Factory Escapees and Breyerfest countdown!

 Well, readers, it's been an exciting couple of days, between the leaks popping up on social media and Breyerfest only a few days away. On Sunday, weird leaks started showing up on social media, starting with a photo of a pink-and-white pinto Strapless. I'm not sharing the photos here because these models probably weren't obtained "legally" and I don't want to condone such behavior. Anyways, the original Facebook post said there were also purple and black versions of these Straplesses, but I was skeptical of it because it was kind of a random thing to pop up on a Sunday morning and the box originally wasn't pictured. Eventually a blurry photo of the other two colors did appear, along with a photo of the box (one of the white shipper boxes they ship web specials in, rather than a window box), which made me conclude that it's likely this year's Christmas surprise horse (named Merry Dancer). Works for me, since I don't collect Strapless! 

More or less at the same time as the Strapless mystery unfolded, we also got photos (not sure if they came from the same person) of what appears to be two Traditional releases for TSC, as well as a new series of blind bags. The two Trads are a buckskin pinto Troubadour named Brooks and a gray blanket Appaloosa San Domingo named Colby. The blind bags are Mystery Horse Surprise series 7 and include a chestnut Corbin, bay roan Charleston, red roan mini SCO, palomino mini Emma, gray mini MFT and black overo mini Indian Pony. Lots of minis in that one! I wonder what the chases will be. 

In Breyerfest-related news, the countdown is still ticking down! There are already a few rooms open at the Clarion. I was sorely tempted to go do some shopping after work today, but I still have too much Breyerfest prep to take care of. I think I'm done with all my live show prep, though! Woohoo! Now to move on to sales prep. The official Breyerfest app was released today, so be sure to get that if you're so inclined.

Lastly, there's an unannounced special run portrait of Atlanta on the Prince Charming mold! 

Order her here. I don't plan on buying one myself, but some people were having technical issues when trying to order at first. However, those issues appear to have been fixed, so order away! 

That's it for today. Time to enjoy the relative calm before the storm, before the ravening hordes descend upon Lexington yet again! 

Whoops!

 A friend sent me this image yesterday (from Facebook) - hmm, a new mystery! 

I don't think this guy is supposed to be in that blind bag. The current consensus online is that this is an upcoming holiday blind bag Stablemates release that was accidentally put in the wrong packaging. The silver filigree Rivet is cute, but nothing I need. I'm lowkey hoping the rest of them will also be molds I don't collect, so I don't need to bother with buying any of them. Hopefully we find out soon! 

Bluegrass Live show report and other stuff!

 Greetings, readers! Well, I survived my first "real" model horse show - and what a time I had! It was a heck of a trip, from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, and everywhere in between. Crazy! 

I got to the show hall around 9:40 and was greeted by a line of participants waiting outside the doors - the librarians hadn't arrived quite in time to open the building for us! Fortunately they showed up slightly after I got there and we all got into the show hall, although the show started about a half hour behind schedule because of this, which became an issue later on. But anyway. 

I got all my models unpacked and carefully lined up on my table (in order of classes they were going in, naturally) and when the show got started, I triumphantly placed my Storm on the table for the Arabian class...only to notice that the OF Mini division was happening at the same time! I had (naively) assumed the OF Mini division was taking place after the OF Trad/Classic division due to it being on the classlist after said OF division (rookie mistake, I know). Duh! Why wouldn't they take place at the same time? Otherwise the show would take forever (haha...)! So I hurriedly unpacked my Stablemates and quickly put my first entrant on the table for OF Mini (my Willamette, being shown as a Half-Arabian). 

As an aside - I had picked out only 25 Traditional models to show, because I didn't want to overwhelm myself at my first show. Then I saw the OF Mini class list in the packet, erroneously thought the division would take place after the OF division, and decided to bring a few Stablemates so I wouldn't be sitting around doing nothing at the end of the show (HAHAHA...sigh). So I picked out 10 Stablemates to bring along for that division. Then when I was almost done I noticed my palomino Playful Foal and wondered if it would show well as an American Cream Draft (answer: no). So in total, I brought 36 models to the show. 

Anyway, when the OF Arabian class was announced as having been judged, I went to get my Storm...and was stunned to see he'd won the class! Same with my Willamette. Whoa! I had been hoping to at least place in a few classes, maybe win one or two...and things were starting out strong with two wins! After a few more classes, during which I got two 4th places and one third, came the callbacks for OF Trad Light Breed Champ and Mini Light Breed Champ...and I won again, in breed and collectibility respectively! Edit: oops, my Storm got the reserve Light Breed Champ, not first. Well, it was still winning in my book. Way more than I ever expected - I was amazed.

