Feature Friday: Silver Horse Tack Shop!

We have our first featured seller! Meet Abby M. of Silver Horse Tack Shop! Abby is a 14yr old model horse entrepreneur.

I ran across her shop several months ago when I was looking for inspiration for props. I really liked it so I followed it. A couple days ago, I was sifting through my favorite shops picking one for the first in my featured Friday series. This shop banner caught my eye:

Then I saw these fabulous reviews:

Sold! This was my shop choice. I contacted her right away asking for her permission to feature her. She agreed, and I asked her to write me a bit on how she got started, what prompted the beginning of opening her Etsy shop, a bit on her shop, and her hobby goals. Here's what she wrote:

 

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THE HOBBY? A few years ago I came across an article in Young Rider magazine about how to make a halter and leadrope for a Breyer model. I already had a few Breyers but I didn’t really know how to make tack. When I saw the article I thought it looked neat and decided to try it. I made a halter and leadrope set for one of my models and that is really what sparked my interest in tack making. Soon after, I got the Breyer model of Catch Me, who I took with me to the Devon Horse Show in 2019. I was able to meet the real horse and his owner/rider Becky Gochman, who generously signed my model and even invited me to the barns to visit “Snoopy”. Later, I watched her competing in the amateur-owner hunter division. When she won the championship, she came over to the rail and handed me and my sister her ribbon! The show photographer snapped a picture of the moment which the horse show later included on their social media, and someone tagged Morgen Kilbourn’s studio in the comments which is how we figured out that she was the sculptor of that model. That was my first inkling about how big (& friendly!) the model horse world is! For the next 3 years, I focused on expanding inventory in my Etsy shop. In 2022, I launched a website (www.silverhorsetackshop.com) and Instagram page (@silverhorsetackshop), and that summer, I was a virtual vendor at BreyerFest. I attended in-person with my family and finally got to meet Morgen there, which was a fun surprise. BreyerFest was definitely the highlight of the summer. It was amazing to be at the Kentucky Horse Park and finally see/meet so many people from all over the world who enjoy this hobby.

 

WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO START YOUR SHOP? I enjoy making tack, and eventually I had made so much I thought I should start selling some, so I opened my Etsy shop in 2019. At first, I focused mostly on halters and leadropes, but gradually expanded my inventory to include other tack and accessories as well. My favorite part of the order process is seeing customers’ color selections for their custom orders. Sometimes the choices are surprising, but they always end up going well together! The items that take the longest to make are the harnesses because everything is custom-measured and there are so many details. The harnesses are a popular item right now since the BreyerFest theme this year is ‘Driving Forward’.

 

A LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION ON YOUR SHOP: On Etsy, I sell mainly custom tack items and accessories for sizes from Schleich to Breyer Traditional Scale. There are also limited-edition sets on my website that are not available on Etsy. Currently I am running a fundraiser on both platforms, with 20% of my sales going to the Museum of Chincoteague for their fund to save the Beebe Ranch, home of Misty & Stormy. If the museum is not able to raise the funds, the property will be sold to a developer. As of the end of March, the museum is almost halfway to their fundraising goal, and they hope to raise the rest of the money by the end of June! Chincoteague is fairly close to where I live, and it’s a place we enjoy visiting. I’m hoping they are able to preserve the ranch, but another reason I want to support them is because my real-life pony is a Chincoteague pony named “Star”. She’s 21 now, and we’ve had her for about 3 years. I’ve watched the Misty & Stormy movie and read Marguerite Henry’s books more times than I can count.

 

WHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT HOBBY GOALS FOR THE FUTURE: Looking forward, I have some ideas for future products and inventory expansion that I will be working on. Some of the other projects I would like to work on as a collector are customizing models and making accessories to go with my tack pieces. I also hope to be a vendor in upcoming BreyerFests and perhaps attend other collector events. I really enjoy the challenge of working with scale models because it takes a lot of accuracy and precision to work with such small details. 

Thanks Abby! I appreciate you being willing to share with us. :)

Below you will find photos and links to some of Abby's products. You will find lots more on her Etsy and website! 

101 Dalmatians themed bareback set ~ $25.95 Buy it on her website here!

Chocolate Frosting SM Donut Costume ~ $6.95  Buy it on her website here!

Mystery Tack Surprise (multiple price range options) ~ $10+ Buy it on her Etsy here!

