The dappled equine stood obediently as a woman holding a clipboard and a measuring stick approached him at a Florida horse show. He didn’t flinch when she propped the rod against his side, or when she gently lowered an L-shaped protrusion embedded with a liquid level onto his shoulders.
His owner held her breath as the steward with the United States Equestrian Federation, there to make the official determination of what sort of animal he was — tall enough to qualify as a horse, or short enough to fall into the category of pony — jotted down his height on her pad.
Using the industry’s four-inch unit of measurement known as a hand, she wrote down 14 hands, 2 inches (58 inches) — the maximum height allowed to still be considered a pony.
“Congratulations,” the steward said to the animal’s visibly relieved owner. And then aside, “He looked so big, I thought I was about to break your heart.”
Ponies are not young horses; they are diminutive versions of the same creature, specially bred to carry the littlest equestrians around. And in the United States, where show jumping officials have long made competitors abide by strict rules that sort not just horses from ponies, but ponies into different classes based on size, every inch matters.
A hair under or over the measurements codified in official rule books can change the path of a pony’s competitive career and tank the animal’s value, sometimes by a fortune.
Since the 1970s in the discipline called hunters, where animals are subjectively judged on their skillfulness and beauty (what is called “quality”), pony competition has been broken into three height-based categories, Small, Medium and Large. Small (anything under 12.2 hands), Medium (between 12.2 and 13.2 hands) and Large ponies (taller than 13.2 but no bigger than 14.2 hands, or it is considered a horse) jump obstacles of increasing heights.
What all those inches have translated to in this ultracompetitive world, where top animals can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars — and that might just be the price of a year lease — is a premium placed on ponies that are as tall as they can be in their category. They are what’s colloquially called “top-of-the-line.”
Top-of-the-line Smalls, for example, are worth a lot, under the theory that they have an edge: They vault jumps more easily, have longer legs to gallop across the arena and, vitally, can carry older and thus larger children with superior riding skill. But heaven forbid the pony is on the small side of, say, Medium, a dreaded “smedium.” It risks its talent and cuteness being overlooked in favor of a pony a smidgen bigger.
“The pony division categories were created with input from breeders and industry leaders who studied the sizes and numbers of ponies competing at the time, taking into consideration stride length, course design and jumping abilities,” Vicki Lowell, a spokeswoman for the federation, said.
Where heights impact owners most is at the bank, in a sport where a pony with a long record of wins at top venues can go for high six-figures. “An animal on the small side can be worth 10 percent of an animal on the large side, a difference that can equal tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Piper Klemm, publisher of The Plaid Horse, an industry magazine. “It is a small part of winning and being competitive, but it is a large resale and investment.”
(It is important to note that many people said they believed the difference of inches held little meaning, that ability depended on the individual pony and the size obsession was unfounded.)
Height-obsession starts before conception. At Grey Hill Ponies in Virgilina, Va., Megan O’Donnell scours bloodlines for evidence that a pony might “overgrow” before choosing her mating pairs, she said.
“You can take a 12.2 mare and a 14.2 stallion and breed it and pray that you’re going to get a 13.2 — the middle,” she said — but nature often has other plans. “You can do math all day long, but you just always have to take into consideration the bloodlines.”
Ponies can typically keep growing up to six years of age, so it is only then that the federation will take its official measurement and issue what is called a permanent card, documenting the height in perpetuity. (Before they are carded, ponies can compete in other divisions.)
To prepare for the official measurement, hooves are kept trimmed; a good pedicure can cut a half inch of height. A close shave of the shoulder blades, or withers, the apex of an equine’s back from which the measurement is taken, also can help.
Many owners have experienced the phenomenon of their pony growing when the measuring rod comes out. Ponies can puff up with anxiety, much like people tensing their shoulders, and add inches to the measure. This is in part why the federation offers an appeals process and the chance at a second shot. To combat the puffing up, some breeders start acclimatizing their ponies to the measuring stick when they are foals.
The phenomenon almost cost the sale of a pony for Dr. Jennifer Trujillo, a veterinarian from Atlanta, when, she said, potential buyers of her six-year-old German Riding Pony, Lucy, arrived at the stables with their own measuring stick. Unfamiliar with her new handlers, Lucy ballooned several inches, Dr. Trujillo said. She noted that the customers made a deal — they gave Dr. Trujillo a deposit and a month to shrink Lucy for her permanent Medium card. No card, no sale.
“We trimmed the feet, then we trimmed some more; we shaved the pony, then we shaved some more,” Dr. Trujillo said. The day of the measure, she also exercised Lucy, a lot. “When I’m done for the day, my posture is terrible. The ponies are the same way. When they’ve had a good hard day, they slouch. And that’s what you want for a hard measure.”
Lucy Sweetnam, 12, and her older siblings Olivia, 16, and Collin, 14, are some of the best pony riders in the country. They ride out of their parents’ Sweet Oak Farm in Wellington, Fla. Lucy has multiple ponies she shows in different height categories. The handful of inches make the ride distinct, she said, whether she is on Poco or FOMO, both Mediums, or Pepsi, her Small.
“When I am on my Small pony, it’s very easy, I might be a bit taller on him,” Lucy said. “But on my Medium pony, he is quite big, so it feels very different.”
There are also age limits on young riders. For example, no child over 12 may compete on a Small, in part to prevent what is colloquially called “pony squishing,” or overburdening an animal.
Pony size is still the most vital measure for many owners. Dr. Trujillo warned that there was big money at stake over size, and the manipulation of their bodies could go too far. Some owners have resorted to methods that violate ethical lines, like trimming hooves to the painful quick to shorten the stature and administering sedatives to create a slump, in violation of federation rules.
“U.S.E.F. has strict rules in place to protect ponies from unethical measurement practices,” Ms. Lowell, the federation spokeswoman, said. They include fines, suspensions and even permanent bans for rule breakers.
For some, the sport’s obsession with size is a turnoff that misses the point entirely. At Birchwood Farms in Leeds, Ala., Miranda Burchfield has some young students who focus only on the local show circuit and competition classes that don’t take the size subdivisions into account. For those ponies, she said, “I don’t care what it looks like, what size it is, as long as it does its job.”
Her students also aren’t bothered by whether their pony is a touch too small or tall, Ms. Burchfield added. “They just think that they’re cute.”
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