A Jacquee Gillespie Hackamore

 

Many thanks to V. Norris for kindly helping me acquire this thrilling example from a master of model braiding.  I have written of Jacquee's work before now,  Braidwork by Jacquee Gillespie  but this is only the second piece of hers I've been able to snag.  I had commissioned a bridle by Jacquee back in 2018.  So it's been 7 years since I've had even a chance of obtaining one of her pieces.  That's typical for this great artist.

As my earlier article mentions, those fabulous cheek buckles are handmade in sterling silver by Jacquee.  She is a fine silversmith in miniature.  When the hackamore arrived the silver was much tarnished.  It's taken me a couple of days to polish it;  that was a real job.

Of course Sassy, called Tawny Gold in my herd, makes the photography into something more than typical.  Without apologizing, you're going to be seeing a lot of this girl.

Somehow she has a look of Colette Robertson about her.  Pert face!

 The slightest change of angle changes the look in the eye.  Compare the above with our opening picture.  Oh Stone, I gotta admit you've figured eyes very well.

 Except maybe here.  Does it look like there's something in her right eye?  Look closer:

 Detail is king.  You might think it's easy to shoot this horse.  Au contraire.  From one angle it's hard not to make her butt look too big;  that head really is small.

 And from the other angle, it's even harder to prevent that near fore from looking much too long.

 I'm doing what I can.  Zooming out helps.  Since this post is supposed to be about tack, here's a laid out view.

I discovered that this very hackamore had been featured on Jacquee's website.  Although I don't know exactly when it was made, my discovery then can date this hackamore to havieng been in existence in 2015.  

Photo by Jacquee Gillespie

As mentioned in the earlier post, Jacquee used dog and alpaca hair for her mecates.  This is an approach totally different from my own, yet it gives a texture ever-so-much closer to the real thing.  I'm afraid it also makes it harder to adjust and "play with" the hackamore.  Adjusting this piece (to fit Tawny) is what caused the kink in the reins, seen above.  It should smooth out with gentle use and time.

Close up:  The heel knot (black & white) is made with real horsehair.

 Notes from Afield:

I now have a rough estimate of when my next book will come out:  Sometime in August of this year.  Alas for BreyerFest!  but one cannot go faster than fate allows.  BFest attendees will have the opportunity to see my working copy, all printed out, which should be almost entirely finished.  I will also have horses for sale, as well as other items of interest: model horse-drawn vehicle wheels and items, assorted small HSOs, a couple dogs, and chinas such as Hagen Renaker.  See you soon!

Christmas in June

 

In the midst of bounteous June, turning into the homestretch of my 3-year next book and awash in other projects*, this hackamore was completed a couple days ago.   Since its initial inception was connected with Christmas on Mane Street, I call it the Christmas Hackamore.  Dig those colors!

 *(A new roof, bank research, jury duty for my husband, returning to hiking, canoeing and birding trips after a 2-month-plus-to-heal toe fracture {no running yet, there goes my perfect record of Breyer 5Ks}, & the new Stone horse & blogging about her.)

The bosal began life as a test for Fancy's chapter for the book, last winter.  I decided the thread used was too big and hard to find (and the nosebutton method wrong), and it went on to be finished as a separate bosal -- one of three such to be spawned by Fancy's chapter.  The first bosal used green and brown and was a gift for a friend.  The second, this one, used green, red and brown and is a gift for a friend.  The third bosal is still only a nosebutton at this time.

The colors of red and green were, of course, inspired by Christmas on Mane Street.  The fact that this piece was finished in JUNE tells you everything about how behind I am!!  However I am particularly proud of the design of this hackamore.  It is closely based on Dry's, whom see  Dry's Orange Hackamore  but instead of 3 colors [besides rawhide] it has four.  In fact it has five, unheard-of, accomplished by a pioneering feature:  the interweave thread for the white-&-green buttons is combined of two colors of thin thread, dark green and mint green.  I wanted an optical illusion of medium green when I didn't have it, and I got it, at the price of hand-spinning tiny thread.

You can just see the green-and-dark strand in the mecate below, next to the normal dark green.

