Paradise Horses for 18" Dolls

When I was a child, I was much more interested in toy horses than I was in dolls.  I had a massive collection of Breyer model horses, and my friends and I would play elaborate games with our plastic herds, developing little romances (between the horses) and power struggles (between the horses...mostly) that could rival most soap operas.  As an adult, I am more interested in collecting dolls, but horses still elicit a special kind of excitement in me.

I don't know if it's just my warped perspective, but it seems like there are a lot of new play horses on the market these days, and I find myself gravitating towards these toys when I am in the stores.  Many of the horses I've seen come with dolls, but I often feel like the dolls are completely out of scale with their equine companions (the Mattel Disney Princess and Horse sets are a perfect example of this).  I thought it would be fun to launch a series of reviews that examines some of the available horses, with an emphasis on which dolls fit them best.  I won't do these reviews all in a row like I did with the Cutie Pops, but I hope to review six or seven different steeds over the next month or two.

I am going to start by reviewing two of the large 19" Paradise horses.  I have been curious about these toys (and the whole Paradise line) for a while.  The fur-covered, articulated Paradise horses are sold for around $30 at Walmart as part of the Madame Alexander 18" "My Life As..." play doll series, but they are also available in the standard Paradise packaging with no mention of My Life at all.  I was interested to learn whether there's any difference between these separately-marketed versions of the horse.  These horses strike me as a nice alternative to the expensive American Girl horses, and will offer an interesting comparison for my upcoming review of the comparably-priced Our Generation articulated Morgan.

Paradise "Western Pinto"  horse.

Why did I decide to review toy horses right now?  Well, I've spent the last few weeks of my life building a fence in my backyard.  I built a fence because I wanted my poodle to have a safe place to run around before he gets too old to enjoy running.  I built this fence not from prefabricated sections, but picket by everloving picket.  This saved a huge amount of money, which is awesome, but I'm pretty sure I never want to see another picket in my life.  It was hard.  Anyway, while I was building the fence, my mind turned frequently to horses.  Fences have that effect on me.

One night while I had horses on my mind, I came across an eBay auction for the "My Life As a Cowgirl and Western Horse" gift set that includes a doll and a horse, both of which were on my wish list to review.  These sets have not made an appearance at my local Walmart yet.  This particular auction was asking $35 (with free shipping), which seemed like a bargain compared to some of the outrageous prices I had been seeing elsewhere.  The My Life horses cost $27 on their own at Walmart, so this was like getting an extra doll for $8.  Too good to be true, right?  That's probably what I should have been thinking.

Instead, I clicked Buy it Now and eagerly waited for my package.  When it finally arrived, it looked like this:

The seller had simply taped a piece of cardboard over the open side of this box and popped it in the mail.  The horse and doll weren't even cable-tied to the box anymore, although the seller had tried to re-attach them with clear tape.  Ugh.  Tape does not mix well with doll hair.  

The doll was still grasping the horse's reins, which (given the circumstances) looked desperate and a little tragic:

Don't worry!  I've got you!

The writing on the box suggests that the horse's name is "Oats and Honey."  That's quite a mouthful, unless maybe the doll is named Honey and her horse is named Oats?  The other way around, perhaps?

Honey is an ok name for a doll, I guess, but Oats is a drab name for a horse.  I prefer the scientific name for the oat plant, Avena sativa.  I think I'll name this horse Avena.

The back of the box has a photograph of the horse and doll, a list of contents, and a little glimpse of the horse's leg articulation: 

Since they weren't attached to the box, Avena and the doll came out of their packaging with no effort, but they were in pretty bad shape:

The doll (I'll go ahead and call her Honey) had black scuffs all over her body and her hair was badly tangled.  She comes with a one-piece blue cowgirl dress that's made out of thin synthetic fabric.  

She also has white vinyl boots and a white cowboy hat.  The hat is a thin, flimsy plastic throwaway.  It's like a Dollar Store party favor or a bargain bag Halloween costume.  The boots are better than the hat, but they're hard to get off because they don't have a complete slit in the back.

Avena was a bit scraggly, and her ears were squished:

What'd you say?

