Saturday, May 5, 2018

Featured Model - 5/5/2018, Secretariat

Happy Derby Day, everyone! I'm rooting for Good Magic - we'll see who wins the Run for the Roses this year! In honor of the Kentucky Derby, this week's Featured Model is about my favorite Derby winner of all - Secretariat!



Secretariat is a legend in the sport, and won the Kentucky Derby in a record time that still stands. I was never the greatest fan of the original Secretariat sculpt, the last one Chris Hess did for Breyer (although it is a decent likeness of the photo of Secretariat it was sculpted from). So, like many fans, I was thrilled to see the updated Secretariat on the Smarty Jones mold sculpted by Sue Sifton! He's item #1345 and made his debut all the way back in 2009! These days, most regular runs don't last much longer than a couple of years, so he must be a pretty big seller if he's still being produced 9 years later. That's practically an eternity!

Secretariat had already been in the regular line for a year when I came back to the hobby in 2010, but I have to confess it took me until 2012 to buy one. At the time I wasn't sure if I wanted to collect Smarty Jones...but when I was looking at the Breyer lineup in a local store and found an especially metallic-looking Secretariat, I was hooked! He came home with me that day. Now he's my cheering partner whenever a Triple Crown is on the line!

As for Smarty Jones, we've been speculating for at least the last two years that he'll show up as the Breyerfest surprise model, but it hasn't happened yet. Will this year be the year? He seems a little too obvious a choice this year to actually be the surprise (way to go, Breyer), but I suppose there's always hope. As always, though, if he shows up as an auction model, he's out of the running. We'll have to wait and see! This year's auction countdown will begin in mid-June, so we don't have that much longer to wait. 

And if Smarty does turn out to be the surprise model, at least I won't be the only one in a mad scramble to try to get all 8 of the surprise models!

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