A Horse Helped Hand Out Guinness Certificates on German TV. He’s a Record Holder Too.
Pumuckel measures 52.6 cm to the withers, and he spends his working life visiting nursing homes, hospices, schools and disability care facilities.
A therapy horse named Pumuckel, from Breckerfeld, Germany, holds the Guinness World Records title for shortest living horse (male). He measures 52.6 cm (21.1 inches) to the withers, the top of a horse’s shoulders.12
Guinness says his official measurement was taken in Breckerfeld on August 16, 2025, and it published his story in November 2025.21
A small horse with a big schedule
Pumuckel is trained as a therapy horse. According to Guinness, he regularly visits nursing homes, hospices, schools and facilities for people with disabilities.13
His owner, Carola Weidemann, described his personality to Guinness. “He has a very lovable character,” she said, adding: “Pumuckel loves being the centre of attention.”1
That may help with his other public duties. He appeared on the German TV program Guinness World Records - Die Grosse Show der Weltrekorde, where he helped hand out certificates.12
Small from the start
Weidemann told Guinness that Pumuckel came to her in October 2020, when he was five months old. He stood only 47 cm tall and probably weighed under 20 kg. She heard about him through a friend who was looking for therapy horses.1
“I drove over, took a look at him and was truly, completely shocked. I had never seen such a small, little horse before,” she said in the Guinness article.1
Weidemann says he was not bred to be this small. She calls his size a “quirk of nature.”14
Beating the previous record holder
The previous holder of the title was Bombel, a horse from Poland who measured 56.7 cm (22.36 inches). Pumuckel comes in more than 4 cm shorter.12
The Guinness title is not his first honor. German outlets describe Pumuckel as a Shetland pony from the Sauerland region. They reported that a German record-keeping group, the Rekord-Institut für Deutschland, certified him as the smallest living horse on March 26, 2024. At the time, Bombel was still listed as the Guinness record holder.56 Guinness’s own page calls Pumuckel a horse.2
His Guinness title carries a careful qualifier: shortest living horse, male.
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Sources
- Shortest living horse Pumuckel is the ultimate short king and deserves all your attention Guinness World Records, 2025-11-01
- Shortest horse living (male) Guinness World Records
- Watch: World's shortest horse measures just 21.1 inches tall UPI via Yahoo News Canada, 2025-11-25
- Meet Pumuckel, the shortest horse in the world! Guinness World Records Kids, 2025-12-11
- Das kleinste Pferd der Welt kommt aus NRW und heißt Pumuckel prometheus.vet, 2024-03-26
- Rekord: Pony Pumuckel aus Deutschland ist das kleinste Pferd der Welt pferde.de