Honey didn't have any permanent damage, but once I got her cleaned up, I realized that she's not the doll I expected she would be.  I was assuming that she was one of the regular Madame Alexander My Life As a Cowgirl dolls (you can see the blonde version of that doll here).  The new collection of My Life dolls recently hit the shelves in my area, and they look wonderful.  This doll is nowhere near as well-dressed or detailed, and she doesn't have the distinct, elegant Madame Alexander face:  

Ok, so here's where this review starts to get complicated.  Looking at this cheap doll, I was beginning to wonder if the original doll had been swapped out for an imitation?  Had I been tricked?  I mean, nothing was attached to the box, so it seemed like anything was possible.  If I had paused to think rationally (or just look at the picture on the box), I would have known she was the correct doll, but I guess I was panicking a little bit.

Eager to get to the bottom of what was going on, I rushed off to Walmart and bought one of the regular My Life dolls--the kind of doll I thought I was going to get with the horse.  You know, for comparison's sake.  

They didn't have the cowgirl doll, so I got My Life As an Outdoorsy Girl ($27.97):

The box has the same design and color scheme as the My Life As a Cowgirl and Western Horse box. The box has a plastic window to protect the doll, and the back of the box is decorated with photographs of the new collection, and a short description of the doll and her personality.

The text on the back of the box has an identity crisis.  It starts out as what I imagine to be this doll's words.  She tells us that she likes running after butterflies and walking the trails and discovering cool things.  That's fine--generic, but fine.  Then, without changing the font or leaving a space or anything, the text starts a third person bulleted list of this doll's features.  It's a little disorienting:

Fabulous fun hair for hours of fun.

The doll is secured to a pink cardboard backdrop that slides out of the main box:

Here are the two dolls together.  They look like completely different brands:

Since this is supposed to be a horse review and not a doll review, I'll skip past the clothing analysis and get to the part where I undressed the dolls and compared their bodies and tags.  Honey's tag identifies her as a Paradise Kids brand doll.  

The Paradise 18" doll collection is called "Be My Girl" and can be seen on the Paradise Kids website.  These dolls retail for $31.  

In contrast, the My Life As an Outdoorsy Girl doll has a Madame Alexander tag:

So, to keep things straight, here's what I know so far:

1. Paradise Kids makes all of the horses, but markets some of the horses for the Madame Alexander My Life play line.

2. Paradise Kids has their own 18" play doll line (called Be My Girl) to go with their horses.

3. In addition to the My Life line, Madame Alexander also makes a very similar-looking 18" play doll line that isn't sold at Walmart...and costs more.  These dolls are called Favorite Friends.  

4. Favorite Friends don't have horses, so at least there's no added complication there.

5. If you can handle one more fact, Madame Alexander's Walmart play line used to be called Friends Boutique, which is so close to the Favorite Friends title, it gives me a headache.

I searched "Madame Alexander and Paradise Kids," trying to learn more about this association, and I found some nice pictures of another Be My Girl doll on Doll Diaries, but that's about it.  I assume that Paradise Kids manufactures the My Life As dolls using Madame Alexander's Favorite Friends head and limb molds, or something like that.  If anyone has more information about this, I am very curious!  My next step will be to compare this doll to a similar-looking Favorite Friends doll, which might give us a bit more information.

In the meantime, here's a quick comparison of the Madame Alexander doll and the Paradise Kids doll.  I named my Madame Alexander doll "Jill," after one of my favorite childhood horse book series.

I think Jill has a lovely face (clearly Madame Alexander) and a bright, colorful, contemporary outfit:

Her clear blue eyes open and close and have applied lashes.  She has detailed irises that remind me of my Our Generation doll, Charlotte.  The painting around her eyes is simple.  She has a brown line to define her eyelid, and a burgundy line drawn along the very edge of her eye.  The burgundy line has two perpendicular extensions at the outer edge of the eye that look like extra eyelashes and add a little sparkle to her expression.  Her eyebrows are a series of arched lines that get smaller and closer together as they move towards the outer edge of her eye:

Honey's face is friendly, but a bit vacant.  Her eyebrows are raised to a comical level and her brown eyes are very rounded.  Her blue cowgirl dress looks like a diner waitress uniform.  

There's room for a whole other set of eyes under those brows.

Honey's eyes open and close, and she has applied lashes.  The detail inside her irises is not as three-dimensional or realistic as the pattern in Jill's irises.  She has some painted eyelash lines at the outer edge of her eye, but they're faint.  Honey's eyebrows are drawn in a similar style to Jill's, with a series of arching lines, but the spacing between the lines is wider and more regular, making the brow look like a twig or a fern--not like a cluster of delicate hairs:

 Stitches over her eye?

