Christmas Breyer Horses: Nutcracker Prince

Breyer has put out a lot of special seasonal Christmas models in the last few years, including actual model horses, Breyer Christmas tree ornaments, tabletop decorations like snow globes and gifts like the Breyer charm necklaces.

Last week I stopped by the feed store to pick up yet another sack of chicken feed, when I spotted their Breyer display.  They had an entire tree decorated in nothing but small white lights, and Breyer ornaments!  The display was pretty impressive, I can tell you.  Maybe a little overwhelming, but impressive!  

They also had just received more Nutcracker Prince models.  Apparently this is a very hot model this year, and they have been trouble keeping them in stock.  In fact, instead of removing the "out of stock" sign, someone had just scratched through it with pencil, as if to make it easier to erase the pencil when they inevitably go out of stock again!

Nutcracker Prince is the thirteenth in Breyer's Holiday Series.  This is a traditional size mold (12.5 inches long and 10.25 inches high) decorated with holiday tack, including an embroidered blanket, a delicate wrought gold chain bridle, a little poinsettia pouf thingie in his forelock, ribbons and bows everywhere, and much much more.

I contemplated Nutcracker Prince for several minutes before I finally decided that this wasn't the style for me.  I would have loved it when I was a little girl (and I'm sure I would have played with Nutcracker Prince and lost all of his clever bits of flair almost immediately).  But as an adult I prefer a clean, realistic style.

Nutcracker Prince uses the Huckleberry Bey mold, which was created by Kathleen Moody in 1999.  This is a "high drama" mold, with a lot of flexion showing in the limbs (I'm not actually sure if a horse's rear hoof can flex like that, but Breyer horses are art, not anatomical illustrations), and a great deal of detail in the mane and tail.  Moody has a very distinctive look to her molds, many of which end up being used for Breyer's various fantasy lines.  

Moody's style is an excellent choice for a Breyer Holiday Horse, for all of these reasons.  I don't think it would look right to put that many pieces of flair on a "normal-looking" model like Pottery Barn Strapless.  At the same time, this mold looks a bit odd just standing there naked by himself.  He needs company, or at least some decoration!

Oddly enough, when I started researching this post, I learned that this mold was also used for Marguerite Henry's Arabian stallion Sham, who was the star of her book King of the Wind.  This startled me, since I have a Sham, but a completely different mold.  It's interesting to compare the two molds used to depict Sham, a very high spirited Arabian stallion.  

This mold has also been used for a lot of promotional runs, including the BreyerFest Prize Model, Live Auction, Raffle Model, Tent Special, and more.  Considering the number of BreyerFest uses of this mold, I think it could be considered the BreyerFest ambassador!