General Additions thread - Catching up on all I missed, pt1

Beautiful additions!!!!

Roger wrote:

What I can spot are beautiful horse figures and pictures! Great job with the last one and I didn't know about these subtle changes on the Marwari model to turn it into something different. This is a batch of very interesting horse breeds.

I always find it fun to add different breeds to my collection, with most of the model horse companies being US-based and the majority of the popular breeds being North American, Western European, or Arabians, the 'rest of the world' category is always quite small in comparison!

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

Congratulations and wonderful work! I especially enjoy reading about techniques to fix things like stuffing them down in couch cushions as I have done this also.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who works on a basis of weird improvisation instead of doing things the 'proper' way

One more new arrival for this thread this week, a little Stablemate special run from this year's Breyerfest. I don't usually make much effort to collect the Breyerfest minis on the second hand market, they're always an awful lot of money for such a small size of horse so I tend to accept them as the ones I admire but don't intend to own. But this year there was one in a set of four which stood out as EXACTLY the kind of model I really wanted for my collection, and from when I first saw the photos I kind of hoped that sooner or later one might turn up on UK Ebay. I got outbid on the first one which did appear here, but was the only bidder on the second, so this very exciting little parcel came this week

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A blagdon cob! He reminds me very much of a lovely natured and very handsome cob who lived over the fence from my pony field for a few years, he was such a gentle and polite chap, and both me and my horse missed him when he went off to a new home! Breyer very rarely tackle this sort of pattern on their mini scale models, and I think they've managed it very very well considering how small and intricate the masking is.

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The mould is a scaled down version of the Traditional 1:9 scale sculpt, I've got a couple of others this size already (one spotted, one silver bay...oh, and a whole handful of piebald and skewbald custom repaints ), I think he looks just as good in miniature. The flying feathering on the legs and the huge mane and tail really do look dramatic, and he looks like he's having a great time playing out in the field.

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The other side, just as detailed. 'Blagdon' is the traditional name for the colour between cob owners and riders, especially in the traveller community, we all know them as that when they're a jumbled up scrambly roany colour with big slashes of white too - but genetically it'd be more accurately described as an extensive sabino pattern.

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I'm really happy to have bought him, even though he cost quite a bit, but I did cover my boss's saturday while he was away so in theory I can say I paid for him with that extra work morning of sitting about doing not much, and that's a much better way to think about it than in cash

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I've named him Harum-Scarum, cos I've already got cobs called Helter-Skelter and Hurly-Burly, so these fun rhyming words seemed a good theme to carry on with!

That little guy is simply gorgeous! Congratulations! Lucky you got an easy extra Saturday shift to afford him. Boy he is just a handsome model.

Wonderful model with beautiful markings!

I love that cob figure, he's the one I also would have spent a little money for of the Breyerfest special runs. So glad you were able to find one! He's a beautiful well done color, and I love learning about the traditional names for them from you.

Great work in fixing that broken tail, too. He looks good as new!

I wish the Marwari would be released with real Marwari ears and the old mane/tail again. The only regular run was not a color I care much for, and I missed him anyway. This guy is handsome also! What a good find! Congrats on all of them!

My first post on the forum for ages, hello everyone! Nothing awful happened, just let slip my daily looking in when I was busy and tired from work, and the longer I'd been gone the more I knew I've missed and have to catch up on, so I ended up taking a break entirely for the last few weeks. But I must get back in the swing of things sooner or later, so I'm going to start now. Please don't be upset if I reply to some people's threads but not yours - it'll take me aaaages to fully catch up and I might never get round to leaving as many comments as I would've if I'd been here all along

I thought the best way to come back was to tell you all about a huge and very enjoyable parcel I had last month - a GIANT box of second hand CollectA horses

They were listed on ebay in bulk lots, really reasonably priced, and with an element of mystery - from the photos, you couldn't really see what was in each batch cos they were piled into shelving in multiple rows, with only the first few clearly on show. So I decided to choose some of the mixed lots at random, after all I don't mind so much about duplicates as many collectors - the spare ones can be passed over to have a new lease of life in the repainted side of my collection!

