BF 26: A Coldstream Campus Walk

 

This walk and its post is in memory of the many happy times I ran my BreyerFest 5K on the Kentucky Coldstream Campus, right across the road from the CHIN.  This year the 5K was cancelled and god only knows when it will occur again.  (I suspect it was cancelled for budget reasons.)  As things fell out, the cancellation coincided with my own reasons for not racing again, having to do with a left toe injury in April of 2025 and the subsequent 16 weeks of limping.  That performance pretty much strained my right hip past the point of being able to run races.  It did heal,... today I can slow jog for several kilometers.  (I did enter the 2025 BreyerFest 5K, finishing in an hour and twenty minutes, as opposed to the usual 45 to 47 minutes).  Entering any 5K is a big ol' question for me right now, so perhaps it's just as well.  

My walk was along and around the area in pink line-dots on the map below.  This is a smallish park easily accessible by car.  The dog park is right on the other side of the trail.  

Environs of the CHIN & Marriott, with Embassy and Coldstream Campus across the road

We'll throw in this portrait of the central character, just for identification purposes.  I'm sorry to say I wasn't carrying a horse, but there surely was one in the car.  It must have been Magia Pesca, my new Other Fish in the Sea, since I'd just gotten him the previous evening.

We all remember how much it rained this past BreyerFest!  This park had some low-lying ground but I was pleased to find this was the worst of it.

Here's one tiny glimpse of what the Coldstream Campus trails are rich in.  Normally it's my husband who shoots the flowers but occasionally I have to take a stab at it. 

I have labelled the dog park on the map.  While I was there 2 enormous Great Pyrenees dogs were having their time out.  The second one is behind the outhouse.  

This is really a peaceful place to walk.  This view is right at the end of the dog park and facing east, which is to say, back at the CHIN behind the trees. 

 I went far enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the hotel across the highway.  If you look closely enough you can find the fallen finial (spike on top of a tower) shown in my last blog, lined up with a straight one and making it look like there's two.

At the easternmost point of my stroll I came in sight of an HSO.  A fellow blogger has mentioned trying to photograph every HSO or image on her travels;  I felt like that at this moment.  This spotted thing was quite big enough to sit on;  it was the size of a large rocking horse.

Continuing in this vein, here are some HSOs I saw on the drive out, along Aristides Boulevard, the main entrance to the Campus.

Although this is the last picture from my walk this year, it won't be the last time I take a stroll along the famous Legacy trail of Lexington, where I've run so many races.  

My virtual 5K race plan  (2022) 

 My BreyerFest Virtual 5K Race   (2022)

My BFest 5K: Sunrises   (2023)

 Here's a couple of bonus shots on a related subject.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, my degree was partly in construction.  No doubt these photos are out of date by now, but one must document the steps.  In my above map there is a green "C" [for construction] just north of the Marriott parking lot, where the old restaurant used to be.  That is the location of our new neighbor a-building;  and those concrete towers are its skeleton as it rises.

Naturally I have quite the mixed bag of feelings about this development.  While BreyerFest does need a place to expand to, I have no idea if this could be it (where would they put all the cars?!).  This next shot shows the view just to the left of the above.  It's the gate to the golf course's back door.  Many happy times I have walked through that gate, made my way over the pond bridge to the Marriott and even ran on the golf course for exercise (usually in the dusk or pre-dawn).  Now I cannot go through.  The pond bridge is permanently closed.  I dearly miss the access to the privileged spaces back there, their peace and beauty.

I will trust that other places, like the Coldstream Campus, will continue to provide the much-needed dose of nature and escape.

BF 26: A Car Art Walk

 

Even since BreyerFest I've had about four posts about it lined up in my head, shuffling their feet and rattling the gate, trying to be born.  This is the first.  I present them with two-fold intent:  to celebrate what we had, and to look forward to what, we trust, will be ours again.

This past BFest was unique with its stresses of a threatened "last one," which inspired much more picture-taking than usual, combined with the more normal (?!) stress of being cooped up in the room for longer than I should've allowed.  This all resulted in my taking extensive walks around the property, particularly early in the day, for exercise;  and it made for some great photo opportunities.  

 I don't normally decorate or shoot car windows, but this artform has grown over the years.  Some of the art I saw was so amazing I couldn't resist trying to capture it.  We will be seeing more of this truck later.

