Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 7

Ah, the magic and wonderfulness that is the BreyerFest Children & Youth Show.

 

I waxed poetic about it on Facebook in 2020 when we didn't have an in-person BreyerFest, and I really can't say it any better now, so some of what I've written below comes from that post.

 

I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to be the Results Guru for the BreyerFest Children & Youth Show since 2016, and let me tell you. I love everything about this show. It is one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.  

Every year on Saturday morning, we volunteers get up before dawn and trek over to the Alltech Arena at KHP. It’s the only time I make my favorite drive between the CHIN and KHP in the semi-dark; the sun is beginning to come up, but it’s not there yet. Once I arrive, my job is pretty easy to set up – plug in laptop, turn on, queue up the spreadsheet, run some last minute tests to make sure it’s working the way I need it to, and done. I then go help with the setup wherever I’m needed. This year, I taped the section champ/reserve sheets to the callback tables. 

 

Once the doors open, I'm at a table, waiting to grab any last-minute entrants and get them a shower number for their tags. There are almost always some kiddos and guardians who don't realize they have to sign up for the show in advance, but there's always plenty of space and they are never turned away. The whole point of the show is to have fun and learn, and the kids took all that time to plan their show strings and do their research, so no one wants to send them home on a technicality. So they go see a show manager to get the Code of Conduct signed and pay their entry fee, then come to me to get a shower number, and they're on their way.

 

This year, we didn't have any last-minute entrants, so I got to wander around talking to the kids about their models, admiring some of the "custom by entrant" models that the kids had made, and handing out little lucky charm tokens that another thoughtful volunteer brought along. 

The kids are so great to watch throughout the day. They're learning, they’re gabbing together, they're jumping up and down with excitement over any color ribbon, they're living in the moment as only kids truly can and having a great time. Section callbacks used to happen as the show went along, but now they're saved for the end so we can all watch and clap for the kiddos. They're just like the adults when they win a prize model - lots of shrieking and flailing.

In addition to having fun watching the kids, I get to nerd out with my awesome Excel spreadsheet all day. Most shows only place to 6th and record only 1sts and 2nds, but the Children & Youth show places every class to 10th plus two Honorable Mentions, and every ribbon is recorded! That means there are over a thousand individual placings between the Children’s show and the Youth show, not to mention some extra Honorable Mention ribbons that the judges can hand out at their discretion if they encounter a really competitive class. That’s over a thousand entrant numbers, entrant names, and horse names to put in, plus the section and overall champs/reserve. It's a ton of data. But it’s Excel, and I love it. I’ve programmed my spreadsheet over the years to work for me, and barring any stupidity my part (like deleting rows and subsequently blowing up my VLOOKUPs), I’m generally able to get everything entered by the time we’re all packed up.

 

I've gotten my spreadsheet so honed over the years that I actually have time to leave the podium once in awhile to check out the classes. The Scene classes are some of my favorites. This year, one of the kids had a model horse running a bakery, overwhelmed by orders and covered in flour (literally), with kitchen utensils strewn everywhere, and the write-up mentioned a three-tier cake in the oven (which was lit up!) that had been forgotten about in the chaos and was "burnt to a crisp." I laughed out loud when I read it. Another great scene this year was model horses having a "Model Human Show." There were little people figures on one table (complete with documentation!), human performance classes on another table (one was kayaking), boxes of prize models (also humans), and ribbons. These kids are so danged clever and I love seeing what they come up with every year.

 

Another favorite of mine is the "My Favorite Model" class. The judge always jokes that it's the only time she ever cries when judging a class, and I'm right there with her. Every year, at least one entry write-up has my eyes stinging. This year it was a kid talking about their anxiety and how their model's ears were missing paint because they rub the model's ears to soothe their anxiety. As a person who has been plagued with anxiety since childhood and a former therapist who has worked with a lot of anxious kids on coping skills, that one hit me right in the feels.

 

There are fun stories in the "My Favorite Model" class, too; one memorable one that tends to get mentioned every year was the kid who put a model on the table and just wrote, "I love this horse because it's black, like my sister's soul." 

Because I’m the results person, I also get to see all of the awesome, creative, hilarious names these kids give their models. Every single year there are names that make me say “Oh that’s awesome!” or laugh out loud. Food-related names like Cheese Puff, Sweet Potato, Fish Stick, and Holy Fruit Salad. Straight up funny names like Achoo, Big Fat Honkin Brownie, I’m Especially Teed, Lil Ugly Fella, Mooey Booey (it was a cow), and The Floor Is Lava. My top ones from this year were For Cryin' Out Loud, Elvis Prance-ley, I Did Something Bad, and Sidewalks Saved My Life.

 

My personal all-time favorite name (which I doubt will ever be topped) was a Prince of Chintz model (the blue Esprit with the flowers on it) with the most appropriate name I've ever seen: Grandma's Wallpaper.

 

 

The volunteer model this year was #B-EV-10781 Vegvisir. Georg is a hugely popular sculpt, so there was a collective hobby head explosion when he was revealed as this year's volunteer model back in March at BreyerWest. Two colors were issued there, the sooty buckskin like this guy, and a palomino. The third color was, as I predicted, an even lighter cream, and as I predicted, that's what I received. Another volunteer didn't want the buckskin (especially with his factory flaw, which I'll get to in a minute) and was willing to trade her buckskin, which is the color I liked best, for my light guy.