When they arrived, I unpacked the box and set them to one side of the table for 'keeps' and the other side for doubles. I was surprised and very happy with just how many I didn't have already - a grand total of 15 new horses for my herd!

Which made me think....I did a little bit of mathematics, and figured out that the brand-new prices for all the models I'm keeping as they are, add up to MORE than I paid for the entire boxful. So every single custom horse I create from the remainder of this bulk lot, has effectively cost me nothing at all - the difference even pays for the cost of the paint I'll put on them

I'll show the first few customs in my other thread soon, but for now, here are the original finish arrivals which are staying just the way they are :)

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When I first started buying CollectAs, I picked my favourite colour whenever there was a choice of two, but more recently I decided it was a bit of a silly 'rule' to restrict myself to just one when many of the alternate colours were just as nice. So I've been gradually adding the rest of the colours to my collection. That'll be the case with almost all of today's introductions, sculpts I had already but now in a different colour too. This is the palomino pinto mare, no breed was given officially but my bay pinto I've got as a Java Pony so this one will join her on that breed's page of my website.

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The matching foal, I had the standing foal already but now I have both mares this foal can be paired with the second one.

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The Standardbred Pacer in black, I picked the chestnut before cos I thought he might be rather plain looking, but the really dark colour shows off the fine detailed sculpting better, I think! I'm so glad they did this breed before the chunky leg era, it works so much better as a long lean-limbed horse!

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The palomino Missouri Fox Trotter, her colour is better in person than in the official picture OR my photo, one of those models which doesn't photograph brilliantly but looks nice in hand

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The very sweet Quarter Horse foal, the bay colour is better shaded than the matching adult!

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The black Thoroughbred, who's far from being plain black, with a lot of brown tones subtly shaded in. And again, hurrah for the slim-legged older moulds, I dread to think how chunky a collectA TB would be if they released it now! I'd already been thinking of ordering this mare brand new, but giving a home to a second hand bargain one is even better :)

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The Tennessee Walking Horse foal in black, which is an odd choice by CollectA as they didn't make an adult this colour, their TWH stallions were bay pinto or palomino!

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The chestnut Hanoverian, who made a last-minute change from 'duplicates' to 'keeps' - I was convinced I had him already but when adding the others to my site I realised there was no photo, so I checked my shelf, and I really did only own the bay one after all

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The really dark chestnut Morgan, which I did get in a second-hand parcel once before, but in a very scuffed state so I repainted him. This one is in much better shape, and I think his paintwork is better than the other one I had, too - a nicer shade of brown showing on the paler parts, and the black is deeper and less greyish.

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The Norwegian Fjord foal in grey dun - the matching adult in this colour was among the first few I picked out when I was adding second-colour horses to my CollectA collection, so it's nice to add the matching foal as well :)

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The grey Andalusian, another model I had once before but had to repaint - he was all marked up with felt pen marks which wouldn't come off, this one is in lovely clean condition so gets to stay as he is!

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The Clydesdale in very roany black sabino (not grey, that colour doesn't occur in the breed - all the 'grey Clydesdale' photos on Google and various picture-sharing sites are mis-labelled grey Shires )

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And the matching foal to go with him, a little bit wobbly but by tilting the base board here I convinced him to stand without leaning on his dad!

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The Shire foal in grey (which is grey, but shouldn't be - they're always born dark and it's too young to have gone this pale ) I already had the mare but not her baby, so this little one completes a family for my shelf :)

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And finally, the draft horse with a cat. I didn't buy this model when it was released cos I wasn't too keen on the idea of them being fixed together permanently - the cat seems a bit too big for the size the horse sculpt, so I'd have preferred it to be removeable so I could take a picture without! But now I've ended up with the pair of them anyway, I'm justifying the slight mismatch in scale by saying it could just be a very big cat, and a smaller than average heavy horse
No breed was specified for the drafter, I'm trying to find one which has SUCH a convex nose but also not a lot of feather and comes in chestnut. Nothing ticking all the boxes so far!

