From the looks of it, Bette Ozmon may have been duped. She paid $8,000 for a silver filly, Heidenway’s Peaches ‘N Cream–who turned dark: mottled brown with silver and black streaking. “I’m so angry, I don’t even want to think about it,” Ozmon says, kicking a clump of hay as we walk around her Marengo farm. “I had such hopes.”
“Miniatures are great lawn mowers, great fertilizer providers, and they’re a pet, all in one,” Ozmon says, as she walks around the property. She’s wearing a turquoise T-shirt that bears the slogan “Run, Toto, Run.”
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Ozmon likes to dress hers up as characters from the 1939 movie classic The Wizard of Oz. In one recent parade her trainer, Charles Headrick, dressed as the scarecrow; a friend, Barb Colagrossi, dressed in a yellow caftan and called herself the yellow brick road; and her prized miniature, Oz’s Sir X-Cei-Lance, had his white coat dyed blue to be a “horse of a different color.”
“For every quarter of an inch less in height, a miniature’s value increases,” Ozmon says. “We start selling them at $1,000, and the price goes up. We only sell the babies. If you buy a fully mature miniature, you’re going to pay more because you’re not taking a risk. You know that horse is a miniature, not going to get any bigger. I’ve turned down $50,000 for Sir. I heard that a miniature on the east coast recently went for $110,000. I always knew miniatures would be a good investment.
Ozmon now prefers the miniatures. She says that they’re not only good investments, but easier to care for. “You can brush and groom them with ease. Look at those big Morgans. It takes forever to brush them. And they eat like, well, a horse. A miniature eats a half a pound of grain a day and half a flake of hay a day–maybe a dollar’s worth of food.”
Unlike the Shetland pony, the miniature horses should not be ridden. “They’re just too small,” Ozmon says. “But they’re strong enough to pull a cart, and that’s what they should be used for around children.” Ozmon has had four tiny carriages specially made for her miniatures.
Music boxes that play “Over the Rainbow” are found on nearly every table. Replicas of the ruby slippers grace the dining-room table. Rainbow platters abound. “I always tell people they know what to get for me,” Ozmon says. “I love rainbows. They make you realize that no matter how difficult times might be, there’s always something good coming.
