My Breyer Stablemates: G1 Drafter and another Appaloosa

Very beautiful Clydesdale! :)
I'm not an expert and George's surely should be taken in consideration about this subject but as far as I know Clydesdales have shorter legs than Shire and the amount of white in those real horses makes me think they're Clydesdale horses indeed.

Congrats

Clydedales may be shorter than shires on average, so you'd think their legs would be shorter too, but it's more a proportional thing - a shire has a much deeper chest and body, and slightly thicker bone, so they tend to give an impression of being more compact, where a clyde will look more 'leggy' as their limbs are more slender, and their chests not so deep. They also tend to being narrower when seen from the front, and they have very different hind legs - in a clyde, the hock or heel joint is supposed to be close to give a different kind of pulling power when working, where a shire should be straight-legged with the hocks apart, and for them to turn in or touch is a big conformational fault - one with hind legs like a good clydesdale would never be placed at shows, and wouldn't be kept as a breeding stallion, but it would still be sound enough to work or ride. So in general, a look of being lankier and narrower with the legs close together = clydesdale, while a look of being broad and stocky and rounded = shire.

The thing about white is interesting! Traditionally, clydesdales were the ones with lots of white on, and it's still prized today, a breeder will be thrilled if a foal comes out with a lot of flashy markings, and those tend to do best in the show ring. Shires, up til the mid 20th century, were the ones with a lot less white. Socks coming no higher than the knee and hock, and a white stripe on the face, were the usual. Body markings were discriminated against in showing and breeding - they could happen occasionally, but the breed standard discouraged them and a stallion with 'too much' white, or splashes of it in the wrong places like the belly, would struggle to get graded and licensed. But the breed was getting rarer and rarer, and from the 1950s to 1970s, the genetics were starting to be a problem, with lots of horses being crossed back and forth til they were at the point of dangerous inbreeding. Something had to be done to avoid breeding half-brothers to half sisters, and so on, and the way the Shire Horse society decided to save the breed was to allow crossing with Clydesdales to bring in totally new blood. The resulting generation which were half shire half clyde weren't counted as purebreds, but if you then bred them back to a shire, the three-quarter babies were allowed into the stud book as official shires and could be used at stud and shown. Over the next few generations, work was done to get the shires to true type, and any 'bad' clydesdale features were bred out, things like overly roman noses or close hocks - those males were gelded and females sold out away from studs, used as working or riding horses rather than staying in the breeding lines. With time, you couldn't tell from the shape whether a shire had any clydesdale in there or not, though by the 1990s it'd be safe to say that almost all of them do have somewhere, just because that new blood was so well spread across the UK population. With the cross, came the colour. Suddenly, it was common to see shires with a LOT of extra white on. And the breed socierty could hardly carry on penalising them, as it was their decision to allow the clydesdale in, so it would've defeated the object if they then wouldn't reward the breeders with prize money or accredit their stallions, just cos there were more markings than the old preference allowed. So white became 'ok', and if you see champion photos from the 1980s, there's horses with great splashes of white being allowed to take the top prizes. I knew the 1982 Shire Horse of the Year in her later days as a very elderly retired mare, and her belly was more white than brown Her offspring, of course, carried the gene for having white, too, and several of the horses I knew, who went on to be show winners in their own right, carried patches of marking on the belly, and some sabino ticking through the coat. To this day, if a shire has more than average amounts of white on, it's no surprise, and it still won't be marked down by judges - they've never gone back to the old formula of less white being preferable.

So when I have a model which has a lot of white, I never think 'He better be shown as a clydesdale, then' - unless the model's a portrait of a real individual, I tend to pick purely on the body shape of the sculpt.

(I grew up with a family friend who was a shire breeder, judge, and chairman of the breed society, and have all this first-hand from what he taught me - all this rambling is true history and judging tips, and many hours spent beside the show ring seeing what order the horses are ranked, you can trust my sources, hahah)

The Clydesdale models are truly lovely and that really ones are great as well!!