Nice to see you back, George!
Surely the cat is too big for that horse or the other way round. I think they wanted to keep the idea attractive because a proportional cat would result very small at that scale. While CollectA horses are roughly 1:18 scale, cats are roughly 1:9 scale so there is a big difference between them. I think CollectA mentions this horse as Palomino colored but it seems it is a flaxen chestnut, right? They should have used a pony instead of a draft horse.

Yes, it's definitely a flaxen chestnut, CollectA have a lot of errors creeping in with how their horses are described and captioned - they read as if they could be bad translation, or guesses by someone who's not very knowledgeable

Here's my latest Breyer arrivals, two special parcels of special run models!

The first buy was some of this year's Breyerfest Stablemates - released as a set of five, four of them were being sold together on Ebay. I'm assuming the seller got the set for just the fifth model which they kept, and funnily enough that's the one I'd have wanted least as it was a glossy. Highly collectable in the hobby, but I've never liked the thick smooth gloss coating - it makes them look like china ornaments rather than the more realistic sheen of a standard model, which matches what you see on a real horse's coat.

Here's the four I bought...

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The Missouri Fox Trotter in a red dun pinto, I'd already thought of painting one of my duplicates from the blind bags in this colour and pattern, before this model was announced, so Breyer had the same idea as me, hahah! I think it suits the mould well, and it's good to have a pinto after the solid grey and palomino regular runs.

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The other side, this mould can display facing either way as it's walking on a straight line, but I think I prefer the side with the mane showing

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The second one from the set is this great little Mustang, the first on the scaled-down mini version of the 1:9 scale 'Fireheart' mould. I love how well he matches with the bay overo on the G4 Mustang mould, even though they're different sculptors the style is compatible and the chunkier type with a bit of heel feather is a perfect match - you could imagine them as father and son in a little herd running free.

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It amuses me that I've ended up with a relatively rare special run on this mould first, rather than having to wait for a regular run as usual. Breyer don't seem to like issuing the most recent moulds in any accessible way - after the initial club-only runs to fairly reward the people who've paid into that system, the new moulds still seem to be set aside for things which can't be bought outside the US, and then in a few colourful/glittery unicorn sets, and finally allowed out to the poor regular run collectors many years later when they're not even exciting any more, hah.

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Cos it's a new mould, an extra photo!

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The Driving Horse mould in a really pretty and detailed appaloosa pattern, I've put this one on the Sugarbush Draft page of my site but she's not really quite heavy-built enough in the body even though the legs are thick and the hooves large - I might swap her to be a draft cross instead.

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I think the Breyerfest models often get a little bit more attention to detail in their colour designs than the regular runs, which have to be made in much greater numbers - they're simplified for speed and ease of painting on the production line when the run is going to be huge.

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I've saved my favourite for last, this gorgeous little rose grey on the Magnolia mould! Definitely the stand-out of the set for me, even though it's never been one of my top moulds it's just so lovely in this well-painted colour, with so much shading and even some dapples!

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The sculpt isn't issued with an official breed, though many people have them as Arabian mares I've always felt they were a bit too long-legged and not deep'n'round enough for a true typey Arabian, mine are usually some sort of partbred (National Show Horse, which is Arab x Saddlebred), or one of the older breeds which derived from Arabian stallions crossed with a mixture of Anglo and local mares. Tersk horses are often grey, so that's what I've gone with for this pretty mare.

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Another angle, what lovely markings she has!

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A very lovely parcel, which I'm really pleased I got! Breyerfest models so rarely come round on UK ebay (and shipping/customs fees are too scary for me to buy direct from the US), so I tend to see what's being released as something to look at but not hope to own, so when I DO get the chance to buy them after all, it's a pleasant surprise!


