Our Favorite Art: The Little Guys

Horse Isle 2 is home to an impressive number of different horse and pony breeds: 137 as of the addition of the Carolina Marsh Tacky. We've decided it would be fun to highlight the ones that - in our humble opinions - have the best profile artwork. It wasn't easy, but in the end, we narrowed it down to our top 40: 10 pony/small horse breeds, 10 draft breeds, and 20 horse breeds. This divides up nicely so that we'll each get to show you 10.

Many of these breeds are represented in our herd already, but we have chosen to use screenshots of random BBB horses in these posts instead. (This way there will be no distracting tack, companions, rump art, or background colors in the shots.)

I will go first with our 10 favorite "fun-sized" breeds. (We've decided to include both ponies and small horses.)

Abaco Barb

Their art reminds me a bit of the Kiger Mustangs in the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron movie, only with more realistic faces. They look wild, sturdy, and well-proportioned. My personal favorites are the medicine hat pintos like this one. We're all glad that Abacos live on in HI2, because sadly the breed went extinct in real life in 2015.

Caspian

The artist did a great job of making these guys look how they're supposed to: not proportioned like a pony but instead like a desert horse that's scaled down in size. I love their picturesque manes and tails and their Arabian-like heads. Regrettably, Caspians are quite small for our adult avatar, PepsiSummer. Unless we get really lucky and find a maximum-height 12-hand one, we probably won't ever get to have one in our herd.

Dales Pony

These ponies' elegant, alert bearing in combination with their shaggy manes, tails, and feet make them pretty much irresistible. No wonder we immediately fell in love with our first equine on HI2, Ophelia the Dales Pony. <3

Datong

Datongs are probably my personal favorite small-sized equine breed on the game. Their expressions are alert and curious, they have stocky, round proportions, and then there are those awesome forehead nubs. <3

Estonian Native Horse

Hardy-looking yet not heavily built, these little horses have pleasing proportions, thick manes and tails, and gentle expressions. We are impressed by how much they resemble real-life ENH's we've seen via Google image searches.

Fell Pony

These ponies don't have the Dales Pony's elegance, but they're awfully cute all the same. Their long bodies, short legs, and foot shag make them a little awkward, but for us their alert, good-natured faces make up for it.

Kerry Bog Pony

Like with the Caspians, it's a shame for our avatar's sake that these guys don't get any taller than 12 hands. Despite their small size and pony-ish proportions, there is something kind of noble about their artwork. We're also huge fans of their thick, long manes and tails.

Mongolian Horse

Anybody else familiar with the children's book Fritz and the Beautiful Horses? It is one of our favorites. These shaggy little horses remind us of Fritz. <3

Spanish Mustang

Some Spanish Mustangs are tall enough to be considered horses, but many are not, hence their place here. They look happy and windswept and perhaps a bit more cartoony than many other horse breeds here, but that doesn't bother us a bit.

Welsh Mountain Pony

These super cute little guys sure look like the real thing! My favorite aspect of them is their Arabian-like heads. They also remind us of Merrylegs from the Black Beauty movie.

There, that was 10! Check back in the coming weeks for my sisters' posts about our favorite artwork of HI2's larger horse breeds. =)