 

His factory flaw is ... he has no eyes.

 

 

He's supposed to have painted tri-eyes, but most if not all of the ones given out at the Children & Youth show only made it as far as the dark airbrushed shading around the eyes. We had seven or eight of them all lined up on the table and none had painted eyes. The shading is dark enough that it's not all that creepy of a look on him, especially on the left side; it almost looks normal. Breyer immediately offered to take them back to the factory and have the eyes painted, but I didn't want to bother. I'm never going to sell him; I never sell any of my volunteer models. He can just be his cute little weird self on my shelves for the rest of his life. His barn name is Manfred Mann.

 

That's it for my BreyerFest 2026 adventures and acquisitions! I don't have August planned out yet (which is kind of scary, since August starts on Saturday) but I'm planning to get back to my regular monthly schedule. Thanks for tuning in.

Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 6

I'm going to tell the story of my raffle win this past BreyerFest, and I can't do that without talking about my first raffle win, so the other guy will get his turn in the spotlight today, too. 

 

The setting: It's Saturday, July 11, day 6 of what has already been an absolutely amazing BreyerFest week. I've spent time with so many friends, checked Kentucky Derby winners Mage and Mystik Dan off my "must see" list (I'm now up to 20!), got a glimpse of Silver Charm, won a glossy prize model at my first BreyerFest Live Show, picked up my special runs, made a wonderful trade to get a matte Oseberg, volunteered at the kids' show, and purchased a whole bunch of models that make me happy. It's now time for the Saturday raffle.

 

I always spend $50 on the raffles. I've done an even split of $25 per day every year except for 2017, when I liked one model (Rangoli) significantly more than the other (Rana) and did $40 for one day and $10 for the other. Tickets used to be $1 each or 6 for $5, so $25 got me 30 tickets. They're now $2 each or 8 for $10, so $25 gets me 20 tickets. Despite the increase of cost per ticket and getting fewer tickets for my allotted money, I've never felt the need to spend more. I'd rather turn my BreyerFest model cash into something guaranteed at the CHIN.

 

It's always been my custom to drop my tickets in the bin on Saturday after the kids' show. The kids' show ran a little longer than usual this year, though - no one's fault, it just happens sometimes - and me and my fellow kids' show volunteers were worried about being able to get our tickets turned in before the cutoff time. A friend of a friend came to our rescue, trekked up to the Alltech to grab our tickets, took them to the Covered Arena, and got them into the bin for us. I'm glad she did - we would have made it in time, but barely, and none of us needed the stress.

 

For years now, we've stood down at the far corner of the Covered Arena to the left of the stage, where the live horse entertainment comes and goes, to watch the raffle. It means a quick exit once the raffle is over so we can get to our cars and get back to the CHIN as fast as possible in the hope of nabbing the ever-elusive parking space.

 

So there we are, assembled as usual, sweating as usual, extra worried about parking because of all the construction at the CHIN, listening to them read off the names of the diorama contest winners. And then it's go time.

 

My friend Kelly M's husband gets drawn, which is cool, and then my friend Jackie, who is standing with us so we get to cheer really loud for her. Midway through the pack, the announcer says, “Is there anyone here named Melissa?”

All of my friends: turn to stare at me

Me: “Yeah, it’s not me.”

I mean, it couldn't possibly be me, right? I did write Melissa instead of Mel on my tickets, but there are a zillion Melissas in the hobby - there are two besides me who show in my region on the regular. There are also many Melissas like me who go by Mel but might have written Melissa on their tickets, or used stamps or return address labels with their full names. 

 

I'd also never won an in-person raffle, and I only had 20 tickets, so there was no way it could have been me.

 

Raffle guy: “How about Melissa Grant?”
 

Me: loud shriek

 

All of my friends: even louder shrieks

 

I remember every step of the walk over to the stage - and yes, I did walk; I was carrying my volunteer model and with my luck, I'd have tripped over a horse chestnut in my excitement and gone ass over tin cups into the dirt and ended up at the ER with Georg legs embedded in my spleen. The whole time, my anxiety-prone brain was going, "Is this really happening? Is everyone watching me? What if it's not me and their ticket doesn't match my stubs and it ends up being a mistake? What if they start to ask me questions? What if I can't talk because I'm too excited and I end up sounding like a total idiot? What if they want to interview me for footage for the online coverage? Did I really just win a raffle model? Is this really happening?"

I got up to the stage and a really nice employee came over holding the raffle bag. She smiled at me and said, "Are you so excited right now?" I babbled something like, "Oh my God, I've never won in person, I can't believe it." My hands were shaking. 

 

She held up the ticket and it was number 481532. I stopped worrying about it being a mistake then - I knew that was within the range of tickets I'd bought, because I'm a nerd who remembers numbers really well.

 

The *only* thing I dislike about the whole process is that they make you give them your stub. I have neither the 481532 ticket that was drawn from the bin, nor the stub that matched. I would have liked to keep that with my model as a souvenir, but oh well. 

