Miniature Horses in the 1950's

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Mary Lou M

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Here is an interesting article with pictures from Time Magazine & Life Magazine - http://time.com/3680984/mini-horses/?xid=vanity

150123-life-magazine-cover-horse.jpg
 
Nice article.I was born in 1939 and got my first pony in 1942.I LOVED her dearly, but in the summer my family went to our beach house in Rehoboth on the Atlantic Ocean.Beauty had to stay behind on the family farm where my cousin lived.I missed her so much and every Sunday we went to the local riding, boarding barn in the rich section of the resort town.It was called Henlopen Acres and it was a beautiful old cedar shake stable.There were riding trails throught the pine trees going down to the ocean where folks could ride on the beach.The star attraction for me was a very small,possibly Mini, a little black guy named tony.I took him lots of carrots and gave him lots of hugs and pets.As I think back now he was either a very small Shetland or a Mini.He was the best my dad could do until we came home for a visit to my Beauty.
 
How cute is that?! I'd never heard of a miniature horse till the 80's when I saw an ad in Horse Illustrated. My brother happened to run into Charlie ? who owned Sundance Ranch in Springfield, MO a couple years later, and she offered to let us come out and see her horses. At the time she had 360! When I saw all those mares and foals, I was hooked for life! We still lived in KC at the time, but I was just waiting for the day when we could retire and move back to the farm. I bought my first 3 in 1998, and the rest as they say is history!
 
I was recently looking online for some of the photos from the making the movie,'Giant'(Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, etc.,in West Texas in 1955)...I was there to see some of the filming, and help hold cattle for 'background'. LIFE magazine was on set taking photos, including some of an adorable 15 mo.old who was horseback on set(member of the family that owned the ranch where the 'fake' Reata house was built). In searching old issues of LIFE, I came across the pics of the little girl and the mini....there were a number of other photos, I think, so you could actually see more of this cute pair!
 
I had a Mini in the fifties except of course it was a Shetland. (From Shetland...) Which is what this little "horse" is too... Nice article but you can see where all the hype started....
 
Thank you for sharing. I think we probably had that Life magazine in our attic at some point, but I don't remember it. I was already a horse lover by then!
 

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