Hi ho silver!

You may remember that my first post on this blog mentioned the Brownbread Highland Stud, whose Open Day I thoroughly enjoyed a few years ago. In July I was able to arrange another visit, this time with my friends Keren and Carra. Carra in particular loves Highlands and had never had the chance to see a live one in the United States. Brownbread no longer holds open days but is happy to arrange private visits. We were very grateful to Mrs Dinty Steains for taking the time to receive us and show us her ponies, even though she had only come home from hospital the day before. As with so many stud visits we were plied with cups of tea, introduced to all the equine and other livestock, and generally made very welcome.

At Brownbread we were able to see some of the more unusual colours within the Highland breed, so I’m going to make those the focus of this blog post. Grey and yellow dun are of course the stereotypical colours of the Highland, but there is more to the breed than that. Since yellow dun is the result of the Dun dilution gene on bay, bays are also found, as are blacks and their dun dilution, which in the UK is known as mouse dun. In the USA and general colour genetics discussion it is usually known by its Spanish name of grulla.

I want to pause here to make a comment about the common depiction of mouse dun/grulla by model horse artists. It’s not a colour that most people in the UK see very often in real life, as it’s only really found in Highlands and Shetlands, and so artists are not very familiar with it. As it is a dun dilution of black, it would be reasonable to suppose that the black body colour dilutes to a grey, blue or lilac shade, and this is how I’ve sometimes seen it depicted on models. However I have never seen a live pony of this shade – the mouse duns I have seen have all been some shade of what I would call coffee-coloured, i.e a dull brown, although how light or dark varies considerably. This is a poor quality old photo but it quite nicely illustrates the extremes, as both these ponies are mouse dun:

Here’s a better photo (of a 20-year-old brood mare) to show the colour in more detail:

 

And here’s the colour in a Shetland:

It may be that in other breeds, perhaps Quarter Horses, Mustangs and so on, the gene is sometimes expressed differently, but I would encourage all artists painting models of British ponies to study the way the real ones actually look. I have plenty of photos which I am happy to send as reference!

The Brownbread Stud specialises in ponies from the Rum or Western Isles lines, which are the only ones to carry the Silver  or ‘silver dapple’ dilution gene. Those unfamiliar with this gene can read about it and how it works here. Silver is relatively unknown amongst real horse breeders – even many of those who breed it do not recognise what it is – and so ponies carrying the gene are often described and registered as ‘chestnut’ of various shades. However, once one is familiar with silver, it is usually easier to identify.

At Brownbread we were fortunate to be able to see examples of how silver changes all of the regular Highland colours. Here’s what’s often thought of as the ‘classic’ silver colouration: silver diluting a black:

This is the mare Rhum Mary V and here’s a particularly dark example, Claymore Harlequin:

 

Here is Brownbread Honeysuckle, who is a bay silver: 

 

You can see that the silver gene has diluted the black in her mane and tail, and to some extent her lower legs, but these are still darker than one would expect to find on a chestnut.

Here are some mouse dun silvers. Again the range can be from quite dark (deceased stallion Claymore Ben-y-Hone):

 To very light (Claymore Cathy):

And here’s are some yellow dun silvers, mare Claymore Caitlin:

and two year old gelding Brownbread Marmalade:

Be careful, though, not to assume that any Highland with some blond hair in its mane or tail is a silver. It’s very characteristic of the breed that the mane and tails of duns carry light ‘frosting’ on either side of the dark dorsal stripe.

A matter which has exercised me for several years is the question of whether true chestnut actually appears in Highlands, since most of the so-called chestnuts are actually the product of the silver gene, as seen above. This visit to Brownbread was my first chance to see a genuine chestnut Highland, the mare Mhairi Rose of Lonmay:

As you can see, she was not overflowing with Highland type, as Mrs Steains was the first to admit, and it would be easy to assume that perhaps in fact she was a partbred. However, I feel inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, for two reasons. Firstly, I have come across a few example of a first-cross Highland partbred being chestnut, and if this is possible, the breed must carry chestnut and be theoretically capable of producing the colour. Secondly, I have seen a photo of the stallion Birchwood Goldcrest, in which he appears to be to be a true red dun (chestnut with the dun gene). This leads me to conclude that the chestnut gene is lurking within the Highland gene pool, but that the dominant black-based colours are so prevalent there that it very rarely has the chance to show itself.