 

Here's the crappy CHIN pic I took to send to my parents and sister, alongside a text that said, "HOLY SHIT I WON A RAFFLE MODEL." I've got my tickets next to her, with 481532 missing, and her COA is thoroughly crumpled because of this:

 

I miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight have hugged the living daylights out of the bag. More than once. (Thanks to my friend Heather M for snapping this pic!)

 

Here's a better picture of her in the lobby by the 500s:

 

Her name is Pining for the Fjords and her number is #B-EV-10777. There were 26 of her made, 25 for the raffle and one for the live auction.

 

She was the icing on the cake for the best BreyerFest I've ever had. 

 

At the beginning of this post, I said that I can't really talk about this raffle win without also bringing up my only other one, and here's why: Order of the Thistle was the Saturday raffle on July 11, 2020 - six years ago to the exact day as I won Pining for the Fjords. Here's his story.

 

We all know how bad 2020 sucked, and that BreyerFest was a virtual event only. In a normal year, they only have to follow Kentucky (and maybe New Jersey?) laws when doing the raffles, but since this one was virtual and eligible entrants were all over the country and in Canada, they couldn’t sell tickets like they normally would.  Instead, they gave each 3-day ticket buyer one free entry (though you did still have to fill out an entry form if you wanted a chance to win) and did a random computer draw, just like they do for web specials and such.

During the Saturday broadcast, they showed the first names, last initials, and state for the winners during the live feed. I got super excited when I saw “Melissa G,” but then it said “UN” for the state. I was like, where the hell is that? I knew we didn't have any states starting with UN, so I started looking at Canadian provinces and then countries. I couldn't find anything that matched. When Jaime got to my name, she announced it as, “Melissa G of . . . Unknown?” So that didn't tell me anything.

 

The winners were supposed to get emails, so I checked my inbox, but I had nothing, so I assumed it wasn’t me. I initially shrugged it off, but I kept thinking about all the crazy glitches Breyer was having that weekend, and the fact that I don't often get all the emails from Breyer that I should, and coming back to that “of Unknown.” I decided to email customer service to inquire. 

 

Within 15 minutes, I had an email from Kat McDermott asking me to confirm my address and phone number, and then a second email stating, "Congrats on your win! It is you!"

Yinz, when I say I lost my shit - I yelled a lot of swear words and started squealing and jumping up and down. I was in my sun room, and my neighbors were having a party on their back deck, and I'm sure I looked absolutely hilarious (and possibly a tad psychotic) with all my flailing around and screaming.

 

Here is #711385 Order of the Thistle, the BreyerFest 2020 Saturday raffle model, one of 26 made.

 

I had to incorporate "Melissa G of Unknown" into his name somehow, and 2020 was the first virtual BreyerFest, so I dubbed him Virtually Unknown. He's been to 17 shows and has earned 4 breed NAN cards, 8 collectibility NAN cards, three section champs for collectibility, and one section reserve champ for collectibility.

 

I feel incredibly lucky to own both of these models.

 

If any of you reading this have won a raffle model, I'd love to hear about it in a comment!

Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 5

Today's post is about the tent line Special Runs, and my Classic that just didn't fit anywhere else. I'll start with the latter.

 

This is #B-EV-10764 Dalarna, who is Not My Usual Thing At All. But as I mentioned in yesterday's post, my boyfriend is of Swedish origin, and we have several Dala horses on our built-ins in the living room. I showed Dalarna to Chris before BreyerFest and he said, "Wow, that's really cool!" So of course I had to buy one. All of my Breyers except one (Torlinie, the soccer ball Clydesdale SM, who lives on the built-ins next to Chris's soccer bobbleheads) are up in the horse room, but I'm going to try to sneak Dalarna onto the built-ins with the other Dala horses and see how long it takes him to notice. Should be a fun little game.

 

Now onto the tent models. 

 

For the first time since 2020, the Master List failed me.

 

My track record through 2025 using the Master List was as follows:

• 2020 - 3 tickets - Slainte Surprise x3, Lugh, Thorn, Ash
• 2021 - 1 ticket - Seven Arts Surprise, Pollock
• 2022 - 4 tickets - Rotating Draft Surprise x4, Franz, Landler, Brahms, Stein
• 2023 - 1 ticket - Stagecoach Surprise, Wells
• 2024 - 1 ticket - Girls Run the World Surprise, Edge of Glory
• 2025 - 1 ticket - Seize the Day Surprise, To the Ties that Bind Us 

I got everything I wanted, six years in a row, even in 2021 when it seemed like pretty much every single VIP ticket holder bought Pollock and there wouldn't be any left for regular ticket holders, and in 2022 when everyone and their mom was frothing at the mouth over Stein.

 

My Preference List this year for my three tickets went like this: Oseberg, Oseberg, Surprise, Surprise, Surprise, Wanderer, Aquavit, Thingvellir. Oseberg got both the top spots because (A) I conga the living daylights out of Wintersong and (B) they had already revealed him as a 50/50 matte glossy split after accidentally (?) leaking a photo of the glossy, and (C) I wanted both finishes, obviously. I didn't go any further than those eight slots on my Master List because those five models were the only ones I was interested in. I was slightly concerned about getting both Osebergs because he was by far the most popular on all the polls people did ranking their favorite SRs, but I thought, hey, the Master List hasn't failed me yet, and even though he's popular, I should at least get one.

