Vintage Custom Model Equine Center

Vintage custom model horse in top photo: Amarna Bint Morafic (by Elizabeth Bouras). 

DONATED by Laurel Orrin, these vintage customs by (from left) Linda Leach, Elaine McDaniel, Candace liddy, and Laurie Jo Jensen are behind glass in a temporary cabinet as they await the opening of the VCMEC Hobby House & Museum.

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We are always grateful to receive donations of vintage custom model equines to help make the Museum's future exhibits even better. We'll introduce these treasured gifts here!

3/20/2017: Today we were thrilled to receive a package from Laurel Orrin, whose photography services helped make the work of Linda Leach and Mary Sue Barnum stars in model horse photo-showrings in the 1970s and 1980s. Laurel has donated to the Museum a quartet of vintage custom equines from her longtime collection!

This important group is led by an early creation by Michigan artist Linda Leach: a Breyer Proud Arabian Stallion customized from its original standing position to become a boldly trotting fleabitten grey Arabian mare. Laurel owned this horse since the mid-1970s, and believes it is the first model on which Linda Leach resculpted the legs.

At the mare's side is a beautiful bay filly, positioned running with her thread mane and tail streaming, created by Elaine McDaniel in 2001 from the standing Breyer Family Arabian Foal.

The noted equine sculptor Candace Liddy customized some Breyer horses in the 1990s, and thanks to Laurel, the Museum now has a marvelous Liddy example from 1995. This trotting bay stallion is a real hefty handful; it took a lot of epoxy and resculpting to complete his transformation from what may have been the Breyer Classic Lipizzan!

Completing the quartet is an engaging Appaloosa foal that Laurie Jo Jensen created from a Breyer Classic Andalusian Foal in 1999. Laurie Jo has conducted painting workshops at BreyerFest and designed colorways for Stone Model Horses, and this colorful guy really shows off her paintwork.

​Thank you so much, Laurel--the Museum is honored to welcome this wonderful quartet!​​

Donated Vintage Customs