Singles Assortment: The Second Generation - What Pony is This?

When subscribers to the Breyer magazine, Just About Horses began to pour over the New For 1998 list in the 1998 Jan/Feb issue noticed the list was unusually long for the Stablemate scale. At first the offerings seemed fairly standard: Thoroughbred - Blood Bay, Arabian - Shaded Steel Grey, Shire - Black (well, okay it's possible Breyer's stretching a point with the G1 Draft Horse...), Pinto Saddlebred - Chestnut and White, Shetland Pony - Red Ro...wait a minute, Shetland Pony? Breyer doesn't have anything that could pass for a Shetland Pony! NEW MOLDS!!

The 1998 July/Aug issue featured images of the full 1998 Singles Assortment, as well as announcing an exciting special run. The full-colour picture showed not just a handful of new molds but twelve (including the three from the special run set) dynamic molds in a variety of breeds by the talented and popular Kathleen Moody!

While the G1 molds had names which were uniformly used, the G2 names could vary a bit, especially in the early days of the mold when there was a certain amount of anarchy when it came to the mold names. Eventually the hobby came to an informal majority agreement, though a few name variations are still in use. The most commonly used mold names are as follows:

• American Saddlebred - also Saddlebred or Saddlebred Mare
• Andalusian
• Clydesdale
• Mule
• Paso Fino
• Prancing Morgan - also Morgan (Prancing) or Park Morgan
• Rearing Arabian - also Arabian (Rearing)
• Standardbred - also Pacer
• Stock Horse - also Appaloosa
• Shetland Pony - also Pony
• Thoroughbred
• Warmblood

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It took quite a while for the new assortment to hit the stores - I stalked my local shop without any luck until December 17, 1998; my JAH special run set appeared on my doorstep less than a week later.

The Assortment released in 1998 only featured nine of the new molds, plus three G1 models:

• American Saddlebred - palomino with painted braids
• Rearing Arabian - white grey
• Mule - varnish leopard appaloosa
• Clydesdale - bay
• Andalusian - dapple grey
• Stock Horse - buckskin blanket appaloosa
• Warmblood - bay
• Shetland Pony - black tobiano
• Thoroughbred - chestnut.

The G1 models in the assortment were a chestnut tobiano Saddlebred, grey frame Quarter Horse Stallion, and a flea-bitten grey Arabian Mare. In 1999 these G1 models were replaced with the three previously unreleased G2 molds - chestnut roan Standardbred, bay/chestnut Paso Fino, and a flaxen liver chestnut Prancing Morgan.

This 100% G2 assortment was available through 2002 when it was replaced the next year by a new assortment.

This group consisted mainly of G2 molds with one lonely G1 Saddlebred in black tobiano. The rest of the assortment contained:

• American Saddlebred - red chestnut 
• Warmblood - bay dun blanket appaloosa
• Standardbred - dapple grey
• Rearing Arabian - black
• Paso Fino - dapple grey
• Clydesdale - white grey
• Stock Horse - chestnut/bay 
• Andalusian - dark bay
• Prancing Morgan - palomino 
• Thoroughbred - chestnut sabino
• Shetland Pony - palomino

Around the end of 2005 the G1 Saddlebred was replaced by the American Saddlebred in the same colour.

The 2003 assortment was available until the end of 2006.