Another very pleasant and unexpected buy, and it's one of the big models from Breyerfest in 2021, when the theme of the event was 'A Horse of a Different Colour', and they made a lot of interesting and unusual colours!

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This is a fun arrival for me, not just a pretty model, but I was aware of the horse before she was announced as a Breyer! Having read a LOT of information sites and blog posts about horse colour over the years, this mare had come up several times as an example to be discussed. So when I saw the reveals for that year's Breyerfest, I immediately thought 'I know that horse!'
Again, I wasn't able to decide to get her - shipping and the inevitable customs and handling fees would've put her total cost at around four times the usual price of a Breyer - but I did kind of hope that eventually some would turn up on the second hand market over here.
The first few went for high prices, as an in-demand and interesting model - even recently I've seen one for sale at over £100. But I was very lucky when bidding on this one, and got her for just £42 - that's quite a bit less than a brand new regular run in this country (£55-65 seemed to be the average RRP for the last releases the UK was able to get, just to give a rough idea to the international collectors on here!)

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Another angle, as well as the eye-catching colour which is her main talking point, it's also a really beautiful sculpt, dynamic and very elegant!

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A closer look at her fascinating markings. Here's the real horse, and another photo here.

There's two theories on how she manages to be one horse but two colours.
The one Breyer give as if it's certain, is that she's a chimera - two embryos of different colour twin horses, which fuse together at an early stage and develop as one horse with two sets of DNA. This can and does happen, the majority of the time the colour patches are less marbled together but occasionally it's more of a brindled pattern. There's one major flaw to this theory, though - Josie was born with the white colour streaks, where a grey horse will be born dark and turn white with age. so if she was a chimera of bay and grey, you'd expect her white bits to have faded in gradually over the years.
The second theory, which I personally find more likely, is a somatic mutation where the pigmentation of cells just didn't develop equally all over. When the embryo is growing, growth of skin cells starts along the line of the spine and spreads down on either side, onto what will become the neck and flanks of the horse. The trails of white look to follow these usually-invisible lines on the body, known as blaschko lines. The dark pigmentation just failed in those specific streaks, and so they grew white hair right from the gestation period, and the foal was born with them. Just for interest, here is a very similar phenomenon on a couple of human examples!

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Here's her other side, a very handsome but much plainer solid dark bay - it's obvious which way I'll want this one on my shelf!

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I never really know how to handle a jumping model for photos, cos they're either jumping mid-air over nothing, or I put in a log or hedge to create logic for the pose, and then that just looks weird cos a horse wouldn't be jumping plaited with no tack on.
I've considered if it's worth making a nice neat-looking realistic jump wing and some poles at this scale, now I have three of this sculpt and four of the jumping pony, but that still wouldn't explain why they're jumping 'naked' - even a loose-schooling horse will usually have a bridle, halter, or lunge cavesson on it's head.
So I just took pictures of her jumping nothing anyway

Wow, a lot of great additions! I love that CollectA morgan, and all the Breyerfest stablemates are lovely. They do a wonderful job with the details on these special runs. I'm glad you were able to find them!

"Very festive additions and wonderful photos! That Magnolia mold, to me, also resembles that of an Arabian. The head profile and high-set tail are the only features I can identify and obviously I can't go as deep as you so my opinion is worthless. :)

So many cool models!

I love these little stablemates. Little Hames is probably my favourite of them. I love the MFT mould and the coat colour is also very pretty. Though Minnie Minnie Pearl ;-) is also a wonderful girl with her roany Appaloosa coat. My least favourite of these four would probably be little Fireheart even though Overo is my preferred pinto pattern but I like to say that I am a "maxi - Overo" and "minimal - Tobiano" person, so his pattern doesn't hit quite my taste.