The history about the Shire and Clydesdale is very interesting,George.I have just book an old book on Shire horses and they mention the introduction of Clydesdale.Originally Shires were black or brown with very little white,as you mentioned.They book also mentions how chestnut and grey were introduced into the Shire,very interesting read!

Taos wrote:

The Clydesdale models are truly lovely and that really ones are great as well!!

Thanks!

And thank you, George. It is very interesting to learn about the history of Shire can Clydesdale horses. Do you think the two horses I took a photo of are Clydesdales? And given that the Breyer "Clydesdale" sculpt is quite stocky, does it actually look more like a Shire?

The one on the left I'd say clydesdale, with the very roaned out sabino mane (this can happen in a shire, but is usually pretty minimal, I've never seen one with more than a slight salt'n'pepper streak in the mane too rather than just the tail). The one on the right less easy to tell, the neck and chest look deeper but that could just be the individual's build and body condition - a lean horse will obviously look less bulky than a fat one, a strong muscly one will be bigger and curvier than a retired or unworked one.

I don't think the Stablemate looks like either! Way too bulked up, like he's been on steroids and doing a bit of bodybuilding! Legs too short for clydesdale, not enough feathering for a shire and not really enough for a good clyde either. The rump's too round, the chest too barrely. It reminds me more of the massive and stocky Continental draft breeds from mainland Europe, than either of our fluffy-legged British heavies. Or just a very exaggerated sculpt from someone trying a tiny bit too hard to make a draft look big and strong. When I get this one, I'll definitely be looking for a totally different breed, whichever of the heavy drafts come in bay and can have a lot of white.

Wonderful George, it is always so interesting to read your posts and sure I trust you.
I must read again those differences between Shires and Clydesdales, they're more than it looks at a first glance.
About the continental horses I suppose you're referring to Ardennais or Bretton?

Ardennes have more shaggy feathering on the legs, and tend not to have much if any white marking, but the body size and bulk isn't far off - look at this BIG lad being the Wikipedia example of the breed : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Brabant and Trait du Nord and even Dutch Draft are all very similar, though I'm sure their own real-life fans would have as much to say about that as I do about the differences between clydesdales and shires - when you know a breed well, things stand out which don't seem too obvious as an outsider looking in!

The Rhenish German Coldblood might be a better match than these, the example here has the big body on top of smaller legs, and less feather up the legs : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
And that one's a mare, so you can imagine a stallion would be a lot more muscled up and massive.

Breton isn't a bad match either, but they do seem to have a longer leg, perhaps? Mostly chestnut so they don't spring to mind for a bay model, but they do come in black and bay as well, and they do have white markings a lot of the time, here's one which ticks both colour and marking boxes : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I haven't even bought the model yet and I'm already doing the breed assignation thing

Thanks again, George. If one of the horses in the photo could be a Clydesdale and the other a Shire, then these two breeds are very similar indeed. The Ardennes, Rhenish German coldblood and Breton look more like the Breyer. Curious what you think when you get your Stablemate.

And thanks for your responses, Paige, Jill and Andreas.

I enjoy so much the "assignation thing"!
Was it WIA Gustav I wanted so much to know the breed?

Let me introduce two more:
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First, I found another “Swaps”. This one is from 1995-97, marketed as a thoroughbred race horse. Swaps may be my favourite G1 so I am very happy to have found another one. I like his alert look.
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Here he is with my other Swaps, which has a very different colour. The yellow colour is less realistic, but I like it too.
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I also got another “Standardbred”:
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It’s from the 2005 “Parade of Breeds II”. I only had two Standardbreds so I thought it was OK to get another one.
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Lovely! Swaps is definitely my favorite stablemate mold, and maybe one of my favorite Breyer molds in general. And that one is an especially nice color. The standardbred is also a really nice color, very nice additions, congrats! (I just realized my Breyer update features the same two molds, haha. They are nice ones--and you can never have too many, of course. Always room for one more. )

I had some from the same person's collection recently - your standardbred came from the exact same set of JCP Stablemates as the warmblood and TB I bought from this seller, so some of my models have 'met' some of yours, hahah!