 Speaking of the mecate, this one is unique.  Much of the work done on it was carried out while visiting the friend's house, a rare occasion itself.  Woven into its unusually rich palette of colors are all the memories of that visit.  The texture of the mecate shows that using one smaller-gauge thread along with 4 standard others could easily have been a big mistake.  But somehow I made it work.  It gave an interest and ripple to the rope that I'd not ever managed to do before.

When I sat down to photograph it on the mold it was made for -- same as Dry the Sea, or True North -- some perverse insistence claimed Lilly, my Dani [Danash's Northern Tempest] to be that horse.  You would think the combo of a brightly, if not brilliantly, colored hackamore on as loud a beast as that would be a clash.  Yes, it was a clash!  But I liked it that way!

And oh, the portraits she gave me!

All three portraits came out so well they barely need processing.   This is one photogenic horse.  I normally try not to accumulate molds;  I already had one True North;  but I am profoundly glad I was able to get one of these.  In my herd she is named Lilly Chinook, chinook being the-wind-that-melts-the-snow, which is just what she reminds me of.

The brow conchos were obtained from Alison Beniush's The World of Model Horse Collecting, an unfortunately under-utilized resource here at the TSII.  Hang in there Alison!  I'm coming!!   The crown buckle is a nickel-plated Rio Rondo cast, of which we only have a few;  it is nearly as rare as the hand-cut buckle on Dry's.  The 2-color braided ring was done for the Braided Rings plate part of my book.

As is now our standard, the popper has the year carved on one side and the initials TSII on the other.

 You might wonder why I didn't put this beautiful hackamore, newly minted -- all of the spring's frustrations, triumphs and sanity-breaks in it -- on my beautiful new mare, Sassy/Tawny.  The answer is that it doesn't fit her well.  Tawny's head is surprisingly small.  (Perhaps I should say Arabianly small.)   I did put Dry's Orange on her.  Despite my camera's distortion here, see how the forehead tassel is way over on the side, and how far up the bosal is on the muzzle.  The throatlatch end is below the bottom of the throat.  As for the length of his mecate, take my word:  it really is way too long.

 Doll by Anne Field of Field of Dolls.  Saddle by Erin Corbett (yes!).  The blanket is by me.

Although I have been striving very hard to focus on my now-massive book, "Advanced Braidwork for the Model Horse,"  it turns out I have to have a tack project on the side to keep me sane.  As the book's pieces became more complex and re-creating them became unnecessary (due to ground covered earlier), I turned to this hackamore.  No time was kept, but it has been worked on since December in fits and starts.   In an extraordinary manner, it is already paid for, even though it is a gift,... a story that will have to wait for future blog posts.  Until then, enjoy this Christmas in June.

 

The Spring Morn Puzzle

 

Ever since I learned how to search for things on eBay, I've been looking for this puzzle.  I know I said the same thing about the Copper Queen puzzle, but that one I found after about 10 years' hunting.  This one I've been hunting for what feels like my entire online life.  That would be since the late 90s, and here it is 2025.  By my math that can pass as roughly 30 years(!).  I tell you, the search had settled down to very occasional,... but it never really quit.

I had nothing to go on except memory.   I had worked this puzzle as a teen.  I had enjoyed it very much.  I remembered doing that great big green tree, and the peaceful stillness of it.  It was such an idyllic scene, and it had a horse in it.  You know girls and horses,...

Somewhere in my college years or shortly thereafter, I picked up a poster print of Spring Morn.  I don't remember the where or how, only that I had it when I got married in 1988.  When we bought a house together, the first thing I did was pin up posters everywhere.  This one went into the tack shop.  It's been there ever since.

 The print gave me the name of the artist and the idea that the puzzle which I remembered had been taken from a larger picture.  No surprise with a circular puzzle, really.  But there was, in fact, a surprise to come.

 When I got good at online research, I eventually dug up information about Paul Detlefsen.  He is not unlike Maxfield Parrish in painting Americana, but of a later generation;  Parrish was born in 1870 and Detlefsen was born in Denmark in 1899.   Paul Detlefsen became famous for gentle farming scenes;  serenity was his trademark.

It wasn't until this phase of my search (2020) that I found out that my art print itself had been an abridgement.  To my delighted surprise I found an even larger picture.  I hadn't known about those trees across the river!  Oh the joys of online hunting!

