Collector gallops to success with ‘My Little Pony’

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Where are they now?

Cayci Robold stands in her “Pony Room” with some of the 1,750 My Little Pony toys and accessories she has collected. Photo provided by Cayci Robold

While Cayci Suitt Robold was a child growing up in Canyon Lake, she began collecting the popular children’s toy, “My Little Pony.” Cayci says she started out with first generation ponies Minty and Twilight. By the time she was 12, she had 175 ponies.

Cayci now has 1,750 My Little Ponies and related accessories and has become the new director of “Equestria LA,” a My Little Pony convention, that will take place at the Anaheim Hilton on September 4 to 6.

Cayci says she lived in Canyon Lake from 1984 to 1998. She graduated salutatorian from Temescal Canyon High School in 1996 and was first runner-up in the Miss Canyon Lake Scholarship Pageant that same year. She then attended UC Irvine from 1996 to 2001 on a full Regents Scholarship.

She lost interest in collecting My Little Ponies while she was a teenager, but picked up the hobby again while attending college. She and her mother, Robin Suitt, would look in The Friday Flyer for the garage sale listings and go out many Saturday mornings hunting for ponies.

“I now have over 1,750 My Little Ponies across all four generations, as well as hundreds of other related accessories: playsets, plushies, human clothing and other merchandise,” she says. “I store and display the majority of the collection in one room in my home: The Pony Room.”

While Cayci doesn’t have the biggest collection in the world (some collectors have more than 2,000 ponies), she does have one of the largest. Her collection includes rare ponies made in non-standard countries: Greece, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, France and Venezuela.

She notes, “I have many ponies not released in the United States that I had to have shipped from all over the world. The largest was a 3-foot-high G3 Rainbow Dash from Australia.”

Cayci says she has been attending the My Little Pony Fair collector convention for many years and was present at the first one in Las Vegas in 2004. In 2012, she attended a My Little Pony convention in Anaheim called Equestria LA. She joined the staff for the 2013 event, and offered her services as vice-chair for the 2015 incarnation of the convention.

Cayci says, “In May 2015, the chairperson stepped down and I found myself running Equestria LA! With my staff of over 30 hard-working volunteer, we are preparing for our event this September.

Cayci wants to invite Canyon Lake collectors to check out the convention and join the My Little Pony Collector Facebook group. To learn more, visit equestriala.com.