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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The basic rule of thumb for both miniature and big horses is eleven months and five days as an average length of pregnancy. This is figured from the last date of breeding. Of course, there are always exceptions to that rule. We have had mares foal full-term, foal at ten months and have had them carry as long as a full year.

How will I know when my mare is ready to foal?

When foaling season is approaching we bring all the mares that are pregnant into a pasture next to the foaling barn. At night we put them in a lot, referred to as the maternity ward, which is observable from our house and by cameras and is lighted during the night so we can look at them to check what is going on at any time.

We check the bag (mammary gland) of each mare when we feed morning and night. When it starts filling we make note of it. Any big change from one observation to the next is the best sign that she is going to foal very quickly. They will surprise sometimes, but it is the best guide. Usually, when there is a big change, the mare goes into the foaling barn where we can observe even closer. Sometimes there will be tiny balls of wax on the tips of the teats. This waxing usually is within 24 hours of foaling.

What equipment should I use to watch for foals?

Once we see a mare’s bag fill up, we bring her into the foaling barn at night and let her graze in the lot outside the barn during the day.

We have used Breeder Alert for many years through a number of upgrades. There are others that are available, and we have tried several but have stuck with them because of excellent customer service. The current system has capability to use a beeper and also a dialing system that will call a list of numbers. It will call according to an assigned sequence. If the first does not answer, it goes on to the next.

When a mare is restless or just acting differently than usual, we will put the beeper on to make sure that we are alerted when she lies down flat. If we are asleep, the beeper will wake us. We will look at the monitor and if she is just laying down, we will go back to sleep. If she is up and down, pawing at the ground or walking in circles, we know that the time is near so we pay close attention.

Currently, we have a camera system by Arlo Security Systems. We have ten cameras and have them distributed throughout the barn and maternity ward. We can see it on TV, Amazon Echo Show and on our phones, even when we are out of town. Some of our friends and family have access to it and have been known to alert us if a mare is in labor. The cameras are rechargeable and portable so sometimes during the day, we will move them outside the barn to cover the yard where the mares are.

What do I do after a foal is born?

After a foal is born, we immediately worm the mare. We generally use paste Ivermectin set for an average-sized AMHA-sized mare, about 200 pounds. We never use Quest because it requires very exact weight dosage. We usually worm before she even stands up if possible. When the foal stands and the umbilical cord breaks, we treat with 2-10% iodine by dipping the foal’s navel in a small dish of the iodine.

When the mare passes the placenta, we put it in two shopping bags to prevent leaks and put it in the freezer to dispose of it on the next trash pickup day. It is suggested that the placenta be inspected to make sure it has all been expelled. We then leave the mare and foal alone and make notations in the office of the time of birth and start the foal’s webpage.

Then we go back to check on the mare and foal and usually by this time the foal is nursing. We make sure foal passes meconium (first poop) and is actually nursing. The meconium is almost black, very thick, and sticky. Sometimes it comes out fairly long. If all this happens as normal, we leave them alone to bond and if it’s night, go back to bed. If we see after several tries that the foal is having trouble, we may give an enema of warm water with a dash of dishwashing soap, or you can use a regular Fleet enema.

Another thing we keep an eye out for the first few days is the eyelashes of the foal. They can frequently turn in and if left untreated, can cause eye infections or even blindness. A vet can put a stitch in the eyelid to keep the eyelashes out, but we usually just brush them up with our fingers. If that doesn’t work, we will carefully cut them off entirely. They generally will be okay as they grow, but check from time to time.

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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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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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This is no tall tale.

The Stock Show has had miniature horse shows for more than 30 years, and Tony Greaves and his small equine have competed in every one of them.

The 72-year-old Buda resident and his tiny horses, which cannot be taller than 34 inches, were there Thursday for another round of competition.

An estimated 60 of the cute animals are in the competition, which continues Friday.

“I’ve brought 13 horses this time,” Greaves said Thursday as he took a short break from preparations. “It looks like we’re going to be entered in 90 classes.”

