Alana is here!

 Good news, readers! My Stablemates Club model, Alana, arrived today! Behold:

Isn't she pretty? 

I love her soft white basecoat and the contrast with her black markings. And the shading in her tail! Wish her braids were less-slightly-sloppy, though. 

I have no idea how they pulled off that itty-bitty blue eye, but I love it! 

Quality-wise, her planted front leg is slightly warped and she's got some minor booboos, but nothing major. Slightly fuzzy edges of markings and things of that nature. I'm tempted to show her, but I'm sure there'll be 50 others at my next show, so maybe sometime in the future. 

Alana and River City Live show report!

 Attention, Stablemates Club members! The second release in this year's club, Alana, is available for purchase! 

What a beauty! I can't wait to add her to my collection. 

In other news, I attended the River City Live model horse show in Indiana last Saturday, and here's how I did! 

The show awarded mugs and Stanley cups instead of rosettes, so just imagine that that mug is a rosette. Huzzah! This was probably my most successful show so far. Here's one of my happiest moments: 

I've been doggedly bringing my Via Lattea to almost every show I've attended for the last year, and prior to Saturday she'd placed anywhere from third to sixth almost every time, but never better than third. I thought about changing her name to Old Reliable because she usually was at least in the ribbons. But on Saturday she got second in her class! Huzzah! 

Other highlights:

• I've been trying to put a little more thought into my breed assignments, because my collection of green NAN cards is/was sorely lacking, and one of the fruits of that labor was my glossy Namid winning her class as a Murgese! Okay, I'll admit Cosimo is the only reason I know the Murgese breed exists, but I'll take it. 
• I almost didn't bring my new Mallorca, but stuck him in his box and took him along and he not only won his class (for collectibility), but got reserve champion for the Spanish/Gaited section! 
• My Churchill won his class as a Norwegian Dole, which has happened before, but this time he got reserve champion in the section and got his name (Ricky Spanish) announced out loud. The judge recognized the reference and whispered it, which was pretty great. 
• I entered my no-stand Fight Song (I refuse to type out that entire name) as a Mustang and he also won his division! This was totally unexpected. 

All in all, it was a pretty great show, other than my Stablemate show string almost completely flopping (again). Starting to think about giving up on showing them as they don't seem to do very well most of the time. Back to the drawing board, I guess! My next show will be Bluegrass Live on May 10, so I have a lot of planning to do! 

Another Stablemates Club reveal, Cosimo and Christmas surprise (oh my!)

 Well, it’s been a crazy weekend of reveals! Quite a lot of things have been revealed, actually - like next year’s regular run releases, but those will supposedly be officially revealed tomorrow, so I’m going to wait until then to talk about them. But in the meantime, we also got to see another 2025 Stablemates Club release! Say hello to Alana, who can be seen here. I’m not at home and my tablet isn’t cooperating, so you’ll have to view the links to see the models. Anyway, Alana is very promising! Another release I’ll have to join the club for. I love her turquoise braids! So that just means we have one more reveal to go - the gambler’s choice for next year. I’ll wait on joining until we see what that is. Hopefully it’s on a mold I don’t want so I can just get one membership like I’ve been doing for the past few years, but we’ll see.

We also got an unprecedented third Premier Club reveal! They teased a sketch of the model yesterday and then revealed a cropped photo today, which can be seen here. I definitely like what I see! But I do like a nice Roman nose on a horse, so it’s not surprising. I also like black horses! So he’s probably going to stay with me. Dare I hope we get to see the Stablemate next? Hahaha. I’ll hold out on joining until he very end of the year, just in case. I don’t think we should necessarily expect to get this many reveals next year, though - I suspect it’s a 75th Anniversary thing and we’ll be back to normal at the end of next year. I hope I’m wrong, though! It would be great to be able to see all the releases in advance every year.

Lastly, Breyer sent out an email today that this year’s Christmas surprise will be revealed tomorrow at 1pm EST! So I’ll have to haunt the Breyer website tomorrow to see what it is. My guess is some type of Fell Pony, but who knows. I think I guessed her last year and it turned out to be Huck. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow! Good luck to everyone!