Hoofbeats and Maple Treats Day 2: Last Surprise

 Well, readers, day 2 of Hoofbeats and Maple Treats is over! It was a fun day full of farm tours, jumping demonstrations, fine dining and of course the silent auction and centerpiece raffle. Most of my photos from the farms are on my camera, but here's a not-so-great picture of Legacy in her stall:

That's it for the farm stuff, so let's get to everyone's burning question: What's the centerpiece model? 

That's right - a beautiful glossy metallic bay Big Ben! I already forgot his name, unfortunately. He had a lot of subtle dapples that were hard to capture in the low light (though I do love the "candlelit" aesthetic). 

What else to report? Let's see, there were the silent auction lots:
Design Your Own Breyer (final price: somewhere in the vicinity of $8,000)
Set of four Birds of a Feather models (Flamingo, Sparrow, Magpie and Oriole)
Full set of Santino models
Bondi and Fair Dinkum set
Test version of Lanin with full mane
Set of four glossy Breyerwest/Breyermidwest models

Here's the test Lanin:

I do like him better with his full mane! He sold for more than $2,000 though, which is more than I'm willing to pay for any Stablemate. 

They also had all of the special run models available for viewing, plus the Celebration Model Flinka! Behold:

She looks much more grayish in person, and her box design is really cute! 

Anyway, here are the special runs in no particular order. I'll start with Caesar: 

What a beauty! Here's his other side:

Woohoo! I was mildly concerned that the braids wouldn't be painted, but fortunately they are. Here's Queen City:

Still nothing I need, but she does look nice. Next, here's Trillium and Bunchberry:

They're also quite nice, but I just don't collect the molds. Next, here's Pitter Patter:

Not going to lie: I can't decide if I like her or Caesar better. They're both really nice! Hopefully I can get at least one of them tomorrow. 

Next, here's Poutine:

Also nothing I need, but maybe I can trade him for something tomorrow. Him or Niagara:

The colors on these are all really nice, but most of them are molds I don't collect and/or I cleared out of my collection long ago due to space restrictions. Oh well - I'll be crossing my fingers for a good line draw tomorrow. I wasn't lucky enough to win a centerpiece model this time, but congrats to all the winners! See you all tomorrow at the boutique! 

Vintage Club #3 - Bernadette!

Vintage Club members, rejoice - the third release of the year, Bernadette (that name is a mouthful), is now available on the website. She's this year's gambler's choice release, the Shire Mare in the four original decorator colors!

Not only are they decorators, but they come in reproductions of the old touchability boxes!

As an aside, that gold charm is incredible. She looks like she's actually made of gold! Why can't all the gold charm models look like that? Sheesh.

While I like the Shire Mare in decorator colors, I'm not a VC member this year and won't be buying them. But if you are ordering, I hope you get the color you want! Of course, if you need all four, getting all of them might be difficult...but good luck!

Chasing the Chesapeake Day 3: Success! (Mostly)

Whew! We're home from Chasing the Chesapeake. It's been a long day - but totally worth it!

After we finished having breakfast in the restaurant, we packed up our stuff and then headed downstairs to wait for our time to go through the boutique line. I'd been fretting for the past two days that we would get another terrible draw and end up with four Masons like last year...but that didn't happen! I ended up being toward the middle of the line, and my husband was 10 people behind me. He did get stuck with two Masons, but one of them will stay here, so...yay! More importantly, I was able to grab a Black-Eyed Susan and Raven. Sagamore Rye was #1 on my list, so I was sad not to get him, but definitely happy I was able to get the other two.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take individual photos of my models before we packed them back up and gave them (happily) to the UPS people who were in residence. Very handy of Breyer to have them there, as it saved us the bother of finding an open UPS location to ship everything back before we went to the airport. So, anyways...here are some group photos I took of the special runs that were on display. Firstly, the two I didn't get:

I used to collect the Shire Mare mold, but sold my three examples of her last year needing more space.

Next, the three SRs I did get:

And lastly, a moderately-better photo of Dixon, my centerpiece raffle model:

While we were buying models today, a Breyer staffer confirmed that these models were made from the last of the old Halla whiteware they dug up in the warehouse. So, that makes her pretty special! I don't collect Halla/Bolya anymore either (again, needed more space), so she will probably be for sale at some point.

After we were done buying ponies and having them shipped home, we headed back to the airport and our two flights home. So, it was definitely worth the trip! I hope I can attend the next one of these events!

More detailed analysis of the event models will come when they arrive here and I can provide better photos. Stay tuned!

Chasing the Chesapeake Day 1 - Special Runs are Revealed!

Hello all! The first day of Chasing the Chesapeake has arrived, although I've been spending it on planes. Currently we're in traffic trying to get to the hotel, but never fear! The word is out about the special runs for this event! Photos courtesy of Julia on Blab:

Writing a blog post on a cell phone is maddeningly frustrating, so if the formatting on this post ends up weird, that's why. So our special runs are not at all what I thought they would be; I don't think a single one really relates to the theme other than Chesapeake and the Stablemate. Speaking of the Stablemate, here he is (his name is Cecil):

While he does somewhat fit the theme, I don't collect this mold, so both of ours will be for sale. 

So, of the available special run options, I will be after Mason, Sagamore Rye, Raven and Black-Eyed Susan. If I'm remembering correctly, the quantities of these models are the same as the ones at Sweet Home Chicago this year. I really, really hope Breyer limits people from buying all the rare ones first, because if we get bad line draws again and end up with four Masons like last year, I am NOT going to be pleased. Maybe I'm just grumpy because I haven't really slept in the last 24 hours? Who knows. 

So those are the only updates I currently have. I will try to update again when I hear what tonight's raffle models are, if I don't suffer a rage-induced coronary from Blogger's total failure to make its software work on the mobile site. Argh!