J
essica and Craig Zamboni enjoy seeing
spots, lots of spots, in all different sizes. And not
just spots, but a variety of colors, too. They have
Appaloosas, pintos, dilutes, and silvers at CheyAut
Ranch in El Mirage
The Zambonis breed and raise miniature horses, and have 28 of them right now. Jessica grew up
with full-size horses, but decided on minis “because
I wanted to learn to drive, but I didn’t want to drive
a big horse, because that was too intimidating. So I
thought a mini would be fun.”
Jessica got her first mini because she had an older
horse trailer that needed some work. She was hauling a horse and the brakes locked up on it, so she
decided to park it and then bought another horse
trailer. She saw an ad (in 2002) where someone was
looking for a horse trailer for hauling goats, and they
offered to trade a mini horse for it. With that mini,
Jessica and Craig got involved in the miniature horse
club in Arizona. And that start grew to the herd that
they have now.
“We breed minis for quality, not quantity. Of the
28 some are young, some are old and retired. Some
are geldings. Our main focus is driving with them.
We do ‘breed’ shows as well. I like all-around so we
do jumping, we do driving, we do obstacle, we do
halter. Most of our breeding stallions are National
or World Top Fives in halter, color, or driving, or a
multiple of those.”
One of their key stallions is Timberview High
Stakes Gambler, who is a buckskin Appaloosa with
the silver gene. According to Jessica, “He does combined driving events, which is kind of like eventing,
but with driving, so they do dressage, they do cones,
which is like a stadium jumper’s course. Then there’s
a cross country phase which instead of going over
jumps, it’s things. It could be through water, it could
be around a bush or logs, manmade or natural, and
that’s timed as well. I did that with him and now
my best friend Laura is his main competition driver.
He’s great for going around the neighborhood, too.
She drives him with her kids in the cart.”
Gambler is also her precision drill team horse.
She and Craig are both on the Arizona Mini Mystique miniature horse driving drill team. Arizona
Mini Mystique has gone to the Rose Bowl parade
many years, Calgary Stampede in Canada, World
Equestrian Games in Kentucky, and various other
events in Arizona, New Mexico, and California.
Another one of their stallions is SWA It’s Go
Time By Rolex. His barn name is GT, and he is the
only known homozygous champagne miniature
horse in the U.S. GT has done the combined driving with Jessica one year so far, but he placed pretty
well in a really large class. Jessica’s main show horse
is McSperitt’s Rowdy Special Image, who is double
bred Rowdy. Image is a grulla, one of her favorite
colors, who has got World Top Fives in halter and
color.