I'll end with this photo taken by Carra of Mhairi Rose and Honeysuckle side by side, which gives a good opportunity to compare and contrast a bay silver with a true chestnut:  

Clicking on any of the photos will make them bigger.

A very special horse

As it’s the summer holidays I am out and about rather a lot at the moment, so prepare yourself for several posts on encounters with real horses before we get back to the model pedigrees.

The first of these was a day back in July when I accompanied my friends Keren and Carra to the Al Waha Arabian Stud, situated not too far from me in Surrey. One of the longest established Arabian studs in the UK, Al Waha was founded by Mrs Jane Kadri around thirty years ago. Starting with mares of Crabbet lines, she has judiciously introduced crosses of Russian and other blood to produce a very attractive, consistent type of horse.

Our main reason for visiting was to see the last remaining pure Courthouse stallion in the UK: Spearmint, foaled in 1982. You may remember how I previously blogged about Courthouse and how the small number of horses bred there made it something of a ‘Holy Grail’ of bloodlines. Spearmint, bred by J M Oppé but of pure Courthouse lines, has had various owners but Mrs Kadri was delighted to be able to give him a home in his old age, a few years ago, and has also bred several offspring from him. When we were planning activities for Carra when she came to visit from the States, Keren suggested and arranged this visit, mentioning that as Spearmint was now twenty-nine years old, we might not have the opportunity to see him for much longer.

We were overwhelmed by the hospitality shown us by Mrs Kadri, her stud manager Kathy and all the staff. Feeling rather like royalty, we sat on the row of chairs provided for while the horses were brought out of their stables one by one for us to view, pet and photograph. After the ‘show’ we repaired to the tack room for tea, cake and more chat – a truly warm welcome.

We saw a selection of horses stallions, broodmares, foals and youngstock (with an emphasis on Spearmint’s progeny), and were very struck by their consistent quality – all strong, athletic horses but with plenty of Arab type including beautiful wedge-shaped heads and large eyes. Many people feel that the modern in-hand Arabian is becoming something of a long, thin caricature, with an extreme head, completely flat back and a multitude of leg faults, but Mrs Kadri’s horses certainly showed that one does not have to sacrifice type for substance. They were also well-mannered and we felt completely safe with all of them.

This was a lovely mare whose name I’m afraid I did not record:

 

And this was the stallion Daas, of pure Crabbet breeding:

The star of the show was, of course, Spearmint himself, a grand old man with great presence. Only the hollows above his eyes gave away his age; other than that he looked very well and was still sprightly and interested in the mares in the stables opposite him. He was clearly a favourite with all the staff and although not spoiled, had a bit of special treatment, such as the bag of carrots which hung outside his stable door. The same door also displayed his pedigree, and it is quite something to think that the horse to whom you are happily feeding carrots is only three generations away from a desert-bred stallion foaled in 1913.

 

You can imagine how shocked I was when, requesting permission to share my photos on this blog, I heard from Mrs Kadri that Spearmint had been euthanized less than a month after our visit. Although physically healthy, he had become increasingly mentally unstable and was starting to pose a danger to himself and others. Mrs Kadri wrote ‘we are all very miserable’ and having seen the regard in which Spearmint was held at Al Waha, I know this must be true. It makes us even more grateful that we were able to see him when we did.

Live show highlights and musings

I don’t know if I’ve ever been to two live shows within a week before, but that’s what I managed to do recently, and very nice it was too.

First up was the Mini Manes Live Show organised by Sarah Hindmarsh. I’m very flattered that my British Breeds Live in April inspired Sarah to hold this show! When she announced a show containing 4 in hand divisions for mini models only, along with mini performance and open British workmanship, I knew I had to go. The great majority of my collection is minis, and also it was nice to be able to compete my repainting against other British artists.