Queen of Hearts is simply beautiful! Her coat is so unusual and I love her rich bay base colour. She looks absolutely amazing in glossy but the matt looks also very pretty.

Congratulations on getting all these models!

Stunning additions! I like the Stablemates of course. I agree that the Breyerfest models usually look better than the regular runs; the painting is usually more interesting and probably also more detailed. When I saw the "horse of a different colour" (what's his name), I didn't think it could be real, so good that you showed photos of the real horse. Very interesting and beautiful at the same time.

Jill wrote:

Wow, a lot of great additions! I love that CollectA morgan, and all the Breyerfest stablemates are lovely. They do a wonderful job with the details on these special runs. I'm glad you were able to find them!

It's been quite a bit easier getting Breyerfest things since they introduced the online participation ticket, before you HAD to know someone who went in person, or risk dealing with random strangers to do a pick-up, or take the financial hit of buying them on the second hand market from the USA afterwards (as I've said before, shipping and import fees to get into this country can cost more than the model itself!) But now, with people in the UK able to buy a ticket and access many of the special runs, there's a lot more being sold once they're already over here.

Roger wrote:

"Very festive additions and wonderful photos! That Magnolia mold, to me, also resembles that of an Arabian. The head profile and high-set tail are the only features I can identify and obviously I can't go as deep as you so my opinion is worthless. :)

I thought I'd use my autumn background for the brief time it was relevant! Now outside is just a mixture of flooded and muddy, so I'm back to using the summer backgrounds and pretending everything is pretty and green, cos no-one wants to see how grim it really looks at the moment

It's mainly the long limbs and back which make this model look less like a purebred Arabian, like she's been elongated and stretched out. TB x Arab would also work, and I think I have one as Saddlebred x Arab too?

Katy Leven wrote:

So many cool models!

I love these little stablemates. Little Hames is probably my favourite of them. I love the MFT mould and the coat colour is also very pretty. Though Minnie Minnie Pearl ;-) is also a wonderful girl with her roany Appaloosa coat. My least favourite of these four would probably be little Fireheart even though Overo is my preferred pinto pattern but I like to say that I am a "maxi - Overo" and "minimal - Tobiano" person, so his pattern doesn't hit quite my taste.

Queen of Hearts is simply beautiful! Her coat is so unusual and I love her rich bay base colour. She looks absolutely amazing in glossy but the matt looks also very pretty.

Congratulations on getting all these models!

They're a really nice selection, like I somehow accidentally picked all the interesting colours at once. I need to buy a few plain bays and chestnuts in a row to even this out

The MFT is one of those moulds where I really like the scaled-down Stablemates version, but the original Trad scale never struck me as especially handsome or interesting. I've never bought one yet, and I think it would have to be released in some really spectacular colour to grab my attention and seem worth it. Yet the Mini is great and I'll happily have all the colours I can find

And yeah, she's such a gorgeous shade of bay, even without the added interest on the other side she'd have been a really beautiful model, I think. I might not have got her if it weren't for the markings, though, cos I have the lighter bay on the same mould already. Like how I won't be getting the new grey cos I already got the last one - frankly it's a bit weird that they're releasing two such similar looking regular runs on the same mould in a row

rogerpgvg wrote:

Stunning additions! I like the Stablemates of course. I agree that the Breyerfest models usually look better than the regular runs; the painting is usually more interesting and probably also more detailed. When I saw the "horse of a different colour" (what's his name), I didn't think it could be real, so good that you showed photos of the real horse. Very interesting and beautiful at the same time.

