Grand Champions Model Horse Club

Back in 2010, I was still relatively new to the online model horse scene. I was just setting up my s/d list and getting my horses into photo showing. But I learned very early on that GCs were not rated very high in the community. And yet I found little pockets of collectors strewn throughout the web of collectors, so I created a forum specifically for lovers of this retired brand.

It lasted a year before real life swamped many of the regulars, and first the photo showing and then the club died down to a bare trickle. New collectors came along, wrote a post, and then faded out when no reply came. Much of the hobby migrated to Facebook, and forums were used mostly as bases for photo showing clubs, as much of the main interactions including buying and selling took place on the popular site. It seemed like there was not much use for the old forum format anymore.

So it was to my surprise that a discussion, albeit small, had cropped up on -surprise, surprise- my old club! The posters were lamenting the ghost board, and wishing for more activity. I responded, gauging their interest, and then went back to the forum to scrounge around in the dust and see what I could dig up. Although many of the posts were old, the framework was solid. I knew in a couple hours of cleanup, the club could be as good as new. I set to work. The worst that could happen was it flopped again.

My first step was upgrading. Proboards offered a Version 5 format to their forums. I knew in order to get a fresh start, the forum needed a new look. I went ahead with the upgrade, and then fiddled with the color palettes for awhile before settling on an earthy set. As much as I wanted pink, I wanted something that felt homey more!

Here is the final result (although I think you now have to become a member to view it, if I did it right!)--

www.gcmhc.proboards.com

My favorite upgrade was the addition of the shoutbox, a feature that allows all the members to interact in a chat room, something none of the clubs I am a part of focuses on. Facebook can come close, but often people pop on to post and then pop off, only returning to respond to an inquiry on their post. I feel like if there was more real-time discussion and communication in the hobby, a lot of the cattiness would fade and people would become greater friends. Obviously it could never come close to hanging out in person, but for a group of strangers, it's a start.

V5 allowed me to send a mass email to all members, something I would normally never do, but in this case, I wanted to let everyone know that there was a club to come back to.

Now, the only thing to do it wait.

Crafty

I'm not normally a crafty person. Nor am I a very sporty person. Let's just say that unless it involves more than some complicated button mashing on a video game, I'm not a very coordinated person.

However, lately I've been feeling the heat and its making me all stuck-in-the-house moody similar to how the Wyoming winter made me feel. So I've managed to turn that into a 'let's make things!' mood.

First it was a spontaneous Stablemate halter....

The only chain I had available was a bit big, but not bad for a 15-minute halter at 7 am on a rainy morning ^.^

A few days later, I felt like trying out another blanket, after buying nice new black material for my base. The black fabric I'd been using before was much too thin for my liking. I added some rhinestones to spice it up. Looks great on my gray mare! Very Western Pleasure.

And then I made a big venture--an Arab Presentation set for Grand Champions! I knew I didn't have enough experience or skill to compete in a Breyer market, but I think Classics and GCs are much underdone, so I set about making one to keep, or sell if anyone showed interest. Thankfully, two people did!

I'm still working on adding all the beads to the breastcollar. We'll see if the buyers are interested in the collars or just the halters. Either way, looks like I hit a small field of interest!

Sorraia Mustangs

For only having said 200 head of horses, this "breed" was not too difficult to look up. Granted, the pedigrees are limited, although not as bad as you might expect. It was fairly easy to find early '90s horses with parents and grandparents' names listed. Much more than I could have hoped for!

I do find it sad that many of the "Mustangs" in the model world get lumped together under BLM or some such generalization, and called good. That's almost the equivalent of lumping the stock horses together and saying QHs, Paints, and Appaloosas are all one and the same because they share similar ancestry. (A valid argument could very well be made to that point, which I would not be disinclined to listen to, but the point being is that each respective owner of each of those breeds will hotly debate that their breed is tougher/better/smarter/patterned prettier than either of the others). MY point being that while we have models we can buy at relatively cheap prices compared to whole horse prices, why not put forth the effort and give them a bit more meaning and dig a little deeper into what makes them special? BLM Mustang or not, certain mustang types are absolutely gorgeous and do deserve a second glance.

Sorraias are one of those breeds. Almost entirely made up of grullos and bay duns, it is a dun lovers dream.

Althought this time, instead of leading you through my whole process, I'll just provide you with the links that I found helpful.

http://www.spanish-mustang.org/SorraiaMustang/SorraiaMustangStudbook.html

http://www.sorraiamustangs.net/mares.htm

http://sorraia.org/for-sale.html

http://www.sorraia.com/Sorraias/sorraias.html

And the links at the side of this blog: http://ravenseyrie.blogspot.com/

Other information I found helpful that I will highlight here--

Sorraia Mustangs are categorized into three divisions (aside from being purebred or not): Permanent, Foundation, or Tentative. Horses will be registered with a letter (P, F,or T) followed by their number based on what division they are in. Permanent means the horse fits every criteria the Sorraia mustang should display. Foundation means the horse is close, but lacks a minor detail such as too much white. Tentative means the horse has the basic characteristics yet a significant difference from the goal, but is expected to produce foals of Foundation type or better.

There is also evidence that foals are named by their parentage (fillies with the first letter of their dam's name, colts with the first letter of their sire's).

I now have bay dun and grullo parents available!

Until next time~~~

Italian Heavy Drafts, Revisited

I originally tried to research and pedigree my lone Italian Heavy Draft mare back in January, but it did not have a fruitful ending. I left my followers with a few links, to a farm website and a breed organization, as well as one "under maintenance".