I was particularly pleased to see the minis-only performance classes, as mini performance really is a discipline all of its own! It’s been a long time since I’ve entered many performance classes at live shows – it’s too much hard work! – but duly inspired, I set out to resurrect some of my set-ups from the past, and was pleasantly surprised when all of them placed and received MECS/LEMS qualification! I was particularly happy to bring this chap out again:

I first made this set-up almost 20 years ago; the gig I assembled and painted from a white metal kit, the horse was customised by me, I also made the harness, and the base was made by my brother-in-law. It did very well for me in the 1990s before being consigned to the attic, where it fell to pieces in a box and was ignored for several years. However, the week before the show I got it out, fettled it up again, and was delighted when it was placed Reserve Performance Champion!

I forgot my camera at this show, so for the photo I’m indebted to Clare Goss. Congratulations also to her for taking the Performance Championship with this Indian costume entry:

 

The second show was Equifest, organised by Debbie Davis and Nicki Collins, and was quite different. Here the performance ‘big guns’ were out in force, with the Performance Championship being taken by this stunning dressage ‘pas de deux’ by Angela Docherty:

There were in hand classes for custom-glazed china, Animal Artistry, other artist resin/china, and customs. With so many stunning models on show, mine didn’t do so well here, but it was still a good day out for the eye candy, the chance to meet friends, and the shopping, with several ‘artisans’ having stalls. I sold several minis and bought a couple of resin seconds and some fascinating second-hand books, which I might review here sooner or later. The eventual In Hand Champion was this cold-painted bisque Valentin owned by Ann Sheppard:

I’m moved now, though, to offer a few musings on trends in live show judging – the culmination of some things I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Please don’t take this as a criticism of the judging at any live show I’ve attended – it’s more a reflection on impressions received over the last twelve months or so, more from conversations I’ve participated in, than any actual judging.

What’s struck me is that when judging has been discussed at the shows I’ve been at, it has been overwhelmingly about the finish-work on models: for example, does a particular OF have moulding seams showing, or paint overspray from one part of the body onto another? What is the quality of painting on a custom or resin? Does it have ear-tip rubs or other damage? Now while these things should undoubtedly form a part of judging, in my opinion they should take second place to the more fundamental questions of conformation and breed type. In a breed class, those are what I would look at first, to determine my basic order of placings – then I would take finish-work into consideration to decide between horses that had little to choose between them in terms of conformation and type. And yet I hardly seem to have heard conformation discussed at live shows. I wonder why? Is there a newer generation of judges who see the priority differently?

It’s true there is a lot more awareness of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for various breeds these days, but often that seems to be limited to ‘does it come in this colour?’ rather than actual knowledge of what the breed looks like in real life. Again in my opinion, by far the best way to study this is to go to some real horse shows and/or studs and actually immerse yourself in looking at the animals, taking in their make and shape. Seeing a group of the living animals like this tells you much more than looking in a breed book, which will often only have one or two photos of each breed – bear in mind that those could be atypical or out of date. I know of at least one breed book in which the same pony poses as both a Dales and a Highland!

Of course this is not to deny the usefulness of breed books – I frequently consult them while judging, and have no problem seeing other judges doing the same. I’m just pointing out their limitations. I realise also that a model horse judge has to look at a bewildering array of breeds and crossbreeds, not all of which could you ever find a real example to look at. However, by the same token, many more breeds have been imported to the UK in the last few years, and I’d venture to say that there can’t be many breeds of which you would be unable to find a living example somewhere in the British Isles!

To end on a positive note, in contrast to what I’ve heard at live shows, it’s been really encouraging to see the use of this Facebook group launched recently by Jan Sedrati. Here there’s been lots of discussion of conformation and breed type in regard to various model moulds, with examples of real horses also being posted. Granted, it’s a shame the arguments have occasionally become a bit antagonistic, but at the end of the day, at least these folk are arguing about the right things.

Vive la France!

At last, a post about pedigrees!