The real one's competition name is Queen of Hearts, her home name is Josie. So the model is called the rather long-winded Queen of Hearts AKA Josie

A while ago I found myself accidentally gathering a few Kaiyodo rabbits - the first one came to me purely by chance, a gift from a friend who knows I like real bunnies sent one she'd got in a mixed lot of different species. After I joined this forum, I learnt a bit more about the brand, and bought a couple of matching rabbit pals for my lonely original one. Not long after, the same friend sent another free bunny to me, remembering I'd liked the first one but not knowing I'd bought myself any more in between At this point, I did look into what other breeds Kaiyodo had made, hoping they might have the Mini Rexes I'd had as pet house rabbits - and they did, but all of them were in Canada or Japan, with shipping too expensive to justify, so I decided against expanding the group and starting an active collection.
Recently I had another look, and found one Canadian seller with a lot of four bunnies : 'my' two colours of Mini Rex, plus two very sweet Netherland Dwarf, for a bargain price and all in one postage fee. So they made the very long trip to mine, and here they are...


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This one is named Jim, after my first Mini Rex house bunny, the colour's known as 'castor' and the paintwork here has done a really good job of copying the smooth way it shades lighter and darker across the coat, especially the little pale chin and the rings around the eyes


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Rex rabbits are one of those breeds which look good in plastic, with their super-smooth fur like very dense velvet they don't need deep texturing in the sculpt itself, I think these are the best of all the Kaiyodo buns, but then I am biased cos I think Mini Rexes are the best of all real buns too


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The second house rabbit I had was really named Milly, but it never stuck and I called her 'little bun' as a nickname from day one, which merged into the all-one-word name of Littlebun instead! She's the 'opal' colour, a slightly warm grey with all the same pale shading. I thought I took a picture of both sides but I can only find one now

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Even though I have a favourite breed, I do like most kinds of rabbit very much, so I'm perfectly happy to have some Netherland Dwarf models as well! This one is so sweet, popping up on his back feet like he's hoping for a treat

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As always with Kaiyodo, the painted details are really nicely designed and applied, this colour's known as 'black fox' and my mum once had a Nethy this colour, so I've named it Thomas after him.

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His brother (ok I don't know if these two colours are genetically possible in the same litter, but they arrived together so I'm calling them siblings, haha)

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This one doesn't have a name, cos I've never owned one this colour/breed combination!

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Here's alllll my Kaiyodo rabbits in a row, I still don't think I officially collect these but I'd certainly be happy to get more in future

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And a more relaxed group photo, cos I don't think anyone who's ever met a rabbit could imagine getting that many of them to stand in a neat straight row for long enough to take a picture

Great collection of rabbits.I have a number of rabbits by Kaiyodo as well and think they are one of the best makers of rabbit models and also that they produce very good examples of rabbit breeds as opposed to just rabbits which are made by many companies-these other companies have gotten better at producing rabbit breeds in the last few years.I used to keep and breed rabbits when I was younger.

You're officially a rabbit collector!
I love the way Kaiyodo make rabbits, they take the proportions so seriously that sometimes they look real. Paws, ears, everything looks correct.
My favorite is the first one.

These are all adorable! Congratulations on rabbit fever! You have a nice group of them.

Nice rabbits

Wow, beautiful rabbits! I really think I've got to move some attention over to Japanese brands, they are so well sculpted and painted. I love that you found figures that looked like old friends and named them accordingly. I feel like if you do not officially collect them, then you must be on the very cusp.

Four horses to introduce today, but very limited photography cos of the winter weather making a proper sunny outdoor photoshoot impossible! I might end up retaking the Breyer shots with better lighting in spring, but I'm happy with the Schleich ones as they are are - the smaller size meant I could fit them and the scenic backdrop into a small patch of actual daylight high up against the wall

Let's start with the Schleich! These are the first new horse releases I've bought from this brand since 2015's Icelandic mare    The sculpting style and anatomical accuracy declined to a point where I just couldn't make myself want to keep collecting them, especially as the prices more than doubled (and the obsession with sculpted bows and braids on everything was an added annoyance!)
But in the recent few batches there's been a notable improvement in proportions and poses and realism for some sculpts - the new Haflingers spring to mind, as does the Noriker, and the new Friesian. But I still resisted these, as the chestnuts weren't shaded very nicely in real life, and the black ones were just a bit flat and uninspiring - it always feels better value for money to buy horses with multiple paint colours and shading, or patches or dapples or spots
Now, the Fjords are the models which finally tempted me too much, they're neat sculpts in the new style, with anatomically possible poses and reasonably correct proportions - and they don't have ribbons and flowers in their hair

