At 14.1 hands, ‘Teddy’ belied expectation and size to bound around the track at the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** in April to obligate selectors and competitors alike to take him seriously. What his rider, veteran Karen O’Connor (no relation - just coincidence), had known for a long time she was finally able to prove on the world stage. With Shetland blood running through his veins, feet that would make any average Thoroughbred jealous and a reasonably high opinion of himself, Teddy has taken on the critics and won.

Teddy and I have become friends over the last year and I find him to be the most user friendly horse I’ve ever been around. You can virtually give him a complete bath while standing on one side of him, he doesn’t enjoy lots of extra ‘stuff’ being done to him and because he’s a pony - he looks after himself pretty darn well. Having said that, I stood in the tent at Rolex watching his round on closed circuit TV and found myself, like so many others, in disbelief. Those are big fences. 13.5 minutes is a lot of galloping. That is a pony out there. Teddy didn’t seem to notice he was so much closer to the ground than any of his peers. He went on defy gravity again in the show jumping - a feat he repeated a few weeks later at the final selection outing at Jersey Fresh CCI***.

I was at home for a few days and then returned to New Jersey - this time to Gladstone - for the Dressage Festival of Champions. I love going to the Foundation, it’s like going back in time, especially compared to our slick new offices here in Lexington. Now four days is a lot of anything, but there was some great dressage and some awesome horses. Of the three named to the Pan American team, one is not even a hand taller than Teddy.

Brilliant Too, Zuel to his friends, seemed to grow in stature as he cantered down the centerline. His rider, Kate Poulin-Neff says he doesn’t ride small, and he certainly had all the try of a big horse as well. He still serves his role as a pet in the Poulin family and spends plenty of time on the trails and outside to amuse the Thoroughbred side of his personality. Poulin-Neff even compared him to Teddy. Lauren Sammis’ ticket to the Pan Ams, Sagacious HF, isn’t much bigger, but he does break the 16 hand barrier.

I talked to show jumper Laura Chapot on the phone the day I returned from the Festival and as she began telling me about her Pan Am mount a light dawned that Little Big Man’s name might be the theme of the entire US squad. Chapot talked about how, like Teddy and Zuel, Little Big Man is a total crowd pleaser. He’s 15.3 - towering over the other two - but the fences he jumps are more that a foot bigger than what the event horses jump. He joins Pavoratti on the show jumping squad, whose rider Todd Minikus affectionately refers to as the ‘wonder runt’. He’s only 15.3 too.

The US gang of little horses heads to Brazil in the next few weeks, the dressage horses are already in quarantine, the eventers head there next Monday and the showjumpers later next week, lets hope all the US horses (big and small) are heads and shoulders above the competition in Rio.