Video: The Model Comes to Life

Were you one of those horse people who started out with models? If so, this video featuring recent Breyer star Repeat the Beat might hit pretty close to home.

My childhood of weekly riding lessons and summer camps was supplemented heavily with a collection of Breyer models — like many kids, mine were well-loved, regularly stuffed into tote bags and hauled to friends’ houses and clip-clopped over jumps made of pencils and other various office supplies, scratched and dinged and sporting all sorts of homemade pieces of tack.

Still, no matter how many models I collected, nothing was better than the time I got to spend with the real horses themselves. I don’t think I ever actually met any of the real horses my models were based on, and now that I’ve got a pasture full of living, breathing animals some of the magic of the model horses is perhaps lost… but I can imagine how exciting it would have been to younger me to meet the horse behind the plastic.

That’s the scene portrayed in this video, starring “Pete” or Repeat the Beat, a Tennessee Walking Horse who found his calling in the hunter/jumper ring and was recently immortalized as a Breyer model:

Repeat the Beat is a 17 year old Tennessee Walking Horse who has shattered breed stereotypes and challenged horse people to rethink what they knew about gaited breeds. Having earned ribbons in the hunter, jumper and eventing arenas, Pete is a living reminder that horses can be happy doing things they’re “not supposed” to do, and that anything is possible with the right team. Learn more about Repeat the Beat and the process of becoming a Breyer in our exclusive feature!

Go riding.