The two dolls have similar body styles.  They have vinyl limbs and a vinyl upper torso:

The dolls don't appear to share any molds.  Maybe, maybe the torso mold is the same, but the head, arms and legs are definitely different.   

The lower torso is cloth, and is stuffed, but the stuffing is not firm and dense like American Girl stuffing.  Honey's cloth body has a seam across the middle.  Jill's cloth body is darker and matches her vinyl color better.  She does not have a horizontal midline seam, but does have a shaping seam across her bottom:

Both dolls have leg joint sockets that are attached to the cloth body.  Jill's leg joint socket is stitched to her cloth torso, similar to the construction of the American Girl and Our Generation bodies:

Honey's cloth body is sandwiched in between two vinyl halves of the leg joint socket.  Some of the cloth is pulling out of this attachment.  I have no idea what the two white tabs that are sticking out of the joint are.  They're not visible on the other side.

One last critical difference between these two dolls is that while Honey's limbs are rigid, Jill has a wire armature that runs through her torso and her legs, making them flexible (if unnaturally so).

This design is similar to that of the Our Generation poseable dolls like Jenny.  Jill bends and holds her poses much better than Jenny, though.

Both dolls have rooted hair with a good rooting pattern.  The Madame Alexander doll's hair is slightly thicker:

Honey's hair is a little drab and monochromatic.  Jill's blonde hair looks beautiful.  It has a nice mix of natural colors and falls gracefully around her face: 

The texture of both dolls' hair is similar--and not very good.  This isn't much of a surprise with Honey, because everything about her construction seems like a shortcut.  Jill, however, would be a really lovely doll if her hair fiber was better.  Her hair resembles the Princess & Me Rapunzel doll's hair in some ways.  It has that same soft, fluffy texture.  It also has a synthetic stickiness (for want of a better word) that I don't enjoy.  Aside from the feel, the biggest problem with the hair is that it simply will not stay smoothly brushed out.  It isn't at all silky, so the hair fibers don't slide past each other.  The fibers stick and grab and try desperately to tangle as quickly as they can.  

There's no way I would have the patience to attempt a fancy hairstyle with this hair.  I need my Flickr hair guru, Angelfish, to tell me what this icky fiber is--nylon, perhaps?

I tied both dolls' hair back and tried to dress them in clothes appropriate for riding.  I put Jill in an athletic My Life As outfit that I found at Walmart (her pink boots are sold separately).  I put Honey in Jill's shirt, leggings and boots.  

Ok, so the dolls are ready to ride, but the other piece of the story is that I have another Paradise horse to show you.  It's for two reasons, really.  First of all, as I mentioned, I wanted to know if the horses sold with the Paradise label are any different from the horses sold with the My Life label.  Also, Avena and Honey didn't arrive in the mail as quickly as I expected.  In fact, I was shipped a dehumidifier by mistake and I had to wait for the seller to correct the error.  This made me think that a backup horse might not be a bad idea.  So, I ordered this My Favorite Horse from Amazon:

Cute, but doesn't dehumidify

Be careful shopping on Amazon.  The prices are all over the map--some vendors are asking close to $100 for this same horse, which is ridiculous.  These horses should cost $30 or under, certainly not more than $40.

This horse comes in a large cardboard box that is very similar in size to the My Life As a Cowgirl and Western Horse box.  This box is in better condition, obviously, but I also think it has a nice, bold color scheme that makes the horse look really good.  The back of the box has a picture of the three color choices in this collection:

Pinto, palomino and silver dapple.

Here's the little blurb on the back:

I bet some boys heart horses, too.

These horses and boxes are too big to handle inside my house, so I took everything outside to photograph--next to my new fence (please admire the everloving pickets).

Here's the Paradise horse's box in the daylight:

The horse is cable-tied to a decorative cardboard backdrop:

He comes with a few accessories, including a brush, a bag of oats and a carrot:

The plastic carrot has some nice detail:

The oats bag is empty, made out of paper, and is already a little crumpled:

Who ate my oats?

The pink plastic brush is small and cheaply made.  After hearing Nethilia's hair care advice, I won't be using it.

This horse also comes with a certificate of authenticity and what looks like a catalogue or a small booklet:

The booklet has pictures of the three different colors of horse--I love them all:

Inside the booklet, it says that horses are "magnificent creatures that are Spirited, Strong and Majestic!"  Why, oh why, are "spirited," "strong," and "majestic" capitalized?  And if they have to be capitalized (for dramatic effect, maybe? Or are those the names of the horses?), why not capitalize "magnificent," too?  I don't get it.

