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Text & Photographs Copyright Mike Jackson 1998-2008
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 Besides the horses included with the riders, Hartland also packaged some of the same horses individually. They also created many lines of specific "breeds" in a variety of sizes, such as Arabians, Morgans, and Tennessee Walkers, but I don't collect them. The distinguishing factor here is the bridle, or holes in the bit for a beaded chain or leatherette reins.
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The Remuda Group
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| This group of three started showing up in the brochures in 1963 and remained until 1964. None were sold with saddles. As you can see, the group was also available as a boxed set of three. |
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Walking Appaloosa #840:
This horse looks basically identical to the Tom Jeffords horse, except they omitted the paint on the raised bridle. I don't believe Hartland ever shipped the Jeffords figure on this version. Steven Mfg. remade this set in the late '80s. You can see a photo of it down the page. |
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Ring Eye Semi-Rearing Pinto #870:
Hold your mouse over the photo to the right to see the other side of the horse showing the ring eye. I don't believe this horse ever had any sort of rider, however, some people like to put one of the Chief Thunderbird figures on it as an attractive variation. The mane down version of this horse was used in several of the other sets, when painted differently. |
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Head Down Prancing Palomino #880:
This mold was used with the Rebel Favor, and Lee but those sets had different color combinations of this horse. Custer "may" have been shipped on this one, but I have yet to see any firm documentation. Notice the unpainted bridle on this piece. |
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Trigger, Black Beauty, and Silver
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| Along with the Remuda Group mentioned above, Hartland sold Trigger, Black Beauty, and Silver as individual named horses for quite a few years, however they never really showed up on the brochures. A slight distinction here is the fact this group of three were sold with a saddle. Each of these three horses have a dedicated page, so I am including a link to each here. |
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Additional 800 Series Horses
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The photo on the left may give us a clue about some of the rest of the horses in this section. You can see it has the Head Down Prancer in a box marked as a Palomino, but they apparently didn't limit that box to only the palomino Head Down Prancer. Additionally, horses show up that don't seem to fit any rider or any known combination. For example, I have seen a full rearing black horse with a brown martingale and bridle
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| We can only speculate they were testing color combinations and went ahead and shipped a few of those test pieces instead of throwing them away. |
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 This Prancer looks like the one in the box above, but it has a black painted bridle. I don't recall ever hearing about one with a blue bridle and I have never seen a Prancer in any color with a martingale. |
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 This Mane Down Semi-Rearing Horse has a black painted bridle, similar to the one below, but this one lacks the martingale. He probably shipped at one time in boxes similar to the one at the top of this section. Recently, a similar horse showed up on eBay with a blue bridle. The seller claimed it was found with a Roy Rogers figure. I didn't get to see it, unfortunately. |
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 If the bridle and martingale on this horse were blue, we'd call it a Trigger horse, but since it is black, it must just be a horse intended to be sold without a rider. |
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 The Candy Box Horse:
This isn't a common horse, but I know several people who one one. All of the known full rearing Palominos like this one, lacking a painted martingale and bridle, have holes in the two back hooves and also on the bottom of the tail. The mystery was solved by a collector telling us she received one like this stapled to a box of chocolate at Valentines day. They had a braided gold set of reins. |
| Annie Oakley is seen in the brochures riding a full rearing horse with a painted bridle, but lacking the martingale. More than likely, the bridle was blue, of course, but I have never seen a full rearing Palomino with only the bridle painted. |
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Mystery Cropped Mane Walker:
These two horses are basically the same except for the size of the tail. We have absolutely no idea where they fit into the lineup. Was it an early test color for the Jockey and Turf King set? Custer is shown on his box riding a brown horse, so that makes some sense but I have never seen anything to actually document that set coming with this horse. On a couple of brochures, Cheyenne is shown on a walking horse with white stockings, but the angle of the photograph does not allow us to know if it had a cropped mane. I include the two horses here, allowing for the possibility Hartland sold them individually. |
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 Black Head Down Prancer:
I often get a little skeptical when I see a solid black horse. They are fairly easy to paint if someone has the right kind of paint. I purchased this from a lady who swore she got it as a black horse and it had not been painted. There are a rumors this horse was a test horse for Gil Favor, but I can't document it. |
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 The Wrangler Horses:
Hartland introduced this group of horse and riders in 1965, with the airbrushed detailing and the extra care we all came to expect with the 800 series horse and riders. Along with this line of three horse and riders, they also sold the horses individually, but the detailing and airbrushing was reduced. The horses in these three sets were never sold individually |
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| It is not uncommon to see the riders shown above combined with the horses shown below, combined by collectors over the years, but I am almost positive they were never shipped on the plain horses. However, in the later years of production, Hartland sold the riders and the horses unpainted, and in those cases, any color combination is possible. |
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White plastic with black trim
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Brown plastic with black trim
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Tan plastic with brown trim
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Tan plastic with black trim
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Golden plastic with brown trim
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Golden plastic with black trim
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| I will be including an all black Wrangler horse and a Butterscotch/black Wrangler horse on this page soon. There may be other color combinations I don't know about yet, too! I have never seen one, but it would make sense they did a white horse with brown trim, based on several of the other horses having both trim colors. |
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| This scan came from a 1968 dealer sheet, showing how many of the horses, shown above, were sold. By this time, the set of 800 series Remuda horses had already been dropped, and they recycled the name here. |
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Mini Horses:
I don't own any of the unpainted Wrangler horses, but they were molded in most of the normal plastic colors. The smaller horse on the left was one of the styrene versions and looks quite similar to the larger Wrangler horses.
Loose Horse and Riders:
The scan on the right is from a 1966 Dealer Sheet. In some of those later years, you could buy any combination from this style of cardboard bins
Read more about the mini horses on this page
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Steven Manufacturing Sets:
In the late '80s, Stevens remade several of the sets using the old molds, as shown above. I only own a few of them to use as examples here, but from what I can tell, most of them were molded in styrene plastic instead or acetage plastic. As seen in the Palomino on the right, the white parts were actually painted over the Palomino colored paint, instead of letting the original plastic show through. The paint on those sets is often very delicate and prone to flaking or scratching off easily. |
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This page last modified Friday, October 19, 2007
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