It occurs to me that at some stage, I’m going to have used all the obvious place-related phrases as post titles for this blog. However, until then…

 I first became dimly aware of the Haras Nationaux (French National Stud network) by reading about it in the 1960s and 70s Riding magazines which were given me by an older friend and which I avidly digested during my childhood. In fact, my enthusiasm for horse breeding and pedigrees may well be largely traceable to those magazines, and I still have them in my loft. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to visit two branches of the Studs while on holiday in France, and I’ve also used their website for tracing pedigrees, and just for general browsing.

Now, I only visit the website every 6 months or so, and every time I do they appear to have changed it, so the following is not an exhaustive guide to how to use it now or in the future. However, there currently appear to be 3 main ways of finding information on individual horses on it.

The first is from this page ('espace etalons'), where you can search for all the stallions which the National Stud is currently standing, by breed. From the name of each individual, you can go to a page which gives more details including his pedigree and, often, a photo. The second is this page ('info chevaux'), which searches a much bigger database  known as the SIRE database. This includes stallions, mares and geldings, including some of unknown breed/parentage, many in private ownership as well as those owned by the Haras Nationaux, and some older/deceased horses. I think it may in fact include all those who are part of some kind of national microchipping scheme. The drawback here, of course, is that you need to know a horse’s name in order to get started. Also, if there are many horses of that name, there doesn't seem to be a way of refining the search unless you are a paying member of the site, so you have to trawl through them all. However, if you do find the horse you want, and it is a purebred, you can access several generations of pedigree from here.

The third method is from the homepage: click on the map showing the regions of France and it takes you to a page of information on the Haras locations within that region. This is very useful if you are planning to visit one of the studs, as it will give you all the relevant visiting details. If you select one of the locations listed as a Centre Technique (CTP), you can then access (bottom right of the page) a list of all the stallions currently standing there, as well as lists of stallions whose frozen or chilled semen is available. These latter lists are often a lot more extensive and so are another good way of finding horses. From each individual horse’s record on here, you can select to ‘en savoir encore plus sur sa généalogie’ and that will take you to a page giving not only a 3-generation pedigree, but also lists of the other produce of the horses in the pedigree, and a list of the stallion’s own produce. All this is a useful way to find individuals who might be used as parents.

Of course, I should have stated at the outset that you do need a smattering of French to find your way around, but once you get used to the vocabulary, it’s really not that difficult. A few useful basics are étalon (stallion), jument (mare, although they also seem to use femelle), hongre (gelding) and poulain (foal). Trait means draught, so a cheval de trait is a draught horse, while ane is a donkey. With regard to colours, noir, bai, brun and gris are fairly self-explanatory. Chestnut is alezan, and roan is rouanne, although I recently discovered that aubere can be chestnut roan (Gris rouanne is just grey – in the same way that grey TBs can still be registered as roan in the UK and US). Isabelle can be buckskin or dun,  also possibly palomino,. Crin lavées means flaxen, although be aware that in some breeds, for example the Comtois, alezan crin lavées (flaxen chestnut) can actually be silver bay, and bai crin lavées almost certainly is. I’ve also seen at least one instance of a brown horse being described as noir pangaré, while a black horse was bai foncé, so it does pay always to look at the picture if there is one!

Here’s one of the models I have pedigreed with the help of this site: 

 

whom I won as a MECS trophy in 2005. Prior to this, I already had a set of details for a chestnut roan Norman Cob stallion, Prince, given to me by Morgan Haberman of the US. This was a son of her stallion L’Inspecteur, who I believe was a bit of star on the US model scene in his day. Roan is a rare colour in Norman Cobs, in fact it may even have died out in the live horse population and you will not often find it listed as a possible colour on breed websites; but go back a bit and it’s possible to find real, registered examples who were listed as roan. I checked out Prince’s pedigree and his grand-dam is listed as roan, which is good enough for me.