Things kinda calmed down after that and I didn't win another division champ until later in the day - and then they picked up massively, because the show started running long and the last couple of divisions had to be judged very quickly so we could get out of the show hall in time for the library to close. And I ended up missing the callback for the OF Mini championship class, which was super disappointing for me - but later on my 2022 auction model got reserve overall champion in collectibility (after a slight disappointment involving the judge putting the champion ribbon in front of my model rather than the reserve champion ribbon), so that (mostly) made up for it!



 I'll just add "missing the callback for overall champion OF Mini at my first show" to that list of things I'll be kicking myself about for the rest of my life, along with "not taking the chance to attend the Sunshine Celebration" and "not attending the 2019 Breyerfest live auction." But as a friend who was there said, it's not the full live show experience until you've missed at least one class. So at least I got the full experience! I just wish it had been, you know, a breed class rather than the championship. Oh well. 

So anyway, here's a more representative picture of how I did in the show! 

There's one blue ribbon and blue satin flat missing that apparently got misplaced in the confusion at the end of the show, but those are being replaced. Needless to say, I did way better than I thought I would! Huzzah! Of the 36 models I brought to the show, 22 of them placed in some way (if I wrote everything down correctly, and I'm pretty sure I made at least one mistake), so I'm pretty happy with these results. 

As mentioned above, the end of the show did end up being pretty rushed due to the time crunch - hopefully that gets fixed in the future.

Other things I was happy with:
-I was pleasantly surprised that my matte Namid managed to get fourth in breed in the Mustang class - with all those Firehearts on the table, I wasn't expecting her to place at all, so when she did I was really happy! I don't think the Forever Saige mold shows particularly well, but figured I'd put her on the table and see what happened.
-My Merle managed to get sixth in breed in the very full Quarter Horse Stallion class, so I was pleased with that as well.
-My Via Lattea got fifth in breed and third in collectibility in the Standardbred class, which was not full at all, and there were at least five other Via Latteas competing against her, so I was pleased with that as well. Not sure how many Via Latteas placed ahead of her, if any. I'll have to see if I can find another model or two to show as a Standardbred if that class is going to continue to have...not very many models in it. 
-My glossy Zenyatta Foal got second in a very full Sport Foal class, which I wasn't expecting! This was toward the tail end of the show when they were hurriedly judging the foal classes. 
My Playful Foal, Leti, won her foal class! I was pleasantly surprised by that as well. I don't remember what the competition was (other than my nonplacing other Playful Foal), but I must have thought it was tough? 

So, I suppose the natural next question is: do I want to show again? YES! The problem is where. I now have a pile of NAN cards I could use, but I'll be too busy working and doing Breyerfest stuff during Breyerfest week, so NAN is out. There aren't any other shows scheduled around here in the upcoming few months, at least that I can find. Happy Kamper Live is a possibility, though, so I'm tentatively hoping to make it to that. Other than that, it looks like there won't be many more opportunities for me to show until next year. But maybe something will happen in the fall! I hope so. 

That's all I can think of to talk about on the showing front - I do have a small Breyerfest update though. Yesterday Breyer announced that they'll be taking backorders on the Blue Zeus model, which makes sense since Fireheart is so popular that the 3,000-piece run is pretty much guaranteed to sell out, and the real Blue Zeus has a pretty big following that'll probably want to buy the model. So don't worry about being online the second Breyerfest opens, because if you miss out on the initial run, you can get a backorder one (to be delivered in December). Huzzah! 

Also in Breyerfest-related news, I'm on to my next project - the diorama contest! Yes, I decided to enter the contest for the first time this year. I've had an idea for a diorama kicking around in the back of my head since about 2013, and this year's theme is perfect for it! So that's what I'll be working on for the next few weeks. 

2023 Fall releases announced!

 Good news, readers! The 2023 Fall Releases have been announced! More information can be found here, but let's look at the releases. Firstly, here's Leif, the 2023 Limited Edition/Fall Decorator: 

Ooh, what a pretty Vermeer! I love the gold leaves on his coat. Definitely screams "fall decorator" to me! 

Next is the Cheryl White horse/rider/book set we've already seen, so I'll move on to...Cody's Wish! 

