My Stone Breed championship group!

Breed overall champion, a glossy dapple grey factory custom Stone Drafter owned by Kristen Arendt

Breed overall reserve, a glossy dapple buckskin paint Stone Ideal Quarter Horse owned by Nicole Martinez

Some nifty closeups:

Close up of the face on the Reserve, a glossy dapple buckskin paint Stone Ideal Quarter Horse. Look at the detail in that blue eye! Just exquisite.

I also really loved this palomino Morgan. Check out those wonderful nose wrinkles!

Cool use of an in-between mare!

Pinball Wizard in English games, dropping the currycomb into the bucket.

I showed Pinball Wizard for the first time in years and he won English Performance champion as well as reserve overall.

I’ve got a live show this weekend and I’m in that interesting state where It Feels Like So Much Work to get ready but I know I’ll be so glad I did when I’m done.

Also I was totally going to repack everything after my last show in October and have I done that? I have not. 😅

This is so great! These nail art charms - never would’ve guessed this would be the source of such useful materials!

For show documentation, most of my documents now are google docs, and I’m printing them. I am keeping them in a looseleaf binder that has sheet protectors, and then grouping by class - so all my dressage documentation is in one plastic sheet protector and I can order them by the classlist for that show.

That reminds me, I have a laminator now, I can make them more fancy.

Labels with merge, I really should do that since most of the shows I’m attending are 3x5 card shows. I should have mercy on myself and print them instead of scribbling them.

But for ordinary and value documentation, like say so my family can figure out what all this stuff is if they need to, lol. Or even so I can remember it. That is completely disorganized and they will be cursing my name unless I get on that.

This set is just utterly amazing, Anna. So beautiful and correct and utterly teeny. Like just the technical aspect of making leather thin enough to be reins in this scale is masterwork, and it just keeps going. I love it so much.

The thing I like best about participating in live shows is getting to hang out with other model horse people. Situations that facilitate that really get my attention.

I also like chances to test my skill and creativity. So sometimes I go to a show with the goal to really do performance in great gusto, or to show a new horse I’ve made, and see whether they measure up.

I like it when the classlists and judges change. The same classlist, with the same judges, and the same horses, is not as interesting to me as if those things are changing. Specialty divisions get my attention and may cause me to bring some models I don’t usually bring.

Knowing your friends will gather there is maybe the ultimate! And that’s where having a location that’s got at least some elements of a sweet spot, convenient to get to, pleasant meal options, nice surroundings, all of that helps make it a place friends gather.

South Coast Classic held several events at the Los Angeles Arboretum back in the day. That was such a lovely place to gather, personally convenient for me because I lived nearby, but also the light and surroundings meant I always had the best day there, even took some outside photographs in between classes.

And I showed them in performance, too! Here is poor Akron being made to be a roping horse, and badly!

Small, cramped setup; terrible lighting; plastic western saddle; out of scale dirt clumps; roping a foal not a calf…

Back in the day when I first started showing, OF was all makes so Hagen-Renaker showed against Breyer. Having H-Rs to show in those classes was hugely advantageous and I was so fortunate to have some very nice pieces, both from my Aunt’s collection and then from the large reissues that I bought with the princely and painful sums of ~$40 each IIRC as a teen in the 1980s.

Here is another one from my collection, the white Abdullah, very pale grey standing arabian stallion, this image of the right side. also given to me by my aunt from her 1950s era collection. He is one of the few who came with a break, a clean break in the left forearm. I love this piece so very much.

When Young Ferseyn came out, I admired but did not have the coin. I had regrets every time I saw someone receiving theirs, and even more when I saw Joan’s in person at Clinky Mayhem. I bid on a special one that Kristina offered after the run was complete and was the underbidder, but I managed to get offered another one slightly after that I also love. I should photograph them together, haven’t done that yet. But this mold, oh, so special to me.

These would not be for marathon carriages, but Lisa Sharpe has also found a vendor to make bike-like wheels in a size suitable for arena vehicles. You can find them here: Miniature bike wheels

Wow, what a treasure that Judy Renee Pope piece is!

And I also will keep my first custom forever. ❤️

Thanks for taking it out for a spin! Having real conversation is essential for evaluating the tool.

I think it’s really interesting to have classlists that change, and it’s something a showholder can do to freshen up a show that might otherwise feel ‘routine’ for zero cost.

When shows start to feel routine, I think some entrants take them for granted… it will be just like the last show, there will always be another.

Not every show has to offer every class or every division, and giving people a reason to bring out horses they don’t usually bring can be a way to increase engagement. I love the idea of offering era divisions for OF Plastic or really any division; customs and resins benefit from them too. Most of us have pieces in our collections that are either not competitive or are too much trouble to bring, but a class just for them changes the calculation.

And sharing the old pieces can be really fun! That oldest custom you have in your collection, or a horse that won everything back when it was new, and suddenly you can bring him out for everyone to see again. I loved bringing out my very first custom, a running mare repainted bay appaloosa in Testor’s enamels, to the Jennifer Show, with her story.

I love seeing people have fun with performance classlists too! Candyland Live with its Everything Pink class, that’s just delightful. It’s fun to come up with an entry and so fun to see what other people will do.

I think people have been using either 2000 or 20 years, but this is just a fun thread, so it hardly matters. Share what you like! Or starting a new thread of My First Custom is fun too!

I have those foals in my early collection as well, and in a couple of colors! They are so cute, and I must also say, a true miracle of mass production pulling those tiny legs from the mold and for the very low price point too.

This is a stablemate I did as a custom order for Nora Doyle back in the 1980s. I understand her collection did not survive her. She had a few of my models. We corresponded for years and my day was always brighter when I got a letter from her in the mailbox.

Cadfael’s Cygnet was a SM QH mare refined a bit, and painted dappled grey in oils with a braided hair mane and tail.