The story of Remi 3 has roots that go back to Sassy (Tawny), my Stone Holiday pre-order of 2024; yet it extends on into the future for several months, possibly all the way to 2027. His saga is really about my explorations of DAH, Stone's Design-A-Horse, and my attempts to twist joss or manipulate my fate. It could be titled "Finding the edges of a dream." I have been thinking about him for a long time. If I risk diminishing the intensity of that dream by exposing it to the light of day, there might be something to gain from sharing and preserving.
To start, here's Sassy. She was ordered December 27, 2024, as a Holiday pre-order. These pre-orders are similar to DAHs in that they're supposed to take several months to fill.
She arrived June 5, 2025, taking five months and one week. By then I had discovered my capacity to obsess was far greater than I'd realized. No horse could measure up to my expectations! My patience, famous in other places, had unfortunately not been able to handle the wait. "There was crying." Even more unfortunately, try though I might not to, I largely chose to cling to the more negative aspects of the experience. I decided to revoke her individual name, Tawny, and keep her factory name. Keeping the factory name is usually (though not always) indicative of second-class citizenship in my herd. I thought she was too dark. Of metallicism, which I valued very much, she had not a trace. There were other problems. In a fit of pique which lasted a year and a half, I promised myself I'd never order a DAH, "not until my heart heals."
Oh if only Stone had told me how long the wait would be! It turned out they did. I didn't see it until May. But they'd estimated March. If only their What's Happening page was updated more often than every 6 weeks or so!! These were the two points my 5 months had boiled down to.
In the year and a month after Sassy arrived and up to BFest this year (2026), I purchased no less than 5 Stones. During the course of 2025 I fell in love with the Irish Draft. One's heart does have, after all, remarkable healing powers! In December of that year I played with DAH seriously enough to nearly order one. Barely 3 weeks after that, I snagged a near-solid bay Irish Draft on the secondary market, promising myself I'd etch him into a tobiano. As of this writing he has the socks.
I mention him to show that Remi 3 didn't come out of nowhere. The similarity of his proposed coloring to this Irish Draft, whom I named Cookie Dough Fever (thank you Harshbarger's Restaurant for this name!), is noteworthy. Here was a clue, which I didn't see until much later, that my heart leaned in the direction of a bay.
Advance to BreyerFest 2026. The next stage was my ISO poster. I have written elsewhere how I was astonished at its power. Its results took me by surprise and furnished one of the great stories of this year's BFest. The Loot Shoot Only with the arrival of Rumherne Charlie (his current name), with deep reflection and the passage of time, have I seen its faults. Here's the poster:
And here's the chestnut Charlie:
How oh how could I want more than this splendid horse??!? Indeed and truly he is a grail! I am so happy with him -- I'm keeping him -- he is a once-in-a-lifetime prize, a OOAK and a fabulous find. He and his brother, my blue Magia Pesca (Stone's Other Fish in the Sea), could demonstrate that, like my Half-Arab Mares, two should be enough. In many cases of the Stone molds that I love, two is enough -- or even just one, --- like Cookie and many others.
But. I have 3 ASBs. But. I have 4 Arab Foals. But. I have 9 Weanlings and 17 ISHs -- but ahem -- we're talking about post-Erin Stones, those aren't them, back off you nit!! Okay, okay, I've got 2 Remingtons when most people have none, so why aren't they enough, pray tell?
 |
| Maggie Bennett, sculptress of Remington, holding my Pesca |
Didn't I say there would be consequences? Obsession is so powerful,... and so is the sheer pleasure of being able to play with the DAH designer. Dragging back to the question of the faults of my ISO poster, what was the conclusion? It helped shape my vision. It shocked me with its strength! But its real job was to refine: to make me realize how unfinished and incomplete my wish was. It wasn't refined enough. After the arrival of Charlie I slowly realized that, however deeply privately and unmentionably, I still really wanted a bay. Indeed, the first color mentioned was bay.
I might also reflect on the growing power of the conga as the hobby itself grows. This way of looking at a model horse, showing many possible colors all at once, pushes one to choose more precisely which are their favorites, and exactly which ones might provide a suitable spectrum for one's individual collecting goals. Seeing a conga can be a quite a shock. It's a reality check.
All during the week of this year's BreyerFest, July 7 - 12, I was obsessively hunting just one horse. I ultimately found 6 bay Remingtons. Some I took pictures of. Here's the first:
 |
| Stone name Edward Scissorhands |
In case you're wondering, yes that is the angle I saw him at. I'm leaving these pix just as they were, not cropped or processed, to give the atmosphere of real hall-crawling and room-hunting. "Too brown."
"Long mane." I wanted the short.
"Too pinto." Quite a horse though! This is evidence of an obsession: to ignore the thousands on every side, and focus on just one face.