 

I got zero.

 

The rest of my Master List went according to plan, but Oseberg was not anywhere to be found. I suppose my luck had to run out sooner or later, but why on a Wintersong year? I was majorly disappointed.

 

Vermeer was amongst my top four guesses for the Scandi Surprise, so I felt pleased with my data analysis when he was revealed to be this year's Surprise mold. I was not so pleased that I had three of them on my tickets, as I am not a Vermeer fan, but by the time I went to pick mine up on Friday, I knew the run had gone over super well and selling them likely wouldn't be a problem. My friend Nina also messaged me that she loves Vermeer and said she might have an extra Oseberg to trade with me, depending on which colors and finishes of the Surprise I received. I started to feel a sliver of hope that I might secure one of the two Osebergs at a reasonable cost before I left Kentucky.

 

There's more to the story, of course.

 

A dear friend and fellow hobbyist had an absolutely terrible couple weeks leading up to BreyerFest, including a death in the family, and also experienced a significant loss during BreyerFest, which resulted in her having to make a trip home mid-Fest to handle family business. I picked up her SRs - an Oseberg and a Surprise - along with my six allotted models. All four of the Surprises (her one and my three) ended up in the same bag. When we got back to the hotel, I asked my roomie Heather to reach into the bag and randomly pick one of the four Surprises to give to our friend, and set it to the side with the Oseberg for her to open when she got back to Kentucky. I then started opening my SRs.

 

 

I started with #B-EV-10768 Wanderer because he was the most straightforward - they didn't do any variations on him. The Fireheart mold is "just okay" in my book, but they had me at that lovely purply-blue color. He's super neat, even though my dining room light doesn't do him any favors.

 

Next up was #B-EV-10773 Aquavit, who had an announced 50/50 split - half the models had the regular swishy tail, and half had a custom belled tail. I knew as soon as I grabbed the bag that I had a swishy tail - it noticeably sticks out. I'm perfectly happy with that, though, as I like the swishy tail better. 

 

She's basecoated, too. I assumed they all were, but it seems not - I've seen pictures of non-basecoated ones on Facebook, and there are a bunch of sold ones on eBay that weren't basecoated. Once I'm done with the fervor of tracking and predicting Surprise quantities, I'll probably take a look at Aquavit to see how common the basecoated version is. It already seems much more prevalent than the basecoated Hero's Welcome Surprises from 2019, which I estimated to be only about 10% of the run.

 

 

#B-EV-10775 Thingvellir was announced as one of this year's color splits, a 50/50 mix between grulla pinto and sooty palomino pinto. I liked the sooty palomino color better than the grulla, but I got the grulla, and that's okay. I have a soft spot for the Man O' War mold and this guy isn't going anywhere. I'll be on the hunt for a sooty palomino next year at BreyerFest. He shouldn't be too hard or expensive to find.

 

Then it came time to unwrap my Surprise models. There were six colors - bay roan, amber champagne, solid bay, black appaloosa, flaxen chestnut pinto, and glossy gold sabino decorator. The glossy bay was obviously my #1 hope, followed by matte bay; I knew I would sell any other color (no matter the finish) or offer them to Nina in the hope of pulling off the Oseberg trade.

 

The first one I opened was a matte champagne. The second was a matte black leopard appaloosa. The third was a matte bay roan with an unfortunate giant scratch on his on-side barrel. [I put him up for sale at $80 in my room that night, and someone did buy him. I'm not happy to have lost the extra $50 in value had he not been damaged, but whatever.]

 

So because bay was the only one I was really interested in, I didn't pull one, and my abysmal luck with pulling shiny Surprises from the line remained untarnished. I felt the Oseberg trade slipping away - I was sure that Nina would be able to easily acquire the matte colors, and would only be interested in glossies or the deco.

 

I texted Nina to let her know what matte models I had, and to my surprise, she said she wanted to come down to the room see the appaloosa, and would bring her extra matte Oseberg with her. After approximately 30 seconds of ogling the appaloosa and telling me how much she loved him, she asked if I would straight trade him for Oseberg. I asked if she was sure - even the matte Oseberg was selling for MUCH higher than any of the matte surprises at the time - but she insisted she was happy with the trade. I'm pretty sure I even saw her hugging the appaloosa as she walked out of the room.

 

 

So here he is, B-EV-10772 Oseberg in matte seal bay. Again, my dining room light is giving him no credit. He is magnificent. He might be my favorite release ever on Wintersong, and I didn't think I'd ever like anyone better than Silverado. A million thanks to Nina for the trade!

 

And it turns out said trade might not have been lopsided at all. The appaloosa is definitely the Surprise color I'm seeing the least of so far in my data tracking, both in person at BreyerFest and the CHIN and in my stalking of all hobby-related groups. He and the deco were the most popular colors, and there are quite a few up for sale because people are paying bank for them - but when I add all the eBay listed plus sold together, he's still the rarest color, and I'm not seeing them all that often in non-sales posts like haul threads and "Which color did you get?" polls. The matte appaloosa is also selling higher on eBay than the matte Oseberg, perhaps due to his popularity, perhaps due to people picking up on the fact that he seems to be the lowest quantity color. Who knew? But it's actually pretty cool. I didn't need the appaloosa at all, rarity or no, and now I feel like we both really lucked out and got what we each wanted the most for almost an even amount of money spent.

