Featured Breyerfest - 2002

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Breyerfest! This year we're covering 2002, so let's get going! 

Notable events from 2002: 

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is 2002's highest-grossing movie (I did my part by seeing it four times)
• The 2002 Winter Olympics take place in Salt Lake City
• Seattle Slew, 1977 Triple Crown winner, dies at the age of 28
• War Emblem wins two legs of the Triple Crown, only to stumble at the start of the Belmont and ultimately finish fourth
  

And Breyerfest debuts its first theme, "Spirit of the West." 
Dates: July 26-28, 2002
Celebration Horse: RSV Inolvidable
Number of Celebration Models produced: 4,000
Attendance: approximately 4,000

Here's the first 2002 page from the commemorative program:

The real RSV Inolvidable was a very handsome Peruvian Paso, who unfortunately wasn't able to attend at Breyerfest at the last minute (these things happen from time to time). His owners sent Escorpio de Oro in his place. Inolvidable passed away in 2018, according to the Jorge Valenzuela Training Center. 2002's raffle models were St. Louis Blues on the MFT and Gold Rush on Huckleberry Bey (a model I would love to get my hands on someday). The volunteer model was a florentine Clydesdale Stallion, and the prize models were the black version of Bold Impression and Jake the hat contest model (among others). Breyer also introduced porcelain special runs for the first time with the release of the G2 Warmblood and G2 Saddlebred as special runs. 

Other special runs included High Sierra, Ahote, Bandit and Kohana, Choc the buffalo and WH Annie. There was also a run of around 100 bronze Shire A models sold in the Artisan's Gallery that didn't sell well. Those are also often seen in the collector club tent at Breyerfest. 

Here's the first page of the Breyerfest wrap-up for 2002:

And more:

And the last pages:

Amongst the guest horses were Cupid and Arrow, the cute mother-son duo consisting of a bay mare with a heart-shaped mark on her forehead, and Arrow, her black pinto son with an arrow-shaped mark on his back/hindquarters. Cupid has since passed on, but as far as I know, Arrow is still alive. 

Now, let's take a look at some auction models! 

First up is this interesting dapple gray PAS. He's described as a "glossy smoky pearl gray." He sure is pretty. I like the little stripe on his hoof, too. 

Next up is this alternate-color version of Nosferatu, complete with non-fuzzy bats. The original version is way more orange, but this one is more purple with a green hue. Kinda like this one is taking place after the sun has mostly gone down rather than at sunset. 

I thought this Peruvian Paso had the same paint job as Mauvelous, but on closer inspection, it's merely similar. Pretty, though. 

And lastly for today is this rainbow version of Masquerade! This guy was my grail, once upon a time. Not really anymore, since I got rid of all my MFT models, but he's still pretty cool. 

That's it for this week! Check back next week for Breyerfest 2003!