Catching Up Is Hard To Do

The overnight project will be wrapping up this week, thank goodness; it’s not the hours, but being out of sync with the rest of the world that’s been starting to get to me a little. Am I a half-day ahead, or a half-day behind? I have a hard time telling.

I’m tempted by the latest Grab Bag offer, but unless a must-have turns up in one of the boxes, I’ll probably give it a pass. I have too much stuff in my sales box already anyway, and I’ve hardly made a dent in the latest culling effort.

Like everyone else, I am also intrigued by the color mix of the AQHA 75th Anniversary Quarter Horses. Roan and Dun have been mentioned in the PR materials but only Bay, Chestnut and Palomino have shown up so far. Allegedly the color mix is going to be closely tied to the proportion of each color in the registry, which means … we’re going to be seeing a lot of Chestnuts (about 33 percent of QHs registered) and Bays (20 percent).

In fact, that’s what the majority of AQHA mold releases have been so far to date, outside of a smattering of Roans and the Aged Gray #1242 Joe Bailey’s King. The selection of colors in its past - and the selection and percentage of colors they are planning with this new release - tell me that Reeves knows who their target audience for this mold is: real-world live Quarter Horse owners and breeders. Not hobbyists.

The AQHA Horse is not exactly beloved by the hobby community anyway, for a variety of reasons mostly related to its rather plain and homely nature. There’s also some controversy about the mold’s origins, but I’d rather not dive into that thicket today.

He’s not my favorite mold, either; all I have of him is the QVC version in the "wrong" shade of Chestnut, and a Pretty Buck who may or may not be a Sample. He was a little something I picked up in the NPOD in its early days, when most Samples were not distinguished, or all that distinguishable.  I bought him because I liked his paintjob - supposedly Buckskin, but very reminiscent of "Five-Gaiter Sorrel", a favorite color of mine.

I wouldn’t mind seeing him in a Golden Buckskin or some variety of Black; the only Buckskin we’ve had so far on the mold has been the Pretty Buck, and the closest we’ve gotten to Black has been the Blue Roan - the original #1160 in 2002 and the recent Reissue. It hasn’t appeared in any flavor of Decorator or even Glossy, outside of a few oddities. I get the feeling we probably won’t be seeing too many of either in the Anniversary release, even if they do decide to get wild and crazy on us.

There’s an interesting question: if they make a Silver Filigree AQHA Horse, will anyone buy it? I would, but you know I’m weird.