VP at the PA Horse Expo 2012

Ok, so this is about a month overdue.  But last month Heather and I went to the PA Horse Expo.  And we found out what happened to that horse from Family Guy.

Plush blanket-a-fications!

It's a blanket (for people and not ponies) that conveniently zips up into a horse head.  We assume this is supposed to be given as a gift to an unsuspecting recipient under their bed covers while they are sleeping. 

It also comes in bay.  And its soulless eyes follow you.

Speaking of dismembered fictional horses.  (Ok, that was an awful segue and I apologize.)  We got to see Tommie Turvey's red roan mustang stunt horse Blade.

 A.K.A the cute horse that got eaten by zombies in The Walking Dead.

Personal confession, I cried when Blade got devoured by a hoard of shambling undead.  It got to me, because in real life I hold a red roan near and dear to my heart.  It's kind of the same reaction I get when I watch that one episode of Futurama with Seymour the dog.  Because he looks like my Border Terrier.

Walking Dead is show so I know it's all fake.  They couldn't actually film a horse actually being eaten by those infected with the Z virus for the sake of entertainment (ASPCA has standards y'know). Since then I have met several other people who either ride or own red roans who also watch Walking Dead.  And all of them had the same reaction.  Those who lacked a red roan heart horse did not.  There is a psychological study in there somewhere...

Anyways.

We also got to see booths, Breyers, orange tack (Heather has a thing for orange tack, and I mean orange orange tack).  Something we noticed is that a good number of the booths had those animatronic life-sized shetland pony toys.  Hey it works though.  People come in to check them out, they model products, no clean up, and parents trick their small children into thinking they pet a real pony without fear of them losing any fingers.  

We all know real ponies eat children's fingers to gain their power.

There was a real horse who painted pictures with paint and a brush while sporting a tiny little blue barrette.

Micro fashion.  He has, how you say?  The MAGICS! 

We also got to meet this one leopard tiger horse with crazy mismarks in his pattern.  I've only ever seen pictures of him in Google image search so I kinda, maybe, sorta, geeked out over his somatic mutation.  I apologize to the lady at his stall for my geekout.  Your horse's color is really really cool.

And we also found out that Odd Job Bob, Tommie Turvey's gypsy cob, (hey that rhymes) was in a movie.  In a car.  And all we can think now is.  Eventually, for better or worse, we're going to have to review this...

...

~~~

Thanks to the very nice and people from Champion Saddlery for being understanding of the weird need to blog about the horse blanket in their booth.  

(No one pays me to link to them in my blog.  Check them out they were nice. :)

And a huge thanks to Heather for taking pictures because I always forget to bring a camera.

EDIT:  Ok change that to blame Heather now.  She told me I had to put a picture of myself on this blog somewhere, and she lovingly edited it for me so I would post it.  Here ya go!

Visible Horse: First Impressions

So last week Heather and I went to the PA Horse Expo...

At the Ginger Horse model pony booth there was this thing waiting there in neat stacked pyramids of 3 on either side.

Cue angelic singing...

It's a Visible Horse.  And anatomically accurate 1/6 scale model of a thoroughbred horse with the respiratory, digestive and skeletal system represented.  And I have wanted one since I was 5.  Yes I was a weird 5 year old into educational toys and TV shows. (Oh Discovery Channel, where have all your scientifically factual documentaries gone? Oh yah, bigfoot, truckers, ghosts, and aliens got to them. nvm...) 

After mulling over it most of the day the Visible Horse was purchased before the vendor booths closed.  Near 2 decades of material longing meant it was about darn time to give in to the desire of the clear plastic anatomical model pony.  Plus it's a fake horse (read: virtual 'pwnie'.  See what we did there? :P) and this will be a fully documented project.

 It. Looks. So. COOL.

Hey a spleen!

  

So it was opened up and this is what you get.

 

Within the box is a bag of clear pony shell, a bag of pink innards, and a bag of bones.  No need to call in the ASPCA for that last one in this case.

As you might have noticed the pink parts are not colored as in the image on the box.  This is a horse version of a model airplane kit where assembly and at least some painting are part of the experience.  Though some assembly required is a wee bit of an understatement for this project.  However, like any good equestrian who has studied horse anatomy would do, the assembly instructions were immediately thrown aside.  This is an awesome and complex 3D puzzle and it must be earned!  Bwahaha!!!  But if you do use the instructions (and honestly there is no shame in that) all of the parts are numbered with little tabs connected to them so you can keep track. 

What did I do first?  I found the skull bones ASAP!  The skull is in 5 different pieces with the jaw/mandible split in 2, the pallet and 6 back molars are another piece, while the scalp and the rest of the skull are others. 

 

And since it has prominent canine teeth, mazel tov it's a boy!  Or one of those rare canine toothed mares. 

 

The 2 jaw pieces did not fit so well after I tried connecting them, so I had to file down a mold divot so they fit closer. 

 

 For fun I found the tongue and saw how it fit.  Anyone else getting disturbing flash backs to The Golden Compass bear fight?

The pallet did stay on when I added it, but there are gaps so some kind of filler is needed to make it look finished when I start really assembling.  Mostly just having fun checking the whole thing out right now.

 

 After having this much of the skull together I noticed that the area where the scalp went had a big ol' empty cavity. 

 

And I was as happy as a freshly infected zombie to find myself a brain.

 

It fits perfectly in it's tiny skull home.  They don't even show the brain anywhere on the box as part of the kit.  It's just a really cool extra detail.

 

During a get-together Heather played with the bones, Christine played with the innards, I and fiddled with the crunchy plastic coating.  Out of context that sounds like a night in a horror movie.  But much anatomical geeking out was had over the details and structure of everything.

After I get myself a bottle of superglue, some model putty and paint I'll be sure have another post on this project :)  Waaaaaay too happy that I finally got this thing.