Memories and Golden Ages

Warning: this post starts out as a bit of a downer.

Of course I didn’t get picked for the Chicago Event. Why did I even get my hopes up?

This hurts more than Marshall. Marshall was just a model. Enough money, and you can buy any model. Money can’t buy the experience.

Please, don’t speak to me of wait lists. In the entire history of Breyer wait lists, I have never been picked off of one, and I’m not counting on it now. Even though many said they wouldn’t go unless their partner was also picked, I’m really doubting that’s going to be the case.

I’m not going to lie, it hurts and I really don’t want to talk about it any more, unless my fortunes change.

On a slightly cheerier note, they did announce the American Pharoah model, though they are being coy about the details. Many have suspected that the Dappled Bay Ruffian in the BreyerFest Auction may have been the Test piece for him, and I could see it:

It’s unlikely that they'll use the Ruffian mold, though; I think they just happened to use the nearest available unpainted Thoroughbred mold in a pinch, and Ruffian was it. They’ve done it before; I actually own a few models like that, like my Test of the Pacer Dan Patch – on the Quarter Horse Gelding mold! He was chosen primarily because he, too, had a molded on halter, like the Pacer mold he actually ended up being produced on.

I don’t know anything more about the American Pharoah release than (almost) anyone else, though. I am also a little embarrassed to admit that my enthusiasm for this model is not as intense as it is in the rest of the hobby.

There’s a tendency for people to think the things they experienced in their youth represented a “Golden Age”: movies, sports, books, television shows, music, Breyer models… sometimes it’s true, but sometimes it isn’t.

(The whole “Breyers were better in the past” thing, for instance, just baffles me. Do y’all not remember fuzzy gray socks, sink marks, and seams so rough you could cut your fingers on them? Polka dot dapples? Lizard bi-eyes? The very existence of Khemosabi?)

But anyway, I grew up in what really was, empirically, one of the great “Golden Ages” of Horse Racing, back in the 1970s. I watched Secretariat, Bold Forbes, Ruffian, Wajima, Forego, Seattle Slew, Spectacular Bid, Genuine Risk. I was so hysterical during the Affirmed-Alydar Triple Crown duel that my family actually left me alone in the house during the Belmont. 

What was wonderful about it was that it was a bonding experience with my Dad, who was a huge racing fan in the 1950s – you know, the era of Native Dancer, Swaps, Nashua, Round Table, Bold Forbes, Silky Sullivan, and so on…

I won’t begrudge anyone for being excited about an American Pharoah model. It's just that I've already had my Golden Age of Horse Racing.