Liver Chestnut Marabella

I've actually had this girl for probably about 2 weeks by now, but I've been procrastinating terribly over getting her named and photographed. Even now I'm not entirely sure of the name I picked out for her, so I may go back at some point and rename her. But, for now, please meet my newest Breyer: Whispering Blaze, a.k.a. Whisper.

 She's the 1999-2000 liver chestnut mare on the Marabella mould (can you tell I'm fond of this mould?). I've long admired this model, but I was always a bit put off by the over-spray on her mane. I was also always unsure whether her points were blonde or more of a rosy orange colour, since all photos I could find of her online seemed to be rather old and not very clear.

 I finally decided to just go for it and see if I could find one for sale. This girl was actually being sold on ebay by a retailer in North America, and whilst I normally make a point of avoiding international sales (since I've been stung by customs charges in the past) there were no UK retailers selling the model I was looking for. The price was very reasonable, shipping wasn't too high and customs was included in the price, so I plucked up my courage and went for it. And I'm so glad I did.

 My mare arrived within good time. The seller's photos showed her with these beautiful rosy points and I was quietly hoping they weren't just a trick of the light. I adore liver chestnuts with rich brown bodies and lighter, gingery manes and tails, and when I saw the official photos of the Breyer OT Sara Moniet RSI I thought she was going to be like that (I was a bit disappointed to discover that her mane is actually closer to her body colour, but I still love her none the less). So I was delighted to find that my new Marabella mare really does have this wonderful colour in real life.

 Because of her dark red/brown body she's quite difficult to photograph accurately. But I've done my best to adjust the brightness and contrast on these photos to give you a better idea of what she really looks like.

 The lighter stockings may seem a bit unrealistic, but it's actually very common for chestnut horses to lighten around the fetlocks and lower legs, especially in flaxens. What's more, this shade of liver chestnut with a gingery flaxen mane and tail is actually quite common in Morgans, and since the Marabella mould is meant to be a Morgan broodmare it's a very fitting colour for this model :)

 In certain lights (and photos) she may appear almost black in body colour, but I assure you she really is liver chestnut :)

 Like all Marabella models, my girl has this adorable subtle braid in her tail. It's perhaps a bit more noticeable on her than on Ember because Whisper's tail is lighter than her body. 

 I can't tell for sure, but I think her eyes are the same brown as her face. They've just been glossed so they stand out from the surrounding features. She's got a charming blaze down her nose which sometimes makes her seem a bit Roman (convex) nosed from the side, but this is just an optical illusion.

 Her forelock has an extra piece of hair falling towards her right eye that Ember's model doesn't have. I also have the 2004-2005 My Friend Flicka model on the Marabella mould, and this mare also has the extra strand of forelock hair, so I think it's a feature of the mould that has either been lost or removed, for whatever reason, from the mould since 2005. I'd be interested to know from anyone who has the Renaissance Horse or Lindsay's Faith whether either of these models have the extra tuft of forelock hair.

 The part of her markings I find the most charming is this adorable lip spot on her her lower lip and chin.

  Overall, I'm really happy with my newest mare, and she fits in beautifully with my Marabella conga.

  Since they're all chestnuts I've made these 3 lovely girls half-sisters by the same father, so they all have a link to fire in their names. From left to right it's Indecisive Flare (Flare), Embers of the Heart (Ember) and Whispering Blaze (Whisper. I tried to call her Blaze but she didn't like it...). I imagine their father to be a Kennebec Count model named Flame On :) (though I don't actually own him).

My First Collectible Model

I would like to try something here. I appreciate that it can sometimes be difficult to think up a subject to write your next post about, so I'd like to issue an invitation to anyone and everyone who would like to give this a go. All you have to do is write a post about your first collectible model.

That's it. No tags, no nominations, no rules. Just tell your readers about the first collectible model you ever got. You can be as flexible as you like with the subject. You might choose to write about your first Breyer, first resin, first custom, even your very first toy pony if it got you collecting!  It can be any make, any material, any age, anything. It doesn't even have to be a horse. Just write a post and put it on your blog. It's an open invitation, so if you'd like to, go ahead.

Right, so here's mine.

My First Collectible Model: My First Breyer Traditional

I've been collecting model horses for most of my life. My various collections include vintage Pony in my Pocket, My Beautiful Horses, Schleich and even a little herd of assorted zebra figurines. Like many Breyer collectors, my love for Schleich horses led on to collecting Breyer Stablemates, since they were similarly sized. But it took a special model to give me the push to move on to larger Traditional and Classic scales. That model was Ember.

