When Breyer announce the regular runs each year, usually there's two or three I really like and immediately put on my wishlist, and a few I don't like at all and never want to buy, with a couple left in a sort of 'in-between' state where I don't dislike them but equally they don't have the instant 'buy me!' appeal. A lot of the time, it's cos they pair a really great new mould with a bit of a boring colour, and I think 'maybe I'll wait til they release it in a more interesting paintjob'.
One of the models in that very category was LV Integrity, from 2018 - a mould I liked the look of, and didn't own yet, but issued in a what initially looked to be a rather flat and common bay colour. Several times I'd had a good look at the photos and considered him, but some other release always took priority over adding another plain bay to my herd.
Sometimes, I'd end up seeing those models in person, on the Breyer sellers' trade stands at real horse events, and they'd win me over by being more interesting than I thought - a nice face and a lot of character, or a richer more deeply shaded version of what had looked a bland colour in the catalogue shots.
Of course, covid disrupted the usual schedule of horse sports for competitors and spectators alike, and I haven't been to a trade stand since. So there's a lot of releases over the last three years which I've never seen in person, to have that chance to warm to ones I'd originally written off as not interesting enough
But now and then, an older model will crop up at a bargain price on a shop site or Ebay, and remind me of a horse which has been lingering on my 'maybe' list since release - somehow 'you can have it for half price?' tempts me to make decisions on the ones I'd procrastinated on for years, hahah!
So this week's introduction is not a brand new release, but still a first in this mould for me. And his colour is so much nicer in person - perhaps this is one of those runs which had variation depending on who was handling the spray gun that day, with some getting a very uniform and even application, and others given much more highlight and shadow through the thickness of the paint.
The mould was sculpted as a Shagya-Arabian, which is a whole separate breed than the Arabian, rather than just a strain. They were a cross-bred developed at several studs in the Austro-Hungarian empire (now 13 independent central European countries) as a cavalry horse, using Arab stallions - particularly favouring Bedouin and Syrian types - crossed with local riding horse mares, to make something larger and more sturdy, but with the famous character and toughness of the Arabian.
As cavalry ended up being phased out of modern warfare, they took on the role of a sport horse, and general leisure riding too. The name comes from an individual called Shagya, one of the early Arabian stallions who is said to be somewhere in every individual's pedigree across the modern breed.
So in model form, it's an interesting mould, with hints of Arabian conformation and movement, but bigger, with stronger chunkier legs, and a straighter profile to the head. Curiously, the real LV Integrity is a purebred Arabian, so didn't have to be made on the Shagya mould, but perhaps the horse's connections felt that it was a better match for him - he's a sporty endurance gelding with a nearly-20-year competitive career, rather than a young showring stallion all bouncy prancing and full of showing off, or being posed for the camera.
You can see here in the fully side-on profile shot how the head is straighter and bony without being coarse, rather than dished and rounded look of most purebred Arabian types.
I think he's got a really great face, very alert and lively, with those big ears pricked up high!
Another mould which looks good from either direction, as he's trotting on a completely straight line with his head facing forward.
A very handsome horse, I think perhaps he wasn't too popular on release due to being a portrait of a purebred, and that meant the fact the mould was created to represent the Shagya wasn't mentioned in his packaging or press releases. Most model people like very araby-looking Arabians, and aren't so interested in partbreds or these old European breeds with mixed ancestry. They're the sort of thing which always gets a mention in the encyclopedia type books of horse breeds, but there's never a class for them in showing, and I suspect the majority of people who bought this model would've just left it filed as a pure Arabian like the real horse it was made after. But I like having a big variety of breeds and it'll be satisfying for me to add this one to the Shagya page of my site.
Definitely worth the £26, especially now the average Traditional scale release is £55-60 so more than double this offer price, I'm glad I decided to get him after all.
And I do really like his colour, I don't think I'll regret going for this bay release if they come out with a more exciting paintjob in the next few years, cos the bay is rich and shaded and shiny enough to hold it's own, and any more colours would be an addition to stand alongside him, rather than something I wish I'd just waited and had instead!
I haven't come up with a name for him yet, all my allocated Shagya-Arabians are G3 Stablemates which got filtered out of the Arabian page for being too big and chunky, so I'd given them Arabic or English/American names already - this is the first time I've had to think of something specifically for an Austro-Hungarian horse, and I don't speak any of the languages from that former empire!
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