Featured Breyerfest - 2005

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Breyerfest! This year we're covering 2005, so let's get started! 

Notable events from 2005:

• YouTube is created
• Hurricane Katrina strikes the Gulf Coast, killing 1,500 people and causing more than $100 billion in property damage
• Afleet Alex wins the Preakness Stakes after stumbling and nearly falling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the top-grossing film of the year 

Meanwhile, Breyerfest 2005 happened in Kentucky! 

Dates: July 29-31, 2005
Theme: Medieval Merriment
Celebration Horse: Fire Magic
Number of Celebration Models produced: 5,524
Attendance: "another record-setting event, both in terms of attendance and in money raised through our benefits and raffles" - from JAH

Here's the first 2005 page from the commemorative program:

The real Fire Magic was a beautiful red Friesian owned by Dianne Olds Rossi. How beautiful, you ask? Well, I have a photo here from someone who was there! Behold:

Romantico was also there! 

Thanks to Lea R. for the photos! 

I did some research and it appears that Fire Magic died at the age of 24, possibly in 2021? Couldn't find anything definitive about the year he died.

Here's the second 2005 page from the commemorative program:

There was only one keychain release, and it was the sole Store Special. There were a ton of prize models for the various shows (including the elusive and beautiful silver bay Peruvian Paso), and there was even a prize model for the sceptre contest! Of the seven special runs, two were porcelain - the gray Great Horse in Armor as Romantico and the Stablemate unicorn Isabel and Chloe set. Raffle models were the leopard appaloosa Goffert "Labyrinth" and the legendary resin Merlin dragon horses, which now command a pretty penny on the secondary market. 

Here's the first page of the JAH recap:

And the second page:

And the last page:

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

This brindle dapple gray Belgian is interesting. I wonder how they did the paint job? Those squiggles look too small to be masked, but too uniform to be hand-squiggled.

This wedgewood blue Clydesdale Mare is in one of the photos in the commemorative program and she jumped out at me immediately. She's gorgeous! I love her. If her markings had silver mapping she'd be perfect! 

I also love this metallic golden buckskin Huck. Gorgeous! I'd love to have him in my herd, or something in this color. 

I wonder if this is the first time Breyer did a reverse dapple paint job? I'm not going to go back and look, but it's possible.