BreyerFest Tales, Part I

 

 My original title was BF 'Secrets,' but this seemed too dramatic.  'Confessions' wasn't right either, as these were actually small personal triumphs.  'Tales' wins, not only for the mild pun ('tails') but because some of these stories dance on the border of the controversial.  What other title indicates both interesting and instructive?!  I just remembered the definition of Folklore from my college days:  Knowledge passed on in non-traditional ways.  Oh yeah that's it --!!

There's two tales here:  How I avoided long lines, and how I obtained my Long-mane Future-is-Bright horse.  A third story, the Alabaster Running Mare, split itself off to become Part II.   At bottom, of course, is a news paragraph.

My family has a history of evading standing in long lines.  (It's almost funny what lengths my husband will go to to avoid a traffic jam.)  Here's BreyerFest in 2018, a year that saw extraordinary lines.

This year, 2025, when I arrived in the large parking lot Friday morning (after having been directed to park over at the AllTech Arena and fortuitously catching a bus), I saw a line that extended so far even I could hardly believe it.  Me, a veteran of 30 BreyerFests!  It went all the way past the Saddlebred Museum, almost to the Hanoverian Society headquarters.  I instantly decided there was no way I was standing in that line.  I collared 3 friends and took them around the detour I've used for the past decade or so.  As usual, the gate guard barely noticed us. These next 3 pix are from a 2022 blog post, People & Places, showing views along that detour.

Near the Hanoverian Society building, north side of KHP main parking lot

Hanoverian Society door

Rolex Arena pond dam road, aka Rolex Lane (viewed from the north)

 Here's the controversy:  Walking in by Rolex Lane, while perfectly legal, does require you to ignore the large Do Not Enter signs.  Remember those are for cars, not people!  Taking this way also, in a larger sense, evades Breyer being able to count you as entering at the traditional main gate.  I acquit myself here by buying my ticket the same as everyone else, and by presenting my ticket to get my Special Run models.  Of course the distance is longer, much longer:  See the rightmost light blue path below.  My optional detour is not for those who are mobility-impaired.  But one of my friends exclaimed she'd never been in that area before!  I replied, "The food's here and so are the bathrooms!"

 I've done this for years, and what guards there were have never done anything worse than wave and grin.

The second story is also sparked by something I really resist doing, and that is buying a horse sight unseen.  As earlier mentioned, Breyer's habit of throwing in variations has caused me no few white hairs.  I am willing to stand in line for Special Runs.  But the accepted wisdom is that if you don't mind waiting a day, you can get your SRs on Saturday or Sunday and deal with a much shorter line.  This has always worked for me.  But this year it worked in a rather spectacular fashion.

Good Times Roll roached/braided variation, Nina Bonnie 'Outdoor Stock Market'

To begin with, there's usually some kind of a line all Saturday morning at the Special Run tent.  But this year, at about 10:30, there wasn't any line.  Surprise.  Another advantage of waiting til Saturday is you know the variations!  My 2 choices this year were for Good Times Great Friends, which fortunately had no variations!  and for Future is Bright.  I had wanted the long mane version of this little palomino stallion, and I resented the possiblity of having to settle for a roach mane.  My answer to this unfortunate dilemma was to go where I had not gone before, and do what so many others have done with the blind bags:  I indulged in a lot of feeling up.

By luck I drew a very kind clerk, who knew what I was up to.  Moreover, she encouraged me!  I stood there unhurriedly and tried everything I could think of, including extrasensory perception and mystical psyching-out!  After handling about 6 or 7 bags, I began to conclude they were all loaded with the tail first, meaning the head was at the folded end of the outer bag.  That oriented me.  I could feel the lumps of the head and tail wrappings, and the lesser bumps of hooves and rump.  What I could detect more and more clearly was the presence or absence of a great lump about a third down on the right side of the bag.

I had two bags with lumps there and the rest without.  I settled on the first one I'd found.  The clerk actually asked me to come back after opening, when I knew, and tell her.  I am pleased to report I did just that!  I had won -- my guess was correct.  "I got the one I wanted."

Tangent to the subject of sight-unseen horses, I know I promised more posts on Sassy, my palomino Stone Half-Arab mare.  Alas, she'll have to wait; too much else is going on!  A summation of her case might be this sentence:  I found out how long I can bear to wait for a modern factory custom -- and it wasn't long enough.  

On the subject of promised posts, the TSII #12 one is also going to have to wait.  Far more interesting, indeed compelling, things are going on--!!  We're in the homestretch of my next book!!  I know I promised "August."  Well, it will be a miracle all over again if we can make it by the end of this month, though I want to say it's looking good.  A new wrinkle is in the making:  my family trip to Tucson during the month of October.  From the 1st of that month to the 23rd, any orders placed will have to be allowed extra time to fulfill.  They depend on hotel wi-fi quality (variable!) and on our own strength and organization (equally variable!).  So unless I can get this monster 3+-year project wound up reasonably close to the end of August -- September be saved for selling -- publication may have to wait until November.

November 6 is the birthday of its elder sibling, my book Guide to Making Model Horse Tack.  Born in 1998, it will be 27.

I don't know where the time goes;  but a LOT of tack got made in those years,....  and I can't wait to make more!