The Foal Count: Traditionals

Let's talk babies!!

Okay, wrong kind of baby, but still, a great excuse to pop in a picture of Elsie Mae who is now four months old!

The announcement of Sentinel and Echo got me thinking about Breyer's Foal line-up. On January 30, I'd written,

The foals are a gambler's choice, but if I had a choice, I'd choose the Running Foal. (I have a conga of 17 Running Foals already.) It's a popular mold and I counted 36 different offerings of this mold from Breyer with the most recent one being Nestling in the Robin and Nestling/Birds of a Feather series in 2022.

Contrast that to the Scratching Foal mold.

The Scratching Foal has only been used 11 times since the mold was introduced in 1970 and hasn't been used in 18 years.  It was last seen as 4 different iterations in the Fun Foals Collector's Event in 2009. No doubt the Scratching Echo will be the more sought after piece of the two.

I began wondering, just which of Breyer's foals had had the most iterations?

I had a guess, and that was the Running Foal mold, but I knew that the Clydesdale Foal had to be a strong contender and might even be Breyer's must used Foal mold.

And so, since I had NOTHING to do on my plate and OODLES of extra time to do some research, I went through Identify Your Breyer and Breyer Value Guide and counted babies. Here's a list, in numeric order of releases, of Traditional Breyer Foals.

(All photos are of foals from my collection unless otherwise noted.)

1. Running Foal (37)

Not a surprise and by far the Running Foal is way ahead of the other Breyer babies.

2. Action Stock Horse Foal (27)

This surprised me. I was sure the next most-produced would be either the Clydesdale Foal or the Proud Arabian Foal, with the Family Arabian Foal a possibility.

3. Stock Horse Foal (25)

(Photo by Breyer/Identify Your Breyer.)

Another surprise to me.

4. Proud Arabian Foal (24)

Finally! And only separated by one from the Stock Horse Foal.

5. TIE Clydesdale Foal (23)

I really thought this prolific foal would come in second.

5. TIE  Family Arabian Foal (23)

6. Amber (20)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

Again, a surprise - I thought perhaps Stormy, Phantom Wings, or even Sea Star would be above Amber.

7. Ashley (17)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

8. Le Fire (15)

Introduced in 2002, Le Fire is very popular and the release numbers show that.

9. TIE Phantom Wings (14)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

9. TIE Stormy (14)

10. TIE Grazing Foal (13)

A vintage mold but overlooked for the most part now.

10. TIE Lying Foal (13)

 

As is the Lying Foal.  Its last release was in 2009, 17 years ago.

10. Andalusian Foal (13)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

11. TIE Scratching Foal (12)

Like the Lying Down Foal, this is an old vintage mold who, until Echo was released last month, had not been seen for 18 years.

11. TIE Suckling Foal (12)

12. TIE Sea Star (11)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

12. TIE Gilen (11)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

First released in 2009. Gilen is a popular mold and its numbers reflect that.

13. Lippizaner Foal (8)

14. Welsh Foal (6)

15. Camila (6)

I've often wondered if Camila was an experiment on Breyer's part. Were they testing to see if collectors would buy a 1:6 scale model line? She was introduced in 2014 and no mare was ever released to go with her and her last release was in 2019 as a BreyerFest auction piece. She seems to be a bit of an anomaly.

16. Hawkeye (4)

Hawkeye is my favorite of all the new foals Breyer has produced. I love his liveliness and sassiness.

17. Rhemi (3)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

18. Firestorm (2)

(Photo from Identify Your Breyer.)

I was surprised by several things when I did this count, and more surprises may be coming. We will next look at an outlier and Classics Foals, and possibly even Stablemate ones, too.  (You know, in my spare time as Kalamazoo rushes toward me. Hah!)

Stay 'tooned!