 Ultimately I found two photos of this wonderful painting.  It is not one of his most common.   The careful viewer will detect that this second depiction is even wider than the first.

Maxfield Parrish may be famous for the intensity of his colors, but this print might give grounds for competition!

When I saw what I did on eBay that May day, I didn't even stop to save the pictures.  You may imagine my fingers flew and I bought it very fast.  The seller could've had a bad reputation for all I cared!  Some things just fall into place, pre-arranged, long since decided.  There are very few items I have been looking for as long as this puzzle.  A book or two, a certain model horse,...( though that without any hope of affording it, hah [it's a Decorator]),...  Honestly, at the moment, I can't come up with an equivalent.  (cue the laugh track....)  I got the pictures later.

Photo from the eBay listing.  I had never heard of this puzzle company, Saalfield.  There was a date at the bottom of the front cover: 1965.  The great age of the puzzle helps explain why I could not find it for so many years.

Working it again has been one of my most amazing puzzle experiences, akin to what I wrote about with Copper Queen, except the memories were much fainter.  Also, my husband George was working this puzzle with me and he did much more of it than I'd planned on.  We have done hundreds of puzzles since 2019 and we're good by now.  This one still managed to be unique in its radial cut -- no other puzzle I own has that -- and its soft though firm grip despite its extreme age.  Although the missing pieces were unexpected (the seller had said nothing about them), I was still so glad simply to have it that I decided they were minor.  After all I have other puzzles with missing pieces,... missing a lot more than 3.

 

Photo from eBay listing

I have many puzzles; but this one is a very special favorite.

Progress Report 6: Rinker's Hackamore

After nearly 3 years you can be forgiven for perhaps thinking this massive project would never be completed!  Yet as of May 18th, Rinker's chapter is done, the 7th of the 8 pieces.  His hackamore actually has 2 chapters, as both Fancy's and April's Hackamores had before him.  However, Fancy's and April's had their bosals split off,  while Rinker had his mecate split off.  In all honesty he should have had his bosal split off as well -- it was so long and complex, ultimately coming in at over 70 photographs and 3 Plates! -- but his mecate was even more long and complex.  You see, mecate-making isn't braiding at all, but miniature rope-making,...  Yes, Rinker's Hackamore has been quite a challenge for me.  When you count up that I've been working on it since the third week in February, you can see I'm actually speeding up.

At this point I can focus on what's left better than what's been done.  What's left is the last piece, Tissarn's Mechanical Hackamore;  also, there's the back cover, the front cover, the frontispiece, and a mass of what's euphemistically called "editing" and rewriting.  I'd call it bringing up to snuff.  As might be expected, the whole book has undergone considerable evolution over those 3 years.  An entire blog post, if not the book's introduction, might look into those changes.  Oh yes, and there's also digitizing and uploading!  but those are separate beasts.  

At the moment I'm drawing a sigh of relief and looking up from an all-absorbing but hard-fought grind, kind of like a bear emerging from a difficult hibernation.  Advertisement?  Sales?  How about a bosal for auction!?   Such a bosal you never did see:  Every millimeter of its making has been exhaustively documented and photographed, examined, described, drawn and preserved for posterity.  It's amazing how much psychic oomph is in that little thing.  Except that I'm keeping the original Rinker's bosal, of course;  this bosal is merely a copy.  That there will be untold copies in the future is something my mind thinks it knows while my heart cannot begin to comprehend such a thing.  At some point children must leave home and their parents know not their future.  

Rinker's headstall was comparitively easy to describe, given how much has already been covered in this not-done-yet book.  His bosal, however, was very new.  The first two bosals to be covered were 4 bight;  his was a 3, and that meant a lot of changes.  This was just the beginning!  Both sets of side buttons, upper and lower, were different from April's or Fancy's:  the upper were irregulars, which meant nearly a whole Plate just for themselves;  the lower sidebuttons were a new formula, again calling for a separate Plate.  Rinker's heel knot was also very new, being an 8P 5B instead of the more usual 7P 6B, which is easily raised from the Pineapple.  I had included this formula on an earlier Plate, then changed my mind;  then changed my mind again, and used it for his.  The changing-of-minds about various aspects of this project seemed to take larger swings and become more common as the book went on.  Even now I need to rewrite Fancy's chapter and take out complaints about enlargement of the nosebutton foundation:  What I was tempted to use for hers but fought against manfully (and windily excused myself for), I wound up using for his.