 

It gets even better.

 

On Saturday evening, our friend who had had to miss part of BreyerFest made it back to Kentucky. She came down to our room to open her Oseberg and Surprise. A glossy Oseberg was the thing she wanted the most out of anything at BreyerFest this year. I was in despair, though - I never, ever pull shiny things from the line (as evidenced by my lower-than-statistically-probable rate of pulling glossy surprises, and pulling exactly zero again this year), and I said right before the packaging came off that I should have had my roomie Heather pick it up instead of me, because I was certain my "lack of glossies" curse had transferred itself to my friend's Oseberg.

 

Her Oseberg was glossy!

 

Then she opened her Surprise model, which I had picked up from the line but Heather had chosen at random from the bag. It was a glossy roan!

 

In a truly magnificent alignment of the universe, I not only managed to pull two glossies from the line this year, but both were for a friend having a really, really shitty week who needed a bit of good model mojo. It doesn't get any better than that.

Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 4

As much as I've tried to pare down my Stablemates over the years, they just keep finding their way in.

 

I'm also afraid I've fallen back in love with showing them, so I get the feeling that trend will continue.

 

Here are the Stablemates I brought home from BreyerFest this year.

 

***** 

 

For the first time ever, this year's All Access tickets came with a Single Day Stablemate if you ordered before a certain date, so that was kinda cool. I had three tickets this year, two of which were purchased before the deadline, so I got two Stablemates. I was one of those folks who was beyond excited when they released silhouettes of the molds ... and one of those folks who went, "Really?" when they were revealed. I was hoping for realistic colors, but oh well.

 

By the time we got to the model pickup tents on Friday, the most popular Stablemate by far, Helsinki on the Django mold, was long gone, but I was okay with that. He's pretty, and I'll probably acquire one someday, but he wasn't a must-have for this year. 

 

I chose #B-E-10762 Keflavik because I think the mold is super cute.

 

 

#B-EV-10762 Uppsala was an obvious choice - my boyfriend is Swedish, and I must have all of the mini-sized Semi-Rearing Mustangs. I do wish they'd done the colors reversed, though - blue on the edges with gold in the middle, like the flag. Oh well.

 

 

This series has become one of my favorite things about BreyerFest event models. It's called Best of BreyerFest and features five Stablemate models painted like Traditional rarities from previous years. This year's set, #B-EV-10765, seventh in the series, featured rarities from the 2008 BreyerFest - in order, Capri, the Early Bird model; Calabria, the Open Show overall reserve champion prize model; Totsi, the volunteer model; Seren, the Diorama contest prize model; and Monaco, the Open Show overall grand champion prize model.

 

I have the six sets that came before this one, and will continue buying them as long as they make them. I just think it's a really cool concept, and I'll never own the large counterparts, so why not?

 

On Sunday, as we were chumming around in the Covered Arena, a friend came up and whispered to us that there were Warehouse Find Stablemates by the registers in the Breyer store. So of course we went to check them out. They all had the same issue number - B-BF-10246.

 

I bought these three, and they shall be named as follows: Word of Mouth, Heard It Through The Grapevine, and The Latest Scuttlebutt.

 

Last but certainly not least - I followed through on my horrible pun from my June Pride series and started working my way toward a full spectrum of Kaleidoscopes.

 

 

I walked into my friend Shannon's room and this guy immediately yelled, "BUY ME!" I temporarily ignored his yelling in favor of snapping a picture and then heading back to my room to look at my laptop photos to make sure he was as different from my original as I thought. 

 

 

He was, so I went right back to buy him. He's so much more rainbow than my original guy (on the left in both photos)! I love the variations on this run so much!

 

On Saturday, I'll talk about my Special Runs and one LE who just didn't really fit anywhere else. Monday will be ... drumroll please ... my raffle model! (Eeeeeeeee!) I'll close out July with my 2026 volunteer model and a recap of one of my favorite aspects of BreyerFest - the kids' show.

Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 3

Never in a million years did I ever think I'd take a photo like this.

 

Well, I guess that's not entirely true. The morning of the show, as I was driving up the winding curves of Alltech Lane towards the arena, marveling at the giant clouds of gnats that were so thick I mistook them at first for patches of fog, I did say out loud to myself, "I'm winning a glossy prize model today." I laughed out loud after I said it - how utterly ridiculous - but I had a feeling.

 

It's happened before. When I worked with chronically mentally ill adults, I used to randomly sense things about patients; more often than not, the crisis phone would ring a day or two later, or we'd get a call that the patient had presented for evaluation at the hospital. It happened often enough to freak out my boss. 

 

Two weeks prior to BreyerFest, at my bowling league, we all bought our individual 50/50 tickets and our team 50/50 tickets as usual. When they announced that it was time for the drawing, I looked at our tickets, then at my teammates, and said, "Someone at this table is winning tonight." And we did, on a group ticket. 

 

I don't really believe in precognition or psychic abilities or willing things into reality by saying them out loud. I'm way too logic-based for that. But maybe, once in awhile, something aligns just right and logic takes a back seat to what the universe wants to happen.