 I also, for whatever reason (though I suspect my secondary degree in industrial construction management had something to do with it), wanted to document some of the ongoing construction around the hotel.   This pic was shot on a cloudy day and then processed brighter so it wouldn't be quite so gloomy.

On Friday the 10th, I was walking around the Clarion from the south to southwest and then up north along the west front, eventually turning east at the 300/400 wing.  This car caught my eye.  I liked the typography and snowflakes but the brown wave mystified me.  (It may have had rain damage.)

The Nordic breeds, in particular the Fjord, were beautifully represented.

Before  we get to the north top of the parking lot and some of the finest examples of car art I've ever seen, I want to cover something else.  Every year, what I look for when first turning into the parking lot is people who have set out horses on their windowsills.  Somehow that sight is home;  without them, it just isn't BreyerFest.  This time, walking around the outside of the building in the cool morn, on my third morning there (July 9), I had yet another opportunity to document this phenomenon which meant so much to me.

back of the early 500/600s

 I believe I was looking for my own window, but somehow didn't catch it.

300/400s

A larger look.  The 300/400 wing was having its sidewalk replaced.

300/400s

 To my amazement there was a seriously good display of horses on a ground floor (300s) window.  I just had to catch this one:

Room 330

The art of the window display would come into its own in another hotel, and one of my remaining 3 posts will be about that.  But back to cars.  Up in the last parking area off the end of the 300/400s wing was this amazing trailer.

Definitely worth walking around!

 And that eye!  As it would happen, a particular horse with a blue eye took my heart this year.  The detail in this painted eye somehow really spoke to me.  It said:  I have seen everything. 

 You can even see my reflection with my phone,...!  Here is the car that drew this trailer. Aquavit the Mule is recognizable!

 Here's the other side of the trailer.  See what I mean about wanting to capture these!

 I said I'd get back to that black truck we saw in the beginning.  Here are a couple more views of it.  

 In fact I could not stand right next to it, so all these shots are somewhat slanted.

 My last image was so symbolic and haunting that I could hardly believe I'd gotten it on film.  I'm choosing not to brighen this one up, but leave it just as it appeared.  Surely this is the very image of this poor hotel's trials and tribulations, and a perfect measure of how many people feel about the whole experience.  

I mentioned 4 posts on the subject of  BreyerFest 2026.  The remaining 3 titles could be:  A Visit to the Embassy [hotel], A Coldstream Park Walk, and Posters.  I have the pix organized but the hangup is the processing, as always. Ye modern cell phone users could never believe the work I put myself through:  Resizing, cropping, tinkering with lighting and color saturation, fixing errors, signing and saving under a name which is evolved to indicate what who where and why, ending in size in pixels across.  (I'm reminded of the Daily Racing Form for thoroughbreds.)  That's for each and every photo that appears in these posts.  That's not the only reason my posts are so few and slow (distractions, anyone?!);  but it's the main.

Thanks for reading! 

Draft Harness Resto: Parade Finish

 

The fourth and final post of the 1984 Draft Pair Harness restoration is all about how much fun I had August 22.  It's been ages since I set up a parade on the front sidewalk.  Usually only my NaMoPaiMo ponies get shot there;  but every now and then, over the years, I have an excuse to trot out more.  At the end of this post I'll slip in a pic of the TSII Canadian 8-Hitch (23 years ago), and you all can see that this is not the first time Pirate and Her Majesty's Gift have been in harness.

To begin, here's a series of shots of the completed harnesses on the Clyde pair with my TSII Hitch Wagon.  The wagon was made by Dick Eighmey, the go-to vehicle maker of the model horse hobby in the 1990s.    

At first I put the black horse on the side of the viewer.  I guess I was tired of Her Majesty stealing the show (yes, mine is female).  The frontal view (below) would not, of course, be possible for a typical parade watcher;  but it does transition from 'coming towards' to 'going away.'  The boys, Bo and Luke (dressed by Kim Jacobs), don't look all that steady,... heaven knows what they do during the long years in storage,...

 

 

Here we get our first glimpses of the dogs.  There are always dogs who ride in the wagon.  Two Breyer canines and the Hartland Bullet are my lot for passengers today.  

So much for orientation!  Closing in on the harnesses and swapping direction of travel 180 degrees,

 giving in to the exoticism of long-leaf giant Lilies and the lure of gold, 

 we'll show one more shot of the restored harnesses.  For reference, here's a list of the related posts:

Restoring a Draft Pair Harness

Draft Harness Resto: Backpads

Draft Harness Resto: Breechings

 And then it's off to the parade with a completely different question:

"Who just happens to be tacked up right now?"