SFC Vegas

For a brief recap-- Italian Heavy Drafts are more commonly known as Cavallo Agricolo Italiano Da Tiro Pesante Rapido, or TPR for short. They are bred for meat, and they are relatively rare as horse breeds go. Their most common color is chestnut, but they do come in bay and roan. I have not seen evidence of gray, nor of sabino. There *may* be rabicano.

I took up the challenge this past week, and I had much much more luck! For starters, I revisited the breed's main website-- http://www.anacaitpr.it/ . Unless you can read Italian (?), I would suggest using Google's translate, which can translate whole websites for you, into your preferred language.

On the front page, there are several links. SOGGETTI IN VENDITA means something along the lines of For Sale, and I found a lovely older mare to fit my purposes of filling a stallion pedigree to accompany my broodmare, so I would at least have a breeding pair. I still intended to find a roan, but that would come later. And so, I pedigreed SFC Richter as a full sibling to Remi (r).

SFC Richter

There are also other helpful links- Stalloni in F.A. loosely translates to currently available stallions, as I understood it, and there are three very attractive, albeit young, stallions to choose from. The other links lead to other possibly helpful pages for the more avid researcher, but those two led to the best picture/pedigree sources.

The biggest breakthrough came when I checked the website that had been under maintenance last time, caitpr.org. It was back up and running, and boy was it helpful! The most important link is at the very top- Archivio Fotografico CAITPR, Photo Archive. Here, they have pictures of current stallions and mares, as well as names of their sires/dams/damsires. Goldmine! I found not one, but a couple roans that I could choose from, and happily pedigreed my mare. I also crossed her with the lone bay stallion I could find to create a 2013 bay roan colt in my stable. He won't be able to breed for some time, but he will have a fuller pedigree and a hard to find color, once he does!

SFC Georgi

Other important information for us Pedigree Assigners--

The horses are roughly named with a certain letter per year. I copied out the "formula" below:

A- 2007

B-2008

C- 2009

D- 1990/2010

E- 1991

F- 1992

G- 1993

I- 1994

L- 1995

M- 1996

N- 1997

O- 1998

P- 1999

Q- 2000

R- 2001

S- 2002

T- 2003

U-2004

V-2005

Z-2006

From D on, each successive letter is for years after 2010, so E=2011, F-2012, etc. Another way to remember it is that they are 20 years apart (20 letters of the alphabet used), so D=1990/2010, E='91/ '11, etc. This helps when you want to backtrack into the '70s and '80s. Using this, you can gauge what year a sire/dam was born based on the first letter of the name, as well as what years they had foals.

Other helpful vocabulary to know, as far as I could deduce:

Stallioni- stallion

Fattrici- mare

Puledro- Colt

Puledra- Filly

Ubero- roan

Baio- bay

Sauro- chestnut

Please leave your comments below, especially if this article helped you, or if you have any questions for me. Thanks!

Burnout?

Those people that know me know that I am a pretty positive person. Even when I'm making a serious comment, very often it's with a smile or in a joking, lighthearted manner. I really only get angry when people directly attack me or my friends. And it's VERY hard to offend me with obscenity or crude humor. With all that in mind, I find it hard to address the feelings I've been having lately. I don't want to call it hobby burnout, because I don't feel like I've done anything to feel overwhelmed. I don't live show. I hardly have many pedigrees to put out. I have a healthy enough financial situation that new models can keep coming in, and still do. But once they get here............eh. Nothing. I take their pics, maybe match them to an ID, and then they go on the shelf. No playtime, hardly any photo time, and no sense of enjoyment. (Beyond the initial thrill of spending money and having a brand new box in my hands). Am I a habitual hobbier? Do I do it by habit now? Ugh, to even think these thoughts!

I think, if I have to Freud myself, that some of it has to do with my upcoming birthday. I'll be turning 25. Quarter centennial. Now, most of the ladies in the hobby are older than that and will scoff and laugh, but for me looking ahead--a good third of my life is probably gone. I'm still not married. Still don't have kids. Haven't traveled to Europe. Or owned my own horse. Heck, haven't even really learned to ride, yet! I'm having a quarter-life crisis.

Weirdly, my free time has shifted from horses and video games to reading and flipping through cookbooks, daydreaming about babies and the moment I'd find out I'm pregnant, and thinking about making scrapbooks. Is that nesting? I don't know. Someone tell me, please! Haha.

Or. Or am I just bored and it's totally temporary and it'll pass soon enough? I sure hope so!!!

Stunner

Wow! I MUST get a black custom in this mold-

There is just so

much

action!

My dealer got in a new shipment, and I've been waiting since the Scottsdale Arabian Horse show to pick up one of these! Thankfully some arrived this time, and there were two when I stopped by.

Looks like I have another Gypsy Vanner stallion in my stable. As much as other Pedigree Assigners hate the lack of info and "true" breeding of Vanners, as well as the stigma that came with the whole copyright issue---do I own one of the larger herds of them?


Either way, love this mold!

Craftiness

I was bored enough yesterday I felt like trying to be crafty.

I've been working on this one for a day or two, and finally finished her late yesterday afternoon-

She's my first chestnut, and only my third or fourth attempt at pastels. I am extremely happy with the way her shading came out, as she's a relatively boring liver chestnut :P

She does have some rough spots, considering I'm a klutz and can't keep myself from knocking them over while they're drying. And even then, specks of dirt or other stuff magically appears on them even if I've been extra careful! Luckily, she shows in a photo well, even if she will never see the inside of a live show ring.

I did her 100% for myself anyway, to fill a BSO I knew would take awhile to fill by waiting for an appropriate Breyer body. And what better excuse for practicing pasteling? And I absolutely love this mold. There doesn't ever seem to be enough good mare molds, and when the one I like happens to be on a cheap SM body, I gotta take advantage of it!