Fantasy Equestrian Sports
Originally published at Harmonic Pets. Please leave any comments there.
When Stephen Colbert joked about fantasy dressage on his show earlier this week, he kind of wasn’t kidding. Now, as far as I know there aren’t any fantasy equestrian leagues for the Olympic sports in the same way there are fantasy football or baseball leagues. But, within the racing world, there is fantasy horse racing. This is done using what is called “pedigree assignment.” In the model horse world, this means taking your Breyer horse and researching pedigrees, following breed association rules regarding embryo transfer as to whether mares can have more than one foal a year. There’s also often times a mix of “paper” horses, which are pedigrees done on paper, and “real” ones, which correlate with models. Like real thoroughbreds, these paper and model horses turn a year older on January 1. And, like real horses, they are “raced.”
When I first talked about racing my model horses people had mental images of people “galloping” their horses around a table. No, it isn’t done that way. The usual method when I was a teenager was to draw names out of a hat. Which, isn’t realisitic, but if you consider back then we had all breed races where a Clydesdale could race against a miniature horse, and a thoroughbred would be in the field too, the whole thing wasn’t that realistic.
These days, you can continue with the “draw names out of a hat” method, or use random number generators, or even a computer program which compares the statistics of the parents to determine who wins on any given day, with, of course, a random variable thrown in, because horses are living creatures with a degree of randomness to them. The best of competitors can have a bad day, as we’ve seen with failed Triple Crown bids.
If you’re looking to have fantasy show jumping or fantasy dressage, then turn to photo showing. Model photo showing has all the intricacies of model railroading, down to miniature scenery, props, and gear sized just for the horse. Though Breyer’s accessories have gotten better over the years, the highest level of shows demand custom made saddles, bridles (the “bits” are placed in the corner of the horses’ mouth with sticky tack so as to appear to be in the mouth), halters, costumes, props, etc. It’s a big business.
I’ll confess that I’ve been out of model horses seriously for at least a decade and a half, more likely going on two. I still have a few cherished Breyers, but most of them have been sold, and I now gaze with fond memories on the Breyer displays at the local tack shop. But yes, Stephen Colbert, you can have fantasy dressage and other equestrian sports. All you need to do is start with a model horse.