 I'm not sure now why I felt the pair had to be broken up and only one be hitched to a cart.  I guess I thought all those pix of the hitch wagon were enough, and wanted to give others a chance.  In any event I pulled out my Mel Reigsecker Draft Cart (also acquired in the 90s) and put Her Majesty's Gift to it.  I pinched a pair of shaft carriers from my Red Hungarian Tandem to do the job.  Naturally, the HR Jack Russel had to get in on the act.  His near hind leg is broken off but you'd never know it.

 By definition, a parade involves more than one entry.  That is why the question, Who happens to be tacked up right now?  I'd used up all my oomph harnessing drafters, I didn't have much more to spend.  However the herd has evolved to a condition where at least a few horses would be tacked up at any given time.  What luck:  There were three available.

 A curiously haunting collection was the result.  In fact I have made only one of these 3 outfits.  The central parade set, on the Appaloosa, is TSII #309, originally made for a Canadian customer in 1991 and later bought back.  

Can you spot the moose on the chest?

 The lead horse, beautiful Minyalucca (Minuet sculpted by Kathy Moody and painted by Elizabeth Bouras and Susan Bensema Young) is wearing my only Heather Moreton saddle, the Silver Acorn set.

 And the trailing horse, my Seurat/Sorpresa, is carrying the So-called Russian parade saddle.  He just never took it off after its last post.  I don't blame him!

You are probably seeing what is so clearly missing.  It dawned on me eventually.  Duh!  Like Anne Field says, Everybody needs dolls!  So this is my Field of Dolls example.  Another duh, she needs a friend or sister or companion or fellow stable girl or,... fill in the blank,...

Also eventually, it dawned on me that a standing horse in the middle of a parade means some kind of trouble.  (Lameness perhaps?)  So I took Chalif down and stood her by her horse.  I thought she should be looking sidewise, into the (imaginary) crowd, alert for trouble.  So is the Jack Russell.  At the same time I thought I'd be sneaky and get in a suggestion of Sorpresa but cut off his rider.  I know, I know:  forty-eight years of fanatical concentration on model parade saddles and not a single parade rider doll,...

 This is the last, and probably best, sidewalk parade shot.  I got 'suggestions' of 2 horses and 2 actual dolls.

 Now, at the end, I can share this other amazing sight.  Back in 2003 I had the opportunity to put Ivy Olensky's Canadian 8 on my own 6 dapple grey Clydesdales.  Of course I needed 2 more Clydes.  The page is on my TSII website under Harness.  Here's a link:  Olensky Canadian 8 Hitch.

And on that note: What's next for the TSII?  I need to get back to TSII #458, the Fire Horse Parade Saddle, while it's still the Year of the Fire Horse (!).  But to transition to so intense a piece, after my happy foray these last few days with a bosal, is difficult.  Perhaps I could do the reins;  I envision black braided ones.  Yet I would also like to make progress on the now-4 other customers who have been waiting so patiently.  At least a small piece for someone else!  Focus on headgear for a while?  Honestly I don't know.  We'll just have to see what the muse reveals.

 

 

Draft Harness Resto: Breechings

This post tries to fulfill a promise, showing the remainder of the Draft Pair as they underwent restoration.  This is surely one of the most unique harness restos I have ever attempted.  It has involved surprise, beauty, frustration, the glint of gold (a lot of gold, actually) and -- what else? -- a unicorn and a darling pinto Stone Foal!

Picking up where we left off with the Backpads, the next few pix show the state of things on August 11, the day the second gold wire shipment came in.  Up to this time I'd been using stainless steel wire to 'hold' the place of the future gold rings.  This first photo shows the new breeching seat (bottom) next to the old (top), with steel instead of gold for the 4 inner rings (2 visible) on the new.  Everything else -- the lacing, the pins and the breeching leather for this set, and of course the buckles -- is new.

 Note the minor difference in the appearance of the pins.  The old, above, were more silver-colored and slightly smaller than the newer.  Try as I might I could not find the exact equivalent of those old pins.  But I could find an endless supply of nice ones labeled "gold plated," as noted in the last post.  

