Patriotic

Someone was a bad doggie earlier this week!

But with uncanny timing, since I’ve been wanting to talk about the Special Run Translucent Patriot, who first came to our attention via the mail-order company Back in the Saddle:

https://www.backinthesaddle.com/itemdy00.aspx?T1=BB6163

Chinese Samples of the Transparent Clock Saddlebred mold have been showing up on eBay over the past several months, so it wasn’t a complete surprise that a Special Run showed up now. I thought we’d have to wait until BreyerFest until we saw a larger-run Traditional Translucent release, though. The blurb on the “Exclusive Models” page of the BreyerFest section of the Breyer web site (that I featured here before) hints at it:

Following in the spirit of the Olympics, each of our Special Runs represent either a continent or the 'brio' of Rio!  

That is, if you translate ‘brio’ as “Carnevale-level outrageous” a la Times Square: the 2007 Glossy Black Ethereal with metallic gold mane and tail covered in glittery multi-colored fireworks, and one of my favorite BreyerFest SRs ever.

Translucent Samples of the Marabella and Running Mare were also made available on eBay via Chinese sources, so maybe either of those might be the potential candidate? (There was a clear plastic Smarty Jones, too, but the Polo Pony version of Smarty is being used for the Early Bird Raffle Polomar. So, not likely.)

But let’s get back to the actual Patriot model. I thought I’d like it more – I’m totally down with Translucents in general, and a couple of quilt projects I’ve worked on in the past year have been patriotically-themed – but the design seems a bit lacking. A bright red nose and ears? Weird, and not in a good way.

Patriotic art only works for me if it’s either done with a sense of subtlety or grandeur (Lincoln Memorial), or is completely over-the-top (Hawaiian-style Flag Quilts). The design of the recalled carousel Christmas ornament from a few years back hit all the right notes in the over-the-top category, I thought, if not the actual pieces themselves:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/carousel-ornament

His Rudolph-colored muzzle aside, Patriot falls somewhere in the muddled middle. My proposal would have gone with a red Woodgrain body, a big blue blanket covered with fifty sparkly glow-in-the-dark stars, and a blaze in the shape of an exploding fireworks rocket. And white striping in the mane and tail.

(Hmm, I think I might have the concept for my next Family Arabian Mare project!)

Seeing a Patriot in person might change my mind, because it often does, but for the time being I’ll be content to sit back and let others take their share first.