SPRING VALLEY, Ohio — Jenny, officially registered as Mountjoy's Ice Princess, has spent seven years growing a tail long enough to pool on the ground behind her. Guinness World Records confirmed on July 25 that the American Saddlebred's tail measures 412.62 centimeters, or 13 feet 6 inches, roughly the length of a small hatchback, making it the longest tail ever recorded on a horse.
The previous record, 381 centimeters (12 feet 6 inches), had stood since 2007, set by a mare named JJS Summer Breeze in Augusta, Kansas. Jenny's tail beat it by more than 31 centimeters. She lives at an equestrian school in Spring Valley, where owners Mackenzie Lowe and Rachel Estes have spent years conditioning and protecting the hair from breaking or matting.
"It feels incredible to have broken this record," Lowe said, calling Jenny her "heart horse." Growing a show-quality tail of that length takes patience: Saddlebred tails grow slowly, and keeping one intact for years without trims, tangles or environmental damage is itself part of the achievement that Guinness's record category is built to recognize.
She is so funny and loves to lick people like a dog!
— Mackenzie Lowe, Jenny's co-owner
American Saddlebreds are bred and shown partly for their flowing manes and tails, a trait tracing back to the breed's 19th-century role as a flashy show horse in the American South and Midwest, according to the American Saddlebred Horse Association. Long, full tails are prized in the breed's show ring, where handlers often braid or wrap them between appearances to protect the hair — the same basic technique, scaled up, that helped Jenny's tail reach record length.
Guinness said the record replaces one that had gone unchallenged for nearly two decades, and Jenny now holds the title outright until another Saddlebred, or any other horse, grows past 13 and a half feet.