Thanks, Jill, George and Andreas. Yes, the seller had quite a few for sale. I like the thoroughbred too and was tempted to buy it but I already have so many of this mould.

That trio of Standardbreds looks perfect to play horse race, their poses are perfect and their colors help to identify them.

Roger wrote:

That trio of Standardbreds looks perfect to play horse race, their poses are perfect and their colors help to identify them.

I agree with you

Let me update you on my Stablemates. I don’t collect as many as I used to because I have most models and I am happy to have them in just a few colours. I haven’t stopped collecting them completely though. First, I got another G1 Morgan stallion:
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I only had one other one before and I don’t think two is too many for this mould.
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Then I also bought the Stablemate version of Secretariat, a famous US race horse in the 1970s:
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It was released to mark the 50th anniversary of this horse winning the “Triple Crown”.
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It’s a stunning model! As you know, I particularly like running animals, and this model captures the horse’s movement very well.
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I had almost not bought it because some websites suggested that it was larger than the usual Stablemate size and it was considerably more expensive than a normal Stablemate. However, it is very similar in size to other Stablemates, except that it seems to have particularly long legs if they were stretched out. The material is different from that of other Stablemates. Rather than cellulose acetate, it seems to be made of (hard) plastic. It's very light, so I think it's probably hollow.
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Here is a comparison with a Thoroughbred:
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With Sea Biscuit:
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And with “Hands Down”, which is a particularly large Stablemate, larger than Secretariat:
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Finally, with the help of Jill, I got the pinto version of the Fell pony. Well, I believe Fell ponies can’t be pinto, so it must be another pony breed.
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A lovely pony! I didn’t buy it when I previously had a chance to buy things in the US because I thought Breyer would sell it later in Europe too. But I waited and waited, and in the end, I realised that they wouldn’t sell it here. And the longer I waited, the more I wanted it. So I was very happy when Jill helped me to get one in the US (in addition to helping me to get many other figures on my wishlist!)
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Here it is with my other Fell pony:
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While Fell ponies are usually black, chestnut is also possible. The chestnut pony is good, but I think the pinto is much more interesting.

The first horse is especially beautiful and you are right about the movement of the long-legged one.
I dont' want to start it again but aren't all Stablemate horses hollow? Not the traditional hollow cast but they're inflated like glass objects so they always have a hollow part?

To clarify, that is THE most famous US racehorse. :) Love Secretariat, may he rest in peace.

Lovely new additions! Congratulations!

Wonderful new horses to your collection Roger! So kind of Jill to help you get the models you want.
The race horses are very captivating models, I like Secretariat and his pose, and he looks good beside the other models too. Well done!

Wonderful additions! I am unfamiliar with the Secretariat figure, it's lovely! And I'm so glad you were able to add the pinto pony, it's such a good color on such a charming mold.

Thank you, Rogério, Paige, Annette and Jill!

Roger wrote:

I dont' want to start it again but aren't all Stablemate horses hollow? Not the traditional hollow cast but they're inflated like glass objects so they always have a hollow part?

No idea whether they are hollow. Has anyone cut (a broken) one open? George perhaps when he remodelled a horse?

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

To clarify, that is THE most famous US racehorse. :)

I guess you don't agree with Thoroughbred Champions: Top 100 Racehorses of the 20th Century, which only lists him as second (behind Man o' War). Interesting list, I recognise quite a few in the top as Breyer models.

There are lots of superb racehorses, and Man O' War was a great one too of course. He is the grandfather (or great gf) of my favorites, Secretariat, Seabiscuit, and War Admiral. I love the history of this sport and the true athletes (the horses), obviously I disdain any form of the institutionalized abuse that occassionaly springs up in the sport...