Prince himself though was foaled in 1981 so was a bit too old to use as details for a showing model, so I decided to make my horse a son of his. I therefore needed a dam. While on holiday in 2004 I had visited the Haras du Pin in Normandy, and seen a few Norman Cobs including this handsome specimen, Herquemoulin:

 

(We saw him and I made a note of the name on his stable door just before we were shoo’ed outside – we were only supposed to be in the stables while on the official tour, apparently).  I looked him up on the Haras website and decided to use his dam, Tapette – she was bay, but I knew that she was capable of producing chestnut with a chestnut-based stallion. As she was foaled in 1985, she was plenty old enough to produce a foal older than Herquemoulin, so I decided to make my stallion a year older. Since virtually all French equines, of any breed, seem to use an alphabetical naming system, I needed a name beginning with G. A quick search through a French dictionary threw up the word ‘garance’ which means the colour of something dyed with madder. Madder is a pinky-red colour, so this seemed a perfect name for my horse!

Addressing realism for a moment, I admit that it’s hardly realistic that a mare belonging to a French stud would have been covered by a stallion in the UK imported from the US, when there are so many home-grown Norman Cobs in France to choose from. However, I didn’t see many other ways of finding a real Norman Cob mare, and one could always argue that the breeder sent her across the Channel or obtained some shipped semen in order to keep the rare roan colour going!

The second horse for which I used the site was this Percheron:

 

With his heavy build, long mane, and more feather than is seen on British or American examples, I thought he looked more like the French type of Percheron. Also he is greying out from black, so I wanted one of his parents to be black. As his sire I therefore chose Lime George, whom I had liked when I had seen him at the British Percheron Society Show a few years ago: 

 

Lime George was bred from two-imported French-bred horses, and I was able to use the Haras website to find several generations of pedigree for his dam, Cayenne. Unfortunately I have come to a halt with his sire, Bouton d’Or, as there is more than one registered Percheron stallion of this name, and I don’t know which one is Lime George’s sire!

My model also needed a dam, and for this I chose a real British Percheron mare called Hales Uni. She was pictured as a prize-winning filly in the catalogue of the Percheron Society breed show which I attended, and then a few years later I was delighted to see her on the cover of Heavy Horse World magazine as the supreme equine champion of the Royal Show 2004 – the first time a heavy horse had ever won this honour.  At that time Uni was nine and in foal for the first time, so there were a number of ‘free’ years to choose from for my stallion.

Uni’s dam was Hales Juno, most of whose pedigree I could trace from an earlier, 1980s show catalogue which I owned, or from the All Breed Database. Uni’s sire Ryan’s Day Granitdier (registered name Ryan Day’s Granitdier) eluded me for a long time, despite being an influential sire among British Percherons. Eventually however he also turned up on All Breed. As he was imported from Canada, my stallion, whom I named Hales Paulinus, has a nice mixture of French, Canadian and British lines.

I hope this has been a useful introduction to finding pedigrees for the French breeds, using a resource that you may not have known about. I’ll be happy to try and answer specific questions from anyone who contacts me.

A grand day out

Here I go again, putting off the proper pedigree topics in favour of other stuff… I was busy doing things with my family during half term last week, so pedigrees have been neglected, I’m afraid. But one of our trips was to the Surrey County Show, so I thought I’d share some photos of that with you instead.

Going to an agricultural show has to be one of my very favourite things to do, ever since I was introduced to the Great Yorkshire show at a tender age. Despite living in Surrey for about 17 years we had never been to the county show, mostly because it’s always on the Bank Holiday Monday which falls in half term and we’ve usually been away. This year however we decided on a ‘staycation’, so took the opportunity to go.

Surrey is, to be honest, not the most agricultural of counties, and this is reflected in the scale of the show: it’s one day only, and not nearly as big as some of the county shows which have their own designated showgrounds. However, it still provided plenty of variety, from motorcycle displays through to wood-bodging, taking in on the way what I was most interested in: a wide variety of horses and other animals!

For example, there was a whole section of show classes for donkeys:

I spent quite a while watching these, as they're not something you often get a chance to observe. It was fascinating to see the differences in size and type, and trying to predict which one would be the winner!

