Falabella history

The origin of the Falabella horse is intimately linked to the origins of the horse in Latin America. The Andalusian horses that the Spaniards brought with them to accomplish the enormous task of the conquest, chosen for their rusticity and resistance, were later left to survive on their own due to unsuccessful attempts to conquer the area's human inhabitants.

Wandering without destination over the vast plains ("pampas"), the surviving horses underwent by necessity a series of biological processes and structural changes in order to adapt to the new conditions, so different from those of their native land.

All these factors, along with continuous inbreeding and isolation, surely caused genetic mutations in successive generations. This resulted in the kind of horse that the ancestors of the Falabella family are said to have seen for the first time before the mid-nineteenth century in the herds of Mapuche Indians of southern Buenos Aires province in Argentina.

After many years of crossing and selection, the Falabella family achieved a herd of harmonious and well-structured horses less than 40 inches in height, maintaining the same proportions in their features as those of the horses Falabella had first acquired.

The Falabella family sought to improve the breed and refine the shape of the horse. To attain these goals, Falabella introduced specimens of Europeans breeds, small Thoroughbreds, Welsh ponies, Shetlands, small horses from Eastern Europe, Criollos and their siblings. Successive generations of the Falabella family raised very small horses significantly more harmonious in form than their predecessors and reduced the height to the present standard of less than 30 inches.

After 1940, Julio C. Falabella started a registry of birth and genealogical details for some of his horses. Due to his remarkable memory and some older data available to him, he was able to attain, by inference, genealogies up to approximately twenty years back. This primary Registry, not always methodical, was systematized in the mid-sixties, using classic genealogical techniques.

In 1980, while honoring the work done by J.C. Falabella for the development of the breed, Establecimientos Falabella decided to redesign the Registry. Incorporating new tools, like the computer, the chronological numerical order was changed, and ascending numbers from 1980 forward were assigned to the registration of each horse. Descending numbers, preceded by the "A" acronym were assigned to the horses born before 1980. Similarly, old annotations were researched and techniques were improved, giving the Registry the form it has at the present time.

Since the beginning of the 1950's, when the breed began to spread internationally, to the present time, sovereigns, international personalities and horse breeders have shown a great interest in the Falabella. It can be said, without hesitation, that there is no place in the word where a Falabella has not trodden. From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego (the southernmost tip in the world), from the torrid regions of the Arabic peninsula to the cold fjords of Norway, or from florid Japan to arid Atacama, the Falabella has been fed, or has procreated or has developed in astonishing form.