Tea with Lena: 1:6 Scale Horses

I have animals on my mind most of the time.  That's in part because I have eleven of them living in my house, but also because I spend my days at work taking care of another hundred or so homeless creatures.  But I also just like thinking about animals, especially horses.  The impressive size and graceful movement of horses has always been spellbinding to me.  Realistic 1:9 model horses like those made by the Breyer company are able to capture a lot of the things that I find so beautiful about horses, and so I've always admired them (and also reviewed them a few times).  I was even more obsessed with Breyer models when I was a kid, and amassed a collection that covered an entire wall of my room.

Back in March, when I wrote the Horse Foal Surprise review, I was reminded of how much I enjoy model horses.  That inspired me to do some investigating into what 1:6 scale horse options are available these days.  And my research turned out to be timely, as you'll see, because of something exciting that happened to Lena.

Lena with Hanoverian Horse by JXK, $130.

The Liv Dolls' Horse, Nutmeg, vs. the Moxie Girlz Horse, Cricket

I am a big fan of horses.  When I was younger, I had a massive collection of Breyer model horses that was the focus of my entire imaginary world.  In the early 80s, you could get these highly detailed plastic Breyer models for about $6.00 at Woolworth (in nice cardboard boxes...), but now they run in the $40 range and are typically found only at high-end toy stores (although Toys R Us does carry a play line of Breyer horses).  

When Spin Master premiered their Liv horse in 2010, I could not wait for it to hit the shelves.  I saw some small pictures online suggesting that it was a highly articulated horse which I thought was very appropriate considering the impressive articulation of the Liv dolls themselves (no, no, don't worry--I am not going to gripe about that again).  There aren't really a ton of articulated play horses on the market right now.  Our Generation has a 20" horse that looks semi-articulated and pretty handsome (available at Target).  There's still an articulated horse for the Fisher Price Loving Family.  I think that's about it.  Let me know if you have intel on any others.

I was really hoping that the Liv horse would be kind-of like Smoke, a 1970s Lone Ranger articulated horse I had when I was a kid.  I loved posing that horse and I don't know what happened to it.  Smoke had about 14 points of articulation and could strike some very realistic poses.  That was the coolest toy. 

Anyway, I have been meaning to write a review of Nutmeg, the palomino Liv horse that I've had for about a year now.  While I procrastinated with that review, however, I caught wind of the new Moxie Girlz Cricket, who is a palomino horse that is articulated and apparently walks and whinnies.  Well!  I thought it might be fun to de-box Cricket and have a nose-to-nose showdown between the steeds of two very popular play doll lines.  Here's Cricket:

Moxie Girlz horse, Cricket