Very much your last point. My local hobby friends and I kept going to this one show with often questionable judging, etc., because we all were going to be there. So it became a kind of a horsey, girls’ weekend not, overly close to any of us. 😆
I live in the relative middle of no where when it comes to the model horse hobby (Montana). I have to drive many hours to get to any show: the closest show I’ve done was just two hours away and the farthest was ten to eleven hours away (when I lived in way eastern Montana and the show was way western Montana). As it is, the majority of shows I’ve done are a five to seven hour drive.
SO, all of that to say, that I greatly prefer if a show is only around $50, as I will have at least two or three tanks of gas, plus two nights in a hotel, and multiple meals out. However, many of the shows have started moving up to $60-75. I get it, halls aren’t cheap. However, hotels DEFINITELY are no longer cheap, so even if there are shows in my “general vicinity” (ha, ha) I might not be able to swing all of them. Which also makes me sad, as I WANT to support any show in this area, in hopes that people will keep hosting them!
This is my most vintage, a Cigar painted by Judy Renee Pope in 1998. He was a NAN top ten TB for his previous owner. I also lusted after him back in the early days of the internet and hobby geocities pages. 😆 I still haul him off to live shows occasionally, just because I love him so much, even if he’s not super competitive these days. He’s also displayed next to my Elizabeth Bouras dapple grey Kelso. I still can’t believe that I have a horse from two of my early idols. 🥰
Also, pardon the really crappy quality picture. But this is MY very first custom, from about 2000, using the Breyer painting kit. I have stripped almost every other early custom, but this girl will stick around to show me how far I’ve come.
- Should we require color next to breed and gender at all? And if so, how specific should that color be? (IE: “chestnut” or “flaxen chestnut sabino rabicano”?)
- Does it matter to you if a shower chooses a different label for a model’s color than the manufacturer or original artist did?
- Does it matter to you if the color matches the label that the registry would apply/require? (Chestnut vs sorrel, grulla vs grey dun or grå)
I do not mind listing a color, as certain colors can look similar (some sooty chestnuts and silver bays, for instance), so therefore you’re stating what you feel your horse’s color is and potentially justifying a breed designation. Along that line, I also don’t think it matters if you label a horse’s color differently than the manufacturer or even artist had. OF paint jobs do not always look like the color intended/prototype. Also reference pictures get mislabeled so people make incorrect assumptions of colors when they paint them - or science figures out what actually causes a neat color. And there’s definitely going to be a lot more of that as science studies horse colors, if not in actual color, then in patterns. “Hey, turns out that this flashy white marking is actually <fill in the blank new white pattern> instead of just ‘high whites’.”
I think that if we’re going to be labeling colors, we should use the most accurate terminology possible (I say this as I call lighter chestnut stock horses as sorrels, sorry, can’t take the stock horse girl out of me, lol). Therefore, a dun on black should be referred to as either black dun or grulla, rather than grå or grey dun, or some other less-commonly used terminology. And we definitely shouldn’t penalize someone for using the Norwegian grå (grey) instead of the American/English translation of grey dun when referring to a Norwegian Fjord. In this particular show series, I did get penalized for listing Fjords as “bay dun” and “grulla” instead of “brunblakk” [broken brown] and “grå” earlier, and then most recently people got penalized for not using the American terms of “brown dun” and “grey dun.” I guess I don’t mind a judge pointing out that a color is listed as X instead of Y in a certain breed, but I don’t feel that is disqualification-worthy. At most, maybe a reason to decide between two equal horses. Also, if we’re going to go this route, if I list my model horse as “frame overo” or “splash white” instead of the catch-all of “overo” that is usually used by registries to designate not-tobiano, should my model be disqualified in a show?
There’s generally a lot of reasons to not place a model horse, even in very large an competitive shows - angles, lighting, glare, background, overall photo quality. We shouldn’t have to use things like the color terminology or even the “common” (or not-so-common) model name of an entry to disqualify half the horses - just don’t place them if you don’t like them!
As I’ve been collecting since the mid 90s, I’m starting to get a fairly large collection and am running out of room. Ha. So I try to be strict and only collect a few breeds - mostly stock horses and Thoroughbreds. Unfortunately for my shelves, Breyer has started producing so many really nice sculptures and paint jobs, so I find myself breaking my limitations frequently. I don’t have to have complete congas, but if it is a sculpture I really like, I will collect all the accessible colors that I like (see nearly complete Love classic QH mare and stallion collection). I do also love a performance friendly sculpture, especially for western. I have mostly OFP, but also have some customs and a growing herd of resins, particularly pewter micros, who will maybe one day get paint. 😂