Stetson and his BFF

Stetson was placed in a fabulous home, you can read about at:

 Stetson, June 2011. 

Stetson has always enjoyed attention and loves to be ridden. We know because while here, he would run up to the kids who wanted to ride him.

He knew what they were here for and he loved the attention.

So here is Stetson now, at his new home in Indiana Stetson where he gets lots of attention and love.

T. H. Madame Butterfly

We often have neighbors come by and want to visit with the minis. Not everyone has the property to own their own horses, but still they love to visit. This little girl walked around with her mom and was followed by Butterfly the entire time. We put a halter on her, and let the little girl sit on Butterfly and then walk her around.

Her mom sent us this photo of the two together. Just thought I would share.

Below photos of Madame Butterfly on 12/28/2012.
She is AMHR registered at under 34". Great disposition,

Here are some more photos of Madame Butterfly.

Trail or Driving This 4 yr Gelding Does It All

Thinking of a perfect trail or driving gelding for your son? This four year old gelding can do it all. Check out the photos below from videos shot of him driving and being ridden.

He is used to walking in creeks but occasionally needs a little prompting to step in, but once in he is fine.

Will travel in almost any terrain. Below you see him going up a steep hill.

He drives real smooth, is good natured. Fine around trucks, combines and snowplows. Noise does not bother him.

Serious inquiries please email for a link to view him in videos that these images were pulled from.

Sandy Beach Loves Kids

Sandy has spent the summer playing best friend to most of the girls in an Amish family. Talk about a kid friend mini, below you see the girls hitching you the cart. The younger brother is supervising, after all he's three and must take charge.

After hitching her up they start off for a ride, four little girls with the seven year old taking command.

While there is video, just thought I would add one more photo of Sandy being ridden as well.

Read more about Toad Hill's Sandy Beach by clicking on her name above.
Sandy has never been exposed to a stallion, she is just a sweet little horse that I have kept since she was born on the farm.

StetsonUpdate2

Stetson is the first horse born under the Toad Hill name. He was shown in 2002 as a yearling by Brenda Plass and during the first year of showing he was entered at 4 shows won 4 Grand Champions and 4 Reserve Grand Champion...and then we pulled him from the show circuit and based upon the trainers recommendation gelded him. The following year he went oversize and was never shown again.

Hall of Fame Category: Halter
Points From 2002: 36
Grand Champion wins: 4
Reserve Champion Yearly Gelding,Over and Reserve Multi-Color Gelding Over
Shown Exclusively by Brenda Plass

We have had him on the farm ever since. In 2008 a neighbor, 16 year old girl, who was showning in competition a dressage horse spent the summer training Stetson for riding. She said if she could show him the next year, she would train him in dressage. Well, the next summer she found a job and could not fit Stetson into her busy schedule.

A couple years later we sent him to Arthur, he was getting fat and needed someone to exercise him. Daniel, our young Amish trainer kept him for the summer. He was ridden and exposed to driving. But it was obvious to Daniel that Stetson is a riding horse and he really did not like pulling a cart.

He has been here since, but once again is getting fat. He needs a home where kids will ride him so he is reluntantly being offered for sale.

Stetson is a hard worker, he helps with everything around the house. He is used to being on the lawn (fenced in) but supervises all jobs such as fixing the riding mower, unloading wood for the fireplace or paint a house.

To see more photos check out: PICASA WEB

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*--*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Stetson has been placed in a wonderful home with a POA, a couple minis, a couple of kids and their 14 nieces, nephews who come to play with the horses. He will be shown in fun shows in Indiana. Photos to come soon.

Thank YOU Brenda for recommending they give me a call.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*--*-*-*-*-*-*-*

UPDATE June 21, 2012

Stetson has a great home with the owner having two kids and 14 nieces and nephews to play with. He also has two other minis, a POA and a larger horse as companions.

