Cheap Horses

Crankiness warning activated: this week has been messy, complicated and exhausting. I no longer have the patience or energy to engage with people who have the luxury of being angry all the time about everything – whether it’s about work, life or horses. 

I finally made it to a Tractor Supply this week and saw the Indian Pony Sayan. She is very pretty, but I am still not motivated to get her. I wouldn’t mind getting the Stablemates, but the store I visited didn’t have them, and I have a suspicion that I’m not going to see any of them any time soon.

My work schedule might be changing, again, so I literally have no idea when I’ll get back.

I did make it to a few Five Below stores this week to investigate the latest Breyer Mystery: these new Classics-scale “Paddock Pal” Horses and Unicorns. I haven’t found the horses yet, but I did buy the four Unicorns. My favorite is “Cherry”:

When I first saw them on eBay earlier in the week, I made the erroneous assumption that they were possibly Reeves’s entrée into the 1:6 Scale market: they looked a lot like the vintage Marx Horses preferred by military miniaturists, both in terms of style and materials. The box was also very similar to the “Touchability”boxes used on the Breyer-branded Plush Aurora releases, some of which can now be found in the toy departments of some Meijer superstores. 

(Meijer is a slightly more upscale, Midwestern equivalent to Walmart that very occasionally carries Breyers. But none currently: the plushes are distributed by Aurora.)

Some of the initial speculation about the origins of these models was… interesting, to put it politely. When it was discovered that they appeared to be a Five Below exclusive, my first thought was: Oh, so this is how Reeves is trying to break into the “Discount Store” market.

One of the few bright spots in the retail market has been the rise of Discount Stores like Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and my personal local favorite, Debby’s Dollar. 

A lot of name brands have been tailoring products for the Discount Store market, and I was just wondering when – or if! – Reeves was going to tap into that market. Reeves had dumped some of the Walmart Stablemates at Five Below before – and some of the more recent Blind Bags are also showing up there again. 

As for the criticisms about the materials, the quality, or the fact that they’re even in discount stores at all, I find most of them moot. These are intended as an inexpensive, entry-level product. For most non-hobbyist consumers – we’re talking parents, grandparents and younger children – a plastic horse is a plastic horse. 

They’re a significant step up from the usual equines available at this price point, and are therefore more attractive product for a child who may potentially outgrow their horse phase. And for those that do not, the brand recognition is built-in. 

I find them interesting. There are several Five Belows in my area, but I do not know if I will go out of my way to find the horses: as I mentioned before, my time is currently at a premium. 

(FYI: I still think they need to do 1:6 Scale horses.)

Spiders, Spiders Everywhere

Welcome to the Post-BreyerFest Sales Season, where you tell yourself you’re going to cut back on your purchases, but you just can’t help yourself:

I was only expecting to purchase a pair of the Spooky Stablemates from the Halloween Store this year, because I think all three are awesome and reselling or swapping a duplicate won’t be much of an issue this time around – but I ended up buying pretty much everything but Hermie and the hoodie. 

I didn’t get the Hermie because I didn’t see the freebie code until after I checked out, and I didn’t get the hoodie because I’m either going to Motor City Comic Con or DC Fandome on October 16th and I want to get myself an appropriately-themed shirt or hoodie for the occasion instead, especially since I found out that the shirt I was going to wear is now (yikes!) a collectible. 

The Classic Eek! Is still available, which is both surprising and unsurprising: surprising in that everything else sold out fairly quickly, and unsurprising because he’s a Classics-scale model covered in spiders, two things a lot of collectors get a little squicky about.

As I’ve explained before, I’ve never had any antipathy towards Classics in the slightest. While I am still not a huge fan of spiders, I have made my peace with them and – in fact! – even attempted to write a children’s book about them at one point.

(FYI: It’s another one of my many, many stalled creative projects.)

Some have speculated that another factor may be that the piece run was larger than average, but I don’t think they’ve ever formally released piece counts for the Halloween Classics, so I have no idea if that is the case. My enjoyment of a particular release is not tied to how popular it is or how quickly it sells out, so that’s a moot point for me anyway.

But I got Eek! primarily because he’s an obvious callback to the second Breyer Halloween Horse, the Marabella Merry Widow, who was the first Traditional-scale Glow-in-the-Dark model in 2003. She’s one of my all-time favorite Halloween Horses: I think the way they incorporated all of the spider imagery into her overo pinto pattern was clever, beautiful and inspired. 

The first official Glow-in-the-Dark release happened a few months before: an unpainted G2 Andalusian Keychain that was first given to attendees of an “after dark” movie screening at the KHP at the 2003 BreyerFest, and subsequently distributed to hobbyists at various Breyer events for (many!) years to follow. 

Aside from various Club-related releases (including the VC Decorator Brighty Nugget), the Tractor Supply Special Runs, the Brick and Mortar Special (a pretty pinto Wyatt!) and the Rainbow Decorator Equidae, two other big sales will be following shortly: the hotly anticipated BreyerFest Leftovers Sale, and possibly the Customer Appreciation Event. 

I suppose I should be grateful that I’m racking up lots of overtime at work and I can afford most of these beautiful frivolities, but actual time to enjoy them would also be wonderful. I’ve been getting assurances that this will be soon, so we will see. 

