Mid-Summer Fun Guide: Land of Little Horses
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
OH MY GOD YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYYYYYYS.
$11.95-$15.95 | 146 miles/two and a half hours away | Land of Little Horses, 125 Glenwood Dr., Gettysburg, Pa., 717-334-7259, landoflittlehorses.com.
The Land of Little Horses is exactly what you think it is.
The farm park is home to dozens of tiny Falabella horses, a breed that has about the same proportions as standard horses, but stands between 28- and 32-inches tall at the withers.
This is exactly as excellent as it sounds.
Some Falabellas wander around the park loose, some chill in stalls in a scaled-down stable, some (stallions and nursing mothers) have their own larger outdoor spaces, some perform in a very low-stakes stage show. But all are so tiny and adorable that it seemed to have short-circuited the brains of many of the completely ecstatic summer-camp visitors on a recent Wednesday.
Falabellas originated as a breed in Argentina over 150 years ago, and were continued and refined by a single family, the Falabellas, for centuries — the species didn’t come to the U.S. until the 1960s. Animals that are the result of extensive selective breeding often have genetic health problems. But Falabellas are quite the opposite, says Dawne Smith, owner of LOLH, which has been open since 1971. “These guys tend to live a good bit longer than their standard-sized cousins,” she tells a group of children. “Most standard sized-horses live to about the age of 25 or 30 years old; our oldest horse we lost at the age of 43, he just passed away last fall.”
They’re also hardy, she says while walking King, a handsomely spotted leopard Appaloosa that comes up to about her waist, around the stable. Several years ago, she says, King somehow badly broke his leg while at pasture overnight. “If he had been a big horse, there probably wouldn’t have been a chance to save him. But little guys like this are more like large dogs,” she says, and an equine hospital was able to help King recover.
The breed is gentle and very intelligent — so much so that in 1999 miniature horses started being employed as guide animals for blind people who can’t have a seeing-eye dog because of phobias, allergies or religion. (They’re usually fitted with tiny sneakers on their hooves.)
A few good-natured retirees from the LOLH stage show wander loose around the park to be fed and petted by children.
“Even on the worst days, where it’s really crowded, I know I can trust these guys. If they get a little fed up, they have hiding places, and they’ll go hide out for a little while,” says Smith. All the Falabellas at LOLH, even those in pens, had avenues of escape from the hordes of rapturous kids all over the park, but most seemed happy to come over and schmooze for food.
There are other attractions at the Land of Little Horses — turkeys, goats, pigs, peacocks, miniature donkeys, a rope maze, other farm-type stuff, plus it’s really close to the Gettysburg battlefield — but the little horses are clearly the reason to go. Because they are like horses but little.