That's a pretty nice cowgirl outfit--I wish I'd gotten that!

Oh, goody!  Everlovin' horse lovin' jokes:

I enjoy a good joke, and the image of a horse going behind a bush to change his Jockeys is going to stick with me all day.  The "fallen and can't giddyup" one is bad, though, and outdated.  Oof.

The booklet also has some horse facts:

9.  Horses, like whales and hippopotami, are members of the Artiodactyl order.
10. Horses can suffer from a swelling of the joints known as--no joke, bog spavin.

Here's the certificate of authenticity:

I need to think of a good name...

There are five heavy-duty cable ties that need to be cut to release this horse from the backdrop:

Here's the backdrop on its own.  It has a nice outdoor scene with mountains in the distance (and a picket-free fence!):

This horse has a plastic strip sewn into his mane to keep it from getting too messy:

 

His tail is wrapped in plastic:

The tail wrap is very easy to remove, but the plastic strip in the mane was tricky to get out.  I cut it in several places and then yanked it out.  

This horse has small wires in his ears, which allows them to be moved and posed. This is a great feature because it gives him a lot of extra personality:

The mane is rooted through the fur into what feels like a seam in the horse's neck.  It has a slightly jagged rooting pattern:

This horse has a big white blaze down the front of his face:

One of the reasons I chose this particular horse is that he has lovely dark-colored tack.  He's wearing a vinyl and imitation leather western saddle and a matching bridle.  His saddle pad coordinates with his four red leg wraps:

His bridle has a few small plastic star accents and a fancy bit:

There's no actual bit to go inside of the horse's mouth, and, although it says that this horse has a mouth that can be opened, the mouth most definitely cannot be opened.  Believe me, I tried.

The top of the saddle is made out of hard vinyl and has painted and molded decorations:

The lower part of the saddle is made out of fake leather and is sewn together with thread:

The stirrups are plastic and not adjustable.  One of my horse's stirrups is badly deformed--almost like it was melted:

The saddle attaches under the horse's belly with a small square of velcro:

Here are some indoor, close-up pictures of the tack:

The underside of the fake leather is grey and soft:

The saddle pad is made out of red felt and has bright blue trim:

Here's the bridle:

It has two velcro attachment points--under the chin strap and under the nose piece.  The bit is made out of grey plastic:

Now, let's switch to the My Life As a Cowgirl horse, Avena.  Here she is in her outdoor picketed paddock:

She has that same plastic strip in her mane:

But her tail wrap fell off and her tail is a mess:

As I brushed out Avena's tail, I was surprised to see that the hair fiber is different (and nicer!) than the hair fiber on the dolls.  I wish they'd just used this same fiber for everyone!

Avena has light brown tack and two blue leg wraps.  She does not have a saddle pad.  I checked the list of box contents, just to be sure it didn't fall out of the box, but she's actually not supposed to come with one.  The My Life horses that are sold separately at Walmart do come with saddle pads (you can see a picture here).

Avena's bridle is almost exactly the same as the darker bridle, except it is missing the small plastic star decorations.

The saddle is made completely out of vinyl:

The top and sides of this saddle are all one piece.  The are a few molded embellishments, but no painted areas:

One nice feature is that these stirrups are adjustable:

The saddle attaches to the horse with a vinyl girth that has a slotted strap.  This attachment method is more secure than the velcro on the other horse's girth.

Here are some indoor picture of this saddle:

The stirrups adjust with a small notched strap that folds up against the underside of the saddle:

The girth is a separate vinyl piece that is glued onto the body of the saddle:

Here's the bridle.  It matches the color of the saddle surprisingly well:

The construction of both horses is exactly the same.  They are lightweight for their impressive size (19" to the tips of the ears).  They both have hollow, plastic bodies covered in fabric with the muzzle and fetlock areas left bare.  The horses have attached brown plastic eyes and rooted manes and tails.

This horse has the same color pattern as a belted Galloway cow, so I think I'll name him Galloway:

I dare you to ride me.

The fabric covering on the horses is not glued down-- it slides around over the underlying plastic.  There are a few areas on Galloway where the fabric is loose and wrinkled.

These horses have articulated legs.  Each leg has three points of motion that can click into one of three different positions.  The range is not great, but it is fun to be able to have a few different posing options--some of them more realistic than others:

The hooves are spray-painted black:

The leg wraps looks good and do a nice job of concealing the hinged fetlock articulation, but unfortunately, the wraps can't be removed.  They are too tight to slide over the large hooves and can't be unfastened.  