Interweaves are zigzags in braided buttons.  Well, this book has more than a few zigzags!

The book's methods of documenting tackmaking changed when it came to Rinker's bosal.  The 'ingredients,' as it were, and layout of the contents of each chapter, evolved.  In the beginning, there was no "list of ingredients" or materials for each piece;  there was much less coordination with what had gone before versus what was to come.  There was also a smaller list of what was to be included.  This is one place where the book has really shifted:  I am sorry to announce there will be, after all, no inclusion of edge-braiding, which I once promised.  Nor of braided medallions, nor of any kind of braiding on a Western saddle.  😞  The book must stick to its 8 pieces of headgear, and (aside from braided rings) they have no edge-braiding.  It's as much as I can do to squeeze in what's there-!!  The inclusion of all the asides, the galleries of pictures, and the Interlude -- which covers braided rings, hobbles, curb straps, braided connectors and other peoples' rawhide bridle parts -- is more than enough to make up for the lack.

The book has experienced misison creep on a larger-than-Trad scale.  I think you will not be disappointed with what it covers.  If you get through this, braided Western and even Peruvian will be quite within your grasp.  Every picture in this post will be in the book, ... (note the little numbers in some);  we're up to 300 as of this writing.  There's one more chapter to go.

 This is my Covid baby.  Yeah, yeah, way overdue and extremely late, like nearly all my tack projects;  like my FB reactions;  like my very life, it seems, sometimes.  Not Done Yet, even now!  But pause and celebrate one of its major milestones with me.  There's a light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train.

 

 

A New Needle Awl

 This is one of those posts that has only 4 pix.  I meant to take photos of the whole process, but in the manner of deeply personal non-tack items, I got carried away and forgot,... or just didn't interrupt!  Wood is the most likely material for this to happen with;  if it had been a vehicle, like a sleigh, the chances of documentation would have been no better!  And just think of the snowshoes,...  photos didn't happen there either, at least not during the construction.

We do have a lovely lay-out shot at the start of making an entire new Needle Awl.  Coping saw and dowel, hand drill, brass tubing, soldering gun and drill bits are all here.

The broken old one is central at top.  The black cone-shaped braided button has been slipped off, and just below its bare wood can be seen two needles, the old blade and the new.  This is the only way to discern that the new blade is actually a large-eye beading needle that broke off half its eye at some unknown earlier time.  

Honestly I have made most of my tackmaking tools from broken needles.  Call it supreme recycling.   I don't have the courage, or the knowledge! to break one on purpose.

The length of the old wooden handle was 5 inches, and its diameter started at 15/32", just under half an inch.  In any case I later filed the new one a lot thinner!!  The approach was to solder the new blade into 1  3/4" of my smallest diameter brass tubing.  Its diameter I measured as 9/64",  really close to 1/8".   This soldering was unfortunately quite difficult.  I failed on the first end (the half-eye broke off inside!) and had to try the other.  I'm not at all sure I got the needle far enough in.  In future, if my new Awl fails, it will be here, where the base of the blade only goes so far in:  about 1/4" I'm guessing.

 While the metal cools I'm drilling a hole down the length of the dowel, about 2 " long.  It turns out to have been a mistake to start tapering the tip so soon;  that made it harder to center the drill.  Drilling itself was also difficult, requiring starting with a small drill bit, about 3/32", progressing to a medium bit size (about 1/8") and finishing with the 5/32".  Even though this is larger than the brass tubing, the friction of the wood was tremendous -- well above my own strength -- and pushing my largest tube into the dowel before it was ready was a big mistake.   I struggled so hard getting it back out again,..

 Back to the blade.  Slip the smallest tube into the next size up, 7/64".  The fit is very tight;  no glue or soldering can happen between the tubes.  This size's length I cut slightly less, say about 1  1/2 ".  Next, slip that tube into 1  1/2" of my largest brass tube, 9/64", again a tight fit.   Each tube I cut slightly shorter so that I'd have a tapered telescoping to hold my needle.  I later soldered and filed this taper smoother with a metal file.  