I saw her for the first time in the 2010/2011 edition of the Utterly Horses sales catalogue. She's the Morgan horse from the 2010 Lets Go Riding English set, which came with a rider, saddle and bridle, and she's on the much loved 'Marabella' mould. If you were familiar with Utterly Horses they had a charming gimmick of naming all the Breyer and Schleich horses that didn't come with names already, and the name they chose for this mare was Ember. Coincidentally, it just so happens that I adore Morgan horses, chestnuts (especially red chestnuts with shaded legs) and one of my favourite names for a female animal is 'Ember'. It's almost as if she was custom made for me!

I dithered for a while. Traditional Breyers are quite expensive for a model horse, and I didn't know whether I'd have the room for her. But eventually my heart won out and I bought her, along with a couple others that I liked the look of. So, whilst I got a couple of horses at once, I consider Ember to be my first Traditional: if it wasn't for her, I never would have bought any of the others.

Please note: The above is not my photo

 What was really interesting about the set, however, is that there were two versions featured in the catalogue. One was the official photo, which clearly showed a long haired rider and a horse with two socks and no facial markings. The other photo was one Utterly Horses had taken of an unboxed model, which featured a doll with short hair and a horse with 4 socks and a blaze. I loved both horses, but secretly hoped for the one with more markings, since I preferred that one. And, as you can see, that's the version that arrived. I was delighted. I have since only ever seen the other version in official Breyer photos, never collectors' photos, so I think the official one must have been a test/unreleased version.

 I passed the doll and tack on to a fellow collector, since I didn't want them: it was the mare I really wanted. And I instantly fell in love with her. The Marabella mould is so elegant and feminine, and her colour is so rich and vibrant. She has 4 chestnuts on the inside of her legs, each individually painted. Her 4 white socks and striking white blaze balance out the chestnut coat perfectly, and I adore how long and curly her mane and windswept tail are.

 I'd never before seen a Traditional or Classic Breyer in real life, so as I was examining her I was surprised to find a small, circular hole in one corner of her mouth. At first I assumed it might be a hole to put a bit in when bridling the horse, but then I looked closer at photos of other Breyers and saw some with holes in their nostrils. Other collectors kindly told me that these holes were meant to be there, as they allowed warm air to escape from the plastic model without causing it to bloat and warp.

 Since I loved the name so much I kept my model's name as 'Ember'. After a while, however, I began to notice that many other people, especially those in the UK, who also got the set called their mares 'Ember' as well. This started to annoy me, as I didn't want my mare to get lost in a sea of identically coloured and named models, so I changed it. Very recently, though, I changed it back to 'Ember'. It just fits her so well, and feels right for her in my eyes.

 There's a wonderful feature of the Marabella mould that I keep forgetting about because it's so subtle that's it's easily overlooked: in her tail she has a loose braid. I love this feature. It just gives so much character to the mould, and is a wonderful little extra, like an Easter egg on a DVD. If you've got a horse on the Marabella mould, go have a look at her tail. I'll bet you find the braid too!

 Ember got me into collecting Traditionals. I fell in love with her picture in the catalogue, and then I fell in love with her all over again when I received the model. She's the perfect combination of everything I love in a horse, and the mould is just so wonderfully beautiful with the kindest eyes. If it wasn't for Ember I wouldn't have any of my other Traditionals, and if I ever had to sell my collection, she's the one model I'd keep. Maybe it's wrong to have favourites, but there's no doubt in my mind that she is mine.

So, there you have it. I consider Ember to be my first Breyer Traditional, and maybe even the founder of my herd, because she started my Traditional collection.

Hornby Cassy Foal

   When I was a small child my parents bought me a little plastic foal in a second hand charity shop. The foal had no markings or brand stamps of any kind, so I had no idea what make it was, not that I really cared. It didn't really matter to me: all that mattered was that it was a horse :) It seemed about the right size for a Barbie horse, so the foal soon joined my small Barbie stable. However, it was too small for my Barbie horses, and the only other horse I had at the time that would be about the right size for it was my Grand Champions Magic Motion Stallion, the grey Lipizzaner named Pegasus (that was his official name, which I kept. He's a normal horse though: no wings.). So I paired them up. Pegasus became the father to my unknown foal, and both served as ponies in my Barbie Stable. To give you an idea of their size, standard Barbie horses are about 1:6 scale, normal Grand Champions are about 1:12 scale, and Grand Champions Magic Motion Stallions like my Pegasus were about 1:9 scale, or roughly the same size as a Breyer Traditional. That would make my foal 1:9 scale too.

