Falabella Miniature Horses

The Falabella miniature horse is one of the smallest and rarest equine breeds in the world. In fact, there are only believed to be around 2,000 to 3,000 falabellas left in the world.

Strangely, the ‘Falabella’ pony is not actually strictly speaking a pony, but a very small horse. The height at the withers of a falabella is generally never over 8hh (that’s 32inches/72cm), with 6-7hh being the normal height.

Falabella horses were first bred in Argentina by the ‘Falabella’ family, which is how they got their name. It is believed that the first breeding programme for these ponies was in 1868, with horses from the local Argentinian ‘Criollo stock’;organised by Patrick Newtall. After Patrick Newtall died, his son-in-law, Juan Falabella, took over the breeding programme and introduced other horse and pony blood lines such as: Welsh Ponies, small Thoroughbreds and Shetland ponies. However, it appeared that the only way to consistently maintain small sizes within the herd of Falabella miniature horses was to carry out a considerable amount of inbreeding.

Sometime in the 1940s Julio C. Falabella created a ‘formal breed registery’ so the Falabella horse was recognised as a proper breed and not an abnormally small shetland pony for example. When the breed was first registered, the standard height for the horses was 40 inches. After more breeding, the recognised height for the Falabella miniature horse went down to around 30 inches at the withers.

Falabella horses are seldom ridden due to their small size, but are surprisingly capable of jumping to around 3 feet (without a rider)!

The Falabella breed is also noted for staying fertile up to a longer age than other horse and pony breeds.