The Toy Horse Museum, Grandate, Como

The history of this private museum is somewhat original.
Here, in the breeding Il Portichetto was born in July 1952 a very special colt, Tornese.

A beautiful sauro with a blonde mane and tail, a trotter who won almost all the prizes possible in the 1950s and that was comparable only to the famous Varenne of our time. The

stable buildings were sold to the owner of a baby product company that made it an industrial plant. After years of work, Catelli came with some sense of guilt and decided to dedicate the place to horses.

So the project for the toy horse museum started. The result we can visit and touch today. A beautiful place where adults and children can admire more than five hundred rocking horses, toys, carousel horses.

Everyone comes back a little children there but only real children can get on the old steeds and dream of races in the prairie and jump over ditches and bushes.
A beautiful collection with unique pieces, collected from all over the world. Handmade pieces, crumpled by time and the use of the little knights.

The materials used were mainly wood as for Edward, the symbol horse of the museum, made by skilled craftsmen from Val Gardena. Also metal and papier-mache were materials used to produce children's friends.

Every horse has its own name, and there are all kinds of horses. From the horse of the Hermete carousel, who came to Grandate from Hungary to the delicate Jacqueline, to the Fortunato horse in iron and to Tatzuo who comes from China and has traveled half the world.

Every horse has its own story and it's great to imagine the children of the past who ride their steeds.

In front of the museum the huge Roberto rocking horse welcomes you. It is the horse that was built for Roberto Benigni's film Pinocchio and it is so big that it must always stay out in the open air.