It looks so much like nothing!  It especially looks like an assymmetrical fit in the above photo.  But this was before I filed the wood cone even.  At least we are not dealing with what we had before, that added-on cone.

 Fitting the soldered nest of brass and blade into the handle was a matter of finding a crack in my worktable I could push the needle all the way down into.  Then, with the needle safely out of the way and the weight resting against the tubes, I jammed the wood down as hard as I could, trying to force the brass into the hole.  Bit by bit I succeeded.  Of course the blade is a bit crooked [not centered exactly] -- that is a byproduct of my soldering -- but the old awl was that way too.  It is not a flaw that will affect its performance as a fid.

Lastly came the process of getting the braided buttons back onto the handle.  For some reason the longest button would NOT slide.  I filed and I filed and I filed [the dowel smaller], -- for two days I tried!!  --  to get that darn thing to move into place.  Yes, I wetted it, greased it, you name it!  It never really behaved, so I gave up and braided a new button into the space that was left.

So that is how the exact same length of handle and the same buttons didn't come out the same way.  Go figure.  The new button, I am proud to say, is a 9P 7B Fan, subtitled 1-3-3-1;  you can see each pass can be described by going over 1, under 3, over 3, under 1.  This beauty will be in my next book;  it is heavily used on Tissarn's reins as well as Peet's Romal Reins.  It's one of my favorites.  [Ed. note:  In the final finishing the lace covered up many passes and so it looks like 1-2-2-1.]

Also, this new needle was so sharp I had to blunt it a little.  It took some using to reveal that it needed a bit of shaping with a fine metal file.  It works fine now.

*****************************************************

IN OTHER NEWS:   Rinker's bosal is done.  After photography, I will be putting it up for auction on MHP at an announced time.  I'm thinking of asking $75.00 plus postage.

 

Ponderosa at 60

 

Sixty years ago today, or possibly 59 if subsequent research into Decorators is wrong, Ponderosa came into my hands.  He was a birthday present from my parents.  I was 5 years old.  There are mysteries here:  For most of my collecting life I was fairly certain that I had gotten Ponderosa for my 6th birthday.  Only in the last decade or so, reading other hobbyist's research, have I seriously wondered whether it could have been my 5th.  Nineteen-sixty-six is pretty late for Decorators to be in stores.  As a child, my sister and I had received a Decorator a good while before -- Gold Ear, the Florentine Fighting Stallion -- and while that argues for him to be for my 6th, it also could fit into the published statement that Breyer's Decorators came out in 1964, and, slow sellers as they were, some were left for 1965.

Whenever it happened, he certainly was for my birthday.  And in the absence of solid evidence, perhaps we can forgive him, and me, one year in sixty. 

His body bears the scars of those early years.  Any horse that survived my childhood, and the first years of my model hobby, is going to be heavily marked.  His leg is broken -- that happened on an elementary school playground.  He is in fact branded -- only a few horses suffered this indignity, but as leader, he got the H-dash (the H stood for "horse," my favorite word).  He carries the lessons that, perhaps, just perhaps, nail polish remover [acetone] was not the best medium for taking off black marks with. 

On the positive side, he's no longer matte, as the Wedgewoods were originally.  He's a fine example of what I call "hand shine," the semi-gloss appearance of a matte Breyer that has been handled so much, caressed and played with and hand-rubbed so much, that the surface takes on a beautiful sheen.

Sixty years is a long time, about the longest time any model horse has stayed with me.  Entering the realm of solid evidence, with the below 1972 photograph we can document that only four horses still remain with me from then:  Ponderosa, King, Tesoro the King's son, and Thomas the charcoal Fighter.   If these photos are familiar, it's because they were part of my Braymere Winter Photo Challenge entry in 2015.