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Here's the mare, she's such a sweet happy-looking horse, but without resorting to the over-cute exaggerated style with big boggly eyes and an actual smile sculpted on, like Schleich do for some of the pet and wild animals in the range! The face is also arranged so much better than a lot of the older sculpts, the ears are set in and down either side of the poll, half-a-cone shaped from the side, and triangular from the front, just how pony ears should be - the less observant sculptor does them as fat spoons set up on top of the head! And the shape of the head itself is greatly improved, too, with the profile correct and the jawline angled right, so the narrowest point is that dent behind the chin, then a sweeping wedge-shape deepening correctly toward the throat.
And the haircut deserves a mention, too - I've long complained about the decorating of Schleich with bows, flowers, unfeasibly complicated weird braids, and so on, so you'd think I'd be the first to groan about a silly 'cute' hairstyle - but I actually don't mind the heart mane here at all! Because trimming fjord manes in creative ways IS a thing some owners do. For showing and tradition it'd be the usual arc with the dark hair in the centre slightly longer, but for pet riding/companion ponies, anything goes. Especially in the age of photos on social media, this is the sort of thing that would get a lot of likes in that modern horsey community of equestrian influencers and their fans, and all the teen friends who'd rave over sharing pics and decide what cute haircut they could try out next
Someone on here, I'm afraid I can't remember who, had mentioned being disappointed that the hearts were plain and flat without any hair texture, but I think maybe your one had too much paint applied and it had filled the grooves? Cos mine's got mane texture in the hearts as well, all apart from one on the other side which looks perfectly smooth, and I suspect it got filled with thick paint.
The application is SO neat, not a single bit of white where the brown should be, or vice versa, I'm amazed with how carefully they've executed this two-tone mane and tail (and the dorsal stripe connecting them) when in the past the painting's been a bit slap-dash when it's something like a blonde loose mane and the paint doesn't cover all of the sculpted shape, or overlaps onto the neck and shoulder. I mean, maybe I just got a good one, maybe this was just a super-talented painter on the production line team and this lucky pony is perfect when the batch before and after got someone who took less care, but honestly, it's impressive, and I hope they're all this nice!

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Now the gelding (I don't know why they didn't make him a stallion, then they could've added a new foal release too!), and interestingly he's quite a different colour to the mare - much more warm and gingery, where she's golden and creamy. I like the variety, fjords do come in different shades of bay dun as well as the black and chestnut duns which look more dramatically different, so it's nice to see these two haven't just been given the exact same paintwork design.
As with the mare, his head is nicely done, and in general his anatomy is good, with all the joints in the right places proportionally, his hooves aligned correctly to sit in front of the fetlock joint (not directly underneath it like many of the Schleich sculpts!).
If I was to find fault, which feels a bit unfair when they're obviously nice enough for me to want to buy them after such a long time avoiding the brand, it's that both the mare and gelding are a little too narrow in the body, a little too sharp at the withers, and a little too long in the leg. This isn't a 'sculptor doesn't get horse anatomy' error, just that they're not quiiiite true to breed type, Fjords are like mini draft horses and tend to have a barrelly body with rounded withers and a shorter proportion of leg compared to body-depth. I have read that there's a modern more 'sport pony' type of Fjord, especially in the US, so it's quite likely that's what's being referenced here, even if it wasn't a conscious decision to aim for that type rather than the older breed standard.

