Breyer 2020 Traditional - Winx

When Breyer first showed the photos of their portrait model for the famous racehorse Winx, I admit I was disappointed. Though I don't follow Australian racing, so I wasn't a particular fan of hers, I've seen photos of the real Winx, and she has beautiful colouring. See here - there's various shades of rich brown through her coat, and even some dappling if you see her here without her saddle. On the other hand, the model in the promotional photo looked a uniform mahogany red-brown, with shading only applied in the grooves of the muscles. I was disappointed enough that at the time I said I probably wouldn't ever buy her, unless at some point a cheap second hand one came up and they hadn't released the mould in a better colour by then.

But at various points through the year, I saw collectors' real photos of the Winx models, and they were much better than Breyer's original shot - more depth of shading, lighter patches on the flank, and a richness to the finish which made the colour look vibrant despite being dark. And I began to slowly change my mind, looking at the prices from various retailers I knew, checking out how many were in stock, perhaps I needed to hurry or regret it?

And yet I still held off, because perhaps they were varied, with different batches having the paint handled in a more subtle and skillful way than others, and I didn't want to make up my mind on the fact I'd seen good paintjobs, then get a flat dull one and be disappointed. I even bid for one on Ebay, but dropped out once the price got quite a bit higher than I knew I could order a brand new example!

Last week, I saw one more 'real' photo of an actual model, and gave in to temptation - I just had to risk it, and order myself a Winx : I'd regret it if she sold out once retailers concentrate on the 2022 models coming in, and I never did get chance to own one. The worst that could happen is owning a truly beautiful, elegant, and realistic sculpt, but in a bit of a boring colour, and that's no hardship or waste of money at all!

This morning, my parcel arrived, and while the cat 'helped' me with the box, I got to see her for the first time...

And she's lovely! Phew! 
I got one of the nicely painted ones, with a dark but deeply painted colour, almost black in places with really warm glowing highlights which show through in natural places. Sure, not quite so shaded and bright as the real horse, but as I said, I never followed her career from here anyway (we tend to see just UK and Ireland racing on free tv, and I don't have any of the subscription stuff for international sport), so although I can appreciate and admire her fantastic racing record (37 wins, the last 33 of which were in a row), I've no huge attachment to the real mare to need an accurate portrait.

Trying to catch a big enough bit of sun was tricky, this one's brighter but the shadows on her aren't so flattering.

I think the mould looks even more striking in this dark, sleek, shiny colour than it does in the pale matte buckskin I have already. It draws attention to the detail and contour in the sculpt, the way the light catches.

Breyer tend to do a lot more action-posed moulds these days, so it's a change to have a placid, relaxed-looking horse just standing there.

The other side looks just as handsome when you're handling the model, but with her head turned slightly away it's not so flattering for photos.

A really fine example of the lean, racing-fit Thoroughbred breed - how I'd love this to be the next mould they scale down to add to the Stablemates range, then I could paint more racehorse portraits of my own!

Because racing people just love a clever name bringing together something from each parent, I went through the Thoroughbreds page of my website and find some classy-sounding combination between two of my existing models.
I've got a very dark bay thoroughbred mare (Zenyatta) called Ravenswing, and a brighter bay stallion (Frankel) called King And Country, so Winx's show name will combine monarchy with the bird species and sound quite cool too : The Raven Queen

Hello! Look at those lovely long ears.

Breyer 2021 Stablemates

Back when I reviewed Breyer's 2021 regular runs, one release which went straight onto my wishlist was the Palominos and Pintos Stablemates set, and they did in fact end up being the first of this year's models I ordered.

Here's all the horses together - often the sets seem to include some horses I really admire, and others I'm not mad about, and occasionally one terrible paintjob I actively dislike, but this contains four good mould & colour combinations and all of them nicely done.

Let's have a closer look at them individually...

The chunky trotting warmblood, or 'driving' mould, in sooty palomino pinto. The patch markings are really neatly outlined, it's a shame the mane masking wasn't so carefully done, with quite a lot of the body colour overlapping the ends of the hair. It's the sort of thing to look out for if you get chance to pick your set in person, rather than shopping online - just be aware that's an area with varied quality control, and have a quick check of several boxes to pick the nicest one!

Darley in golden palomino - the metallic aspect of his paintjob isn't over-done, just enough that he looks like the palominos who carry a gold sheen on their summer coats, and the best thing is, it's only in the palomino colour paint, they didn't use a pearly base-coat to include his mane, tail, socks, and hooves in the metallic finish, as inflicted on some other unfortunate models!

This one looks like he has a strange mane masking glitch - below the obvious chunk of hair there appears to be a phantom outline of some extra mane, but if you look closely, there is a 3D layer of thin hair flat against the shoulder in the sculpt!

