So, fun fact, my parents are selling their house next year.
What does that mean for me? Well, it means all the things that I still have there have finally got to come home.
While my art supplies and old paintings came home some years ago, there was one collection that still lingered in the attic- my Breyer collection. To the uninitiated, these are resin sculptures of [mostly] real horses and stand about 8″ tall.
My parents gave me my first Breyer horses when I was 6 or 7. These included a Shetland pony that resembled my then-pony, Heidi, a Welsh model, and a fancypants black unicorn.
The OGs
While the unicorn was a bit fanciful for my oddly-literal childhood tastes, I couldn’t get enough of the model horses. Case in point? Thanks to the movie Twister, and a resulting terror of tornados, whenever it would storm hard in the summer I would do two things- run out into the rain and bring in my real-life Shetland pony into a stall, and make up a “Tornado bag” with my favorite things (no idea what the logic was here), which always included my Welsh pony Breyer.
I started asking for a Breyer model at every special occasion, and began hunting for them while antiquing with my mother. As I got older I became more interested in limited editions and the like, and soon, my collection of 3 had grown to 70.
A sampling of the Breyers taking over my dining room table
Going through these boxes after packing them up almost a decade ago has been quite the trip down memory road. Most of them I can associate with a place I’ve been to, or a moment in time. There’s the vintage classic sized Black gelding I found at an antique fair in Wyoming. The Art Deco model my mother surprised me with for Christmas back when Fine Art (his brother) lived down the road. The set of Chincoteague ponies we got signed on our trip to watch the real ones swim the channel.
His tail snapped off in the recent move, and I haven’t gotten around to gluing it back on… No judging.
While all were very special to me at one point in time, I can’t possibly keep them all. A few, like my precious, beat-up old Welsh model, I can’t bear to part with for obviously sentimental reasons. Likewise, the Salinero model above that my teammates signed for me the year I captained the dressage team. But the rest are going to new homes where hopefully some other budding equestrian or enthusiast will love them and appreciate them too.
Did any of you have an equestrian-related collection growing up?
Red on the Right 
I still have a stupid amount of Breyers…all displayed proudly in my guest room on the book shelf with some books. I waited on my mom in the antique mall parking this weekend and did a double take when a woman exited the store with an entire bag of the yellow and blue boxes. I laughed at myself because I’m obviously still conditioned to be on the hunt despite the fact that I haven’t bought one in years. 😉
Yes! I had a huge Rubbermaid container of Breyer (and Breyer-knockoff) model horses as a kid! I had one friend who was also horse-crazy and we’d bring them to each other’s houses all the time and play with them EVERYWHERE for HOURS. Sometimes I miss being a kid. That container of horses is still stored at my parents’ house and I hope I can hang onto it long enough for my future kid(s) to play with too.
I had/have the plastic Grand Champions. Breyers were too delicate and expensive (I did have a couple though and still have Secretariat)
I too had Breyer horses but not nearly as many as you did. Who knows where they ended up!
Oh my model horse problem is pretty well documented on the internet. These days it’s much more controlled though!
I was a Breyer gal too! I never had as many as you, but I have some of the same ones you do…the palomino Shetland. The black and white Appaloosa mare with foal (grandmother bought it for me one time I came over for no reason!). Is that Hideaway’s Erin Go Bragh the Connemara? I have him and his vhs lol. All at my parents tucked away waiting for the next generation.
Yes, it is Erin Go Bragh! No idea where that video went, lol, though I remember watching it and being weirded out by the narration 😛
Ya, that part was funny!
I also have some model horses my grandmother grew up with.
My ridiculous Breyer collection is packed into cardboard boxes in one of our many storage sheds…. Much guilt. Once we build a house I’d love to display them!
I collected Breyers as well – kept them and passed them on to my horse loving youngest daughter. Now they are back packed away waiting to see if my first granddaughter will have the horse ‘bug’!
I have over 200 and don’t know what to do with them all
Holy moly!!
Thanks for the gem twist ☺️
Thank you for giving him a home! 😀
I have tons of brewers, but the vast majority live in a box at my parents. I suppose eventually I’ll need to claim them as well.
Bennett has several vintage Breyers I bought while he was still in utero…he just recently found them and is fairly obsessed, which makes my heart happy 🙂