OUR STORY

Established in the Fall of 2004, Little Cedar Miniatures began when a single colt named 'Jake' was purchased by John and Tricia Willeford at the Clay County Fair in Spencer, IA.  Then, that October, after the I-90 Expo sale, 3 additional mares arrived to the farm.  Two were bred for 2005 foals.  Tricia found out from her mom, Barbara Wallin, that her dad, Lyle Wallin had once been interested in miniature horses; so one of those three new mares was purchased by Lyle. John and Lyle came up with the horse farm name, 'Little Cedar Miniatures' because of a nearby creek. 

In the Spring of 2005, the first two foals arrived, a colt named 'Cy' who went on to be a Reserve National Chamption cart horse and is still dad's herd sires and a filly.  John & Tricia then ended up purchasing a two year old buckskin show mare and a buckskin stallion from their friends, Ed & Jan Hedberg of EJH Miniatures in nearby Newell, Iowa; whom they thank for lots of good advice regarding miniature horses.  Then, trips to the 2006 I-90 Expo sale, Lilliput Acres farm in Minnesota, and Indian Peaks Miniatures, as well as the Little King Heritage sale, led to six other miniature horse purchases.  After considering building a new horse building, an older 108' X 36' insulated hog building was moved from Barb &Lyle's place, 1/2 mile across a field, to Tricia & John's place and was transformed in to a nice horse building complete with office, wash bay, clipping area, and cupulas.

Little Cedar Miniatures farm has how transformed into LC Miniatures and Shetlands as son Deklan has pretty much taken over doing most of the horse business now and he likes 'the taller ones,' hence now getting into crossing miniatures and Shetland ponies.  Now that Deklan is college-age and participates as an amateur (no longer in youth classes) when attending horse shows, he pretty much makes the breeding decisions, does all the training, clipping, and showing while mom, Tricia does the photography and dad helps train, clip, and/or show only on occasion and takes care of the horses when Deklan is off at college.  Our farm is located in Northwest Iowa and most of the horses are AMHR/ASPC registered--and a few are even AMHA eligible.