Another Traditional Breyer to share this week, this one was a special run for the Tractor Supply Company in the USA. Breyer make two or three of these exclusives for the company each year, to be sold only in their stores and not anywhere else or online - they must have some sort of promotional deal between them.
As with all the special runs produced for just one chain (Target, Walmart, JCPenney, probably more I can't think of right now!), it's unfortunate for all of us who live in countries which don't HAVE those shops, cos very few of them ever end up second hand on Ebay over here, and so I haven't got many in my collection.
They're not expensive higher-quality or super-rare releases where they're originally sold, but because the postage and customs import fees to have them sent over would double or triple the cost of the model, they end up way too pricey for me to buy in from the States, and I just keep an eye on UK Ebay and see what crops up. Sometimes, you can catch a bargain and get one of these rarer horses for normal regular run price, or even if you're lucky, cheaper.
That's exactly what happened with this one - he cost me about £5 less than a standard regular run is priced in my country!
I think he's a real stunner, I love the delicate shade of pale palomino with a hint of ashy sootiness in the cool tone and the greyer legs. My own pony goes this colour in winter, so I liked Jesse as soon as I first saw the promo pics, though I never thought I'd get chance to get hold of him here.
Sold as a palomino Quarter Horse, Jesse is a gelding on the 'gaming stock horse' mould - my other in this action sculpt is a mare, so the mould has two versions, letting Breyer make any portrait models match the sex of the real horse. It's a nice athletic build, quite lean but strong, which suits the pose perfectly - he looks like a barrel racer or fit working horse, rather than the plump and muscly show-QH types.
I've named him Steal My Sunshine, partly cos QHs often have snappy pop-culture names (it's a song title and lyric from one of those one-hit-wonder bands of the 1990s), but also because it's SO hard to catch a bit of sunshine in my garden at this time of year - between the shade of shed, wall, neighbour's roof, and trees, there's about fifteen minutes of daylight which tracks across one side of the lawn and the hedge, so model photography is a great challenge of timing and balancing tricks!
Another mould which looks great from either direction, the sculpt just doesn't have a bad side! I've got him facing this way on my mantelpiece at the moment, and when time comes to find him a shelf gap in the other room with the rest of my collection, it won't matter at all if he fits somewhere facing the other way instead.
All in all, a new addition I'm really pleased to add to my line-up of Breyer quarter horses!
Now, there is one thing I'd like to point out, which doesn't reflect badly on this release, but rather, another on the same mould.
One of the 2020 regular runs was the mare Stingray, who unlike Jesse, is a portrait of a real horse. The thing is, he's much, much closer to getting the colour right, than her own model was!
This is the real Stingray. She's very pale and golden, not at all reddish. It's perhaps even more noticeable in this comparison shot Breyer themselves used in the promotional material and her box packaging.
Here's my Jesse and Stingray together. The pale sooty palomino on the left would've looked perfect for Stingray, if they'd copied her distinctive markings and brand onto that paintjob it would've been a brilliant lookalike.
As it is, I list my own Stingray as a totally different colour (silver bay, to explain the red coat, brownish points, and grey mane and tail), and think she's probably one of Breyer's worst colour-matching fails in recent years. A nice model, yes; a very striking colour on a dynamic and appealing mould, but definitely not like the real horse.
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