 

The horse that won the glossy prize model is a regular run G1 Morgan Mare (#5038, made from 1976-1987) that I found via an advertised yard sale on Craigslist in August 2012. The ad just mentioned Breyers, so I wasn't sure what to expect. When I arrived, there were five of them all jumbled up in a box - a springtime frolic Ashley, a dark palomino G3 Standing Stock Horse from the Riding Academy set, a buckskin G1 Morgan Stallion, a leopard appaloosa G1 QHS, and the Morgan Mare, who I named Clarissa. The Ashley was priced at $3; the rest were $1 apiece. Five models for $7, and three of them G1s? Not a bad deal at all.

 

Being all thrown together in the box, I expected the worst, but Clarissa was pristine and had really nice shading. I don't show my minis all that much anymore (because I'm usually judging them!) but Clarissa has made the table probably a dozen times. She's accumulated a bunch of 2nd through 5th place ribbons in her show career. Never first place, though. She was always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

 

Then she did this at BreyerFest Live. I was beside myself - she'd finally come out on top! At one of the craziest shows there is, where you could put a horse with two dozen NAN cards and multiple NAN championships on the table and it might not get a single look. And she achieved my solitary goal for the show, which was getting a single ribbon out of 40 models shown. In my first class of the day!

 

I would have been happy enough with just that. 

 

I put her back up for section callbacks, but didn't expect her to really do anything there. First place in the Arabian class was a LOVELY bay G1 Arab Stallion, and a mulberry Alborozo SM had taken first in the Andalusian/Lusitano class. If it were my callback table and I were judging purely on breed and conformation, I would pin both of those over the G1 Morgan Mare - even a really nice one like Clarissa. That's fully what I expected to happen in the callback class.

 

The G1 Arab Stallion was announced as section reserve, which made sense to me - as I said, he'd have been one of my picks. I thought sure they'd call the Alby as section champ. But then they said, "Clarissa, owned by Melissa Grant."

 

I'm positive my friend Macie shrieked even louder than I did, as she was sitting right next to me. My friend Chesna came over, high-fived or hugged me (I don't even remember at this point), and said, "See? And you weren't even gonna show!"

 

She was right - I almost didn't. My mental health was so, so terrible all spring, and getting ready for BFL felt like too much. I also didn't think I could compete on a stage as large (or unpredictable) as BFL. In the weeks leading up to BFL, I drafted a few emails to Michelle, backing out, but never hit send because my friends talked me back into showing, every time I tried to quit.

 

Shortly after I floated back to my table with Clarissa and my prize model, my friend Korin handed me this sticker, which could not have been more appropriate or more meaningful.

 

My day was made right there, but I still had the entire rest of the show to go. No other model did as well as Clarissa, but I still came home with 10 ribbons! That's way more than I expected given the show and the size of the classes. Here are all my winners:

 

 

I was gonna talk about each one in detail, but I'll save that for my Show Stoppers series once I get the blog back to normal in August. This post is getting long enough already.

 

I never expected to enjoy BFL as much as I did, and it wasn't just the prize model that made the day fun. I thought I'd be running around like a maniac and missing classes left and right, but the show was extremely well-paced (we were done by 3:00!) and yet easy to follow, so I mostly sat and gabbed with my friends all day. It was the highest-stakes show I've ever done, by a lot, but it didn't really feel like that most of the time. [Except waiting for that final overall callback table to be judged. I thought my stomach was going to eat itself, even though I knew in my gut that Clarissa had done all she was going to do.] Chunk brought us some amazing fried chicken and sides for lunch. I got to cheer on my friends Mackenzie, Donna, Rachel, Amanda, Jackie, and Korin when they also won Shiny Prize Things, and also cheered on Macie as she tried to complete the ribbon rainbow. It's the most fun I've had at a show in a really, really long time.

 

Moral of the story: if you have friends who believe in you when you don't believe in yourself, friends who know you well enough to understand that you'll have a good time if you just give it a shot, friends who tell you that you can do something when you think you can't - keep those people close to you, cherish them, and listen to them, because they're probably right.

Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 2

I finally got caught up on posting my BreyerFest 2026 photo album on my Facebook, and have started on the Scandi Surprise data. For the latter, I’ve been focusing on confirmed unique models only, and currently have 754, or almost 10% of the run. Last year I got 15% of the Seize the Day run in confirmed unique models, so I’m hoping to get more data as people post their arrivals from the online tickets.

In case anyone is interested, here’s the order of rarity from most to least: Champagne, Roan, Bay, Pinto, Deco, Appaloosa. I’m around 450 each on the glossies (other than the Deco), but I suspect it’ll end up closer to 400. People are always after the glossies, so I tend to see more of those on the sales pages.
I’ll try to pop on here to share my final guesses right before Breyer announces the actual totals.

For today, here are the Breyer models I bought in this year’s room sales at the CHIN.

 

 

This dude just got his turn in my bonus post from the first day of my BreyerFest trip, but he’s a cute little thing, so here he is again. I’m happy to finally have the full set!

 

 

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve done trades in the hobby, aside from a straight trade of one Gambler’s Choice color for another, or one CCA Appreciation Model for another. Trading is awesome - it’s just not something I do much, because I’m kinda picky, and usually not interested in whatever someone is trading.