His love for the tiny horses is legendary. And why not? One look at them and your heart melts.

Greaves’s family didn’t start out raising miniature horses.

“My parents had Shetland ponies and quarter horses, but I wanted a horse even smaller than the ponies,” he said.

As a senior at Lamesa High School in the South Plains of Texas, Greaves started with one miniature. He now has 170 at his Little America Miniature Horse ranch just south of Austin.

“They are addictive,” Greaves said. “No one can have just one.”

For the last 50 years, Greaves and his small horses have gone coast to coast in competitions; this year he plans on entering at least 14 to 15 events.

And he’s been a winner. Greaves has had seven world champions at the American Miniature Horse Association World Championships. In recent years, that event has been held in Fort Worth.

This passion for the tiny horses has been a family affair. His two daughters have shown miniature horses, and his 29-year-old daughter, Lauren Greaves, will be on hand Friday.

The Greaves even had a baby shower at a miniature horse show event in Fort Worth when Carol Greaves was pregnant with Lauren.

“I have never known my life without them,” Greaves said Thursday in a telephone interview. She noted she had a pony and an Arabian horse growing up. “It was so funny. They were so much bigger.”

Like her father, Lauren Greaves said her loyalty remains with the very small horses.

“I just love them,” she said.

Not only has the Greaves’ family become fans of the miniature horses, but they’ve spread it to others. One way has been through Greaves’ Thursday Kids, a program in the Buda area that introduces kids to the animals.

That program is what got Shelley Baker of Austin and her daughters, Emily, 16, and Kayla, 13, involved.

“I grew up around a horse ranch, but nothing like this,” Shelley Baker said Thursday. “We’ve been showing with Tony for five years, and it’s been great.”

Greaves has even spread his love for miniature horses around the world.

In recent years, Greaves has sold his small horses to owners in Russia, Australia and Costa Rica.

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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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You can’t go too far into the history of AMHA without Tony Greaves and Little America horses popping up. Tony has worn many hats in his service to the AMHA. He was a past AMHA President, a volunteer Executive Secretary, and a board member for several years. A staunch supporter for AMHA, he has tirelessly exhibited and demonstrated the versatility of the Miniature horse all over the world, to anyone who would listen. He has been an ambassador for the breed and knows the history of our horses almost better than anyone. When asked about his favorite horse that he produced, he asked to write about two horses … his two incredible boys.

As told by Tony Greaves

Years and years of little horses have filled my life since I was born into a family that was breeding Shetlands over sixty years ago. Through the years I have found that you are very lucky when a very special horse enters your life. We had two horses we felt were so incredible, that the name seemed to pick itself.

Our first “Incredible” was foaled in 1999. Little America’s D. S. Incredible. For many years one of my goals was to breed the smallest colorful appaloosa with great conformation, with emphasis on a beautiful head. On March 30, 1996, late in the afternoon, I went to check on the mares close to foaling, which were kept in the yard beside our house. Little America’s Tex Belle was going into labor, so I sat on the porch to watch what was going on, to be handy if I was needed. The progress was quick and when the foal arrived and I pulled the amniotic sack off, I was so thrilled to see what was inside the sack … so tiny, so colorful, a head to die for, so incredible that I actually cried. I know, “real men don’t cry,” but every rule has its exception, and this was mine. J just said, “Incredible, he’s Incredible!” I ran in the house to get my family and each one repeated my first words. In the days that followed, every visitor to our ranch had the same reaction, “Incredible.” I said that he named himself the day he was born, but how did they know it?

When we started showing him, he was only weeks old, and he seemed to draw crowds every time we brought him out. Every time he left the ring, we had people follow us back to our stall area just to get a closer look at him. I think that some people have a very special bond with some horses and this was mine. He and I seemed to be on the same wave link. We seemed to communicate in the ring. I would set him up, back up and look at him, and his eyes would follow my every move; never putting an ear back, never taking his eyes off mine. Over and over I had people ask me how I got a weanling (and later a yearling and two-year-old) to “show like that.” He had so much personality and I encouraged his exuberance, letting him walk on his back legs out to get his awards, eventually teaching him to take a bow, using it when he won Supreme. One judge told me that this wasn’t a circus, but Incredible enjoyed his performance, the crowds loved it, and so did I, so we outvoted the judge.

