Carola Weidemann was looking at a five-month-old foal measuring 47 centimeters and weighing less than 20 kilos when she adopted him in October 2020.
She had never seen a horse so small. Pumuckel isn’t the result of selective breeding: he was born that way, due to what Guinness World Records describes as a whim of nature.
Now fully grown, he measures 52,6 centimeters at the withers—the height of a large dog—and is officially the world’s smallest living horse. He surpassed Bombel, the Polish equine who held the record at 56,7, by more than 4 centimeters.
But his small size is only half the story. Pumuckel lives in Germany alongside normal-sized horses, helps with farm chores, and was trained as a therapy horse thanks to his gentle, calm temperament. He visits nursing homes, hospices, schools, and centers for people with disabilities, and even helped hand out certificates on the German Guinness World Records program.
People who see him for the first time think he’s a stuffed toy. Those who know him know that his greatest record is something else.
