From Dinner Model to Celebration Model

Every year, Breyer designates a real horse as the Celebration model. In general, the horse chosen is one who is known for its accomplishments or else has some unique aspect that makes it a good candidate to be replicated in model form. I thought it might be fun to pull out the Dinner/Celebration models that I have in my collection and take a look at them. 

For the first couple of  BreyerFests, the model was called the Dinner model and given out around the time of the Saturday evening dinner that was served by Breyer in tents at the Kentucky Horse Park.

1990 Dr. Peaches, Bruce Davidson's five star event horse who won Rolex Kentucky three times. This is the Phar Lap mold. (1026 made)

1991 Mustang Lady (2500 made), a wild Mustang who'd been rounded up as a two year old and had become an endurance champion with rider Janet Tipton. That's a BLM freeze brand on her neck.

1992 Turbo the Wonder Horse (1000 made) If I remember right, he was associated with a cowboy band of singers who also performed for BreyerFest attendees  in the large arena. (1000 made)

1993 Grayingham Lucky Lad (1500 produced) was a multi grand champion Shire stallion. He has the oddest wishbone marking under his belly that Breyer replicated on the model. 

1994 Bright Zip (2244 made) was owned by John Lyons as he was just getting started in his phenomenal career. Although I am not fond of the mold, Bright Zip is actually my favorite Dinner/Celebration model that Breyer has offered.

1995 Mego (3000 produced; notice how the number of models made is increasing as BreyerFest grows in popularity.) Mego was a trick horse who also appeared in the television show, Walker, Texas Ranger, where he was ridden by actor Chuck Norris.

1997 Bold (3850 made; a mug with Bold's likeness was included with the model). Bold was a police horse in Jacksonville, Florida where he served for fourteen years, was in parades and TV commercials, and was Police Horse of the Year in 1995. (Thanks to blog reader Carrie for this information!)

1999 Molokai, (4200 available). Molokai was a Thoroughbred race horse turned event horse and ridden by owner Dorothy Trapp Crowell. An international superstar, Molokai was even featured as an athlete on the Wheaties box!

2001 Atlantis Bey V (3700 made). The son of the legendary Huckleberry Bey, Atlantis Bey V was a champion Arabian. This model is has a beautiful metallic coppery coat. This mold is terribly tippy, and for safety's sake, I didn't pull mine out to photograph. Enjoy the photo of the real horse in a pose similar to the model. (Photo from Wikipedia Commons)

2003 Gladwin's Lucky Grey Lady (4500 made). Thirteen years past the first BreyerFest, Breyer was now producing some truly stunning models for the Celebration horse. Known as Gracie to her owners, she was a Shire mare. She and her sire, 1993 Dinner model Grayingham Lucky Lad, are the only father/daughter duo that Breyer has ever honored as Celebration horses.

2005 Fire Magic (5524 available). An unusual red/bay Friesian stallion, Fire Magic was foaled in the Netherlands and brought to the USA where he showed off his talents with Dianne Olds Rossi as a haute ecole dressage horse. I love the pearly finish on his socks!

2019 Oliver (unknown number). Oliver is a member of Kentucky Horse Parks' Mounted Police. Already very familiar to BreyerFest and KHP attendees, this gentle Shire cross was part of that year's theme of horse heroes.

2020 Ballynoe Castle RM (9500 produced) Ridden by Buck Davidson (son of Bruce Davidson who rode Dr. Peaches, the first Celebration horse), Reggie is the USEA's highest scoring event horse to date.

I don't intend to keep Oliver or Reggie but haven't gotten around to selling or trading them yet. I may use them as prizes or give to a horse loving Pony Pal some day. (You may have noticed that I do not have many of the BreyerFest Dinner/Celebration models. If I don't care for them, then I don't keep them.)

2021 Danash's Northern Tempest (10,000 made.) I love Appaloosas and am very excited to receive this model. She is gorgeous! (Photo from Identify Your Breyer.) 