One of the attractions in the main arena was the ponies' scurry driving, which is always fun to watch:

And then there were cobs, which are one of the glories of the British showring:

When the American sculptor Karen Gerhardt was over here recently, she was inspired to create a cob, and this was the result. He's going to be available in resin and china, which is very exciting. I took several pictures of this fella, because of his lovely patterning:

How about a Roundie painted like this?

British native (Mountain & Moorland) ponies are among my biggest favourites, so I spent some time around their ring as well. Here's a Shetland:

and because they're rare and I'm painting one at the moment, I made my family wait around in the rain which set in, so I could see the Exmoors:

This handsome chap is called Achnesgiu, by Liqueur.

However, what I love about agricultural shows is not just the horses, but all the other livestock and interesting things on view. Who knew, for instance, that there are eggs this colour?

or blotchy goats?

and then there was the parade of prizewinning cattle to top it all off:

All in all, a grand day out!

A short interlude with some repainted models

Yes, I know I promised you the French National Stud, but I’ve been rather busy writing something else and haven’t had time to write it up yet. So in the meantime, I thought I’d show off the three models which I managed to complete in time for my British Breeds Live Show last month.

First up is a Horsing Around resin Shetland which I painted as a trade arrangement with my friend Celia. I wanted her Border Fine Arts Dales mare, she wanted fewer models and this resin painted – deal done! That was last year, and I was feeling a bit guilty about having left it so long, so the show provided the perfect catalyst for me to get on and finish the model.

Celia had sent me a photo with a rough idea of the pattern she wanted, and a verbal description of the colour. Here is Tobermoray as he ended up:

He’s now been posted off to Celia and I hope he meets with her approval.

The other two models were both for myself, and were ones which I had started at least five years ago – in fact nearer ten for one of them, I think. One was a brown Thoroughbred, and I must admit I am pretty pleased with how she turned out:

 

Incidentally the base was made (under much sufferance) by my dear friend Alf, whose tribulations you can read about here, if you wish. She did a lovely job as you can see.

The other model, a Shire, is pretty enough, but I do tend to struggle with rendering dappled grey, and feel I could have done better. However, judge for yourself:

 To end with a challenge, I wonder who can be the first of my readers to identify both the Shire and the Thoroughbred models above? They are slightly unusual, and in particular I think may be unknown to my readership outside the UK. Drop me an e-mail or a comment if you think you know!

Pedigree revision, Part II: England meets America

As promised, a return to pedigree assignment after all the excitement of the live show.

And so I invite you to come with me, gentle reader, back in time… back to the model Arab horse scene of the early 1980s, where collectors and customisers, keen to paint some more exciting colours than the standard Arab bay, chestnut and grey, had followed the lead of some real breeders in the USA and embraced the idea of the ‘Pintabian’ – a partbred with pinto colouring and a high percentage of Arab blood. Several of the leading model Arab studs at this time had added a few pinto partbreds to their ranks. 

I was young and keen to get in on the act, and set about forming a little breeding group of them for myself. I sent one of my foundation Arab mares to Keren Gilfoyle’s stallion Mister Mogg, a Hagen-Renaker small Amir repainted to bay pinto, who was then a megastar of the British model horse world. The resulting foal was a bay pinto colt whom I named Calico Jack after a real-life historical pirate (long before any other, more famous pirate captains named Jack!) I was lucky enough to persuade Keren to reposition and customise a Classic Arab Stallion as Calico Jack:

He became one of my most successful show models and is still one of my all-time favourites. The main reason for Mister Mogg’s popularity was that he had bags of ‘presence’ and character, particularly in his face, and I was so pleased that Keren managed to give these qualities to Jack also.