Thomas appears in another blog post:  Tuning the piano

In this fantastic photo, we can see Ponderosa and twenty-five other models, my collection when I was twelve.  [Technically 11 years 10 months.]  Ponderosa is just to the left of the piano pedals, next to the elk.  One appy FAF away from him is his wife, Pine, the Alabsater FAS.  I admit, my grasp of the sex of models was squishy at that time;  but also, I ask you, how's a horse supposed to be married when Breyer provided so few mares?!   This Colorado child was pleased with the names' mild pun (Ponderosa Pine).  I must have decided against Blue Spruce because I did not like spruce trees (so prickly!) half so much as the noble pine, the largest tree in the environment and one which smelled like butterscotch.

 I can still rattle off their names.  Starting from the right with the donkey, we have:  Brighty, Charlie, Coppe, Cruella, Francis (the 5-Gaiter), Gueseppe, Joey (bay bucking bronco, down on all fours), Justin (the Morgan), Kiopo, Milwaukee, Misty (white Running Mare), Pawnee, Pine, Poison Ivy, Ponderosa, Ralph (the elk), Rebecca, Rontu, Rosy (the Smoke Belgian), Shag the Buffalo, Sheltie, Snowy, Sparkler (charcoal FAS), Spitnik, Thomas and Windy.  Obviously I could think of no other way formal enough to arrange them than the alphabet.

Coppe is short for Copper, who later changed his name to Tesoro Cobre Rey, Spanish for  Treasure Copper King.  Only his forelegs show in the photo.  Alas Pine is long gone.  How I'd love to find that glossy with the acetone-whitened mane, but the odds are terrible.  Poison Ivy was arguably my first horse, a fatneck with one broken leg replaced by a nail and others just broken, but his odds are even worse.  Fifteen others from this photo have had themselves replaced, down through time, as Breyers can.

Ponderosa, over the years, has become the most magical, mystical, spiritual member of the herd:  He is its shaman, its touchstone in time, its taproot and foundation stallion.  He is the oldest Decorator in my possession, the only one obtained at the time of their 1960s release.  No other Deco, no matter how acquired, can match that.  I can remember opening his box at my birthday and being annoyed he wasn't a Copenhagen or Florentine.  And yet, his beauty grew on me, and I never could let him go.  In time I realized what an incredible prize he was.  He belongs now in the class of family heirlooms, to be passed down to relatives or extremely close friends.  I've always thought his expression was smiling and calm:  He's a very knowing horse.

Today he spends his time under plastic sheeting, not very dignified to be sure, but safe from mold spores and dust.  [Ed. note:  Only matte finishes need this covering;  glossies are proof against this particular mold.]   He is always there, my oldest trace, and I have long since been forgiven for not liking him when he first appeared at that long-ago birthday party.

Thank you, Dad and Mom.

Palomino Insatiety

 

 This post was conceived when I saw the new Mustang mare Volo, in plastic, boasted about on the Stone Horses page.  I could barely restrain myself from blurting:  "I'd be a lot more congratulatory if I could have received the expensive Stone I paid for back in December -- !!!"  My birthday is three days away.  Horses listed in the sale right alongside the one I bought, such as Lincoln and Two N Renn, have already been shipped, landed and boasted about.   I thought for sure that April would provide enough time for her to arrive: four months plus.

Pirouline, Bugler

Pirouline, left, my only FCM Stone, obtained in 2007.  Bugler, an etch job by me [the mane and tail], Stone Tennessee Walking Horse, obtained in 2007.

 But then, being who I am, never far from an awareness of how long and how often I've made my own customers wait (ouch!), I started to ask myself questions.  Didn't I already have a palomino Trad Stone?  Could I perhaps perform a kind of sympathetic magic, bridling a Palomino with the intended show-off tack piece, photographing her and posting about it?  (Hasn't there been a pattern that when I complain, fulfillment follows all too quickly?!)  Swiftly the corollary followed:  Just how many Trad scale palominos did I already have, anyway?  I'd never counted them, never yet gathered them all together,...  unlike my infamous Palomino Stablemate collection, which was all in one place and numbered 62,...  😏 

Hartland Narcissus, BHR Niflheim, SM Gold Charm

Though I am vehement about not liking Gold Charms, a few had still sneaked in.  In back, a 9" Hartland ASB (acquired 1991); a Black Horse Ranch resin pony (acq. 1995); and the only Stablemate to make this post, also the only official Gold Charm I own, acquired a few years back.  (I don't name my Stablemates.)