I can't think of a racehorse more deserving of his own model right now than Cody's Wish. Glad to see him getting some attention from Breyer! I can't wait to add him to my collection! 

Next we have Clooney 51!

Ooh, very pretty! This one is very similar to Get Rowdy from last year - I wonder if Get Rowdy is being retired at the end of this year? That would let a new release slot into his place pretty well, and I think Clooney 51 looks basecoated, so I don't think it'll be hard to tell them apart. I also have a fear that Clooney 51 here may end up being a glossy prize model at Breyerfest next year. Ooh, let's move on from that nightmarish thought.

Next, let's take a look at Norwich! 

Hey, a new release on the Hackney Pony! He hasn't had a release since 2020 and that was a web special, so it'll be good to see him in the regular line again. 

Lastly, this year's brick-and-mortar special run, Barranco! 

He's very pretty! Looks pretty similar to Raia, the brick-and-mortar special run from 2020. Maybe a tad lighter shade. With one less sock and a wider blaze. These are only available in physical store locations, so good luck with getting one! 

That's it for new releases for today! The unpacking has been continuing, but is now on hold temporarily until we can get another new shelf built. In the meantime, I haven't had any major casualties, but was dismayed yesterday to discover my palomino Callahan's gloss coat was damaged by the bubble wrap he was stored in. Normally I try to wrap glossies with the bubbles facing out to prevent this kind of damage, but I wasn't paying the most attention when I unwrapped him, so I don't really know if I wrapped him with the bubbles in or not. I guess I wasn't too worried about it since I've never had an issue with bubble wrap and OF gloss before. Lesson learned, I guess. I still have a number of boxes to unpack, so let's hope that's the worst of my issues! 

Fireheart Delayed Again

 Well, I suppose it was inevitable, but another email about Fireheart went out from Breyer today - he's been delayed again. He'll now be available for ordering from July 7-14, and again after Breyerfest is over. Astute readers will note that the email says he'll be available to order on those dates, but nothing about whether he'll actually be shipping at that point. Maybe they don't know themselves? Anyway, at least we got an update. This did have me wondering whether the Breyerfest models would also be delayed, if not for a post on Facebook today from someone saying they'd been shipped some of their VIP models - the Stablemate set, Gran Cavallo and Rheverence, but not Pollock (their second special run model). Later on they heard from Breyer that this was a mistake by the warehouse and no further models would be shipped until after Breyerfest. I wonder if this will be the final nail in the coffin, as it were, for the new shipping company? I hope so, especially if more models were shipped to VIP customers and the surprise horse identity gets let out of the bag (not that I'd protest at that since there's still time to change my special run selections). Let's hope we get a new, better shipping company out of this, yeah? 

Oops, they did it again...

 Lots of exciting reveals have been happening lately! For instance, Breyerfest tickets have been revamped - among other things, there will be a VIP ticket option that lets the buyer select their special run models and pay for them ahead of time! I hope this means we won't be stuck frantically refreshing our browsers all weekend again. See more about the ticket changes here. 

Also, a number of images of this year's Breyerfest models were leaked today, which brings back fond memories of the time someone made a website mistake and leaked all of the auction models, or that other time someone made a website mistake and leaked Breyerfest models and other upcoming releases. Fun stuff! The last time was 5 years ago or more, so I suppose it was about time for it to happen again. But, since Breyer has already announced they're going to reveal all of this year's models by the end of the month (!), we don't have too long to wait before they get officially revealed! I can't show any of the images here, because I don't want to end up with lawyers going after me. Here's the list of models I saw (I'm leaving a big space here, so if you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading here!
































Altynai in cremello (named Uffington). More like Uff-da, am I right? I know, I crack myself up...
Vermeer in dark palomino
Spanish Fighting Bull in a brown pinto
Valegro in rainbow pintaloosa with gold spots (!!!!)
Peruvian Paso in dark bay overo
John Henry in bay extended blanket Appaloosa
Marwari in chestnut pinto
Bristol in bay with brindling stripes down his side (portrait of Queen of Hearts?)
Rainbow zebra(?) American Dream
Blue roan pinto Troubadour (raffle model?)
And the Best of Breyerfest Stablemates set (mini Nottingham on Darwin, mini Tom Thumb on the G3 Highland Pony, mini Perrault on the G2 Paso Fino, mini Camelot on the G3 Quarter Horse, and mini Happily Ever After on the Warmblood Mare). 

No idea if there are other things to reveal (probably), but I'm super excited about that Valegro! Can't wait to see the official photos soon!