Falabella

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Falabella miniature horse is one of the smallest breeds of horse in the world, seldom taller than eight hands (78 cm/32 inches) in height at the withers. The Falabella is a rare breed, with only a few thousand individuals existing worldwide. 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-nineteenth 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.