Now I'm about the most embarrassed model horse collector, for I truly had no idea how many I already had.   I last counted my herd decades ago, finding about 400.  Today's survey indicated close to one-tenth of my entire collection was palominos;  and that there were a great many similar colors.  Palominos in every shade from orange to palest peanut butter were here, stallions, mares, geldings and foals, Perlinos, pintos, Copper Wedgewoods, Gold Charms, Silver Bays and the grand old Florentines, highest of the high.  I even turned up a dun.  I had Breyers, Stones, Hartlands, a BHR resin, a remake and a resincast.  They spanned my entire collecting life from 1979 to last year, full 46 years.  They would make one heck of a blog post.

Flicka, Caruso, Sun-Lemon

I would begin with the palominos from my childhood.  Flicka the Family Arab Mare started it all, acquired 1968.  She originally belonged to my sister.  Like every model horse Janet ever had which I wanted, she eventually wound up in my hands.  Trade, sale, gift or outright steal, history does not reveal.  Caruso the matching Fighting Stallion was aquired in 1980.  The foal, with the delightful childhood name Sunflower Sun-Lemon, was acquired in 1970.  You may think he's a rarity with his pink hooves, like his mother.  But those hooves are actaully nail-polish repainting by a determined artistic teenager.  Caruso's hooves are, I believe, genuine original finish.

Blaze Hartland QH, DH the 5-Gaiter, Corinna

We're still in the 1980s of my acquisitions here.  Blaze, a Hartland 11-inch Series Quarter Horse, was gotten in 1989.  Great color if I say so!  DH, which stands for Dacono Hornblower (can you tell I love naming horses...), the magnificent orange-palomino 5-Gaiter, was acquired in 1985.  He managed to break his off fore, but I love him anyway:  he is the definitive bright orange.  If it's relevant, I marched in the Tournament of Roses in 1977 and fell in love with silver saddles on palominos then,...   The palomino Running Mare, DH's wife, whom I named Corinna, was obtained in 1982.  For some reason she was not at the top of my list of favorites and today is stowed way back on a hidden shelf.

 The 1990s were years of Hartlands for me.  If we're going by year of acqisition, let's take a look at some side-along palominos,  the wonderful Copper Wedgewoods (or copper chestnuts) of that company.

Rex, Wakatanka, FireHawk

Rex, leftmost, is another 9" ASB, acquired 1985.  Wakantanka, Hartland 11" series ASB, I got at the first BreyerFest in 1990.  FireHawk is a 9" Arab, acq. 1996.  Both Wakantanka and FireHawk were partially repainted by me in an effort to restore their color.

In the 2000s, things changed a bit.  Stone released one of their most lovely colors, what they called Walnut Woodgrain.  I was fortunate enough to snag two of these poems, showing the Arab to a NAN gold cookie.

Maple Sugar, Solis

The Stone Pony, whom I named Maple Sugar, was acquired in 2008.  The Arab, named Solis, was one of only 10 (expensive in those days!), and I acquired her in 2002.  Can't complain much now eh --!!

I see I'm leaving out the Silver Bays.  Here's another sub-collection within the broader class of palomino-alikes in my herd.  Ever since Breyer came out with this color I've been in love with it.  The photos don't do them justice;  the Strapless is glossy and all have pearly manes and tails.

left to right:  Metallica, Taliessin, Mistral, Rapadura

 Uncalled For/Metallica, my first Silver Bay, on the Strapless mold, was acquired in 2005.  [Breyer name or names / my own personal name for the horse]  Next to her is my latest, on the Dundee mold, Romeo/Taliessin, acq. 2023.  Minstrel/Mistral, the Harley D/Latigo/Loping Quarter Horse, was obtained in 2019, the same year the beautiful Celeste/Rapadura came into my possession. 