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Here's his mane, trimmed in the more usual style, and again I'm impressed with how well they've done the painting to get that dorsal stripe so straight and evenly applied, going along the raised centre of the mane without getting any onto the white part (and I think it is done in that order, from what I can tell the white's under the brown, rather than painting the brown roughly first then neatening the edge with the white over the top). They've also gone carefully on the tail, following the sculpted shapes so there's a zig-zag between the two colours.

All in all, very pleased with these, and I'll be paying a lot more attention to what Schleich release in coming years - there's still a lot of sculpts which don't appeal to me, but more like this and they'll be putting plenty more on my shopping list!

Now, on to the bigger models - two Traditional (1:9) scale Breyers from last year's later releases.

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Full Moon Rising was one of the mid-year models, these are released in the summer in the USA, arriving in other countries months later (sometimes not til the following year, making their 'mid year' name rather incorrect for anyone living in the rest of the world )

He's a very unusually coloured thoroughbred racehorse, one who raced to no great success but has gone on to a great second career at the top levels of Western Dressage after retiring from the track. The mould wasn't originally intended to be a thoroughbred, being a portrait sculpt of a Dutch Warmblood jumper mare called Strapless, but it's so fine-limbed and long and elegant it makes a perfectly good dressage thoroughbred too. Here's a photo of the real horse, so you can see the shift in his posture and bearing now he's trained for a new sport.
You can also see how he's quite a bit more roaned and speckled and blotchy-looking, which was my one disappointment with the model version - although the colour's really vibrant and unusual and stands out nicely on a shelf of plain bays and chestnuts, the paintwork designers haven't quite given it the amount of detail that would capture the spectacular coat of the real horse. A bit more white-paint spatter over the colour, maybe, or some resist masking splattered on with the clear-cut template masking they've used, so it could all peel off and reveal many more speckles of the white plastic underneath (like they did with Danaway Tango all those years ago!). But I decided I liked him enough to want him in my collection and on my shelf, just for being a pretty horse and a rare colour, regardless of how close he was to the real thing :)

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And now a very plain bay racehorse, but one I knew I wanted to own the second they announced he was being made! This one has such a lovely backstory, which captured a lot of racing fans across the world and won him a ton of supporters, even here where US racing is broadcast on tv for just ONE meeting every year - we only get to see the Breeder's Cup! The reason this now-retired horse was so special goes back to when he was a foal, and made instant friends with a young boy Cody who went on a racing stud visit thanks to the a Make A Wish Foundation. The horse was named Cody's Wish, and as his racing career began, Cody and his family would make the trip to watch and support him, so the one 'wish' granted by the foundation ended up being an ongoing thing, raising a lot of awareness for the charity. The horse remembered his little friend well, and would treat him gently, even on the racecourse in the hyped up atmosphere of the parade ring : he'd lean down to childs'-wheelchair height and give careful snuffles, as if he knew he had to be careful and calm - not what you'd expect from a full grown stallion on an exciting day out!
As well as being popular cos of his backstory, Cody's Wish ended up being a pretty good racehorse too, winning often - including the same Breeder's Cup race two years in a row. But he probably wouldn't have made it to being a Breyer model without the touching story of his friendship with the boy who made a wish to meet a racehorse.

For a bay, the most common colour and one which can be a bit flat in model form, they've given him plenty of shading, with deeper colour in the curves and creases of the sculpt to highlight the muscle and contour, and the small white markings copied from the real horse.
I haven't had one of this Walking Thoroughbred mould before - he's a tall and chunky boy, more the big stocky chaser-type than the tiny sharp lightweight flat horses here, or their little-ball-of-muscle US counterparts, or the long elegant sport type bred outside racing. It's a hugely varied breed, with the extremes looking like they could be different breeds entirely if you stood them side by side, so it's good to have that range in model form too, rather than Breyer sticking to just the one type which is most popular in their home country.

This one was a Fall release, again a term made a bit meaningless in the rest of the world where they don't become available in the season they're named after, but it's SO good to have more regular runs out there to choose from, no matter where in the year they happen to end up!