Page 120 - The Mini Horse Magazine 2023 No 1

LEGENDS THROUGHOUT HISTORY

Rowdy

The following is an article I wrote at
the request of David McBride for The
Miniature Horse before it ceased being
published: Generation after Generation
of Excellence - Rowdy

One of my favorite remembrances of being a who have never shown Shetlands, show shape
child with parents in the Shetland pony business meant with a four inch "show hoof" with weighted
is going to shows and sales all over the United shoes, tucked up, and looking like a million!
States. At one such show, I saw one of the most
fabulous black and white show ponies that ever Fast forward to 1980. Carol, my wife, and our
existed, Kewpie Doll’s Oracle by Hillswicke daughter, Lisa, then only six, had just returned
Oracle, who was foaled in 1945. He was as refined from almost four years of living in New York City.
and elegant as any horse that ever stepped into We were back in Texas building a quarter horse
the show ring. Some years later, in the mid 1960, stud farm in Valley View, Texas, thirty miles north
my parents took me to a production sale at the of Dallas. I still had a stallion from the Shetland
J. A. Stovall farm in Era, Texas, where I saw the years who was the smallest that we had ever
reason behind that beautiful stallion, his dam, raised, Greaves Big Un, 31" tall and a grandson
Streamliners Kewpie Doll, who was the model of one of the stallions that we had bought at that
mare of the Shetland Congress in 1948 and Stovall sale around 1960-61. I told my dad that I
1949. She was a beautiful-headed, tri-colored wanted to get some miniature mares to breed to
mare with the highest tailset that I had ever seen. Big Un. He told me that his long-time friend, Jno.
I begged my parents to buy her, but to no avail. W. Norman, in Winters, Texas, still had quite a
She was in her late teens and brought around few Shetlands and he thought he also had a few
$10,000, which was way out of our budget! miniatures, too. On a trip to West Texas to pick up
One of Kewpie Doll’s daughters and a full sister a quarter horse for my dad, I decided to swing by Text written by Tony W. Greaves, drawing Lenka Hynková CZ
to Kewpie Doll’s Oracle, Hillswicke Q P Doll, Mr. Norman’s Lazy N Stables to see what he had.
Grand Champion Mare of the National Shetland At this time Mr. Norman was in his mid-eighties,
Congress as a yearling in 1952, had topped the I think, and was fairly incapacitated. I remember
sale in Perry, Oklahoma, not once, but twice. visiting him when I was eight or nine and riding
The first time, she was in show shape and had a in his stage coach. It was pulled by six ponies
beautiful foal by her side. I couldn’t believe that trained by his trainer, Vern Brewer. It was called
she could have a foal and still look ready to go the Red, White, and Blue hitch - Two white, two
into the show ring. For those miniature readers sorrel, and two blue roans!

120 | Miniature Horse Magazine • Issue 1/2023