There he is from the other side, do you see what I mean about looking more like an American gaited cross than a pure old world arabian? Our arabs in Europe, both Britain and the continental mainland, tend to be short-coupled and deep and rounded, with an action more floaty than high and flashy. Darley may be a prime example of an arabian for the US show ring, and American Breyer fans might love it for that, but as a British horse fan and collector, I just can't take this mould as the arabian strains I'm familiar with, so I show all mine as National Show Horses (arab x saddlebred), and think them a very nice model of this breed instead!

In all the years I've been collecting Breyer Stablemates, I've never seen them do a really pale palomino before! This quarter horse mare is described as an Isabella palomino on the box, and her colour is very delicately done, with areas sprayed lightly or heavily to vary the shading, and a grey nose to make sure the creamy tone with white mane and tail doesn't misread as cremello.

One of my favourites done on this mould, there's a certain something about it when the paintwork suits the model and just works.

The last of the four, while at a glance he might look like a chestnut, he's actually described as a chocolate palomino, which I always thought was just a term for a really dark sooty palomino, but I've read recently that it's the result of a liver chestnut base plus a cream gene. Maybe a liver chestnut with sooty AND cream gets you this shade!

Whatever his fictional plastic genetics, he's a really adorable little model, the Darwin mould sculpted as a lipizzaner but suiting a wide range of colours. Pinto was found in the historical ancestors of today's modern lipizzaner breed, as seen in glorious 17th and 18th century oil paintings and engravings, so there's the option to show him as a historic model, or you could go with a partbred, or pick something else entirely. I'm currently constructing a 'Historical' page on my website for all the obsolete colours and customs painted from old artworks, so he'll find his home there shortly.

Another 2021 addition to the Stablemates range was a Horse Foal Surprise - not just strange grammar which I can't quite make a sensible sentence from in my mind, but a strange combination of re-release and brand new model. In each box you got the same adult and foal as last year's Stable Surprise set, plus one new adult to complete the family. But the new horses aren't available seperately, so you have three options : buy the set and end up with duplicates in you bought last year's batch; miss out on the new ones; or hope that someone might split sets and sell the models singly. Luckily, Chestnut Ridge do exactly that, selling out-of-box/bag models individually, so you can pick exactly which you like and leave those you don't need.

Of course, I picked out the three new horses for my herd.

The good old G3 mustang mould in a simple but effective chestnut, I like his snip and the fade out of his tail to flaxen. This one was paired with the dark bay tobiano paint horse mare from last year.

These paintjobs are nice enough that they'd sell as singles, but probably not exciting enough to go ahead and buy the whole set of three if you only lack the new horse from each family.

This quarter horse mare was paired with the...wait a minute, I think I've spotted a mistake, Breyer.

The dun warmblood mare. And these two females have somehow produced a foal. 

I wonder if this is linked to the fact the warmblood was initially named as the Warmblood Stallion mould on IdentifyYourBreyer - maybe a collector tip-off corrected that site's mistake, but Breyer themselves were still under the impression it's a stallion when compiling this family group? Oops!

Anyway, I do like this mare a lot, her faintly shaded black looks sleek and striking, and I just love the big chunky white snip on her nose, that design choice gives her so much character and was why I wanted her so much, I'm glad to be able to buy these singly.

The G3 warmblood in a nice mahogany bay, paired with the palomino walking TB, makes up the third and final set. For some reason, 2020's roan Icelandic wasn't re-used, and it can't be cos they only have one mould of that breed, as they rarely match breeds together in the mystery foal type sets anyway - last time the Icelandic was crossed with an Appaloosa!

And to finish on, a couple more of the 70th Anniversary Stablemates blind bags, each mould a mini version of a Traditional scale sculpt. These aren't 2021 releases but having taken a year to reach the UK stockists, they may as well be! 

The missouri fox trotter, not a mould I like enough to have ever bought a Trad size one, but the mini is a very sweet little horse indeed, and I can see myself ending up with several of these if they release them in more colours down the years.

I think I got a fairly dark variation here, a lot of the fox trotters have been a paler shade of grey with a lot less shading on the mane, but I really like this one's darker look, even if he was a bit of heavy-handed spraying compared to others!

And mini Emma, also known as the Fell Pony mould, though fells never come in chestnut so she'll have to be allocated something else in my collection!

She's an adorable little chunky pony, not far off the G3 Highland for size, she's so neat and small and light she feels like a half-size Stablemate in hand! It's unusual to see such a cobby type as a smaller model, but she makes a great addition to the range, I'd like to see them release her in black like the original large scale Fell Pony, but also in piebald and skewbald as the 'pony cobs' which are rapidly gaining popularity in the UK.

