Sentimental Journey: Man o' War

Eeeeeeeeeeeee it’s almost BreyerFest!

Back in 2020, the year where everything sucked and we couldn’t do much of anything, I spent all of July writing lengthy Facebook posts about how important BreyerFest is to me and how much I missed it that year. While a lot of those posts revolved around people and rituals and activities and memories, some were more model-related, and I’ll be borrowing heavily from those. Today is one of those days. My original post content will be in italics.

 

 

 

When I was a horse-crazy kid, my ever-enabling parents bought me some of Walter Farley’s books. While I loved the stories about the adventures of the Black Stallion and Flame [and credit them for my obsession with Arabians], my favorite Walter Farley book was about the legendary Man o’ War. I read that thing cover to cover more times than I can count. I was fascinated by the descriptions of his speed, his size, his spirit, his record stride length, and his absolute dominance on the track. If I had to pick a favorite racehorse of all time, it’s him. [Interrupting to add - American Pharaoh, as the first Triple Crown winner of my lifetime, is a perilously close second.] I have often wished I could have been alive during his time to see how spectacular he truly was.

 

 

Breyer has made several renditions of Man o’ War over the years, in several different scales.  One of my first Breyers as a kid was #47 Man o' War, who was produced from 1967-1995. I started collecting at Christmas in 1990, and according to my records, I had Man o’ War prior to September of 1992, when I photographed my collection for the first time. I don’t know exactly how I came by him, but back then, there were really only two ways I got Breyers - as birthday or Christmas gifts from my parents, or by picking them out at Kraynaks or Toys R Us. My gut tells me my parents are responsible for my ownership of him. 

 

 

I’ve got a few other versions of Man o’ War. My B-stamp (top photo) and chalky (bottom photo) versions of #47 have already been covered in previous blog posts, so I won’t say much about them here. The Classic-scale in the top photo is #9149, who was featured in my December Show Stoppers post. The smaller guy in the top photo is #711282 from the 2018 BreyerFest single-day Stablemates. There were 1750 made. I’m really glad I picked up the full set of single-day Stablemates that year at cost during BreyerFest - their secondary market prices are often $150 and up!

 

 

This lighter Classic-scale is the original release #602 Man o’ War, a regular run from 1975-1990. I got him from my friend Heather B.

 
Someday, I’d love to add a #47 with battleship gray hand-painted hooves, as well as the 48-piece WEG release.

 

I’m going to wrap up this post with the rest of my thoughts from 2020, because I really can’t say any better what Man o’ War means to me.

During my first BreyerFest in 2010, I discovered that Man o' War is buried at Kentucky Horse Park. Most famous horses are not buried whole when they die, but he was – every bone of him is right there at the front of the park, underneath a giant statue, surrounded by a fountain and flowers and plaques describing his life and racing career. I can't describe what it was like the first time I visited him there. I've seen other grave sites of some pretty amazing horses -- Cigar, Affirmed, even the mighty Secretariat -- but none of them have evoked the same feeling I get when I visit Man o' War.  It is always humbling and inspiring to stand just feet away from the final resting place of one of the greatest horses of all time. It’s serene and quiet there, and every year, that is how I purposely choose to end my BreyerFest trip. I love to spend those last few minutes of the best weekend of the year hanging out with him, thinking about how great he was, remembering what it felt like as a kid to read about his achievements, and thanking him for being what he was.

If you want to find me on Sunday at 4:00 after the raffle is done and BreyerFest is over, you know where I’ll be.