Junior Handler at CSPA

While at the CSPA (Central States Pony Assoication) show at Gordyville, I met a young lady (7 years old) who seemed really into minis.

She was showing several buckskin mares in the over class and her stalls were next to mine. We got to talking and she was quite taken with Toad Hill's Little Dove, a blue roan pinto. So I said if she wanted she could show her in color class. She showed Little Dove and won 1st place under both judges...well done!!

Below is Brianna in the multi-color class.

Brianna with Little Dove..."Darn Fly keeps nipping me on the hind leg" said Little Dove

Miss Peach Meets Mr. Picasso

Picasso is one of my stallions. He currently shares a pen with two other breeding stallions (Rusty and Sid), three 2-year old stallions (Slate, Lincoln and Baldrige) and a "monster" sized miniature gelding (Stetson --can you say at least 42 inches--yikes!!).

Anyway, Miss Peach came for the day and decided she wanted to ride minis. She runs out into the pen with all the boys flapping her mittens held by strings connected to her coat. Needless to say it was quite a surprise for the boys and most of them headed for the the other side of the field.

Mr. Picasso, who loves attention, came up to be petted, and Miss Peach was put on aboard. Since I did not have a halter with me, I put my hand under his chin and we walked around the field until it was way too cold to stay out any longer. Miss Peach had decided I should bring Mr. Picasso up to her home in the big city and let her keep him.

Sorry Miss Peach, Mr. Picasso is headed to Hal Bryant's to become a Chariot Horse!!. Perhaps, Hal will let me drive him sometime. Mr. Picasso leaves in February for his new home.

Off the Shetland Miniature Website

I know if you are like me, you don't always get to other sites such as the Shetland, Miniature Website (http://www.shetlandminiature.com) . Well I was there today, and read the article below. The movie is worth watching if you are wanting to see and know a little more about minis. I will leave the link as long as it works.

Below is a direct quote from that site.

Bob And Mary Sansevere and their family made the local ABC News with their miniature horses. The segment shows the whole family including Samantha, Sawyer, Spencer and little Shane getting in the fun with their miniature horses. Check out their news clip

Jeanne DeBruce’s Miniature Horses became supermodels when they were asked to pose with the human models for the new Hobby Horse Horse Clothing Company catalog. Those little horses give the glamorous human models a run for the money. Or as one person said “Their were people in the photos, too?”

Now when someone asks the ridiculous age old question , “What can you do with them?” be sure to add modeling, acting and making news to the long list of fun things owners do with their miniature horses

CSPA - Chariot

Saturday, June 21, 2008 went to the Central States Pony Association show in Gordyville - Gilford, IL. Rebel was being shown by Jason Prince so I wanted to see Rebel and just say hi to people I know.
I had a chance to snap one photo of a little girl ready to go into costume class.

While wondering around I noticed one chariot. What was impressive about this chariot was the obvious attention to detail that when into it.

The detailing included gold trim around the front hull, wooden trim painted and applied to the sides, gold sleeves on the axles between the frame and the wheels and gold painted washers to hold the wheels on before a cotter keys..

At the Horse Wash

Getting ready for a showing weekend means a lot of preparation. You have to wash the horses, clip the horses, keep the horses clean while you take them to the show...it's work, work, work.

But there are times you can play Tom Sawyer and get someone else to do the work.

We took advantage of the cute little horses, and convinced my grandson and some of his girl friends that horse washing was fun!!! In the photo Grapenuts getting her first bath prior to clipping. Grandson is in the green shirt, he's the official holder since the girls don't know how to control the horses.

They washed four horses that day, and in the end everyone except the horses needed to take a shower. Don't know who got the wettest!!

Updates-Phantom, No Foal Yet

First thanks to everyone who made suggestions about a barn cam. We may be purchasing one in the near future.

No, Kibbles has still not foaled yet, she is probably waiting for the most inconvenient time to foal, or waiting for me to go somewhere over the week...then she will sneek it in. Right now it is chilly, slight drizzle and she is out with the other mares munching on grass.

