Divisions and Sections - how we got here

"Love's Perfection" was a Stablemate custom created in 1992, just before artist resins changed the model horse hobby forever.

I want to thank everyone for the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Horse Breed Reference List. Hearing from so many who feel that it makes sense has been reassuring. 

There is also a great post by Liz LaRose on the Ponydom community discussion group. She summarized my objectives far better than I did. I won't repeat those here, but I will talk about the different sections and some of the choices I made. First, I want to explore a little bit of hobby history.

Changing halter divisions

To understand how we got here, it might be helpful to look at how American model horse shows have evolved. We started with two Divisions: Halter (horses without tack) and Performance (horses with tack). 

This class list for a mail-in photo show was advertised in 1974. The well-known host was offering a free custom to the Grand Champion!

At that time, the Halter division could be a mix of gender, position, color, or breed classes. For larger shows, each type of halter class might become a division. 

This Appaloosa specialty show from 1977 has halter divisions for gender, pattern, type, and make.

The most common split for halter classes in the earliest shows was by gender (or gender and age) because that was how most real-life horse shows were structured. (Note that in the class list for the larger show, the "generic" halter classes are gender classes.) By the time in-person ("live") shows were the dominant form of competition, "halter" was synonymous with breed classes. 

Classes were based on breed, but modern halter divisions arose to address concerns specific to models. Divisions became about fairness; mass-produced factory finishes could not compete with one-of-a-kind artist creations. Likewise, showers who specialized in smaller scales wanted a place where their entries would not be overlooked. As different types of models entered the market—artist resins, custom-glazed ceramics, and micro minis—new divisions were added to maintain equity. 

Customs and artist resins competed in sixteen breed classes in the same division at the 1995 North American Nationals. 

Breed sections

While halter divisions catered to the new varieties of models, the individual classes were not that different from the breed classes used in earlier model horse shows. 

One addition that did start to appear was Sections. In model horse shows, sections function much the same way that Groups do at dog shows. Similar breeds are grouped, and after their classes are judged, the winners return to compete for a group placement. In the case of model horse shows, it is the first and second-place horses that return to compete for the Sectional Championship and Reserve. Winners from the Sectional competitions are later considered for the Divisional Championship and Reserve.

Historically, the sections have been Light, Stock, Sport, Draft, Pony, and Others. As Liz notes in her post on Ponydom, what began undermining this set of groups was the proliferation of Spanish horses. She mentioned Sarah Rose's influential Brioso and Deseoso. Pour Horse's Suspiro (1996) and Lynn Fraley's El Fuego (1997) were released around that same time. 

"Rocinante", a Suspiro custom-glazed at the Pour Horse Pottery in 1997

We have seen similar impacts in the last decade with the Southern gaited breeds. Like the Spanish horses before the late 1990s, these were not common breeds at model horse shows. That began to change with Sarah Rose's Independence resin, but Breyer's release of Hamilton certainly cemented it. I would argue we are currently seeing that with the British pony breeds with the back-to-back releases of Nikolas, Llewellyn, and Rowan.

When breeds or types see an increase in high-quality representation, it can change the dynamics of a group. I think that is why it was time to revisit the Sections and which breeds sort into them. In the next post, I'll start with the Stock section. After that, I'll work my way through the remaining sections one post at a time to keep things from getting too long. (I also might sneak in an art-related post or two, since this technically a studio blog!)