ARDMORE, Okla. — Tiny horses took Ardmore by storm over the weekend.

The American Miniature Horse Association held its Central Regional Championship show at the Hardy Murphy Coliseum.

There were several entry categories, including obstacle driving and country pleasure driving.

“You can drive them, so they can pull carts,” said exhibitor Lauren Greaves. “That’s actually my favorite thing to do. I’ll be doing it with one of my horses later today. You can also take them over jumps, we just do it in hand instead of actually riding.”

Miniature horses are smaller and less expensive to maintain than their full-size cousins. 

“You want to enjoy your equines, but you want something that is safer, or maybe more docile, or just less expensive to own, because horses are a very expensive hobby and miniatures are much more affordable-sized horse,” explained AMHA regional show manager Laura Mullen.

When it comes to these horses, anyone of any age can enjoy them.

“You’ll see here at this horse show that some of our exhibitors are as young as five years old,” Mullen said.

“It’s just fun to come see the different ages of people that are here showing,” Greaves said. “We have everything from probably four-year-old children up to 70. My dad is 73, and he’ll be showing this weekend as well.”

The three-day championship event continued through Sunday. The AMHA World Championship show will take place August 23-31 just down Interstate 35 at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth.

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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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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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Appaloosa Miniature Horses

Many appaloosas are born with lots of color while others are born solid and gradually acquire appaloosa coloration. It is very difficult to know at birth what color the foal from appaloosa parentage will be. Below is an example of a Xenon-Light Van’t Huttenest son that was born bay. When he was sold at four months of age he showed absolutely no appaloosa characteristics. He had no white hairs, no striped hooves, no scelera, and not even a speck of pink skin. Here you see him pictured at four months, three years, five years, and six years. He is Little America’s X- Skipper and is owned by Billie Lindale in New Jersey.

Here are some typical examples of appaloosa patterns. Pictured below are a snowcap blanket which is said to be homozygous, although currently there is no genetic test to prove this. The horse is Little America’s Tex Lil Feather, a son of Little America’s Sesquicentennial Tex. The next is a black blanketed app, Little America’s Tex Two Timer LHH, another son of Sesquicentennial Tex. The next is a leopard appaloosa, also by Tex, named Little America’s Tex Kickapoo. I might add that all three of these colts were born the color that they are shown and have pretty much stayed the same color. By the way, the last two colts are out of solid mares with no appaloosa background!

Blue Roan and Gray miniature horses

The A photo is a mature mare that is a true blue roan. You will see that her legs and head are black but her body is a mixture of black and white hairs making her appear bluish in color. When she has her winter coat she is mostly black.

The photo B is two gray fillies…. a weanling and a two-year old. The weanling was born black and the lighter one was born silver. Both will be white by the time they are eight to ten years of age.

The bottom five pictures are ALL OF THE SAME HORSE at various ages. C is at one day old. You can hopefully see that he shows some white on his nose and over his eyes. By the way, both his sire and dam are gray.

D is the same colt as a yearling. You will notice that he has lots of white hair scattered throughout his face (and also his body which you can’t see in this picture).

E is about three years of age… notice the dark at the top of his tail and his legs are still fairly dark. He is also showing dappling at this age.

F is about a year older … notice his legs have lightened and the tail is lighter. He still shows some dappling, but not as much as the year before.

G is age six… note the tail is almost totally white but he is still keeping some of the black in his mane but all the dapples has disappeared. He is now eight years old… sorry I don’t have a current picture. He is almost totally white… his mane has a slight grayish tint but the body is totally white.

The horse is NFC LA Egyptian King Rapsody by Hemlock Brook Egyptian King and out of Soat’s Lil Rapsady… Here is another dramatic example of the graying gene:

Roan Miniature Horses

Not all red roans have dark faces, even if the books say they should (the dark spots in the photo are water spots from a rain). She is really the same color of mixed red and white hairs throughout, but is not a grey because she stays the same color. The mare is Littlebit’s O’Honey.

This is a daughter of the above mare in early spring. She is much darker when she sheds, almost black.

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