” Greaves said. He also attributes his business increase to the internet and consistently updating the website. 

“A lot of people don’t keep their website up. I mean, people will call me and ask me, ‘When was your website last updated?’ and I say ‘An hour ago, you know, sometimes literally,’” Greaves said.

Greaves’ favorite thing about Little America’s Miniature Horse Farm is the horses and foaling season. The couple has ten cameras in their foaling area to check on the pregnant mares. Greaves checks on the mares twice daily, in the morning and at night. Once the mares appear close to giving birth, they put the horses in their foaling barn just outside the house. If Greaves thinks the horse will give birth in the next night or so, he will put a beeper on them. The beeper will go off when the horses lay down for 15 seconds and set off an alarm that will wake Greaves up.  Greaves said if they are in labor, he will go out to the barn and be with them while they give birth to ensure everything goes okay. 

“The problem is that sometimes the babies are so little that they don’t break out of the amniotic sack, and they can suffocate, so we try to be there with them, especially the tiny ones,” Greaves said. 

Greaves said he also loves to show his horses and miniatures all over the United States yet they are lucky because most of the larger shows are in Texas. 

The Greaves family has shown horses in Virginia, Ogden, Utah and Reno, Nevada. For about the last 10 years, the world show has been in Fort Worth, which will be coming up the last week of Sept. through Oct. 1. Little America Miniature Horse Farm has 13 horses it plans on taking to the world show.

Most of the time, Greaves will put the stallion’s name in their name, which gives him a clue as to remember who they are. He comes up with names for the horses based on his surroundings. 

“One night, I was watching Mr. Selfridge on PBS, and the beeper went off. I ran out and delivered a baby, and her name was Lady Selfridge Boogie; her daddy’s name was Boogie Nights,” Greaves said.

Another of Greaves’s favorite names is Little America’s It’s a Trip.

“I almost stepped on this one [cat]and kind of kicked it out of the way as I was running out, and it got in my way again, and I tripped over it,” Greaves said.

Greaves also has what he likes to call his “private collection,” which comprises some of the smallest miniatures in the world.

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The Greaves Family and horses are almost synonymous. When Tony was born, his family was raising Shetland ponies and his granddad had horses before that. Of course previous to that, everyone who lived in the country depended on horses for transportation and for work. According to Tony’s mother, he learned to walk by holding the halter of his first pony. Tony couldn’t say “dappled filly,” calling her “Daffy,” and it stuck. Daffy was his pony who he rode and drove until he went away to college. People ask, “Why miniatures?” When Tony was in elementary school he had a “funny book” (later called “comic book”) about Bozo the Clown in which Bozo had a circus with animals so small that they were carried around in a briefcase and performed on a tabletop. Tony said, “That’s the size of animals that I want.” He hasn’t gotten them that small yet, but has certainly made headway with our smallest horse being 24”.

Our first miniature-sized pony was born in the spring of 1963, just months before Tony graduated from high school. While in college, Tony told his dad to keep Big Un, that first miniature, as long as he had land and horses. For many years, Big Un was a teaser for Flight 8 Farms, the Greaves family’s Quarter Horse ranch. When the American Miniature Horse Association (AMHA) was founded in 1978, Big Un became our first registered miniature, fifteen years old and 31 inches tall.

After college and graduate school and time performing as singing actors in New York, Tony, Carol, and their daughter Lisa returned to Texas to run Flight 8 Farms (Quarter Horse stud farm) for his family. During that time he started searching for miniature mares to accompany Big Un, who was still the teaser for all the Quarter Horse mares. While searching, Tony renewed friendship with his family’s friends Vern and Betty Brewer with whom he made several mini-hunting trips. During one of those trips, Vern, Betty, and Tony discovered a future miniature legend, Orion-Light Van’t Huttenest.

Tony bought several small herds of miniatures during the growth phase of building the ranch, which the first few years was known as Flight 8, then Greaves’ Miniature Horses. Eventually, Carol came up with the name “Little America” and it stuck.

Fourteen years after Lisa was born, our second daughter, Lauren, was born and we gave her a filly. From that grew Lauren’s part of the herd, which usually numbers between twenty and thirty head.

Tony and his younger daughter, Lauren, have both been very active through the years in AMHA where Tony served as Executive Secretary for 5 ½ years and also 3 terms as President of the worldwide association. Lauren served as the first President of the youth organization, the American Miniature Horse Youth Association (AMHyA) for two terms.

We have two grandchildren and continuing the tradition, they were each given a filly the day after they were born. Our grandson, Grayson’s first miniature was Little America’s D S Grayson’s Girl and our granddaughter Ella’s was Little America’s Terrific Gabriella. Both mares are the progeny of our first really tiny mare, Crescent’s Melodee, who their mother, Lisa, showed when she was a little girl. Unfortunately, our grandchildren live in New York, but they enjoy their horses when they visit Texas.

So you see that we are not just in miniatures because of a current fad, but because of a multi-generational love of horses. We are not limited to only the smallest under 30”, but have something for everyone. One of our latest stallions, owned our younger daughter, Lauren, boasts 22 World Titles in Single Pleasure Driving and Roadster. We welcome visitors by appointment and encourage a digital tour of all our horses as well as much more of our history. You can check it all out at our website where you can see every horse and much information about the history of the breed and information about AMHA as well.

