1443 Teddy Roosevelt’s Little Texas. Great war horses are measured not in hands but in heroism. Described as a “pony” by historians, the chestnut gelding named Little Texas by his rider, future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, will always stand tall in national memory as the horse who bravely led the charge of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry in one of the fiercest battles of the 1898 Spanish American War: the Battle of San Juan Hill. Traditional Size