How Miniature Horses Changed Our Lives
Written By: Kimberly

I feel I really need to sit down and do this. Too many people are missing out on what wonderful little creatures miniature horses are.

My beautiful daughter Brooke is 8 years old and has a form of dwarfism called Achondroplasia. She has a huge heart for animals. Brooke started watching her friend Ally take riding lessons on her quarter horse and soon Brooke was asking when her first lesson was going to be. Keep in mind that she is the size of most 2 year olds. Many little people children struggle with orthopedic issues and Brooke had been having leg pain for over nine months. I did not want to go back to physical therapy, mostly for Brooke emotionally, so I thought this would be a great way to continue her passion for animals and help build leg strength at the same time. The first time Brooke had a lesson the stable owner nearly had a heart attack, because Brooke was so small on top of this huge horse (I did check with Brooke's doctors prior to even introducing this idea to her and got a letter from her pediatric neurosurgeon saying it was okay). I got a phone call the next day for the stable owner asking me if I had ever thought about looking into miniature horses for Brooke. I got on the internet immediately and read as much information as I could. Fortunately, there was a family in a nearby city that had 50 of them, and had shown/raised/bred them for 18 years. I called them and asked if we could come out, and found this wonderful couple who took us all over their farm. We walked in the last pasture, and this beautiful paint mare came right up to Brooke. She kept putting her head up to Brooke so Brooke kissed her on the nose; little did we know she would be ours. The owners said they were going to put her in a sale in two weeks, because she was not able to "get pregnant" for them and they had her since she was a weanling. At that time she was 4.

I walked away from there with several books on miniatures and thinking they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Brooke could not stop talking about them, and despite what I had heard, they were all incredibly calm, sweet little beings. I personally could not get enough information about them....

For the next six weeks we went out to visit "Honey Bunch" weekly. I continued to gather information, visited with other miniature horse owners and tried not to buy the whole herd of them!! I talked with the stable owners where Brooke had begun taking lessons if we could board her there and they made a space for her, so we decided to buy her. We surprised Brooke one day, and this was the best gift we could have ever gotten her. At her size it has been huge for Brooke' s confidence to be in control of an animal that size. She has lessons every week on her (Honey was not broke either), and we go to the stable every day. We are very fortunate to have a group of people/girls that board and lesson there that are so fantastic. They have embraced Brooke and Honey as well. It would take me pages of writing to express what this has done for Brooke. She wants to be with that horse everyday and her level of activity and exercise has never been greater and her passion for being outside is more than it has ever been. One week after we got her, Brooke entered her in a horse show for just the kids at our stable and took 3rd in halter class out of seven! The second week to the day we got her, we found out she was pregnant! We are going to have a baby in March of 08' - We saw the baby on an ultrasound and I wish the justation was not soooo long for horses. Brooke talks about the "baby" everyday. The friends at the stable could not be happier for us, and she is the main attraction at Veritas Stables.

Kimberly, mom to Brooke