Monday, April 14, 2008

Complete Horse Costume-Valkyrie Flying Horse






This is one of my favorite episode arcs, as well as one of the most beautiful horse costumes created for the series. Although I already have one Valkyrie horse blanket, I had never been able to find the rest of the costume until now. This costume is 100 percent complete and comes with a second horse blanket, so now I have the honor of owning two matching quartersheets. This costume has been authenticated in NZ by Xena's riding stunt double, Bex Watts, and the photo of Bex riding in the costume is part of a lovely "memories" album that Bex made for me. The album is mine; the copyright on the photograph belongs to Bex and may not be copied or otherwise used in any manner. Therefore the photo is deliberately out of focus and at a distance, in order to protect the copyright. The costume itself consists of a leather bridle overlaid with silver rope and resin medallions and a resin faceguard; a breast "plate" which is leather overlaid with matching material and also includes a large silver tassle and cloth, foam and leather decoration. There is also a heavy shiny silver saddlecover and the larger black and silver quartersheet. Just lovely!
You will note that the faceguard has what looks like a break or crack in the end of it. The guard is backed with felt and the felt is completely intact, so the end of the faceguard is more like a "hinge." I was informed that although the faceguard is not labeled, Bex believes that it is Xena's horse's faceguard because in the photo, her faceguard is broken at the same place. Since it is not labeled, this cannot be proven, but I am happy to take the opinion of the woman who actually rode in this gear, and either way, it is a gorgeous piece that I am honored to have in my collection.

1 comment:

EzlyNfatuated said...

sweet you should have your horse model this too!