This mean there's only one 70th Anniversary model left for me to collect, excluding the chase pieces (I'm not into decorators to seek those out, though I'd keep them as colourful oddities if I happened on them by chance, like the copper filigree Django I got from the first series of blind bags). And I haven't painted any of these new mini moulds yet, so I'm not ruling out ordering another batch pot-luck or pick'n'mix at some point : Stablemates are addictive!

Breyer Traditional Peptoboonsmal at long last!

Finally, the last of Breyer's 2020 mid-year models has reached the UK, almost halfway through the following year! It's not our British retailers' fault in the slightest, they're as keen to get the models as we are to buy them, and it's felt like a very long wait for what everyone else has had for ages.

I decided to go for Peptoboonsmal rather than a new 2021 release precisely because of that delay - he's been on my wishlist longest, and although it was tempting to go for something shiny and new, somehow he deserved to come along first.

Luckily it was a bright clear day for a change, so he got taken straight out into the sunshine after work for a photoshoot!

This is my first time seeing and handling the Dundee mould, and it's a lovely one in person. I especially like how it combines a motion pose with a relaxed, casual attitude; often models sculpted in action can have a taut and strained look, but he looks very at ease and laid back, like a good working horse, or reliable steady-minded leisure horse. 

The only slight flaw in his design is something not obvious without closer inspection - Peptoboonsmal is a famous stallion, and this mould is sculpted as a gelding - oops!

His colour is nicely done, with quite a lot going in to that paintjob. Firstly the base coat of chestnut is sprayed heavily in some areas and very thinly in others, leaving him paler flanks and elbows, a mid tone on body and neck, and darkest on the head and legs. There's dapples, on belly and quarters, then fine white roaning to further lighten and speckle his paler parts, and a light smattering of dark flecks over the top. His markings are crisply masked, a good match for the real horse, and I love the striped hooves!

Now, I admit I was initially sceptical about the paintwork for the production runs of this model : in photographs he seems to vary a huge amount. The example here on IdentifyYourBreyer is extremely pale with white roaning, while other real photos coming through on US ebay listings last year showed the body colour as just a very slightly paler chestnut than the head and legs, with hardly any of the misty roaning spray layer. 

I was worried : what if, buying blind online, I got one which didn't have much contrast? Reassured by having spotted photos of a 'good one' from a UK seller, when it's likely all our retailers would have received horses of the same batch, I decided to take my chances, and am very pleased with the one I got!

The mould's official name seems to have been settled as Australian Stock Horse, which leaves me a bit undecided what to do - it's a breed I'm already familiar with, in fact I show all my Peter Stones in the Palouse mould as Australian stock horses, but the real Peptoboonsmal is famously an American Quarter Horse, and this being a portrait of him, it kind of follows that it'd be fitting to use that breed for our models, too. Normally it wouldn't matter, I'd decide later, but I'm in the process of compiling a new collection website with all the models split by breed instead of brand/finish/scale, and I don't know which page to file him on!

All in all, a lovely addition to my collection - it's nice to see a great new mould making its debut into the regular run line, and that his colour is done so well.

He shared his box with a little extra. Chestnut Ridge are selling the 70th Anniversary blind bags opened, so you can decide exactly which model you want, rather than taking pot luck and getting too many duplicates. I've collected a few already, but one notable gap was the silver bay, so I snapped him up as a travelling companion for my Trad scale purchase!

I'm not a fan of the pearly sheen on so many Breyer models lately, but I can overlook it in small doses - SM scale is just about ok, especially when the body colour isn't metallic, only the mane and tail. This silver bay looks great on the mould, and the novelty of these mini versions of Traditional moulds hasn't worn off for me yet, I really like them!

I haven't managed to name my Peptoboonsmal quickly, but this one can be Harecroft Eye Of The Storm, one of those names which has been a while on my noted-down list, waiting for a horse to arrive and suit it.

Stablemates New and Old

I've had two separate Stablemate parcel days recently, the first were some of the 70th Anniversary blind bags which tagged along with my WIA Sharif & Lancelot order. I hadn't fancied paying the high resale price for the UK listings which'd come up since these were released, and as they still haven't made it to this country's stockists, I decided I may as well add two or three little stowaways!

So which did I get?

First out of the packet, Smart Chic Olena! Sadly he's lost his nice swishing long mane in conversion to the mini mould, and his head does look out of proportion small, but it's still nice to have a new addition to the range of SM moulds, and his colour's just the right side of argh that's so shiny metallic, it's a more natural looking sheen.