Note: This year's model was supposed to be Terry Bradshaw's Appaloosa stud, Intuit, but Bradshaw withdrew permission to use the likeness of his horse due to negative reactions on social media. (Breyer's statement about that can be found here.)

Finally! It's BreyerFest Week!

It's BreyerFest week! A week when collectors would already be on the road and heading to Kentucky, while others would be finalizing packing and putting last minute touches on things to sell. (In fact, there would already be people at the host motel at this point in the week.)

Playing car Jenga is a part of BreyerFest for most of us. (Photo from Nancy Kelly.)

The Holiday Inn/Holiday Inn North/Clarion Holiday North/CHIN/Clarion has been the host hotel from the very beginning back in 1990.

That sprawling, multi-level behemoth requires a map along with notes as to how to get to various wings of the hotel. It is also the subject of many fond, tongue in cheek hobby jokes. (Can YOU find the mythical 800 block of rooms? Or the shark-hole Running Stallion?)

Right now we'd be making sure we were ready for long hours spent at Kentucky Horse Park and, in the earliest days of BreyerFest, anticipating the Saturday night tent dinner and where we would receive the annual Dinner model (now called the Celebration model.)

Dr. Peaches, three time winner of the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, the 1990 BreyerFest Dinner model.

BreyerFest is held in Lexington, Kentucky, an area based on the equine industry, so naturally just about everything reflects that. Even the coke machines! (Ever noticed in the photos that I post that there is often a Coke can in the picture? My go-to drink!)

Photo by Breyer and from the BreyerFest - Official Group Facebook page.

Like last year, BreyerFest will be a virtual event, so collectors will be participating from home and not playing car Jenga or wandering the Clarion at night in search of that elusive shark-hole model. Like most people,  I'd prefer to meet in person but there are definite advantages (apart from preventing the spread of COVID) to holding a virtual event. 

A virtual event allows those who live far from the Kentucky Horse Park or in other countries to attend. For those who find the event overwhelmingly big, are bothered by the heat and humidity, or find it difficult to manage all the walking (I'm getting towards that stage), this way they can still participate.

Photo from Liz Cory's 2020 seminar on showing model horses. That's my woodgrain Five Gaiter.

I am grateful that Breyer is working so hard to ensure that we will still have our annual event. It may not be an in-person event chock full of friends and fun, but it is a well planned opportunity to have our annual gathering despite the ongoing pandemic.

Full marks to Breyer for that.

A Look at Model Horse Colors

Imitations and knock-offs are not uncommon in the model horse world, especially with pieces produced during the early days of the model horse manufacturers. My newest circus piece, the Enesco Circus Horse on Drum, is very reminiscent of another company's work. 

It was the soft pink and gold coloring on a bisque white horse that made me think of another piece in my collection.

Poppy, the Performing Pony, made by Cybis from 1976 - 1979. Note the same bisque body and pink and gold trim (with additional pops of turquoise.)

Other Cybis pieces from the era followed the same color scheme. Note that the Enesco piece is dated 1988, while these Cybis pieces were all made prior to that time.

Gambol and Frolic, unicorns that were available 1977 - 1979. Note the sculpted bow on the tail; the Enesco piece has a much cheaper fabric bow of pink ribbon.

Flight and Fancy are pegasi that were first released in 1984. Like the Enesco circus horse, they have sculpted pink roses.

Did Enesco see the success that Cybis and other, better quality, companies were having with this color scheme and follow suit? Changing a few things so that their pieces were less costly to make? (Feather plume, fabric bow, fewer colors.)

A similar color scheme on my Irish Dresden Circus Horse.

Certainly color schemes were used across companies. For example, think of Breyer's charcoal - a black body with a white mane and tail.

BreyerFest keychain - a modern application of the color which has been used by Breyer since the 1960s.

A 1960s - 1970s charcoal colored china prancer from a Japanese manufacturer.

How about the reverse - a white horse with a black mane and tail, a color that was popular in the 1950s and into the early 1960s?