6pc Schleich Stable Set (color customizable!) ~ $12.95+ Buy it on her Etsy here!

Braided Neck Rope (color[s] customizable!) ~ $3.95 Buy it on her Etsy here!

Driving Harness ~ $39.95+ (two price options available) Buy it on her Etsy here!

Purple Rhinestone Halter ~ $16.95 Buy it on her Etsy here!

Adjustable Dog Harness & Leash ~ $7.95 Buy it on her website here or on her Etsy here!

Traditional Lunging Set ~ $29.95 Buy it on her Etsy here!

Halter & Lead set (Color is customizable!) ~ $12.95 Buy it on her Etsy here!

Barn Signs ~ $1 (each) Buy it on her website here or on Etsy here!

Pizzazz Breakaway Halter & Lead ~ $14.95 Buy it on her website here!

Pony Googly Eye Fly Mask ~ $12.95 Buy it on her website here!

Paint Spill pony bareback set ~ $25.95 Buy it on her website here!

Surveys and Soon-to-Be's

    Back to normal posting! I hope that OMHPS mini series was helpful to some of you. Starting any new system can be confusing, so maybe that made things easier.

    Anyways, back to the subject at hand - a new model horse community survey! The talented Maeve King-Devery has put together a survey to help collect the demographics of the model horse community at large! So exciting! I love stats too, so I am anxious to see the results. You do not need to give any personal info in the survey (not even an email) so everyone should be comfortable doing it. Please take the survey and pass it along to all your model friends. Maeve wrote this in the announcement:

"Hi! I'm Maeve King-Devery, a hobbyist and a huge data nerd! I realised we don't currently have a way to capture large-scale demographic data, so I thought... why not do a survey? :D

The survey has five sections: demographic questions, questions about your past in the hobby, questions about your current hobby interests, your participation in hobby events, and a section for international hobbyists. The data in this survey is anonymous (unless you choose to identify yourself somewhere) and the only two people who will look at the raw responses are myself, Maeve, and my partner Tim. Together we will compile the raw data into the full results, which will be posted on my blog, on instagram, and on facebook in the group 'Modelholics Anonymous'.

The survey is open for a month and will close on the 26th of April, 2023.  Please share the link to the survey with your friends - I would love to capture as much information about the hobby as possible!"

Thank you Maeve! This is Maeve's photo, and it contains a bit more information: 

I filled it out, and I hope you do too!

    Second little announcement, I am considering trying a new series on my blog. Theoretically, it will be always on a Friday (every week, or every other week, or maybe once a month or perhaps random. . . you get the idea). It will feature an artist, tack-maker, propmaker, seller, or other model horse person doing a fantastic job in their field. I got this idea the other day scrolling through my Etsy feed. I was looking at pages and pages of gorgeous tiny equine things and yet I was only familiar with a fraction of the sellers. These people deserve some recognition! I will not feature a person unless I have contacted them and collect their permission to do so. I will hopefully be able to link some of their products (if applicable) and post photos and some information on the person. It should be fun!

Please post in the comments if you like this idea. If the series doesn't get support, it will die. I'm not gonna make you suffer through a series of posts you are not interested in! :)

Thank you for reading! Have a blessed Sunday. 💜

Entering Horses into Classes on OMHPS (2023)

Last piece of the OMHPS series!

How to enter a horse in a class from their profile page. I am not covering from the show or home page, because that is easy enough to figure out on your own. :) This is a short one.

Go to your horse's profile page.

Scroll down, past these things:

And hit this little button, "See Classes".

You should go to a page like this:

It may or may not have that little banner at the bottom. Go and click on the dropdown on the far left side, under the horse's image (mine says Dreams of Spring 2). This little thing pops up when you click on it. :)

I am entering Morgenstern into Equiden's Celebration Show. I am going to click on her show, and then hit the little blue search icon again.

A bunch of little banners will show up that list class names and qualifications. Morgenstern is an American WB, so I will find the class with that breed listed.

I will click enter. This pops up, and gives you an opportunity to review the model and double check your class selection.

Everything looks good to me, so I hit "Enter" at the bottom right. Yay! It went through. It now says "entered".

I am going to return to the horse's profile (I use the short-cut at the top of the page). Then I will scroll down until I get to the section toward the bottom of the profile page that says "Entries". This shows all of the classes the horse is competing in. The class I just entered is there, so everything did go through perfectly. There is a "Retract" button on the side, so if you did something wrong, or no longer want the horse to compete in that class, you can click that. :)

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions please lmk! I will do my best to clear them up.