-Tony Greaves, written for the American Livestock Magazine, Fall 2019 edition

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Lisa Vanderpump’s Mini Horses

The latest addition to the Little America family is Lisa Vanderpump, one of the stars of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Vanderpump Rules, and a celebrity on the 2013 season of Dancing with the Stars.  She asked her friend, Tina to find the smallest, best conformation, light colored miniature horse that could be bought.  Tina, an experienced horsewoman who has trained Polo Ponies and has participated in Polo for years, was the perfect choice for the job.

A mutual friend emailed me about a month ago asking about the smallest and best that we had available and I made some suggestions, but didn’t hear back, so thought nothing of it.  Apparently Lisa, on her own had found a horse advertised as the smallest in the world, so they decided that was the one they wanted.  However, upon flying across the nation to purchase the horse they found that it was not what they were seeking.

Realizing that time was very short because the horse was to be a surprise for Lisa’s husband, Ken Todd, who was having his 70th birthday on July 20, 2015.  The horse had to be there if humanly possible.  It is ironic that that is my wife’s birthday too and the twentieth anniversary of buying our ranch in Buda.  We were at a horse show with three of the Thursday Kids, my daughter Lauren and her boyfriend, thirteen minis and myself.  Tina called but I was in the ring and didn’t check my phone until much later.  In desperation she visited a couple of other places, but everyone told her that if she wanted the smallest available, to go to Little America.  I finally checked my phone Saturday night and found a couple of messages plus texts from Tina.  I called her back that night and said that I would be happy to show her horses when I got back, but that wouldn’t be until Sunday night.

A Trip to Little America

The next morning she called back and asked if there was any way that someone could let her “preview” the horses before I got back.  I reluctantly told her that I would contact Armando, who is my right hand man at the ranch, and she could go over.  Later in the afternoon when I was watching the kids show, Armando called saying that they, Tina and her husband, Hank, liked two of the horses and really needed to get them the next morning.  After talking to Tina on the phone, I agreed and asked Armando to clean the pair, Little America’s Sensational Goldie and Little America’s Galaxy Boogie, up and halter break Galaxy who had just been weaned a few days before.

When I got home Sunday evening, I went to the barn and saw that he had clipped Galaxy and touched up Goldie who had been shown earlier in the year and had also made an appearance with me in February on KXAN’s Studio 512.

He told me that we had to have them at the San Marcos airport at 9 the next morning because they were flying to California to get to a birthday party that afternoon or evening!

When I talked to Tina that night I told her that I needed the contact information for the new owner so I could get the paperwork done.  She asked if she could give me that information when she got back from California because she could not reveal the name of the buyer before the presentation of the horses because it was going to be televised and she was not at liberty to tell me yet.  She also said that she wasn’t sure, but that she might buy one of them and her friend the other, that she would give her a choice.  I said that would be fine and proceeded to get everything ready.  She wanted to also buy a show halter that they could use when the horse was presented at the party.  I always love a good mystery and was up for it!

The next morning Armando and his son, Gabriel, went with me to the airport.  When we got there I wasn’t sure where to go, so pulled into the parking lot and called Tina.  She told me to pull out on to the tarmac and gave me the plane’s number.  She said her husband and son, their pilot, were already there and she was about 15 minutes away.  We pulled our mini pickup and mini trailer out to the plane.  When we unloaded the horses we drew a crowd of the workers and each plane that landed while we were there walking them around.

We took some pictures with Tina and her son/pilot, Houston, then loaded the horses into the plane, a Cessna Mustang.  Another irony, my nephew teaches pilots that plane at Simuflite Dallas, where he and his dad Ricky are both instructors. They had removed two seats, put down a tarp and had it nicely bedded with shavings for the four hour trip to the west coast.

After the horses made it and the party was done, Tina texted me that the buyer was Lisa Vanderpump and they were gifts for her husband, Ken Todd.  A day later I was at the USDA waiting to get paperwork for horses going to Mexico, Ricky called me and said, “Your horses are on TV.  They were just featured on TMZ.”  From there the publicity has been fun to follow.

It turned out, Lisa was shocked to see TWO horses, but decided that she couldn’t choose between the two, so she was going to buy both.   Hank and Tina wanted to buy Galaxy as their gift to Ken, but Lisa insisted and bought both of them. (TMZ reported incorrectly that she got a two for one deal for $3,500.  She had planned on one but ended up buying both.  Many other sources copied the erroneous info.)  It happens that about a year ago after a wonderful evening with Lisa and Ken, Tina asked herself what could she get a person who had everything.  Then she thought, Lisa loves animals, I love horses, how about a tiny miniature horse?  She discarded the thought, then a year later, Lisa came up with the same idea!  What is it they say about great minds?