A palomino halfway to Cremello and pearled occurred with Winter Wonderland/Zosina.  Here she is with a couple other miscellaneous palominos:

Solana, Zosina, Colavita

Solana, the Peruvian Paso special run, was obtained in 2005.  The beautiful Winter Wonderland/Zosina, one of Breyer's Christmas Holiday horses, was acquired in 2017.  I made the base myself; the name comes from a novel by Isak Dinesen (The Angelic Avengers).  On the right, my only palomino dun, the lovely Miss Independence/Colavita, named after (what else? a brand of spaghetti!), was acquired just last year, 2024.  She's headed for another etch job:  I've taken the grey out of her mane but have yet to attend to the tail.

Now that we're in the 2010s, and beyond, another equally impressive, palomino-like color appeared, and I fell for it just as hard.  This was Breyer's idea of a Perlino or Cremello.

back to front:  Albedo, Kiss Away, Shazadah, Marimba, unicorn foal

 Alert readers will spy Uffington/Albedo at once, in the back.  I got him in 2021.  Just in front of him is a very recent Cremello, Girls Rule the World/Kiss Away, acquired in 2024.  The Perlino Quelle Surprise/Shazadah, one of my favorites, was my first of this color,  obtained in 2017.  In front of him is a genuine resincast, painted by yours truly during National Model Painting Month of 2020, as a Perlino.  This is the mold Mufida, sculpted by Margarita Malova of Russia, named Marimba by me.

And the unicorn foal is that rarest of all models, one I can't find my registry card for--!!!!  Now isn't that just like a unicorn!  Don't think a card was made, I don't know his name, I don't know exactly when he was bought -!  What, no name?!  There was but I've forgotten.  I got him from Devon Frinzi online last year and that's about all I know.   However, I do know that Albedo is his father, and his mother is Eclipse.  Perhaps a celestial name,...

Ahem.  Back to palominos.  

Laird Crown Imperial, DH

Somewhat naturally, there is a palomino Hamilton in my herd, a glossy with minimal dappling, acquired in 2020.  Since I knew who Laird Hamilton was (the man, a famous surfer), I could not resist incorporating his name into this most lovely of all my palomino stallions.  Still, only one as brash and bold as this could carry off such a moniker.   Laird C.I. has appeared in a blog post about peanut butter palominos here.  Speaking of which, here are the culprits:

Valhombra, Caxambas

 You would think these two were brothers.  They were sculpted by the same artist, Sue Carlton Sifton.  Left is Carrick/Valhombra, obtained in 2013, and right is Chadwick/Caxambas, on the Emerson mold, obtained nine years later in 2022.  I truly loved the Emerson mold and now I have five of them.

I mentioned a remake back at the beginning.  How can I talk about palominos without saluting my most famous one, on the frontispiece of the Guide?

Alcatraz (officially, TS Aureo Alcatraz)

This is a custom remake by none other than Laura J. Rockmaker (today Laura Rock Smith), in the year 1985.  The color reference was a magazine clipping showing an Absorbine bottle -- I'm not making this up.  Laura pulled off an amazing triumph and I have loved him from that day to this.  He has glass eyes,

one of my few model horses to do so.

I also mentioned Florentines.  This photo shows two Vintages and one Modern decorator.  I have other Modern decos.

left to right:  Glory Morning, Lille, Goldenear

I like to think I rose to the occasion naming my 5-Gaiter.  She is the wife of the Fighting Stallion, whose name reflects the story of Gold Ear, the first Decorator in my life.  Someday I hope to post that fantastic story.  Gold Ear is no longer with us but I have these two, both acquired in 1979, the year my tack shop began offering to the public.  I was nineteen.  The Hackney, Giltedge, a comparitively recent acquisition compared to them -- 1997 -- is named Lille, pronounced Lilla.  I wanted to name her after Dr Lilly of dolphin fame, but I already had a couple of Lilys in the herd.

So here we are.  My greed -- desire for the new mare, below -- and my awareness of that greed -- you already have thirty-four Trad palominos and palomino-alikes! -- perfectly balance each other.

I will conclude where I began, with a bridle on a palomino Stone.   Almost by instinct, I turn to where I feel safest, a place that holds me steady even at BreyerFest, where greed runs rampant.  It is a place rich in tack.  This bridle was made by Emma Harrison of England, acquired circa 2016, right when she quit the hobby (and, as far as I can tell, quit this life).  Can you believe it:  everything was hand-braided from thread.  I am indeed fortunate to have some of her work.