It’s all in the details

Salmon Model Horse 4-H Club to host Breyer Day

The group’s eight members are also responsible for the Breyer company creating a model known as Capella to raise money for wild Bahamian horses.

SALMON — When the Salmon Model Horse 4-H Club exhibits at horse shows, its members are bound by the same rules that govern real, live horse shows. The only exception is that the 4-Hers don’t use real, live horses.

It takes a good 10 minutes for Susan Dudasik, leader of the local 4-H Club, to explain that the youth group enters plastic horse models in the usual lineup of show classes — from English and Western to pleasure and jumping.

“It’s the perfect answer for kids who can’t have a real horse — because of the cost or physical disability or allergies — to experience all the fun and learning that goes into keeping and showing horses,” she said. “... You wouldn’t even recognize some of the kids from one year to the next, with the way their confidence has grown.”

Skeptical? Stop by the club’s model horse fair Saturday and take a look. Called Breyer Day — after the nation’s leading model horse manufacturer — the four-hour event features model horse fun and games for children and adults alike.

Dudasik, who grew up in a Florida suburb and longed to own a horse, is an unapologetic booster of the relationship that can develop between children and horses, even if the horses are shaped from plastic.

“The model can be anything you want it to be; it can be the dream that you’ve always wanted,” she said.

Before they’re allowed to take part in model horse events, 4-Hers must be just as knowledgeable as live horse enthusiasts about the tack appropriate for each class.

For instance, if the 4-Her is entering the horse in an English event, the model horse should be equipped with an English saddle and its main should be braided. Western class, on the other hand, demands the horse bear a Western saddle and its mane be unbound.

“Just like real horse shows, the kids have to pay very close attention to safety and details,” Dudasik said. “They should know everything from what breed goes in what division to how a rider-doll’s hands should be holding the reins or a halter.”

Dudasik, a former trick rider and current equine journalist, knows from experience that showing horses — whether they’re models or live — builds confidence.

“We had one girl the year before last who came in for her first model horse show,” Dudasik said. “She was so terrified, she locked herself in the car. Now she’s a totally different person. She’s learned how to handle herself out in public, and she knows she can do it.”

The eight members of the Salmon Model Horse 4-H Club are more than performers, though.

The group has become internationally recognized for its campaign to help Abaco Barbs, the endangered wild horses of the Bahamas. When members learned about the dying breed, believed to be a predecessor of the mustang, their first reaction was, “What can we do? We’re only kids,” Dudasik said.

What they did was launch a letter-writing effort asking Breyer to add an Abaco Barb to its popular line of plastic ponies. The model, known as Capella, one of the herd’s stallions, has raised $11,000 for the wild Bahamian horses. A note on the box that contains the model credits the Salmon Model Horse 4-H Club for inspiring Capella’s creation.

For horse lovers such as Dudasik, it doesn’t get much better.

“In this country, we come from a horse culture,” she said. “These kids want to share that love and that passion.”

See for yourself

The Salmon Model Horse 4-H Club is hosting a model horse fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at King’s Discount Department Store, 601 Main St. in Salmon.