He was quite successful in the shows, becoming High Point Champion in several divisions for the Southwesten Miniature Horse Club and the Greater Houston Miniature Horse Club. I was thrilled when he placed seventh, as a weanling, in a class of fifty-seven at the World Show in Lexington, VA, showing against a field of mostly yearlings and two-year olds! One person who had admired him for several shows offered to give me a blank check for him, which I turned down.

We ran ads featuring our “dream horse” and enjoyed the name which aided in creativity: “We are looking to an Incredible future,” “Incredible dreams do come true,” and others. We were thrilled to be drawn for the cover of the Miniature Horse World for the world show issue. I spent days taking pictures and worked with the editor, Barbara Ashby, who was a fan of Incredible, too.

About the time we were getting things ready for his cover, he started being head shy when being haltered and a few times had a spell, something similar to fainting. We took him to several vets who could find nothing wrong. At that time, we were swimming our show horses to tone them and on July 22, 1998, while he was in the pond, he bobbed under, which wasn’t really unusual, but this time he made no attempt to surface. We quickly brought him out of the water and tried CPR for what seemed like an hour. Finally we gave up, and I sent my helper to the barn and I just sat there with Incredible. Our vet surmised that he had suffered an aneurysm and that we could have done nothing to save him, but that was little solace to us. I couldn’t believe that the dream of my many years of breeding was lying beside me as I sat there helplessly. After quite some time, I went to the barn and got the tractor and took him to the back and buried him. I then went to my office and just sat there. All those hopes and dreams came to a halt. All those plans were gone. And he was to be on the cover of the next Miniature Horse World magazine. I knew that the deadline was only a few days later. Thoughts were whirling in my mind, should I change the cover to another horse, should I just leave it alone. I finally emailed Barbara simply saying, “Please add this to the cover of Incredible: “March 30, 1996- July 22, 1998.” He became the first horse ever pictured on the cover posthumously.

I first stated that we had two horses that named themselves Incredible. The second one was born the year after the first died, Little America’s Too Incredible. We chose the name because he was also extremely tiny and excellent. His show record was fairly similar, but not quite as extensive as the first. He garnered several Top Tens and Championships, but never won a Supreme. I did have one judge tell me that he was the most perfect tiny miniature that she had ever judged. He matured at 25 ½”. Of course he was bred to be small, being out of Little America’s Kewpie Tornado 26 ½” and Little America’s Silver Tornado 26″.

We showed him until he was three years old and then started breeding him to a few mares. We were very pleased with the tiny foals with refinement that he produced and were looking forward to using him in our “tiny” program for years.

This past December, Carol and I went to New York to babysit our grandson while his parents went on a belated tenth anniversary to Europe. When we returned home we learned that a problem with dog attacks had returned. Two years ago we lost thirteen horses over a period of weeks to a marauding pack of wild dogs. On Sunday morning, I was getting dressed to go out to feed and looked out the window of our second story bedroom and saw what looked like a horse standing over another horse, but I wasn’t certain. I got my glasses and saw that it was a coyote standing over a horse with another coyote standing guard about twenty yards away. I yelled downstairs to Lauren, our daughter, who grabbed a gun and snuck out the door to get a shot at the predators. Unfortunately, they sensed she was there and starred to run just as she got off the first shot. When I found what the coyotes were standing over, my heart dropped … it was Too Incredible … our beautiful stallion. We were devastated to loose another of our wonderful little horses. Since then we have taken many precautions to prevent another tragic loss. We have added guard donkeys, guard dogs and much better fencing, just to name a few.

I am so thankful for all the incredible memories I have. Some people are lucky enough to have one special horse in their life, I have had hundreds. Each horse has amazed me with their own personality and their talents, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for those two incredible boys.

-Original document: “The Incredible Boys” article with images (PDF)

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