Falabella
A Falabella stallion
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| Country of origin | Argentina |
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The Falabella miniature horse is one of the smallest breeds of horse in the world, seldom taller than 8 hands (32 inches, 81 cm) in height at the withers. The Falabella, despite its size, is not considered a pony, but rather is a miniature horse.
The ancestral stock of the horse of South America descended from horses brought to the western hemisphere by the Spanish of Andalusian and other Iberian bloodlines. In the southern part of the continent, significant numbers of these horses developed within geographically isolated conditions and by the mid-19th century, there were any number of smaller, inbred animals in the herds of Mapuche Indians of southern Buenos Aires province in Argentina. The Falabella horse was originally developed in Argentina from local horses of Criollo stock, beginning in 1868 with the breeding program of Patrick Newtall. When Newtall died, the herd and breeding methods were passed to Newtall's son-in-law, Juan Falabella. Juan added additional bloodlines, including the Welsh Pony, Shetland pony, and small Thoroughbreds. With considerable inbreeding, he was able to gain consistently small size within the herd.
Beginning in the 1940s, a descendant, Julio C. Falabella, created a formal breed registry, the Establecimientos Falabella, now the Asociación de Criadores de Caballos Falabella (Falabella Horse Breeders Association), and worked to standardize the breed to reach a consistent height, first achieving an average size of under 100 cm (40 in) Later breeders developed the modern standard, a horse breed that averaged approximately 76 cm (30 in) in height.
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