Marwari

I can tell BreyerFest is only days away: the chaos is increasing. I came home from the store yesterday (an emergency craft supply run) and I tripped and fell on the step up the porch. I scraped up my knees pretty bad, but the worse injury was to my dignity: all I’ll say is that I required a change of clothes afterwards.

Before I get to discussing the Marwari, please also allow me to pout a little about this year’s volunteer model. Dang it, she had to go and be all nice and stuff.

I take some small consolation in the fact that the piece count’s now been upped to 150, though I wonder where the extra 15-20 pieces are now going towards. (Hey Reeves, if you have a spare, I certainly won’t turn it down.)

Anyway, the Marwari, who can be seen on the Breyer web site here.

My first reaction - other than, "Ooh, pretty!" - was "Hmm, I see they went with something trendy."

I have nothing against the breed personally; it’s just that I was sort of expecting an Akhal-Teke first, though. (Lonesome Glory makes an okay Akhal-Teke, but the "real thing" has been a long overdue.) But everywhere I look online it feels like everyone seems to be doing Marwaris resins and customs, so I suppose it makes sense.

I have nothing against creating molds of more exotic breeds. Some of my favorite breeds (ahem, Dales Pony) are a bit on the rare side. Creating molds of rare breeds also helps raise awareness of them, and perhaps lead to their preservation and survival.

The only problem with the creation of molds of rarer or more exotic breeds is that it fosters a certain level of unreality in the model horse world.

There’s definitely a strong undercurrent within the hobby that wants to emulate the real horse world as much as possible. However, when you have just as many production molds of a somewhat more common breed - such as a Missouri Fox Trotter - as you do a significantly less common one - like the Marwari - that’s simply not going to be the case.

It’ll be hard to argue that a "model horse" show is just like a "real horse" show, when you will inevitably have an overabundance of Marwaris compared to Missouri Fox Trotters, or even Akhal-Tekes.

A true and accurate representation of the "real horse" world in miniature has never been - and will never become - a reality in this hobby. There will always be more stallions than geldings, and more exotic colors and patterns rather than the more mundane grays, bays and chestnuts. And always more rare and exotic breeds than most normal horse people will ever see in person, or in their lifetimes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’d be nice to see a greater acknowledgement of the fact that the hobby is more its own thing than a downsized version of another.

I am curious if there is - or will be - a mold change out for the ears? With the ears that the mold has, it’ll be hard to sell it as anything other than a Marwari, or the closely related Kathiawari. Marwaris come in just about every conceivable color, it’s true, but switching out the ears with something more standard might make the mold a little more versatile in the long run.