2018 Miniature Horse World Magazine WINTER 2018 Volume 34, Number 8 | Page 68

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Profile
Laura Tennill -
Ten L Farm
as told by Lynne Francis
LIFE BEFORE MINIS
rom a very young age,
horses were my passion.
I rode and worked with
horses and knew even back
then that working with horses
was what I wanted to do in the
future. I also trained chickens
for fun, and even taught one
chicken to ride a horse, and walk
on a harness! You could tell
that chicken to sit or stay, and
he’d listen! It even got written
up in our local newspaper! In
1981 I started professionally
training and successfully showed
Morgans for several years. I
would purchase young show
prospects to train and show,
then sell them to show homes.
I did that over and over to gain
experience. I once purchased
a four-year-old stallion at a
large Morgan horse auction
in Pennsylvania that I trained
to ride and drive. He later
became the first Morgan in
25 years to win both the Park
Saddle and Park Harness World
Championship.
F
MINIATURE INTRODUCTION
In 1983 I met my future
husband, Joe Tennill, who
stopped by my barn to ask if I
would be interested in training
some Miniature horses at a
nearby Cloverdale Farm. He
was working full time as a
police officer, but also worked
part-time at that farm showing
Nubian dairy goats. The farm
66 Miniature Horse World
WINTER 2018
asked him to help them find
someone to handle and train
their Miniature horses, and of
course, I said yes! When Joe and
I were married two years later, I
decided to train horses full time.
It was a very hard decision, but
I fell in love with the Miniature
horse and wanted to see if I
could really make a go of it. I
sold my remaining Morgans to
great homes, and never looked
back. A highlight from those
early days came when I attended
and exhibited at the very first
AMHA “World” show, which
back then was called the AMHA
National Show. I’ve attended all
but one World show ever since,
and remain loyal to AMHA.
TEN LS TIGERS LEGACY
In 1999 I visited a Kentucky
Shetland/Miniature horse farm
called Owsley Fork Farm, where
I saw a beautiful black pinto
Shetland stallion. I had never
seen any pony as beautiful, and
I left the farm very impressed
thinking that if I could ever
produce something that
beautiful in a smaller size that
would really be something! The
next time I visited Owsley, I saw
a very young and small flashy
colored Shetland colt named
Owsley Fork Tigers Legacy
sired by that same stallion, and
I could not stop thinking about
him! But he was not for sale at
that time. Four years later he
was finally for sale, after having
sired some nice, very small foals
out of taller Shetland mares. Of
course, I bought him and gave
him his Miniature horse name
“Ten Ls Tigers Legacy” when
I hardshipped him into the
Miniature horse registries, which
then made him triple registered.
I didn’t buy him because he
was a Shetland. I bought him
because he was so beautiful
and I thought he would be an
asset to our breeding program,
producing a leggier foal, with a
beautiful head, a more upright
neck, and good movement.
I bred him to some of our
carefully selected mares to
produce foals I hoped would
match my vision. The foals by
Ten Ls Tigers Legacy did not
disappoint me! He has sired
numerous beautiful National
champions, and I’ve kept some
of his most beautiful daughters
to breed in the future.
TEN LS DESTINY IN THE BUFF
The story behind “Buff” is an
interesting one. After many years
of breeding Miniatures, I wanted
to bring in another bloodline