So when a gal walked into our room on Wednesday night and asked if I was willing to do a trade for my glossy Wells and a Classic Shire A body I had, I said, “Probably not, but what can you tempt me with?”

She held up this guy, #B-EV-10469 Seize the Day Surprise in glossy gray, and I immediately said, “Oh, hell yes!” The matte gray did nothing for me and the dapples tended to be REALLY fishy, but the gray in gloss is gorgeous. We both went away happy with the trade.

 

 

This is one of the coolest items I brought home this year. I conga the Grazing Mare and I love oddities, so when my friend Brooke posted an ad with her BreyerFest sales models and I spied this Grazing Mare cull, I messaged her right away and said, I’ll take her!

She was likely a reject for the #494155 Mare and Foal Set, a Sears special run from 1989-1990. She's missing at least one layer of paint to make her less red, and all her black points (mane, tail, knees, hooves, eyes, muzzle shading). For reference, here's what the finished ones look like (photo courtesy of Identify Your Breyer):

 

I have no idea what got her chucked into the reject bin, but someone fished her out and she’s been hanging out with Brooke for the last 20 years or so. I’m thrilled to have her on my shelves!

 

 

#1284 Indian Pony and Leotie Gift Set, a regular run from 2008 of only 2500 pieces, has been at the tip top of my Indian Pony wish list since her release. I have never been interested in the whole set, only the horse - and the whole set tends to be what comes up for sale most often, with a hefty price tag attached. I’ve looked and looked and looked for years for someone selling only the horse at a price that reflects the incompleteness of the set.

Finally, this year, it happened. The cool thing is that I got her from my friend Brooke’s CHIN roommate! I had no idea they were rooming together until I went to pick up the Grazing Mare early on Thursday evening, and then ended up back in the same room a few hours later whilst crossing the rest of the items off my pickup list. I’m so glad to finally have this model. My Indian Pony conga is up to 10 now.

On Monday, I’ll talk about my first ever BreyerFest Live mini show, which was epic in ways I never could have expected.

Off-Script: BreyerFest Recap, Part 1

This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but apparently I don’t know when to shut up and wrote almost 2,000 words, so here we are, a day late.

What a BreyerFest! I wasn’t sure I’d ever top BreyerFest in 2010 - every minute of that first weekend in hobby land was magical - but this one did it. 

My anxiety is usually significant at BreyerFest. I joke with my friends to be prepared for at least one panic attack per year. But I felt great all week. (I’m guessing the meds had something to do with it, even though I had to discontinue them right before I left due to intolerable side effects.) I can count on one hand the number of times I experienced a difficult emotion - Tuesday afternoon when I had to sign on to what ended up being a very irritating work meeting, Saturday night when I bumped and damaged someone else’s model whilst room shopping, Sunday when we almost got hit by lightning in the food tent outside the covered arena and my anxiety spiked. That’s it. I think I laughed and smiled more last week than I have in the entire past year and a half.

I’m extremely happy with the balance between activities (two farm tours, BFL mini, the kids’ show) and time spent watching horse entertainment and gabbing with friends. It was a rush from one end of the week to the other - it always is - but I didn’t feel at any point like I was doing too much or not enough. I room shopped more than I have in years. I had time to go around both Friday and Saturday night tallying surprise models. I talked to two room shoppers about Power BI after they noticed my nerdy shirt. One said, “Oh, I love Power BI!” and the other rolled her eyes and said, “Power BI is the bane of my existence.” Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

In the ultimate reversal of my generally abysmal luck, I won a glossy prize model at my first ever BreyerFest Live. I also won my first in-person raffle model, and enjoyed a $40 filet mignon and an Irish Red on nitro on Saturday night to celebrate. Both will be featured soon in their own posts. (The models, I mean - though I did take a picture of both the steak and the beer.)

I could not have had a better time.

This year tied for 6th most as far as number of models I brought home (30), and was the most expensive by a lot - double my previous two most expensive years put together, and more expensive than 2023, 2024, and 2025 combined. I would normally be horrified at dropping that much cash at once, but I did it on purpose, and here’s why:

(1) My BreyerFest budget for at least the last 8 years has been based strictly on the cash I brought home from room sales the year before. Except for gas (because it’s just easier to pay at the pump), that money accounts for everything - hotel, food, miscellaneous things like tours and tips and the Goddamn Amazing cupcakes, raffle money, and of course, models. I can’t remember the last time I pulled money out of my bank account to pay for anything other than gas for BreyerFest, so I figured I was due for a little treat.

(2) The past year has sucked. Like, SUCKED. Work has been super stressful, I lost Felice, and my brain decided to toss two serious bouts of depression at me since Christmas. Allowing myself a larger budget at BreyerFest was a form of self-care.

(3) Rumors abounded that this might be the last year at the CHIN, and the last year of room sales at all, so I was determined to make the most of it.

Thirty models is waaaaaaaaay too many to cover in a single post (especially with how much I'm yammering on), so I’m splitting them up over the remaining seven posts scheduled for this month. Today is the Stones.