Happy showing!

Making a Horse Profile on OMHPS (2023)

 As promised, here's a continuation of the OMHPS series. All directions are based off of how it looks on my Acer laptop, I have no idea what it looks like for you. It should be similar though! :)

Making a Horse Profile:

Step 1. Take a photo (or two) of your model.

Step 2. Open and log into OMHPS. Click the "My Horses" tab at the top right.

Step 3. Click the "Add Horse" button on the far left top of your "My Horses" page.

You should see this page:

Step 4. Start filling those blanks in. If your horse is a purebred, ignore the crossbreeds drop down. Try to fill in all the fields especially make and size. You upload your photos at the bottom and you can use the drop-down to select what privacy setting you desire. Watermark gives your images a watermark all over, private makes them invisible to other users, and public leaves it just as you see it. Regardless of what you select, judges will always see your original image.

Don't hit create yet!!

Step 5: Once you have filled out this page, scroll to the top and hit the next tab: references. This is optional, but if you have a rare breed you may want to link over to it's breed website, or to a picture of it. I linked to the American WB registry. (Don't worry, you won't lose your previous page of work).

Step 6. Workmanship next! On that tab bar you want to switch over to workmanship. Here you can fill out your color and pattern. If your horse is solid, just use the solid option in the pattern dropdown. You can hit the "use main horse image box" too. The pic won't appear yet, but it will once you hit create (but don't hit create yet!).

Step 7. Last one! Collectability. You can fill in your horse's release info here, like what years he was made, and what type of run it was. You can also choose the piece count. (Tip #1: Most regular run models have piece counts of 5000+. Tip #2 IDYB is your friend for this tab.) 

Step 8. Technically, you could go ahead and hit create horse now (bottom left) but I always like to take one last check over my first page again.

Step 9. Create horse!! Most fun. Press the button, pass the reCAPTCHA, and wait a couple seconds. The next page should look like this:

Congrats! Your horse is now on OMHPS. :) Tomorrow I will cover entering your horse in shows.

As always, please comment with any questions! I'll catch them in the next post. Thanks for reading!

A Short Rundown of How OMHPS Works (2023)

Yesterday I saw some questions in the comments about how to show on OMHPS. This is just a quick drive-by of the basics. Please remember, things are subject to change, and the website may not be identical later down the road (hence why I tacked the year down in the title). I love OMHPS, and use it heavily. I hope all of you join too!

What is OMHPS?

OMHPS (Online Model Horse Photo Shows) is a platform for hosting and showing phot shows. It holds all of your photos and information so you never have to upload twice. It is a trillion times easier than PonyBytes!

Is OMHPS free?

Yep. Unless you want the premium membership which allows you to have 2500 models (vs the 250 on a free membership) use reference pics, upload better pics to the website, removes the ads, and several other perks. Premium is $20 a year. I don't have premium, you really don't need it unless you are doing heavy, serious competitions. It does help them with website upkeep, so I know they appreciate every member!

Is entering shows free?

Depends. With the exception of the official OMHPS shows every other month, the shows are hosted by the users. Whoever is hosting gets to decide whether or not they charge a fee. Some do, some don't. If they do, you have to email them and pay a PayPal fee of $3-15 (estimating roughly here). If they do not charge a fee to enter, then you can just go ahead and start entering horses. No fee for free shows. Just pick around through the show descriptions until you find a free one.

Are the OMHPS shows free?

Yes, except for the occasional ones that are only for Premium members. The Birthday show is free for all. :)

Do I need special equipment?

Not to start! Just a basic camera, a model horse, and a place to stand it. As you progress in showing, you may wish to purchase better equipment to upgrade your photos, but it is never required for halter showing. For performance, you will need tack, possibly a doll, maybe props, and a background (usually). Scene is prop heavy typically, but you don't have to enter scene or halter unless you want to and have the stuff for it.

How do I go about doing this thing?

Go to omhps.com. They've got you covered. If you need to read the FAQs, they are here. If you are still confused, email them at omhps@omhps.com. They are super kind and friendly.

So this post just about covers the getting started, I'll do another one tomorrow or the next day on setting up a horse profile and entering a show. Hope it helps! If I missed something, lmk in the comments. :) Thanks for reading!