I can rattle them off still: Too brown, long mane, too pink, too much white (a pinto), the wrong sex (Mustang Sally was a mare), too flat of color shading (Ruby). [Actually Ruby was found online shortly after BFest.] In hindsight it's a wonder I found so many. This really was obsession, on a ferocious scale: That very first horse, Scissorhands, is arguably dang close to what I said I wanted. He's glossy, beautifully shaded, his socks are close to Remi 3's, and you'd have to know I wasn't taken by his dappples, an unspoken shallow personal preference, to understand my refusal. Remi 3 was not designed during the week of my hunting. But I see now how all that focus was working towards him. Sassy's influence is here: The most amazing, alarming and long-lasting phenomenon of the whole saga is my own capacity to obsess.
It was during the 4 days of suspense between Charlie's discovery and his purchase that I turned to DAH. When I thought I'd lost him (how sensitive I was after BFest week!) it made me cry, broke my heart again and pushed me to seriously consider going where I'd said I wouldn't. My dear husband reminded me about busy people and the seller returned with pix. But the seed had been planted.
An enabling factor was the knowledge that not every mold is offered every month. Nor were my BFest funds unlimited. Finding the short mane version still available in July, I took the plunge towards the end of that month. This was, I kid you not, the 9th Stone I'd purchased since Sassy (and the 11th since Erin took the reins). It would be followed in just seven days by another, a white unicorn foal, hah!
And the saga continued.
With Remi 3's order went a most-carefully-composed letter. Here is most of it:
"Thank you for making this opportunity available to us. For this bay Remington: If it is at all possible, and/or if additional money would help, I would like to request one blue eye (offside) and one brown. If it is at all possible, and/or if additional money would help, I would like to request a layer of golden metallicism on this bay.
If it is at all possible, and/or if additional money would help,
Given the great success of the Bay 12 Ways Collection, and the examples it gives of your wonderful painters :),
Is it possible for an individual customer to ask for a particular painter for a DAH? I would like to request either Dawn Quick or Julie Keim, because to my eyes they are the best metallicism painters.
I would add that Alex Forman, Jess Hamill and Madi Wiseman would also be very welcome (based on Bay 12 Ways); and that Ellen Robbins would be too, based on my collection of Remington pictures. “They’re all good"
..... .....
Note mine is not a favoritism request, but a search for metallicism."
Here are some of the Bay-12-Ways Harmonies that were inspiring me (photos from Stone):
 |
| Painted by Dawn Quick |
 |
| Painted by Alex Fortman |
 |
| Painted by Madi Wiseman |
And here is the answer I received:
"Our DAH models are only done with options offered, and they are painted by all our artists. Due to the number of DAH orders, it would take longer to do if we would allow extras."
Stymied.
Didn't I say "finding the edges of a dream"--?! I was smack up against the realities of the program: It could only stretch so far. There was a limit to joss-twisting. Never mind this was when there was evidence the time frame of a DAH was expanding to 6 or 8 months (9 is not unknown). Never mind that, in cold hindsight, I clearly was asking too much. Despite my denials, I was indeed asking for a lot of favoritism; and that should not be allowed. Yes, I was bribing them! It is right and good to refuse bribing. Yet it hurt that this rebuttal fell on the exact same day Erin was happily posting on FB about researching new metallic paints!...
There was a boundary I could not yet cross. Acknowledge and accept the conditions. The personality of my yet-unborn horse would thus be tempered; just possibly, he would be the better for it. Maybe others in the future would benefit from what surely could be a rising tide of demand for metallicism.
On to the saga's next chapter...
If I could not get the exact horse I dreampt of through these channels, I would create him myself, as best I could. Not for nothing had NaMoPaiMo showed me the way. Slow but sure, ideas had been born, blossomed, tested and proven. Time would reveal their archival fitness; for now, it was enough that they existed. Ever since Pesca had arrived I had mulled over plans to add to him.
 |
| Pesca/Other Fish in the Sea, with clear face |
On Sept 10 I finally sat down with the PearlEx and the Triple Thick glaze, and started to bring my vision to life. It took 3 days.
To my amazement, it worked.
These photos don't show everything (the blaze is still clear) but they illustrate my vision. I dare to think it's in the fashion and style of Stone.
My ability to metallicize a horse, then, is not zero.
Many thanks to M.C. who sold me this horse and encouraged me in his experiments; and to others, at the Tioga County show, who thought he was beautiful.
Bonus Shot: This was originally slated for the Five White Foals post, but I came to think it would be better here. It shows Pesca's color in an indoor setting, so the clearware and gold effects are a little more visible. I know gold hooves are not the same as gold muscle layers, but we're celebrating the steps of creativity here.
And you get to see Floriana with her dad. :)
****************************
So what's next? Over the time between this post's writing and its publishing, I've been dabbling in designing hackamores. I would so like to make at least one sales bosal, if not an entire hackamore, before returning to the great silver Parade saddles. Hopefully there will be time this fall to work on both.
No comments:
Post a Comment