Carefully I took apart the rest of the harnesses, making decisions part by part as to what to replace.   I have called this job 'unique' and the condition of the leather really has been something I'd never seen before.  Not all of it was dried out beyond help.  Some was still usable,.. but there was little predicting which, until I had the pieces in my hands and could bend them around.  Below shows how the lacing crumbled when I took out the pins.  Taking them out involves "biting from the back" with wire-cutters, removing the cut-off shank parts and then pulling out the head parts from the front with the same cutters.

 Both breeching seats, for instance, had to have all their lacing replaced.  But to my amazement one breeching seat (the leather) was supple and whole enough to serve again.  The other was too stiff and broke when I bent it. 

I'd started this massive job (June 4) with a modest supply of only 2 sizes of gold-filled wire, 20ga and 24ga.  A lot of the 20ga had gone into buckles.  Around July 26 I had a fabulous brainwave when I realized the problem of bare brass rings could be solved after all because I had earned so much at BreyerFest.  I could afford more gold-filled!  What fun!  In a flurry of what can only be described as prideful eagerness I launched off a huge order of 20ga, the most useful of all gauges.  Rio Grande takes PayPal, bless their souls.

 When the 20ga arrived I had a long moment of quiet frustration.  What I'd thought might be 22 was instead 20 and I now had far more 20ga than I'd ever need for the job.  I had blown all that money but now I needed at least two more gauges, 22 and 18.  And the cost!!  Let's just say that at the end of my second wire order I'd spent almost as much on gold as I'd spent on my most expensive Stone Foal,...

 

But oh, the answers that second order gave me.  At last I had a lock on my gauges.  I labelled the little shiny things (why hadn't I done this before?) since my old method of comparing wire to my stainless steel spools had not, somehow, been sufficient for the gold.  If anybody out there has got an AWG (American Wire Gauge) tool they can sell me for a decent price, I'm interested!

Same size 9mm rings, different gauges

 The 18ga opened all the doors.  This was what I'd waited for, what I needed.  After this the work largely became creating rings and replacing the steel ones and the last of the old brass ones.  To be sure, for the largest rings the ga was smaller (above).  But, but, but!  I felt I could not afford 16ga (the old wire had been $1 a foot, the new was $8 a foot), and the 18 was doing a good job.  It was sufficient unto the need.

Breeching seat still with 4 steel rings

This photo shows quite clearly that while 18ga was not a perfect match, it still worked.  Apparently I have my limits, monetarily and labor-wise.

This shot (below) is particularly interesting as it shows the spider, the arrangement of straps distributed across the top of the rump, in the middle of restoration.  You can see the steel "interim" or holding rings;  all straps were renewed, but the patent stayed.   New cruppers, new holdbacks, new everything except for the chafe straps (the shaped patent behind the hip strap buckles)(and even one set of them stayed);  and the mud drops, behind their English brasses.  One mud drop broke its patent, the only time this happened;  I replaced it.

Those mud drops gave each harness its name:  Horseshoes and 3-Crescents. 

 The above also shows how I was making the trace-carrying hooks, featured on the center strap of the spiders.  These hooks were for the trace chains when the horse was being led to and from harnessing-up.  Restoration involved replacing the trace end dee rings and polishing those chain links too.  Speaking of polishing: I cleaned the old patent first with rubbing alcohol, letting it dry;  this was important.  Then polish with a clean Qtip or microbrush.  Then, to really bring out the shine, rub with some kind of oil:  leather dressing, skin oil, whatever.  Even ancient patent took on a shine.

Here's a couple of shots of the overall parts of the breeching.  This first one is the 'Horseshoe' with its spider and kidney drop strung on the backstrap.

This second shot shows the backpad, or harness saddle, having its terret rings replaced.  It also shows one of the traces and the head of another.  I kept the hammered-brass trace hooks but replaced their holding pins on two of the traces.  Amazingly 2 of the 4 traces was still limber enough to serve!  The others were too stiff and broke or cracked under the 'bend test,' and were replaced with new ones.  I had to dig out the stitchmarker I used back then -- I found it in only the second place I looked!

Here's a unique angle, straight down on one of the spiders.  I'm trying to compare the 18ga spider center ring with the original ancient brass one.  A little refinement won't hurt.  You can see the trace chain hooked up on the off side.

 So what's next?  As you maybe can guess, the restoration is finally done.  Today I held a fantastic photo shoot which turned into a parade down my front sidewalk.  Next blog post!  and thank you, as ever, for your patience.