My Equestrian Life, On Display

I have observed that most people with decorator shelves in their homes fill them with a variety of plants (real or fake), or the occasional objet d'art. We have a couple in our house. The one over the front door does hold a plant, but it also has a number of old-to-extremely-old family items: an antique drum, a violin, a ukelele that belonged to my grandfather, a battered bugle, a trunk plastered with travel stickers, a couple of suitcases and my dad's camera that he got in 1958. So, lots of cool stuff with great memories attached.

For the one in my bedroom, I immediately envisioned an area where I could display things pertaining to my life with horses (fortunately Hubby was okay with this plan). I started with my old saddle, which you saw in the last post, and have added many other items that are significant to me. Most people who have seen this collection don't "get" it; I imagine it just looks like a bunch of junk. I am hoping that you, dear readers, will appreciate these things a tiny bit more.

So, without further ado, here is the north end:

On the far left you will notice some little Palomino horse models. This mare and foal pair are china, and at one time were really beautiful. Unfortunately, they were played with a lot when I was little and suffered the consequences. The poor foal is standing precariously on three and 3/4 legs; after mending all four of his legs multiple times, I think Dad just gave up on one of them. So he's missing a fore from knee down. But it's okay, he can still stand up leaning against his momma and he's still adorable.

Then there's that weird-looking grey thing. That is a mask that I made out of papier mache when I was about 9 years old and was Grey the Horse for Halloween. My mom made a hood with a mane, and an excellent suit complete with tail to go with it. The outfit was a bit hit, although other kids liked to knock on the mask and ask if anyone was in there. My son wound up wearing this whole outfit one Halloween (and won a costume contest), so it's been through two generations now.

The rocking horse actually made an appearance on this blog some time ago, along with the Buck Breyer model, so I won't go into huge detail here. Here's a close-up again:

As far as the formerly-blue ribbon - well, that's a really special one, and has a great story attached. I promise I WILL get to that but it needs its own post!

Going back to the shelf, you've also already seen the boots on top of the Secretariat Breyer, and the lunchbox. The little trophy to the right of the lunchbox I won by making it to the State finals in 4-H Horse Bowl with my team. I loved being in 4-H and learned an awful lot through the program (you will hear more about it in the near future). Horse Bowl in particular was a lot of fun but very nerve-wracking. It didn't help that I was told I had to be the "nutrition expert," which meant memorizing a lot of facts and figures about Ca:Ph ratios, protein percentages, and the like. Math is not my strong suit. I would have been a lot happier in charge of anatomy or diseases but nope, the team needed help in nutrition so that's what I got. All's well that ended well - we didn't win State but got darn close!

The tall trophy peeking out from behind the lunchbox is actually not horse-related (I won the Grand Prize in a Science Fair) but it's the only place it fit. You know about my old Prix de Nations saddle already, but how about those ribbons? Well, I'm sorry to say the Champion is the one and only Championship ribbon I've ever won in a horse show, and the other is my first Reserve Championship, seen in this photo when I was 7 years old:

Aboard Little John, the best darn pony EVER.

Both of these were earned at Tricorne Farm horse shows. No other Reserves or Champions have been forthcoming YET (yes, it's been quite a drought given my current age), so these are proudly on display.

Someone might recognize that tall and furry horse model on the south end of the shelf. She's Penny, an American Girl horse owned by the Colonial girl in the series. Darn thing cost a bleeding fortune and while my daughter liked her a lot, she did not inherit the horse-obsessed gene from me so Penny is pretty well-preserved. Yours truly had a good time tacking her up when Daughter had friends coming over to play. :-)

Last but not least is the very odd-looking spotted item on the far right. You would never guess what it is in a million years - other than that it hopefully looks a bit like a horse - so I'll just tell you: it went on a totem pole. Huh? Well, one summer I volunteered as a leader for Daughter's Girl Scout summer day camp. The kids were small, so we adults pretty much had free rein on what we did and what our own little groups would be called. The overall theme of the camp was "Native American." So what is more Indian than Paint horses??? Hence, I named our group the Painted Ponies.