Guess I will have to set my DVR to record The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills next season so I can keep an eye on our pretty pair!  Stay tuned…

The view of the inside of the plane

Lisa Vanderpump horse stall

Designed and built by Mohamed Hadid

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By Alyssa McCarthy Parker in From The Field on on Feb 23, 2015

I don’t know if there is ANYTHING cuter than a miniature horse. I fell in absolute love with the little guys and gals at Little America Miniature Horses. Tony and Carol Greaves were fantastic hosts and it was great to learn so much about a breed of horses that none of us really had any experience with.

It was also heartwarming to meet Tony’s “Thursday Kids,” a group of young kids from the surrounding areas that come to the barn after school to work with the minis. They learn all about grooming, training, handling, they work on an obstacle course, and several of them practice showmanship.

Among the Thursday Kids is a young man named Kameron, who is legally blind, but comes alive with confidence while he works with his favorite horse Rainbow. Together the pair has won several World Championships.

We can’t wait for y’all to see the segment on Little America Miniature Horses! Stay tuned for updates on when it will air!

Until next time,

Alyssa

– See More Here

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I thought it might be fun to offer an aerial tour as well.

The picture above shows most of the ranch; it’s just missing one corner, the pasture where we keep the stallions in the winter.  This is the only photo that shows the back pasture where we keep many of the horses in the winter.

You can see evidence of the drought we’ve had in this picture, it’s been a very dry year!

We have three major barns that we use for the horses.  The one at the top of the photo above is our main barn.  The show string, our geldings, yearling and two-year-old colts and fillies live here.  The barn farthest to the right in the picture is our hay barn as well as a shelter for horses in that pen/pasture.  And finally, everyone’s favorite, the foaling barn is at the bottom of the photo.  The foaling barn has six stalls with closed-circuit cameras that run to the house where we can watch for mares to go into labor.  The mares who seem to be farther from foaling spend the night in the lot to the left of the barn so they can be checked on during the night.

The view above really points out the terracing of the land, which helps prevent erosion in those pastures.  That land is split into several pastures by electric fences.  During breeding season, we put one stallion and a specific group of mares in each of these pastures.

A big thanks to my friend Matt for flying me around the ranch and putting up with all of my cameras!

Here are some video clips from the flight:

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I quickly finished putting out feed for the mares and drove the Gator back to the pasture to check to see if I was right.  As I got closer I saw a big flash of white on the “something laying in the grass” and thought, “Yea!  An appaloosa hopefully.  Just hope it is okay.”  As I got closer I saw the tail swish and breathed a sigh of relief to know that it was indeed a tiny little appaloosa, and best of all alive!

His dam, Little America Color’s Mandy, is a six-year-old mare and this is her first foal.  She is more difficult to handle than most of our mares and I knew that I would have a difficult time catching her in the eighty-five acre pasture, but figured that I could carry her foal and she would follow us back up to the barn.  When I reached them the foal sat up, but didn’t stand, so I was able to catch him and examine him all over.  I found that he was very correct, tiny, bay with a star and snow cap blanket.  I also found that the lashes one of his eyes were inside his eyes, so I brushed them out and checked both eyes.  They were very red but that is not too unusual for a newborn.

I picked up the tiny guy and put him in my lap between me and the steering wheel.  Mandy started running around the Gator, but I finally got her attention and she located the foal, so we started driving slowly to the barn.  As we went along I started thinking about a name, first thinking of Little Man, but as I thought more, I decided on Little America’s My Color Man.  We generally use part of the sire (stallion/father’s) name.  Since his sire is Little America’s My Oh My, I used “My”.  His grandsire is Winner’s Circle True Colors, I used “Color”.  And since his dam (mother), I used Man.

Sire:  Little America’s My Oh My

Grand Champion at the Ft. Worth Exposition and Livestock Show in January 2012

Once we got to the barn I wormed Mandy since we worm all our mares within twenty-four hours which seems to cut down on foal heat scours.  I noticed that one of her hooves needed trimming so I trimmed a little on both of her back feet then took the pair to the foaling barn which is next to our house where we can keep a close watch on new babies and mothers for a few days.

When I put them in the yard I watched long enough to note that the dam was moving away every time that he tried to nurse.  Since this was her first foal and she was “ticklish” I guess.  I brought them into the barn and tied her up and held him to try to get him to nurse.  He wouldn’t try because be had been scared trying to nurse before I found him.  I finally decided that I had to get something down him, so milked the mare and luckily he took to drinking from a syringe quickly.  I was able to get about fifty cc of colostrum down him so that was a relief.  At first I had to put a twitch on her to get her to let me milk her.  This went on every couple of hours for about thirty-six hours.  Thank goodness he finally started nursing and she started letting him nurse and is now progressing nicely.

Here he is at six days: 

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Our foaling barn has six foaling stalls and we have closed circuit TV so that we can watch the mares when they are moved into the barn.  Using Breeder Alert monitoring equipment we are awakened when a mare lays down flat for fifteen seconds.  The pager, which I carry during the day and attach to my pillow while I am asleep, alerts me to check the monitors which are located in several locations in the house, to see if the mare is in labor or just sleeping.  If she is in labor I will quickly go to the barn in case she needs assistance.  You can follow our foaling adventures as I plan to blog about it.  So stay tuned.

While you are waiting you can take a tour of the ranch.

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