Phineas

Winter was harder on my garden than I anticipated: a lot of the perennials I so carefully cultivated from seed last year did not survive. After spending most of the day working on the main beds, it’s not quite as bad as I thought originally, but I was planning on having it be a pretty easy year. 

All I wanted to do was just yank up and separate a few overgrown things, grow a few veggies and annuals, and weed as necessary. While I do have several “new” perennials stratifying in pots on the porch, it’s going to be a long time before they make it into the garden.

But… horse stuff. I am probably a little more enthused about the current Stablemates Club release Phineas than most:

It’s interesting that they’ve decided to classify him as a Shagya Arabian. The original resin Prince Charming was generically labeled an Arabian. He’s not super typey or refined, so it’s in the right neighborhood, I guess. (He seems a little pony-ish to me, personally.)

I am not keen on the paint job, though: Reeves has made several attempts at doing Star Dapple Grays, often with not the best results. It’s a difficult color for most customizers to execute, so it’s not entirely a surprise that Reeves has struggled with it. 

Their more successful attempts at the color tend to be with smaller runs that they can lavish a little extra attention on. They only made 500 or so (probably less) of the Elegance Collection Dressage Set in 2008/2009, one of their earliest production runs in this color. The 2013 BreyerFest Raffle Model Blue Bird also turned out pretty nice, but the Polo Pony Smarty Jones Santiago? Not as much.

It was also released on the Stablemates Endurance Arabian for several years – 2011 through 2014 – and I was shocked that he lasted that long. You know my standards are not that high, but even I had a hard time getting past his stripes and polka dots.  

It’s the memory of that Arabian that is most likely cooling Phineas’s reception. It’s been several years since that attempt, however, so I’m more willing to give Reeves a chance to prove themselves. He does look good in the photograph, right? That has to count for something.