Samson from Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty. (Stock photo by Alamy/Google Images.)

A very early 1950s Hagen Renaker Head Down Circus pony.

A Shiken (a Japanese manufacturer) knock-off of the Hagen Renaker Head Up Circus Pony.

I may never know if my Enesco circus pony is an imitation of Cybis' pieces or if the company was simply applying a color that was selling well at the time. Still, it's fun to dig around through photos, books, and online sites and see what can be discovered.

My belief is that there is a lot more to the topic of colors that were in vogue at a certain time and why they were so popular. I hope some hobbyists does the research on that some day.

Unusual Finds Out in the Country

Yesterday Craig and I went out of town for the day to meet up with some of our long time (30+ years!) Illinois friends. 

Dena, me, Craig, Ron (husband of Pam, my dear friend who passed away from breast cancer in December, 2019), and Bruce. 

As we drove home, we came across a small antique shop and decided to stop. Good decision - I found a treasure trove of Marx and Hartland horse and rider figures.

I don't need the black and bay Thunderbolts, but I sure want them! And the two horse and rider sets on the right are also Marx. 

The shop proprietor told me that the Robin Hood/Maid Marian set is complete with no missing pieces and very hard to find. I don't know much about Marx sets so I took photos to send to friends who do.

 

There was a table with more Hartland horse and rider sets and what I think must be more Marx pieces. (That stagecoach!)

There was also a table with Breyer foals, three of the old Maureen Love Classics, and the Rearing Stallion.

A sign was posted that the shop was buying toys, so I mentioned that I had several tubs and crates of  Star Wars and Star Trek items. (When I was cleaning and rearranging my horse collection last month, I also went through my Star Wars and Star Trek tubs and had separated out a bunch of things to sell or trade.)

I will be doing some research on the Marx and Hartland sets, and then taking my Star Wars and Star Trek items back to the shop next week for a little horse trading. 

You never know what you will stumble across when you are taking back roads to get somewhere.

Circus Time: an Enesco Circus Horse

Thanks to friends who know I love circus horses and tagged me in an online auction, I have a new circus horse by Enesco.

 

The box was scary when it arrived - there's a porcelain piece inside that crunched box.

Make that, crunched and OPEN box.

Fortunately, the seller packed the piece well with two outer layers of bubble wrap

and an inner layer of mummifying toilet tissue.

 It is not one of Enesco's better sculpts.

It has a giraffe neck and unusual proportions. And the gold paint is tarnished and wearing off.

The piece was made in 1987 by Enesco

and there is a second piece, too. Like the first one, it has odd proportions although it doesn't seem to have such a stretched out neck as the other one does. 

As I looked at my new piece, I realized that it (or its style) was most likely an imitation of another company's pieces. Care to take a guess as to who that was? 

More tomorrow, so stay 'tooned!

18th Century Riding Habit: Getting Started

Despite our busy July schedule, I just began a new project - not one, but two 18th century riding habits. 

I need to have them done in time for The Feast of the Hunters' Moon on October 9, and that means I need to get started on them yesterday.

I mean it when I say yesterday - all that gold braid on this riding habit is hand stitched. (This is my sister Leslie and her husband Rick.) And while the two I am working on won't be duplicates of Leslie's, they will require a lot of hand stitched embellishments.

Mass marketed patterns like Butterick, Simplicity, and Vogue are checked and tested many times before being released to market. You can almost always count on their directions to be correct and their pieces to fit together well. 

But their patterns for historical clothing are actually costumes - details have been dropped and shortcuts taken that you would not find in historically accurate clothing. 

The patterns that are historically accurate target a very small market and are not tested as thoroughly. There can be errors in them, and it is those errors that make me leery.

The fabric is in for the first habit and I plan to get started today or tomorrow.

I've stitched 18th century clothing in the past, done alterations to wedding gowns, and made prom and bridesmaids' dresses, but an 18th century riding habit may just be the most challenging thing I have ever sewn.