New year, new announcements!

 Hello, readers! There have been a lot of new reveals and announcements today - I'll start with the new Breyerfest Celebration Horse/ Model! Say hello to Danash's Northern Tempest, or Dani! 

And here's her model!

My reaction: WOW. This is a much more appropriate choice for Celebration Horse, and the model is amazing! Look at all those details! This may be the best Celebration Model Breyer has ever done! Too bad I don't collect True North...and can you imagine how much the glossy ones will be worth? Holy crap! I hope they give away a few more of them this year...well, anyway. 

On to the sadder announcement...Breyerfest 2021 is officially virtual again this year. While I'm not surprised the decision was made, it's still sad to know we won't be gathering in Kentucky this year. Let's hope Breyer can iron out some of the wrinkles from last year, eh? 

I do want to talk about the Kentucky Horse Park, though. The past year has been hard on all of us, and the KHP is no exception. Since we won't be traveling to Kentucky this year, I think it would be a very good thing if collectors would take some of the money they would have spent on this year's trip and donate it to the KHP. Here's their donations page - you can pick from a number of different areas your donation goes toward. I'm not sure how much, or any, funding the KHP gets from the Kentucky government, or whether they're eligible for any of the business loans from the federal government - and we all know the KHP needs all the help it can get anyway. I've asked Breyer to make the KHP one of the Breyerfest beneficiaries in the past, but it never seems to happen. I hope collectors can help the KHP survive! 

And lastly, the Coal model for this year's Christmas event has been revealed! I don't have a photo I can use yet, but as I suspected, it's not a black Icelandic - they used the Galiceno. It makes sense that they would use a different mold since we've already had a glossy black Icelandic (two, if you count the auction model from 2014), and they were probably angling for a mold that would have the same or similar size and weight to the Icelandic, so I can see why they picked it. My Jol models aren't scheduled to arrive until Wednesday/Thursday, so I'll be waiting until then to see what I got! 

Virtual Breyerfest Day 3: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Greetings, readers! I hope you got through the final day of Virtual Breyerfest with your sanity intact. I'm not sure I did...but then, that happens every year, so at least this Breyerfest was true to life in that respect. The same website issues people had been having all weekend continued to persist today, which is disappointing, but I think people managed to be a little more successful in getting the store specials ordered - or maybe they just gave up and preordered the glossy versions. In any case, the ordering is over, the special runs are all allocated (or...should be), the raffles are over (except maybe the one for the glossy Celebration Models; no one has heard anything about those), and all that's left to find out now is the identities of the surprise model and the volunteer model. Which...could take a while before we find out!

In today's exciting reveals, we got to see Vermeer, the next Premier Club model:

I'm a little bit on the fence about this one - I like him from some angles, but not others. His paint job is really nice, though. I'll have to wait until he gets here to make my final decision. He looks like his mane and tail are pearly, though, so that helps.

In other exciting reveals, we have the theme for next year's Breyerfest!



Horse of a different color, eh? That gives a lot of possibilities for next year, though I heard it mentioned on the live stream that they'll have lots of chrome, stripes and spots! Does this mean there'll be a lot of decorators? Who knows! And who will be the Celebration Horse? So many questions, that we have to wait months to get answers to! Well, I'm excited either way.

Once again, I didn't get drawn for either of the raffle models this year - but be watching your emails, people! If you did get drawn, you only have 3 days to confirm your mailing address. Hopefully they come out with those glossy Celebration Model winners soon!

I'm also seeing that people are already getting some of their special runs clawed back by Breyer - they must really be gung-ho about it if they're already going through people's orders so soon. The thought is that people that took advantage of ordering 3 or more models per ticket on Friday hosed everything up for the rest of the weekend, and some innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire? I'm not really sure what exactly is going on, because we haven't gotten any statements from Breyer about it yet. Hopefully that gets cleared up tomorrow.

Well, that's about all I have for Virtual Breyerfest news. I'm sure tomorrow the Breyerfest Blues will set in like they do every year...

Virtual Breyerfest update and another sneak peek!

So there's been an update on how some of the Virtual Breyerfest activities will work, which you can view here. The big news: raffles, auctions and contests will be limited to U.S. citizens due to various gambling laws (boo, but nothing we or Breyer can do about it), and the surprise model will not be revealed beforehand (I expected that). They say they won't reveal the surprise at all, but I'm hoping it's revealed on Friday morning, because...well, that's what usually happens, so I don't know why they'd keep it a secret longer than that except to torture us...Okay, I can see that happening too. So who knows.

In other news, there's another new sneak peek on the blog!



Finally, something green! From the blog:

It’s a chilly, grey day here in New Jersey, but when we look out our windows, all the signs that spring is coming are out there – flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, and a soft blanket of green is starting to emerge.  We think this sneak peek is the perfect reminder of greener (and warmer) days ahead!

Looks like the point of something's hip to me.  Well, my guess was that this year's pop-up-tent Classic would be on the new Brabant, and it looks like it could be him, so that's what I'm going with. Hopefully we find out tomorrow!