Grand Champions
Horses that Never Were?
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It happens. Every now and then horse are designed that never makes it off the drawing board. Or past the prototype phase. Or past the very first run at the stores. These anomalies are obsucure and shrouded in mystery; do they actually exsist? No one knows for sure. In some cases, it seems that very likely that a does prototype exsists (hence the pictures) but what happened to them? Where are they now? It's something every collector wants to know!
Often too, a horse was very different by the time it reached stores then what it looked like on the product shot, which causes some confusion in the ID world. Take Silver Streak, for example. Did you recognize him from his card? I didn't thinks so ;) Having a horse that dosn't look quite like his card isn't a strange thing at all; it's all summed up in those classic words, "product may differ slightly from as shown". |  |
Alternate Posed Sound 'n'Action Stallions
Direct your focus to the stallion on the left. When the flyers first announced the arrival of these brand new, larger-then-life stallions, the picture was of four stallions. Two were posed as all the stallions to follow would be, but two were of a different type, almost, slightly more arabianesque in baring. What became of these more refined horses? Certianlly they never made it to the stores. Perhaps it was becuase the bent foreleg prevented them from balancing on all fours, as the early models were often demostraited. Perhapse it was just too costly to have two modles in production at the same time. Whatever the reason, the stallions pictured here were released in the regular pose, and the story behind this classy model remains a mystry.
Racing Thoroughbreds Classics
Nothing captures the imagination like the thoroughbreds of the racing world! Thoroughbreds make up over 90% of the horses used for professional racing in North America. Every Thoroughbred can trace his ancestry back to one of three great stallion, the Burly Turk, the Godolphian Arabian, and the Darely Arabian.
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Above, proposed classic-scale Racing Thoroughbreds.
To right, mini-scale Racing Thoroughbreds. Slated for 1998, never released.
These flashy stallions and mares were set to be released in the '98 year, and there was even a mini set of racers to complete the line. However, they sadly never made it to the stores. It's interesting to note that some of the horses pictured here look very simmiliar to a few well-known horses from the '95 and '96 lines. (if you have a horse that looks like the ones here, they are actually the older horses). |
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The Mystery Ride...?
Now these horse and rider sets are a bit of a mystery to me! The were set to be released with the '97 year, but they never made it to the stores. I don't know anything more about these beautiful horses besides the picture, but I can say if ever a set SHOULD have been made, and wasn't, you are looking at them right here. They're beautiful. Simply, stunningly beautiful.
The Oopsy-horses of 2000... the Lost Years
Sadly, so many of the horses featured to appear in the 2000-2002 years never made it off the catalogues and remain as mysteries to us collectors. This includes the new large-scale Traditional Horses of which only one was confirmed released. The third set of Fancy Parade horses also dissapered into oblivion. And what about these guys:
The idea behind these messy stallions, was that you could "clean them up" with the magic of warm water. The grey was obviously having too much fun on a muddy race track, and the bay is meant to have "boo-boos" which could be fixed up by the caring vet (he must be really acident-prone; look at all the bandages in his feed box!). While a vet set was eventually released with the FNN horses, these to fine classics never made it to exsistence...
