Show Stoppers: What's in a Name?

Whooooooooooo, let's lighten the mood a bit after that last one, shall we?

This series is where I'll feature models from my show string. I could have gone a lot of directions with this first post, but thought names would be a fun place to start. I tend to be somewhat pedestrian (read: super nerdy) when naming my show models, but every once in awhile, a goofy one sneaks in. Here are those, in no particular order.

 

This is #90167 Ashquar, a 2013 Premier Club model. Most of the Premier Club models are first issued with obscure colors or loud patterns, so solid-color-horse-collector me was thrilled with this guy's breed-correct, deliciously shaded and dappled solid chestnut coat. I found him for the right price in room sales at the Clarion during BreyerFest 2023.

The following spring, I showed him for the first time at Rainbow Rave Live. I knew the judge had an appreciation for uniquely-named models, so I went outside my usual naming conventions and dubbed him Neck for Dayz. Because seriously - that neck. It drives me crazy. 

The judge laughed out loud when she pinned him, so it was worth it.

 

Uhhhh . . . curtains?

My friend Beth and I were staying overnight at the Hampton Inn in New Stanton prior to the 2024 Are You Kitten Me Live show. Beth brought a bunch of models that she needed names for, so we started looking around the room for inspiration. She dubbed hers Richter Scale after these curtains, which resembled a seismograph. I believe he NAN'd with that name.

 

 

In a similar vein, this gal, #711635 Chevalier, my volunteer model from BreyerFest 2023, got named Earthquake Curtains. She has also NAN'd with that name.

(I'm just waiting for the right model to name CHIN Carpet. If you know, you know.)

My luck with BreyerFest surprise models typically isn't all that great, but in 2013, I pulled the rarest of the four colors in the #711161 CC Shuffle Surprise set, this blue roan pinto. There are only 168 of her. She came out to play in collectibility for a couple shows. She looks stoned off her gourd and I show her as a Paint, so I picked a stock-horse-sounding name and dubbed her Sheza Lil Loopy.

 

This little gal is from one of two sets - #413550, a run of 408 models produced for Black Horse Ranch and other retailers for Signing Parties in 1988, or #403755, Foal's First Day, produced for Enchanted Doll House in 1988. It's virtually impossible to tell them apart unless a set comes with the metal pail decorated with Sam Savitt paintings; the pails were only produced with the Foal's First Day sets. I found my set in room sales during BreyerFest 2014, without the pail.

Despite being small, she has a name that barely fits on her show tag - Nutmeg Armageddon. Around a decade ago, a creative soul with a wonderful sense of humor made a website called the Horse Name Generator. With the click of a button, you could get all kinds of random names for your models. It sadly went defunct shortly after it was created, but man was it a good time. That's where Nutmeg Armageddon got her name. She is one of my most successful models in breed and has a nice stack of NAN cards.

I acquired this guy, from the #2007 Tyler & Hillary regular run set produced in 1997 only, from a seller on Model Horse Sales Pages in 2011. He's one of the early models that year; for the first three months in 1997, models were produced with bi-colored eyes (brown with a black pupil). The concept got a bit lost in translation, because instead of a horse's usual horizontal, oval-shaped pupils, all models got these distinctly creepy, reptilian pupils. Thus, this guy's show name is Lizard Eyes.

I also made a judge laugh with that one. 

 

For awhile, I actively congaed more than a dozen Stablemate-scale molds. The G3 Rearing Andalusian was one of them. This model is #712190 Ricochet from the inaugural 2016 Stablemates Club. I saw him and even though I conga the mold, my immediate reaction was, "Ew." I said it perfectly on a Facebook post: "If you could describe a model horse I would never desire to add to my herd, 'pink pearly' would be it."

 

And on that Facebook post, in this glorious exchange, my sister named him Fantasy Marble Pepto Pants.

If you'd like to play along, feel free to drop your favorite model show names in the comments.