Classic Quarter Horse Foal Variations

All about the bays.

Early shell hooves variations with star and without star

I saw this topic pop up in one of my Facebook groups - and it's one of my favorites for show and tell! I'm an avid conga-er of all of the Maureen Love classic molds but one of my tops favorite sets is the classic QH family. I am always on the hunt for nice ones and interesting variations. Today's topic is the original bay foal.

When this set was first released, for a very brief period the whole family had stars and the mare and foal also had the natural or pink hooves, as seen in the early catalog picture. This was quickly replaced by the more ubiquitous set with no stars and grey or black hooves that ran for many years (and had many other variations along the way). They are not impossible to find but they are quite uncommon. I have a pink-hooved example with a star and one without a star.

Probably the solid faced one came along after they dropped the stars but before the hoof color changed.

This next one is your very typical, normal, bay foal with nothing remarkable except I really enjoyed the shading and color so she has been the keeper among the "standard" examples in my conga.

Of course I have a chalky one too. The most surprising thing about that, in fact, is that I only have one! The chalky version of the bay foal is among the most common of all chalkies so they aren't too hard to find and they do look great in chalky. But they are still relatively rare in general terms. The other blister pack colors are much, much harder to find in chalky.

Another common variation - as is true of the whole 70s era - is sock variations. There are some out there with one two or three socks, or like this one I have which is solid bay. As you can see on the two above, the socks were free-handed and so whoever was painting this one probably just went a little too far with the black.

Then there is this oddball who also has no socks and has a bald face - someone got a little more creative with this one I guess! I've seen a few others like this over the years, but definitely a rare find.

The common one I still need and actually had added to my Breyerfest shopping list for this year is the 90s bright red bay with well defined socks when they were in the yellow box (with a matching yellow stallion!)

I love finding family sets to match too. Last year I found a matching no-sock mare to go with my solid foal. They aren't quite a color match but best I can do for now!

Over the years I've managed to piece together the original star set but my mare and stallion are not in great shape so I'm always on the lookout for upgrades to them too.