This is horrible, because I do love them and the people that own them, but I often think "What, you don't want a REAL horse?" when someone has an OT Standardbred.

And I usually think the same thing about big horses, too. I think that short horses don't get enough credit! I have a few in my barn - none of them are ever going to be 16hh or taller (I will admit, our young draftie is probably going to hit that but can you blame her, her dam was 18hh? We never bought her though, we were given her on account of her massive hernia!) - in fact, of my 6, 4 of them I would guess are definitely under 15hh. As my dad always said - "I would rather be looking up at you from the back of a good, short horse than looking DOWN at you from the back of a bad, tall horse!"

We had a little girl in here with her mom looking at a filly we had (if you remember, it was the woman who kept insisting that our filly was SOOO dropped at the pasterns, which she wasn't - now she is trying to talk mom into making a $150 custom shirt without putting a downpayment on it, not likely!) and she was about 5'6" and a little chunky, insisting that she NEEDED a 16hh or taller horse - she loved B of course but I didn't have the heart to break it to her that B is NOT EVEN CLOSE to 16hh! Her mom, a petite woman, told her that she needed that big of a horse. I tried to convince her that I rode my sister's little 14.3hh mare and didn't break her!


"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr. Suess