At the same time I began to gather a harem for Jack, and was able to buy, as ‘Details Only', two fillies from model breeders of the time. One was a bay pinto bred by Marilyn Sweet; the other, a chestnut pinto named Tattoo You, bred by Keren. She was out of Candy Roller, a Hagen-Renaker Forever Amber repainted by Keren, who was probably the most successful PBA mare of the time, and by a chestnut model Arab stallion named Talis. Talis was something of an interesting horse, having been first owned by a young collector named Ian Scott, who tragically died suddenly in 1981, at the age of sixteen. I never knew him, but remember reading his obituary in one of my earliest copies of Model Horse News. Ian had been quite involved in the model Arab scene and after his death, his mother had passed several of his models, notably Talis, on to Keren.

Anyhow, I now had a couple of ‘wives’ for Jack, who became Breyer Classics customised by myself. Eventually I sold both of them, but before doing so, mindful of the need for Jack to produce a son and heir, I bred Tattoo You to him, to produce a bay pinto colt foaled in 2000.  Combining his father’s name and his mum’s Rolling Stones theme, this horse of course had to be named Jumpin’ Jack Flash. As Keren Gilfoyle had been very instrumental in his pedigree, I felt it fitting that the model I got for this horse was one of her mini pewter ‘Malik EnNaseem’ sculptures, painted by myself.

Well, all this happened over the years without much fuss, until last year when I decided to go through my big folder of model horse details, setting all my pedigrees straight. When I got to Jack Flash, I found that I was able to fill in all parts of his pedigree except that of Talis. Talis’ parents, Vilmar and Bint Martinique, were both models, but I could find no record of their parents. Upon contacting Keren, I found that to the best of her knowledge, they had never had any: the pedigree just ‘stopped’ there. Because Tattoo You was Talis’ only offspring, she had never been moved to do anything about it.

I suppose some people might have been content to accept that as inevitable and just leave it like that; but neither Keren or I think that way. We do like our pedigrees to go back to real horses, and it was Keren who proposed that we designated new parents for Talis. Knowing our mutual interest in the stud, she suggested that we make him straight Courthouse, a suggestion which I accepted with alacrity. Out came my Courthouse book again, and I requested that Talis should be a full brother to the real mare Sappho, by Blenheim out of Selima. Blenheim was a nice-looking horse, according to his photos, and Selima’s sire was Bahram, whose photo I also like a lot. Moreover, this pedigree is not too closely related to my existing part-Courthouse Arabians (or at least as ‘not close’ as you can get with Courthouse!), something which will be useful should I wish to cross this line into my purebred Arabs. Keren was happy with this choice and the matter was decided.

Thus we engineered another piece of pedigree revisionism. There might be some purists who object, but to my mind, if a model’s owner cannot approve a change to an incomplete pedigree, thirty years after the original owner’s death, then who can? As mentioned before, Talis has no other offspring, so I am the only person whom the change affects. And now we have another pure Courthouse model stallion (albeit a very old one requiring back-dating for any offspring) with whom to play!

Thus Jumpin’ Jack Flash’s pedigree is complete, and is perhaps a rather unusual one, combining solid Old English Arabian lines with the much more exotic world of the American pinto part-Arabian. To elaborate: his two Arabian grandparents are Talis (Courthouse) and Magic Flower (almost straight Crabbet, but with one line to some 1930s Hanstead imports). Moving to his pinto grandparents, Mister Mogg is by Keren’s ancient Julip Arab stallion Sham of Godolphin, who was by the Crabbet horse Dargee out of a rather interesting mare of old American lines, while Candy Roller is by the real stallion Counselor, who although foaled in the USA was of almost pure Crabbet breeding. Only through the dam lines does the colour come in: Candy Roller’s dam was a real Paint mare named Cheyenne Cindy, and Mister Mogg’s was a mare of Catherine Dewick’s named Shadows On Our Skin; I believe that the original model was actually made of animal skin of some sort! Shadow’s dam was a real half-Arab pinto mare called Lady Yazoo, who was the dam of some of the Fantasy Farms partbreds in the USA.

This mixture is perhaps a little curious, but it’s very reflective of what sources were available to the British model horse scene of the time.

That’s all for now, but for those of you who found this post esoteric, rarified, old-fashioned and self-indulgent, take heart. The next one may be more useful, as it will cover researching real French breed pedigrees via the French National Stud website.