Waiting for the Tractor Supply Horses

Another busy weekend: I reorganized my main flower garden yesterday (and am I feeling it today, oof!) and I apparently made yet another grail purchase.

But you should know the drill about these grails by now (waiting until it gets here, yadda yadda).

I was hoping that all I’d have to worry about with regards to the upcoming Tractor Supply Special Runs would be whatever Stablemates (Blind Bags and otherwise) they’ll be adding to their standard store assortment. But based on the plan-o-grams floating around the Internet, it looks like it’s going to be more complicated than that.

The Alabaster/Aged Gray Classic Brabant is definitely a given, since I’ve managed to keep my little collection of the mold complete so far (and it comes with a wee blanket, squee!) I still haven’t opened up my Greenman yet, but horse inventory stuff is part of my extended Labor Day weekend plans, so soon:

I might even buy another Mighty Muscle in the near future for customizing purposes, but that will depend on the progress I make on all my other projects in the next month or so.

I am hoping that this Tractor Supply Special will be the last new release on the Brabant mold for a while, though. At least through the end of the year? While I don't expect the TSC Brabant to be all that difficult to get, I still could use the break.

You also know I’m also a big fan of the Emerson mold, so the Black Pinto Emerson in the TSC assortment will also likely be coming home with me. I’ll have to see what the Marabella and the Boomerang look like in person (and how my inventory plans go!) before I make any commitments.

I am intrigued by the Marabella; while the mold has come in an assortment of pintos over the years, her upcoming TSC release will mark the first time she’s appeared in Appaloosa.

Lady Roxana, Revised?

With a dentist appointment, Christmas shopping, the looming CC Appreciation Sale, and the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover thing melting my brain this week, you are not going to get a whole lot out of me today, except for a picture of my Avoriaz:

It’s a Filigree! I’ve  decided to name her Etelka, after one of my Hungarian Great-Grandmother’s sisters. So this genealogy research is paying off after all!*

You know who the PC Lipizzaner Mare reminds me of? The two-point contact trot, arched neck, an artfully swished tail serving as the third point-of-contact?

She’s kind of what I imagine Lady Roxana would have looked like if Rich Rudish had had more time to actually finish and refine her!

Normally I’d just be happy with this Filigree Avoriaz as my one and only, but I think I have to acquire the Rose Gold Charm version sometime in the not too distant future. I have been considering selling off one of my previous CC Appreciation Glossies…

Not this week, though. Probably.

*(In case you want to know – probably not, but I am going to tell you anyway – that my Belgian Great-Grandmother’s name was Alida, just like the Marabella Unicorn release from a few years back. Which I assume – like the other two examples I brought up earlier this year – is just a coincidence, unless a near-future release of the new Rhenish German Coldblood mold is named after my Belgian Great-Grandfather or one of his brothers. Then I might have to have a little discussion with some people in New Jersey about boundaries.)

Feeling the Rainbow

Lots of ground to cover today.

First, I "won" a Nympheas! Yay me! (Is it weird that I still get a bit of a thrill whenever I see my name on the Winners List?) I don’t have many Marabellas in the collection; not for a lack of trying, I just never seem to be in the right place at the right time for the right model. So that’s a happy way to start my weekend.

Second, yes, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for the Costume Ball ever since it was announced on the BreyerFest blog a few days ago. The first idea that popped into my head was hilarious, but probably inappropriate, and possibly illegal in the State of Kentucky. (No, the whip is not involved.) I still might do it if I can’t come up with anything else equally awesome. I thought my costume last year bordered on the inappropriate, and everything turned out fine.

Third, well … the Rainbow Weather Girls are out. I’m surprised at how much I like the Translucent Rainbow variation; I wasn’t a huge fan of their previous Rainbow paint jobs, but it really works on the Translucent plastic. Kudos for them for being able to pull it off so successfully.

I like the Pintaloosa ones too. It seems like an odd choice, but I get it - it’s a paint job with a lot of "color." I would not be displeased to get either the Matte or the Glossy version, if only because my Standing Stock Horse Fun Foal needs a Mommy:


Most of the "Herd" seems to think otherwise. Quelle surprise, non? Whatever. Some hobbyists just gotta complain no matter what. A few more realistic colors would be nice, but I’m not going to snipe, carp and moan about it. Or withhold my UPCs and hope for something "better." I’ll send them in when I finally get around to getting the rest of them, and be happy with whatever shows up on the doorstep.

We got spoiled on the multiple variants on the Hucks and Fun Foals: hobbyists seem to have forgotten that the first couple of Treasure Hunts didn’t have a lot of variations within them, and there wasn’t a huge amount of complaining at the time that there should have been more.

(Well, some: no subject in the hobby ever goes uncomplained about.)

It’s nice that Reeves seems to be going with a simultaneous and random release of multiple variations, something I wish they had done last year with the Othello Treasure Hunt. Allegedly there are going to be four variations total; whether the Gloss and Matte Pintaloosas count as one or two, I don’t know. If they’re going to go with variations on the "color" theme, I’m supposing there’s going to be a "Color Change" painted piece in the mix somewhere.

A Color Change Pintaloosa, maybe? Oh yeah, I’d totally dig that!

Peace Out.