Saturday went to Arthur, IL and picked up our "school bus." Phantom, if you recall, is the 2006 National Multi-Color (All Stars #1 -Top Ten). The family took great care of him, he was fit, in good flesh, feet neatly tirmmed, and (I hate to admit) cleaner than some at my house. I did a little clipping on his mane and neck...he was totally calm, even when clipping around his ears. Then I turned him over to the kids.

It was something to see him being harnessed and handled by the little kids. There were at one time as many as eight youngsters (the neighbor kids came over to visit) scurrying around him. Most of them could barely see over his back (35.5 inches), but they got him harnessed without dad's help and they took him to the front lawn where we took movies. First the five girls drove him around then the three boys took their turn. As I mentioned previously in the blog he takes three kids to school and back twice a week, 2 miles in 20 minutes. After the cart, the kids took Phantom back into the barn, took off the harness and put a saddle on him. While they were working on finding the correct girth (do not know its proper name) a litte four month old baby sat on Phantom's back on the saddle. No one was holding the baby, he had his feet around the front of the saddle and Phantom stood perfectly still, the baby was having a lot of fun. Now here is a little horse that can be trusted with kids!!!

We brought two other minis down to do a trade out. Gatsby, Phantom's sire, was left for "school bus training" for next year and we also dropped off Stetson for "summer camp." The kids will have another steed to ride around the farm, and Stetson loves the attention. We will pick Stetson up in the fall, unless they decide to move him also into "school bus rotation."

As for the movies, I have put them on this blog for a short period. I knew nothing about how to move the files off the tape I used in the camcorder to the computer and on to a DVD, but finally figured it out. As you will see, there were times I took movies of the grass. Since these kids are Amish I tried not to take images of their faces.
I have redone the videos and saved them at a different download speed.
First one is the girls.

The next one is a close up of Phantom.



Last one is Phantom being ridden.



So I guess you can say I am not ready to quit my day job and become a movie producer. It took 4 hours to figure out how to save these files, upload them to YouTube and put them in the blog (that was the easy part).

American Livestock Ads

I received a call from a salesperson at American Livestock about placing an ad in their magazine. I don't know the salesperson on the other end of the phone personally but he has the greatest "southern gentlemen" voice I have encountered. Who could refuse a saleman like this? So I did. NW Designs created the ad so here it is as it appears in the magazine. It may look familiar, it is the same as appears at the top of this blog.

American Livestock
Summer 2008 Ad

Interesting Article: Implementation Plan For Exporting Livestock

Nationals - Tulsa 2008

While we chose not to take horses all the way to Tulsa, we did go down there to experience the five day long event.One of the events we watched was costume contest. I am sure there were several classes and we did not see all of them, but I thought I would post some of the pictures. If you are wondering if a three year old child can show a horse, pay attention to the size of some of the exhibitors. Naturally local shows have even more liberal classes and if they can walk and mom goes with them, even the youngest of kids can show in this class and lead line (where the kids ride and the horse is lead by an adult).

While there many good entries, I am not that good a photographer so I only have a few. Let's start with the Aliens (above)...this was a real crew!!!.

There were four aliens clad in black, the youngest was about three. Please note that alien at the end of the group. You really need a close up of this critter.

Yeap, that's a mini under all that corded baling twine. This was one of the winners in the class, no wonder...the flying saucer even blew smoke out.

Another crew had a little black mini pulling a pirate ship, and the crew included a youngster in a wheel chair. (Mini shows are equal opportunity, and there are classes for everyone..)

What costume contest would be complete without a princess. Naturally there was a little girl in a "princess style" dress carrying gifts, probably going to a birthday is my guess.

The last two photos (below) are of the same entry. As we walked around the stalls before the costume class we saw this unusual looking mini "zebra?" I did not know that they showed zebras at a miniature horse show. Later in the costume class this little guy was lead in by a youngster in safari gear.