I had a lot of fun with this theme, none more so than when it was time to make a totem part for the camp pole. Each group was issued a plastic one-gallon ice cream bucket with holes cut in it as the base, and I built the head and neck out of foam rubber. The kids helped apply papier mache and paint the horse head when it dried. The totem parts were dropped on a broom handle and when they were lined up, I have to say the overall effect was pretty neat. Incidentally, ours won the prize for Best-Looking. :-)

So there you have it, one of my main horsey areas in the house. Oh yes, there are more! What can I say... my family are good sports about putting up with Mom's taste in decor.

Whatta Hunk!

I am not (GASP!) actually referring to a horse here, but rather this guy and his horse:

If you don't know who this is, you were born after 1980.

Yes, it's the Lone Ranger and Silver, as imagined by the Gabriel Toy Co., ca. 1973.  As I have mentioned, I looooved to play with my model horses. And I totally adored Silver and his rider for one reason/two words: FULLY POSEABLE. As in, the LR was the only doll I had who could perform proper equitation. Barbie and Ken were a total wash, for pete's sake; you couldn't pry their legs far enough apart to even get them on a horse, much less ride one in any semblance of form. (Side note: To think there were all those rumors about Barbie and Ken - between his missing anatomy and her non-functioning hips, there wasn't much chance of anything going on in that Dream House).

Silver's wonderful jointed legs meant that I could mold him into perfect hunter knees-to-the-eyeballs form and send him soaring over my book "jumps." The Lone Ranger could hold the reins, keep his heels down, and even assume 2-point with a little coaxing. This made for wonderfully realistic play times. The Breyers were definitely jealous of their stablemate, who got a lot more airtime then they did.

Unfortunately, the pair pictured above are not my Lone Ranger and Silver. Those two were recently up for auction on EBay, and I wish I could have justified shelling out thirty bucks for something I already have, albeit in not nearly as good condition (I'd love to know how they survived 37 years in such good shape - maybe they belonged to some strange kids who never played with their stuff?). Here's my own fella:

But wait, you say, who's that aboard the faithful steed? Well, if you recall the LR had a sidekick, a Native American named Tonto. Some well-meaning relative gave my brother Tonto and his horse Scout. Here's that pair, currently for sale on Ebay:

I just realized this horse looks like he's missing his RF leg. I certainly hope not!

Needless to say, they didn't spend too much time with my brother, as they too were quickly drafted into my Olympic showjumping team. Scout has disappeared (maybe Brother has him? We're all pack rats.) and so has my Lone Ranger, thus you get the remaining duo. Poor Tonto had a hand get broken off, so his left arm now ends in some electrical tape. Silver's reins wore out and were replaced with some gold-covered gift wrapping elastic. Really classy, but hey, they were my buddies and have a home forever.

Here's another equine from the childhood collection:

Whew, talk about Fugly! However, this little red pony from the Marx "Johnny West" collection is actually very important to me. Like about a zillion other little girls, my most fervent wish was to own my own horse/pony. Ideally, the equine would magically appear at my house, tied to my favorite tree and grazing contentedly on the front lawn. Many a birthday morning I would wake up, creep over to the window and look out, hoping against hope that somehow my prayers would have been answered.

Alas, that never happened... but what DID happen was one morning I woke up and found a box with that plastic pony in it sitting on the bedroom floor. My dad had been on a business trip to San Francisco, and I knew when I went to bed the night before that he was supposed to come home. He rarely brought us toys when he travelled so a gift had not even been on my radar.  Imagine my surprise and delight when Little Red was there waiting for me! I was just overjoyed. I played with that guy so much, making him jump things, that I broke his tail clean off from using as a handle.