I wish that these horses also had articulated necks--better yet, articulated neck and heads.  Bending a model horse's neck adds a lot of realism, I think.  Then they can do things like graze and hang their heads down to nuzzle someone or take a drink of water.  The Liv horse, Nutmeg, has wonderful neck articulation in addition to nicely articulated legs.

Here are a few pictures of Avena without her tack:

I think she has lovely bay coloring.  The plastic muzzle area is a bit unnatural, but it looks fine with the bridle in place.  Galloway's muzzle is slightly more realistic.

Avena only has two leg wraps--on her front feet:

Now, it's time to see how the dolls get along with these horses!  I decided to let the Madame Alexander doll, Jill, ride Galloway and have the Paradise doll stay with Avena.  

In addition to looking at how a doll's proportions fit with a particular horse, I like to see how realistically the two can interact.  Mounting is a great test of this compatibility.

Jill can bend her leg and fit her foot into the stirrup:

And has enough body flexibility to swing her other leg over Galloway's back:

The stirrups are a little long for her legs, but they can be hooked up around her boots for a bit more realism:

Overall, this doll is way too big for her horse.  Here's an old photograph of a cowboy and his horse for a rough comparison:

My articulation is fine, darlin'

I notice things like the size of the man's head in comparison to the horse's head, the length of the man's legs in relationship to the horse's belly, and then just an overall sense of the rider matching the proportions of his horse.  

Jill's head is very large, and the thickness of her body seems way out of proportion to the scale of the horse.  

It's worse because Jill is meant to be a child, and a child's body would be dwarfed by a full-grown horse.  Case in point:

Still, Jill's riding posture is excellent.  Her leg flexibility is perfect for maintaining a secure seat in the saddle with a nice bend in her legs.  Also, if you look at her from the front, her feet don't stick out at all, but hang right next to Galloway's belly.  I wish Jill's arms had wire armature so that she could hold the reins without the help of a rubber band.

Now, here's Honey with Avena.  Apologies for the fact that these clothes look terrible on Honey--I don't have many 18" doll pants to choose from.

Honey's rigid legs make mounting pretty difficult...and inelegant:

Once she's wrestled her way into the saddle, she can only sit with her legs jutting awkwardly out to either side.  She can't even get both feet in the stirrups at the same time.

Honey is a slightly smaller doll than Jill, so her proportions look better, but she's still too large for this horse:

Here are the dolls and their horses together:

I wanted to let a few of my other dolls ride these horses to see if they might be a better match.  

My American Girl doll, Keira, is very similar in size to Jill and Honey.  She has a more firmly stuffed torso, so the My Life athletic outfit that Jill was wearing is pretty tight and hard to get on.  Keira also has slightly smaller features (shorter arms, smaller head) so she's more in proportion with Galloway than Jill:

Keira's stiff legs don't allow her to sit in the saddle nearly as well as Jill, though.  You can see some air between her and the saddle:

The slender scale of Lorifina's body is a good match for Avena--even her longs legs are within a realistic range, especially for an adult riding a smaller breed of horse or pony.

MiM fits pretty well, too:

The Disney Store talking Merida is edging towards too small, or it could just be that I've gotten used to looking at dolls that are way too big for these horses.  Merida's head size seems about right, and her legs are a great length, it's just that Avena's features are a bit too chunky to match Merida's slender frame.  

Hearts 4 Hearts Lauryce is too big for Avena (especially since she's a younger child) but I'd have no problem playing with these two together.  Lauryce fits nicely in the saddle despite her unbendable legs, and she and Avena somehow manage to look believable:

At this point, I was finished trying dolls and decided to switch the tack around on my two horses.  I think Galloway looks good in the lighter tack--especially with the bridle:

 

And I think Avena looks wonderful in the darker set with the saddle pad.  It's awesome that the trim on the saddle pad matches her blue leg wraps.  I think this is my favorite combination:

Then, I had another idea--what about the BFC Ink dolls?  They're 18" tall, but have a much slimmer shape than the Madame Alexander and Paradise Kids dolls.  

