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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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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