Breyer Blankies (and other assorted tack)

I have to admit it:  I have a real soft spot for Breyer tack.

Oh, not the oversized monstrosities they first came out with in the 1970s, but the more modern, say post-1999 tack.

It's not what any experienced collector would call live show quality or LSQ, but given that it has been designed for playability -- meaning that it's easy to put on and take off -- it's remarkably good-looking.  And it certainly has come a long way from where it started out.

True, today's tackmakers create and sell such realistic-looking miniature saddlery that it leaves Breyer's best in its dust. When I was showing my models, each piece of LSQ tack I owned was precious, and I treated it with almost as much care as real horse owners would when cleaning their bits and soaping their saddles.

But did you know that Breyer has recently taken to commissioning hobbyist tack-makers to design their tack for them?  For example, the barrel racing set was designed by Rachel Fail and the pack saddle and polo set were designed by Jennifer Buxton.  I think that's very forward-thinking of Breyer, and the results speak for themselves.  A lot of Breyer's modern tack has an eye for realism that the Breyer tack of old did not.

The tack on the Breyer Christmas horses is a separate sort of thing.  Most of it is more decorative than realistic and really only works in a fantasy setting.  I don't have any Christmas horses other than Jingles, who comes "harnessed" to a sleigh with insufficient harness.  I imagine that if I had any other Christmas horses I would probably treat them the same way I do Jingles -- keeping them packed away with my Christmas decorations only to reappear at the appropriate season.

A random crew modelling my new Breyer blankets -- only one of which actually fits.

Much as I like Breyer's newest tack, I haven't really gone out of my way to purchase much of it up until now, mostly because the only use I had for tack was for tacking up horses at live shows.

Now that I no longer show, though, I find myself fondly looking at the best of Breyer's tack for display purposes.  However, I do try to choose less-than-precious models to tack up for display in case of the dreaded "tack bleed," or colour transfer from the leather dyes to the painted hide of the model horse, leaving tack-coloured stains on its body.

I recently bought a small bundle of Breyer blankets with the hope that they might help protect some of my models from the worst of the dust that constantly wafts around them. I don't think I have to worry too much about tack bleed when displaying my horses in their cozy Breyer blankets (fingers crossed).  At least, I haven't heard of model horses suffering from blanket stains, so I'm hoping it's not a thing.

Besides the blankets, I currently have one horse hitched to a Breyer country gig with Breyer harness and am trying to pick a horse to wear the Breyer parade saddle set I got recently in a grab bag.  Horses not currently wearing their Breyer tack and/or costumes are my First Competitor Gem Twist and my Trick or Treat Shetland Pony -- but these two may also find themselves back in their Breyer-wear soon.

First, though, I have to figure out which of my Breyers best suit those new blankies, because as I learned right away they may be the right size, but they are definitely not one-size-fits-all.