You might recall that I was not a huge fan of my BFC Ink doll, Britt.  She was shipped off to the Goodwill pretty quickly after I reviewed her.  However, several of you have encouraged me to give these dolls another try, and so I bought Summer Splashin' Kaitlin when I found her at TJ Maxx for $14.99.  I am glad I did, because while Kaitlin might be out of proportion with Avena in some ways (for instance, her head is really big compared to the horse's head), they look great together overall:

Kaitlin's articulation makes mounting a breeze:

And she's able to ride with excellent posture and style:

Look at how much better Kaitlin looks on Galloway than Jill:

Here are some last pictures of the two horses without any riders or tack:

Bottom line?  Whew.  This review took me in a a bunch of different directions.  I'll need to follow up with a Madame Alexander doll comparison review, and also with a short update on the BFC Ink dolls.  For today, though, I'd better stay focused on the horses.  I don't have much more to say about the Paradise Kids doll, Honey, except that I hope and assume that she is an economy version of the regular Be My Girl dolls that cost $30.  Honey is worth no more than the $8-10 I paid for her.

From what I can tell, the large Paradise horses come in three different packaging displays right now: the large red Paradise box that Galloway came in (individual horses and horse/riders sets are available), the My Life gift set packaging that Avena and Honey came in, and the the scaled-down eco-friendly packaging that holds the individual horses that are for sale at Walmart right now (again, you can see Char's picture of that packaging here).  There are some small differences in accessories and tack among these variations, but the horses themselves are the same.  None of these horses should cost over $40--even the ones that come in a gift set with a doll.  There is also an older, discontinued version of this horse sold under the Friends Boutique label.  Friends Boutique was the name of Madame Alexander's Walmart doll collection a few years ago.  The Friends Boutique horses can whinny and open their mouths, which (at least in my book) would make them worth a little more than the current options.

Here's a chart to summarize the differences as I understand them.  I'd love to hear additional information or corrections!

	My Life As... (horse on its own)	My Life As... (horse in gift set)	Paradise My Favorite Horse	Paradise Horse and Rider set	Friends Boutique Horse (discontinued)
Saddle	All vinyl	All vinyl	Vinyl and imitation leather	English style imitation leather	Vinyl and imitation leather
Saddle style?	English and western	Western	English and western	English	Western (maybe English, too?)
Bridle	Imitation leather	Imitation leather	Imitation leather with star decorations	Imitation leather with decoration	Imitation leather with star decorations
Saddle pad?	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Leg wraps	2	2	4	4	4
Extra accessories	Saddle bag	Doll hat	Carrot, oat bag, brush	Jacket, riding hat, carrot, brush	Saddle bag, carrot, brush.
Sound?	No	No	No	No	Yes
Mouth opens?	No	No	No	?	I think so!
Colors?	Black, chestnut, palomino--maybe more?	Bay (cowgirl) Might be other sets, too.	Palomino, pinto, silver dapple.	White, and a chestnut Sam's Club exclusive	Palomino, pinto, silver dapple.

Of all of these differences, I think only the saddle has any real impact on the play value of the horse.  I prefer the look and feel of the vinyl and imitation leather saddle that came on Galloway.  It's a very nice piece of tack for the price, and it has some great details.  I like Avena's all-vinyl saddle because the stirrups are adjustable, but it seems less special than Galloway's more elaborate version.  Galloway's red saddle pad looks nice, but it would be really easy (even for me...) to make a saddle pad if the horse I wanted didn't come with one.  The other thing that might favor one type of horse over another is the color of the hair.  Some hair colors seem limited to certain packaging.  For example, Galloway's spotted coat does not seem to be offered in the My Life series.  Of the two horses I bought, I love Avena's realistic rich bay color the most.  I like all of the colors, though, and every version I have seen looks better in person than it does in photographs. 

I adore these horses.  For all of the online hunting I did to find different variations and colors, if I had it to do over again, I'd just hop over to Walmart and buy any of the regular $27 horses with the scaled-down packaging.  The only reason to do otherwise is if you're attached to the fancier saddle or want a specific hard-to-find color.  The horses tend to look awful in the store, tipped over with matted manes and bent boxes, but my experience has taught me that these toys can go through a lot and then clean up beautifully.  I didn't play very roughly with Avena and Galloway, granted, so if I had a child who wanted to gallop them across the floor all day, I might worry a bit about the durability of the leg joints.  Otherwise I have no real complaints or concerns.  The horses pair beautifully with several dolls--especially the BFC Ink and Lorifina dolls.  They also work just fine for American Girls.  In fact, every doll in your house will probably want a horse, so even if you're operating on a big budget, it might be more fun to have a colorful stable full of these Paradise ponies than one lonely horse with a higher price tag.