Russian Dons

Also known as just Dons, Donskaya,  Russian Horse, and русская верховая . That last one will be helpful for you if you want to find Russian websites (make sure your search engine filters allow for websites of other languages to pop up). Trust me, when you're researching 'rare' or otherwise hard to find breeds in the States, your best bet will be finding breeder websites or, better yet, breeding associations and pedigree databases, from the horse's original country.

Originally, I tried Don and Russian Don, and nothing helpful was coming up. You don't realize how annoying Pinterest is until it's the only thing that comes up in response to your searches, with pictures of all these beautiful horses of the breed you need, but no links to where they originally came from.

It wasn't until I tried Donskaya that I found it. http://millionhorse.com/russian_donskaya-horses-for-sale-breed.html

Only two, and not much information on the pedigrees. However, under Idriya's, I found a very short pedigree, only her sire and dam listed, in original Russian language, thankfully. I copied Дурман and put it into Google as 'Дурман horse'.

The VERY first link was this: http://www.rw-base.ru/horse.php?id=632 . A pedigree database! Am I good, or what? ;)

Now, here's what you need to know. If you're not using Google Chrome, I HIGHLY suggest it. Whenever it senses a language not in English, it creates a notice at the top asking if I'd like to translate. Sometimes I say yes, other times I don't, as I'm looking for key words in Russian. If at any time you want to translate the page, all you have to do is right click-- an option for Translate to English appears.

Once I translated, a whole bunch of information popped up. 'Datura' as he's translated in English, is an odd one, as bay is typically represented by a different word that translates as bay, not Kari. Also, with Chrome, if you hover over a word, the original translation appears. You can use this to copy characters that aren't on your typical keyboard, such as one of their names into the search bar. This site provides little camera icons whenever a horse has a photo. If you click just the icon, the photo will appear without taking you to the horse's page. This is handy if you're just trying to find a specific color. At the very bottom, you can Show List and an expanded list of offspring shows up. Handy!

Just so you know, gray and chestnut do not appear very often in the breed. I spent a lot of extra time tracking down chestnuts, and I think I found one gray in all that time, too. If you're interested, chestnut is рыж 'red haired' or рыжая 'red'. (Don't search this in google with your safe search off, just fyi!).

However, try searching рыжая жеребец русская верховая . I found a lot of black horses in the images, but also several chestnuts, which led me to some breeder websites, however those take a lot more time than scanning through pedigree databases. BUT, if you're clever like me, you find  this - http://kskatlantis.ru/publ/razvedenie_loshadej/nashi_zherebcy/tiam/12-1-0-11 . And that 'pedigree' link on his page takes you here: http://base.ruhorses.ru/horses/pedigree.php?code_horse=969833 .

That site is quite a bit harder to use; I couldn't figure out how to let it narrow down to only the Don horses. What I ended up doing was copying names of the horses I was interested in into rw-bases' seach page.

Oh, another note, if you hit the About the Project button on hte rw-bases' page, at the bottom, it will tell you all the acronyms the site uses for the different breeds. The Russian Horse had a lot of outside influences, so don't be surprised to find Arabian, Thoroughbred, Trakehner, or Akhal-Teke horses back in some of the pedigrees.

Colors:

Black- вороная

Bay- гнедая

Chestnut- рыжая

Good hunting!

Kid Kore

That's right, the brand everyone laughs at and has no problem scoffing and turning their nose up at. They are as horse shape object as you can get, much uglier than the Grand Champions line and even more conformationally-challenged.

(Maybe he'd make a decent mule!)

I recently came into ownership of quite a few of them. They were free, and I liked the paint jobs on a few of them, so I took them. I figured I could track down names or breeds or year made on a website once I got them in front of me and could identify them easier.

However, when I started my search....nothing. I had to dig quite a bit to find any helpful info, as much of the links were for eBay. On a trademark site, I found Kid Kore came into existence around 1998, which makes sense considering a lot of the brands on the inner legs say 1999. I know from the Grand Champions that the year doesn't necessarily mean that's when that specific model was released.

However, two websites that did have some information include:

• http://modelhorsegallery.info/K/K-companies/MHCs_KidkoreIntl.html

• http://neverlandstables.weebly.com/stable-champions-toys.html

They both indicate that Kid Kore released their horses under secondary brand names, such as SRC "Shenandoah Riding Club", which came out first, and then Stable Champions. The latter may have been an attempt to be a direct competition against the Grand Champions, but who knows.

I do find the Arabian quite fetching, and I think he would have been a good mate for the GC Arabian mare if GC had ever made an attempt at a good Arabian stallion.

They do have a handsome head, I think, especially if given a little GC touch-up.

(All he needs is a black pupil in that eye, and he'll be good to go!)

It also appears that the Stable Champions line had slightly better molds than the original SRC did, like the Arabian and the cantering one above, but that's just a guess. However, if that's true, it implies the original paint colors were crossed over between the two, maybe to finish off a family or two?

SRC Appy foal

SRC Appy mare

The mare and foal above were released in a set prior to the release of the Appy Stable Champion stallion, second photo. Perhaps it was another marketing move meant to compete with Grand Champions' release of family units, but it's hard to tell without knowing the years of release, or maybe even where they were placed on shelves. I can tell you when I was little, I don't remember seeing them, as I had eyes only for the GCs!
However, I continue to see Stable Champion remakes on the shelves to this day, so somehow, they managed to outlive the GC line. If I understand what I read correctly, though, Kid Kore went under around 2008? Maybe they sold off their horses to another company that continues to make them. Why GCs couldn't have had the same restoration, I don't know.

Too bad there is no identification website for them, but I'm not going to be the one to do it!