Unfortunately, that gift horse also caused me a bit of trouble in the future. For years afterwards when Dad went on a trip, I would wake up the morning after he got back and open my eyes just...a... little... bit... at a time, hoping that another super present was awaiting my discovery. Nope - the pony was a one-off thing. But that's okay, he was SO good that I will always remember Dad's thoughtfulness. I know he gave me that pony with a lot of love and wishes that it could have been a real one. :-)



You're Never Too Old

Lookie what I got, for my Mother's Day present:

Zenyatta, aka "Zenny," or "The Queen"

I am such a dope I actually forgot that I'd asked for her, and still didn't even realize what it was when I saw the wrapped box. DUHHH! So of course there were major waterworks... my hubby sweetly remembered that I'd said I would love to have this. Just goes to show you, NO, there are some things you are not too old to want, and plastic horse models are one of them! :-)

I was going to discuss my childhood collection of Breyers at some point anyway, so this was a good opportunity. I think it's safe to say that virtually all horse-crazy little girls collect Breyers (they used to be a bit more affordable - DH had sticker shock picking up Zenny there, unfortunately). At the peak of my collection I think I had around 35. I don't know about most kids, but I played with my model horses darn near every day. One of my favorite activities with them was to set up books tent-style as "jumps" on my bedroom floor, and have horse shows. (More on this in next post re: horse models)

What's really a bummer is that part of the group included about 10 small-size, nicely-made plastic horses that one of my babysitters gave me. One day I thought to look inside a hind leg and to my surprise, there was the Breyer stamp. These were from the early 60s at least. For all I know, these very early ones probably would put my kids through college if I had them to sell now... but alas, they disappeared along with a number of other models. However, (control your surprise here), I DO still have a few!

I believe my first one was this fellow:

I think they called this a "Proud Arabian Stallion," although he's not the current model under that name. He's wearing the nifty blanket I made him from a kit that Breyer sold back in the day. It even has a little Tricorne Farm logo on it that my mom helped me cut out. I wish there had been more "do-it-yourself" accessory kits, but I had to content myself with making leg bandages out of rolled up tissues with Scotch tape around them, and/or Band-Aids. I even made little horse shoes out of aluminum foil that I glued to their feet. (Yes, Children, this is the kind of thing young people did when there was nothing on TV every afternoon except soap operas!)

One of my favorites, now MIA, was my Palomino 5-Gaited Stallion. I adored that one and took particular care "grooming" him. I don't know why I just did it with him, but I took cotton balls soaked in baby oil and polished him until he absolutely gleamed. Nowadays you can buy them in a "glossy" finish, but my homemade one worked fine.

Here's another:

This is Mr. "Semi-Rearing Stallion," in buckskin. He is wearing a harness that I absolutely killed myself making out of shoelaces in order to portray him as a Roman chariot horse (project for Latin class in H.S.). It was sewn directly on him with considerable effort, and I've never been able to make myself cut the traces and free him from his painstakingly-constructed tack. Poor guy!

These next two were late additions to the collection - really, I only seem to have one truly old one still with me (the Arab). Don't know why some survived and many others are keeping my prom dresses company in a NJ landfill (this is what happens when your mom sells the childhood home after almost 30 years, and you are not on hand to definitively rescue your things. I did - obviously - get a lot of stuff but other important items vanished...). Unfortunately, I don't particularly care for either one, as the model maker they had in those days had a thing about putting the horses' eyes too close together and too far up on their heads. If they're worth anything I could definitely sell them!

"Black Beauty" or "The Black Stallion" - not sure, and not a current model under that name

"Some Kind of Appaloosa," ca. 1980. Again, not a current model and can't find him

And finally, here's a photo that you've seen before, with an addition:

This is the shelf in my bedroom which holds a bunch of equestrian memorabilia. Wild Horse Annie's "Buck" is on top of the old rocking horse. I think I actually got Buck in my twenties, not as a kid. I love the way he's only attached to his stand by one foot and is portrayed running free. And there's Secretariat, the "anniversary" edition with him wearing his Derby rose blanket, which I acquired in 2008 and have never opened (Zenny will not be opened, either). I'll tell you a secret: his eyes are all wrong, too! It is NOT a good likeness of Red. In researching this post, I have discovered there's a running model of Red that's much better, so guess what I'll be asking for for my birthday this year... :-).