  Anyway, I thought no more about it until only a couple of weeks ago when, completely by accident, I happened to discover what brand my mystery foal belonged to! Whilst browsing ebay I came across some listings for 'Hornby Cassy' dolls and horses, and right there was my foal! At last, after about 20 years, I had an identity for it: my foal was a Hornby Cassy model.

 My foal has undergone some renovations over the years. She (it's gone back and forth between a colt and a filly over the years) originally had a white faux hair mane and tail, but as children do I trimmed it until there was next to nothing left. Years later I discovered a tutorial for rehairing model horses (which is sadly no longer available) and decided to give it a go with some chestnut faux hair from another model. I think it came out rather nice.

 The only other change I made to her was to neaten up her blaze and socks and add some pinking on her nose and lips. Everything else is original. I've long forgotten what I originally named her, but Cassy seems like an appropriate name from now on :)

Schleich Dressage Horse Set

Not a 2015 model, not even a current model, but the Schleich Dressage Horse Set is new to me so I wanted to give an in depth feature of it as I did with my other models. In particular, I wanted to talk about the colouring of the horse.

This set came to me second hand so it is not perfect. However, I was able to clean it up quite a bit, so it's not as bad as it was before.

 I believe this set came out around 2009. It features a removable base, removable rider and dressage warmblood with moulded on tack.

The horse itself is performing quite an advanced dressage manoeuvre which i believe is called a 'Half Pass', where the horse moves in a diagonal motion across the show ring, crossing the far side legs across the body in the direction the horse is travelling.

With the exception of freestyle, which is set to music, I'm not normally very interested in dressage. It's just not really my thing. What drew me to this set in particular is, surprise surprise, the chestnut horse. At first I dismissed it as unrealistic: why does the horse have a flaxen mane but it's tail is the same colour as it's body?

 To be honest I thought it was weird, just another semi-realistic model horse, and ignored it. But years later I discovered that , although uncommon, it actually is possible for a chestnut horse to have a blonde mane but not a blonde tail, as shown in the 2nd photo down on this site. How cool is that?

 As far as I can tell, this unique colouring doesn't have a specific name, like a Gulastra Plume, or at least if it does I can't find out what it is. I've never seen another original finish model horse with it (probably because, like me, most people would assume it's unrealistic). The uniqueness of the model's colour lifts this set from just an interesting dressage model to a unique and really quite lovely model in it's own right. I'd have liked it if the braids in the mane were painted a little better, but that's a minor thing.

 The whole set is really nicely painted, even with the odd mishaps. The rider's face is a little odd: her eyebrows seem a little fierce and judging from the colour of them, she's not a natural blonde. Her bottom lip is painted a blue-ish shade which is probably meant to look natural but to me looks like she has a bruised lip. But I love the detailing on her jacket and the little golden tie pin is a brilliant little extra.

 The horse is, naturally, the star of the set. She has a lovely ombre tail, gorgeously shaded colouring and finely detailed moulded on tack. Sadly my camera isn't good enough to photograph them, but her hooves are exquisitely painted. The only white marking on her (aside from rubs) is a lovely star and connected stripe on her face, which like the mane adds character and interest to an otherwise plain colour.

 Though glued in, the reins and stirrup leathers were obviously moulded separately and then added to the model later. I love all the intricate little metal details on the bridle.

 The Schleich 'S' logo is a bit misplaced here. The rider grips the model a little too tighter with her heels, so removing her from the horse tends to cause rubs on the mare's flanks, which you can also see here. 

 The mane has white detailing to simulate braids.

 As you've probably guessed by now, the horse is a mare. The awkward position of the back legs make sculpting mare anatomy a little difficult, but you can just about make out two little bumps to simulate the udders that all newer Schleich mares are sculpted with.

The mare can stand without the base, although she's incredibly tippy (likely accounting for the rubs on her rump) and as you can tell she tends to incorrectly rest on her foreleg when free standing.

 The base is a simple strip of beige-coloured plastic with a clean plastic stand to support the horse. I think the footing is meant to simulate an arena, but the detailing looks more like straw than sand to me.

Overall I'm delighted with this set. Of course it has its flaws, but what model doesn't? I might try to patch up some of the rubs at some point, but I'm not very confident in my restoration abilities. Oh, and since I mentioned how much I love finding out what other people named their models, I've called the rider Althea Goodyear, and the mare is named Serenity. If you'd like me to (or like me not to) tell you what I've named my models in future posts, please let me know :)