Airborne

Show Jumping is my favourite equestrian sport.  Like pretty much any equestrian sport you can name, there's a bit of risk involved for both the equine and human athletes.  But compared to other jumping sports like cross-country eventing or steeplechase racing, it's a relatively tame sport.  And I'm convinced that the horses who excel in it really do enjoy jumping.  I've seen enough refusals to know that you can't make a horse jump when it doesn't want to.  But the best of those who want to also want to do it well, and have been known to sulk or fret if they accidentally knock down a rail.

There's a lot for a spectator to enjoy about show jumping.  The inventive and colourful obstacles can be beautiful, and it's fascinating to watch the strategies each rider takes as he or she manoeuvres through the course -- leaving out strides here, taking a tight turn there, risking a flat out gallop and then bringing the horse back into balance before the next jump.  But by far the best bit about show jumping is watching the horse and rider go airborne, soaring over the obstacles as if defying the laws of gravity.  It's amazing the amount of "air time" some horses manage to achieve over a jump -- it's as if time hangs suspended along with the horse in mid-air.

Despite my great love of show jumping, though, I have relatively few model jumpers in my collection.  By that I don't mean standing representations of show jumpers, or jumpers at the walk, trot, or canter, but airborne show jumpers -- horses in that miracle moment as they fly through the air to take the jump.

The problem is that as much as I love the sight of jumpers over fences in real life, when translated into sculptures I find most representations of show jumping disappointing.  The puzzle that every sculptor has to work out when designing a flying show jumper is how to give the impression of flight while still giving the horse a solid base to stand on.  This could be why there are relatively few sculptures of jumping jumpers out there.

In china sculptures, the answer is usually to perform some kind of cheat -- anchoring the horse to its jump by the belly or feet while trying to give the impression that the horse is, in fact, clearing its obstacle.

Breyer used this cheat too in their first plastic jumping horse, having his belly scrape his stone wall base.  Actually, given the rustic look of the base, the Breyer Jumping Horse doesn't look much like a show jumper at all -- he's more of a field hunter than anything else.

Breyer Jumping Horses used as bookends.

The Breyer Jumping Horse debuted in 1965, and he had no competition in the Breyer plastic jumper category until 2005 when Breyer acquired the Creata Micro Mini molds with its two small jumpers.  In 2006 Breyer released the G3 Stablemate Jumper, followed up two years later with the release of the pony Newsworthy in 2008.  This was followed by a 10-year-drought until Bristol (2018) was added to the Traditional line-up, and he really didn't become widely available until the mid-year release of Voyeur this year.

The sculptors of all of Breyer's airborne jumpers after the original Jumping Horse have solved the suspension problem by mounting their horses on clear plastic bases.  This is a boon for performance showers, who are then freed up to design or purchase their own obstacles for their jumpers.  For those who only display their models, though, the base can sometimes look a little odd.  For my taste, the simpler the base the better.  The arrow-like designs of the bases on the Stablemate and Mini Whinnies please me better than Newsworthy's wave or Bristol's bizarre spiral.

For this reason, my sum total of Breyer jumpers is two Jumping Horses (one old and one newer) and two G3 Stablemates (one Collectors' Club and my NaMoPaiMo horse).  I also have a Micro Mini Jumping Thoroughbred and Morgan, but they're the Creata ones, not the Breyer Mini Whinnies.

My Creata Jumping Thoroughbred

My Creata Jumping (part-bred) Morgan

I might add a Newsworthy someday if I spot one that I just have to have, but so far none have hit me that hard.  But I can't see room for Bristol, unless he comes out with a different sort of stand.

I have one other plastic jumping horse -- the Stone Sporthorse -- where the sculptor/designer has decided to use both the clear plastic rod and a jump as a base to support the horse.  Initially (in 1997), this horse came with a heavy resin log jump, making the horse a cross-country eventer.  It wasn't long, though before they switched this out with a simple white wooden jump, which the buyer could easily customize with their own colours or designs if desired.  Given the choice, I went for the simpler wooden fence myself.

Decorating with Jumpers -- the Stone Sporthorse

It's lovely, but like my Breyer Jumping Horses it takes up a lot of shelf room.  That's why not one of those three are displayed on my model horse shelves.  I use them as decorations in my living room -- the two Breyers acting as bookends and the Stone perching on my stereo cover.  They're lucky horses actually, because while the horses on my model shelves tend to suffer from benign neglect, I sit and gaze happily at my three jumpers every single day.

Unless, of course, there's show jumping on TV.  Then my eyes and thoughts are elsewhere, flying over the obstacles that flash in front of me as if I, too, had the ability to suddenly become airborne.