 

 

This gal is 50 Shades of Gray, an OOAK model from January 2015. She’s on the popular FCM Boaz Arabian Mare body. Because her name starts with a number, she’s right at the top any time I pull up my Stone wish list on the reference site, so I’ve looked at her a lot. She was posted for sale on the Peter Stone Sales Page Facebook group a few months before BreyerFest, and almost contacted the seller, but she was Expensive and I just couldn’t follow through. Fast forward to BreyerFest, when the seller posted her amongst her CHIN room sale ponies. I figured I’d get to the seller’s room as soon as I could and if 50 Shades was still there, I’d buy her. She was, so I did.

 

 

Back in May, my friend Chesna messaged me and said, “Hey, we got Stones, want some?” She and her boyfriend Chunk (yes, the famous CHIN Jello Shot Fairy Chunk) are helping to disperse another hobbyist’s collection; many, many lovely Stones were amongst the models they initially received. Chesna kept sending me pictures, not only because I might be interested but also in the interest of helping with identification, and I kept saying, “Oooooooo I want that one!” I ended up with four, and picked them all up the Tuesday of BreyerFest.

This guy, #AR18183 Holt, was a run of 50 Arabians for the 2009 Michigan Horse Expo. His pictures on the reference site did absolutely nothing for me; he wasn’t on my radar. At all. Til Chesna took a picture of him in natural light, and well, of course he had to come home with me.

 

 

This is Janek, an Equilocity special run of 10 pieces in 2014. The Blue Angel body is my favorite, favorite, favorite FCM Arabian (with Boaz a close second) so I was toast for this guy as soon as Chesna sent me pictures of him.

 

 

My ISH love runs as deep as my love for Arabs, so it’s no surprise that I also picked up an ISH from Chesna and Chunk. This is Carney, a run of 5 models in 2012. He’s an interesting shade of buckskin roan that looks absolutely awesome in some lights (including my dining room where this pic was taken) and absolutely weird in others (including the CHIN lobby by the 500s, where I took his original picture).

 

 

This is my first Stone Tennessee Walking Horse, and what an epic first TWH he is. 

For awhile now, I’ve been on the hunt for a #TW27011C Schnookered, a run of 250 pieces by D’Arry Jone Frank for the 2005 Signature Series. I recognized this guy as Schnookered as soon as I saw the pictures - but at the same time, he wasn’t QUITE Schnookered. His tail was different, and he was glossed. I looked him up on the ref site to see if there were variations of him (like there were for Boaz) and about fell out of my seat when I recognized him as the OOAK prototype, which was declined for the run due to the tail being “too expensive” to execute for the entire 250-piece run. The prototype was auctioned off instead at Equilocity 2005.

I asked Chesna if there was a signature on his belly, and sure enough, there it was, though it’s worn off quite a bit over the years due to handling.

I had no clue how to price something like this, so I made an offer on the other three and then deferred to Chesna and the original collection owner to dictate a price for the Schnookered prototype. We easily came to an agreement. He’s got a forever home here.

That’s the end of my “Chunk and Chesna made me do it” purchases; now on to the remaining two, which are also awesome.

 

 

So there I was on the Thursday of BreyerFest, minding my own business, watching our room sales while my roomie shopped, when my friend Beth texted me “BLUE ANGEL ALERT” and sent me a Facebook ad. A seller over at the Embassy Suites had a glossy bay Blue Angel DAH. He was lovely - but then I saw that the same seller also had a glossy non-FCM Boaz for a price I absolutely could not refuse. Boaz immediately derailed all thoughts of the Blue Angel Arab. [Though I won’t rule out messaging the seller in a few months, after I recover from BreyerFest, to see if he sold, and will buy him if he didn’t.]

The original Boaz has been my longest Stone grail. He came in four versions - matte and glossy non-FCM, and matte and glossy FCM. In late 2023, I finally obtained a glossy FCM, and have continued low-key looking for the other three versions, as someday I’d like to have one of each. The glossy non-FCM is the most plentiful of the 200-piece run at 65 made, but he’s still kinda hard to find, and tends to sell for a lot when he does come up.

I fully expected the seller to tell me he was already gone, but luck was with me, because no one had snatched him up yet. The seller accepted a small deposit to hold him for me until we could meet up. A couple hours later, after some slight confusion about where to meet and a bit of driving around on my end, we completed the sale in the lobby of the Marriott. He came with probably a dozen NAN cards and no COA, but he’s numbered #89/200 on the bottom of one hoof.

I now have both glossy versions of Boaz!

 

 

This guy has a story too, of course.

On Friday night, I went out shopping for a bit while my roomie minded our sales. I didn’t get very far down the 500s hall when I spied this guy - an OOAK from the 2020 Super Bowl sale named Stone Blitz, painted by Audrey Dixon. I talked about him back in March in my Do That Conga series as a model I seriously wanted.

Despite the very real possibility that walking away from him would lead me to miss out on him for the second BreyerFest in a row (and probably never find him again, as an OOAK), I didn’t have enough cash on me (or between cash and my PayPal) to buy him on the spot. I communicated my interest to the seller, returned to our room so my roommate could go bid on an item she wanted in the Horse You Want suite - and I didn’t stop thinking about Stone Blitz the entire time. Right before my roommate returned, I sold one of my Stone Andalusians for enough money to fully cover his purchase, and ran down the hall (not literally, someone would have ended up injured) and bought him. I walked back to our room hugging him.

Next up on Saturday - the Breyer room sales purchases!