The Grass Menagerie Miniature Horses No Small Thing To Palouse Breeder As Their Value, Popularity Grow

“Ornery” might be too strong a word to describe horses that people practically can pick up when they get in the way.

“They’re pests” is how Jodi Cook puts it. “They want you to scratch them. They want you to pet them.”

Cook, a breeder of miniature horses, was trying to sneak through a gate without being followed by Cyrilla, a gray mare standing all of 32 inches from hoof to mane.

“Go away,” she said halfheartedly. “Scram.”

Once through the gate, Cook pointed to a horse that made Cyrilla look like a gorilla. It was a wobbly legged colt, born on Mother’s Day and barely as big as a midsized dog.

With such tiny horses, Cook can house a small menagerie on little more than two acres and a borrowed pasture. These days, the menagerie is growing both at Cook’s Kamiak Stables and among the 6,000-plus miniature-horse breeders nationwide.

Drawn by the horses’ manageable size, uniqueness, increasing value and downright cuteness, fanciers such as Cook have helped the breed grow tenfold in the last decade.

“What’s not the appeal?” asked Cook as Major League, an appaloosa colt, whinnied about the pasture. “They’re wonderful little animals. Every baby you get is a surprise.”

With five colts born in the past month or so, Cook now has 22 horses along with as many cats, four dogs and an oversized goldfish. At last count, the American Miniature Horse Association, one of the breed’s two national registries, had 58,000 horses registered, up from 6,000 in 1983.

Standing less than 34 inches tall, half the height of a typical standard breed, the horses are miniature indeed. They weigh only a few dozen pounds more than Cook’s largest dog, a wolfhoundNewfoundland mix. They eat only about a bale of hay a month. They’re even portable, going with Cook to libraries, day-care centers and school cafeterias.

She draws the line at bringing them into the house. “I’ve never been able to housebreak a herd animal yet,” she said.

Bred from midget horses by English royalty nearly four centuries ago, minis once were used to haul ore in mines where standard-sized horses couldn’t fit. In recent years, the animals have grown in popularity with the general miniaturization of the pet world, from pygmy goats to Vietnamese potbellied pigs.

“There’s a pet quality to them,” said Barbara Ashby, registrar for the American Miniature Horse Association.

Cook got her first mini while living on a one-acre San Diego lot in the late ‘70s. Her husband, Ron Mowery, presented her with Rusty, and the horse went on to an illustrious show career in open-category competitions against quarter horses and even a rare Lippizaner stallion from Budapest, Hungary.

The stable grew as Cook and Mowery moved to Usk, Wash., where Cook was the Newport animal-control officer, and then to Palouse, where Cook is a part-time librarian and Mowery is a locksmith for Washington State University.

“I always liked ponies,” said Cook, 44. “There was something about little horses that I always liked.”

Last year, more than two dozen horses either owned or bred by Cook finished in the top 10 places of various national competitions. She still has Rusty, now retired from competition “virtually undefeated,” but she regularly sells other horses for thousands of dollars.

Nationally, miniature horses are so popular that a stud can sell for more than $100,000.

“I’m proud of my horses,” Cook said, “but never too proud to sell them.”