Looking rather on the 'good doer' side, but then, a lot of real QHs are sadly this shape for the show ring, so it's not unrealistic!

Next, the Connemara - I'm really glad I got this one, black is a tricky colour to photograph but she's so nice in hand, a really detailed mould which doesn't seem to have suffered in the shrinking. A lot of people seem to pose these resting up on their tail tip, but with one hind fetlock flexed to rest the foot flat on the ground, I'm sure this is the right way to stand them.

She's the only one of the trio to get a name so far : Grace O'Malley, after the Connemara pirate!

And finally, one of the models I was hoping I wouldn't get, being glossy and a vintage colour style, but actually I like him way more than I thought I would! The mini version of the mould is much more smooth and sleek than the old-style sculpting of the original Trad scale one, and the gloss isn't too icky in small doses, I can happily keep this little chap for the shelf.

The second parcel was a mixed lot of G2 TBs - some body condition, duplicates or blanks, one nice custom, and three I didn't have already which got saved from body box potential into my OF herd.

From the Jockey and race tack set, with white 'bandages' as part of his paintjob. I think this is the only time they've used this technique, and while the masking isn't particularly straight at the pasterns, it's not so bad from a distance! I've named this one Black Pearl.

This appaloosa was released as a mare and foal set, I've had her foal for a while from a second hand lot, but never had the matching mother til now! I've given her the name Asterella, and she'll be an appaloosa sportshorse in my herd.

And last of the lot, a chestnut pinto. Actually, a fourth chestnut pinto, as they've also released two tobianos and a frame overo on this same mould. She's got the name April Snow, because it did snow the day she arrived with me here!

Breyer Adiah HP

This week I treated myself to one last Traditional scale parcel day for 2020, the top of my wishlist for this year's models ticked off before the end of the year.

Adiah HP was the stand out must-have from the mid-years for me, a welcome return for a mould we haven't seen in regular runs since Totilas himself in 2013 (unless you count the Holiday Horse release, which I kind of don't because they're usually both more expensive and more limited in supply than the usual horses).
It's always kind of puzzling how Breyer just seem to ignore certain new moulds after one regular run, and we just don't see them again outside of the selection of exclusives and specials for years and years, while others crop up in the regular run range continuously, or even have several different colours on offer at the same time. Think of Big Chex To Cash, Topsails Rienmaker, Slick By Design and Latigo Dun It, all overlapping in the catalogue, versus something like the one Marwari back in 2013, or Bluegrass Bandit who hasn't been seen since 2008!
So, like many collectors of regular run OFs, I was delighted to see the mould was coming back, although there's been a slight modification - this one's a mare.

I thought you'd like to see both sides - click any image to view it full size - as real collectors' photos often help me make decisions on what to buy, and because they show an actual production line model in hand from different angles, I find they're often more useful than Breyer's much better quality publicity photo.
The lighting isn't ideal here as I'm in the middle of winter with a latitude and climate which makes actual sunshine a very rare and fleeting thing in my garden, it's hard to find a patch of light big enough for such a large scale model from November til March, so I had to cheat and do this indoors under false light.

Adiah comes with the clear plastic disc stand for one fore foot, like the Huck Bey and Salinero moulds (yes, that one which wobbles creakily forever, or breaks off at the peg!), but I photographed her before attaching it, just because I try to avoid bases in pictures if possible, and that style's too fragile to risk pulling in and out of the foot through the grass sheet like the good strong slotted bases with a metal peg in the foot. 

Once the base is on, she's reasonably steady, but if you've had any Breyers on these bases before, you'll know you can never quite relax and trust them, and they need a secure shelf in a part of the room which will never be accidentally bumped, preferably with their tails touching the wall or back of the bookcase, and after your first unprovoked domino event in the middle of the night, with the addition of some tape or bluetack just in case. I'm saying they will stand up but you'll forever be scared they won't stay up!

I really do think this colour looks stunning on the mould, pinto was such a good choice. The real Adiah is 3/4 friesian and 1/4 Dutch warmblood, an eye-catching dressage horse who's won up to Grand Prix level, and they've done a nice job of matching her markings, with crisp, neatly masked jagged edge details, even on the fiddly bits - here's a look underneath!

The mane seems to be a sort of deliberate mistake, though - Adiah is a chestnut pinto in real life, so her mane is brown in colour : spot the coloured braids along her neck here, or see this photo for her loose mane which shows the blondey-brown even better. But the model has black shading on those two braids, meaning your eye reads her entire colour as a bay pinto instead.

But when a horse is this beautiful, surely we can forgive a little thing like black plaits?! Just look at her!

My favourite part of the whole paintjob is that little black spot on the end of her nose.