Thursday, April 25, 2024

Ferseyn, *Raseyn, and "Racine"

Certain images in this post are provided under the Fair Use provision in Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. "Fair Use" specifically allows for the use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes only.

This is a crossover post, because it touches on California's equine history as well as model horse figurine history.

Breyer Model Horses recently issued a set of three color variations on its "Classic Arabian Stallion" mold, for members of its Collectors Club. 

"Zayn," a 2024 Breyer Collectors Club offering. 
https://www.breyerhorses.com/search?q=zayn*

The folks at Breyer are to be commended for mentioning that the mold was originally designed by artist Maureen Love (1922-2004).

Hagen-Renaker "Ferseyn"

A plastic Breyer "Classic Arabian Stallion"
and the ceramic Hagen-Renaker "Ferseyn." 


The Arabian stallion Ferseyn

Inspired by the real Arabian stallion Ferseyn (*Raseyn x *Ferda), Maureen created the design for the California pottery Hagen-Renaker, Inc. which released him in ceramic starting in 1958. Breyer first issued the mold in plastic, as the Classic Arabian Stallion, in 1973.

Breyer is calling this 2024 release of the design "Zayn," apparently a takeoff on the name "Ferseyn." And that's a lovely name for him. (As I write, model horse hobbyists are discussing the release of "Zayn" with great excitement.)

Obviously pronunciations can differ depending on the speaker, but I believe that, back in his day, "Ferseyn" was pronounced more like Fer-SEEN than Fer-SANE, to rhyme with "rain." I've also heard it pronounced somewhere in between "seen" and "sane."

Ferseyn's name was a combination of his dam's name, *Ferda, and his sire, *Raseyn.


Ferseyn as a colt, in the Fresno Bee newspaper. *Ferda had been sold
to rancher Fred Vanderhoof when she was carrying Ferseyn.



A young Ferseyn, in Western Livestock Journal

The older Ferseyn, also in Western Livestock Journal,
when he was owned by Herbert H. Reese 

It makes sense that Ferseyn would rhyme with *Raseyn. And we know how people in the 1920s-1940s pronounced *Raseyn -- with a long E at the end. 

*RASEYN at the Kellogg Ranch, 1926

W. K. Kellogg bought *Raseyn from the Crabbet Stud in England in 1926, adding the stallion to his herd in Pomona, California. (*Raseyn has an asterisk * before his name, to indicate he was imported to the US from another country and registered with the Arabian Horse breed registry in this country.)

Sculptor Annette St. Gaudens pronounced *Raseyn's name in this old newsreel clip, at about 37 seconds in to the film, which is only about a minute and a half long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZhqxVdSnI

Ms. St. Gaudens had homes in Claremont, California and in New Hampshire. Newspaper accounts said the sculptor had planned to take it back to New Hampshire with her, cast it in bronze there, and exhibit it in New York. 

The Kellogg House on the campus of Cal Poly Pomona now has her sculpture of *Raseyn, closed away in a cabinet with trophies won by some of  the Arabians and Percherons of the Kellogg Ranch. They took little *Raseyn out for his photo shoot during the 75th anniversary of the Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch; his picture appears in Mary Jane Parkinson's The Romance of the Kellogg Ranch.

We also hear *Raseyn's name pronounced about six seconds into this 1932 newsreel outtake, then again at about 4:19. (Be sure to come back here to finish the story, after you get lost in this film.)

https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/MVTN/id/5355/rec/13?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1JTFDxQQrJLjzlZaig8UbnLNLTx2sB7fPxVa48WF2P19m8R8TTaBpnXAI_aem_AaZqQAPcwKLR-dh7PRebZPicO8Aj6uZjgF2X51tBADfykOfvZ_cr-8hJoV9FEuJerFynwJ_ozzP6P7icw8we04jT

The beauty of this video is that we can see *Raseyn in action, almost throughout. At about 8:03 we see *Raseyn and Antez at a trot and canter under saddle. 

*Raseyn was a favorite subject for several artists. Here he poses with his friend Miss Gladys Brown (Edwards) in 1934. 


Wesley Dennis tried his hand at drawing *Raseyn for Esquire magazine in the 1930s. Since he apparently lived in Massachusetts and Virginia, Dennis may have been using a photograph as reference, rather than having visited the Kellogg Ranch himself.



Sculptor Lawrence Tenney Stevens (1896-1972) also captured *Raseyn, this time in an Art Deco style. There's one small copy in the Kellogg House on the Cal Poly Pomona campus, and another one in the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, also on the Cal Poly Pomona campus.  

WKKAHL notes that Stevens created the portrait in 1934.




Why do I think it was *Raseyn who posed for sculptor Stevens?  Because of two articles that ran in the Palm Springs, California Desert Sun during World War II.A local insurance broker and realtor, Herbert Samson, had been given a copy of the equine head study by Stevens, who had lived in the area.  Samson boxed up the artwork to send it to Stevens and stored it in the trunk of his car. Then thieves stole the box. 

The November 10, 1944 issue of the Sun did not name the Kellogg Arabian...


But a later issue of the Sun, did name the horse. The paper repeated Stevens' appeal for the return of the horse sculpture on December 1, 1944, and this time the reporter identified the subject of the art.  

Interestingly, though not surprisingly, the newspaper didn't spell *Raseyn's name correctly. They spelled it like the city in Wisconsin: "Racine."

"It all started some years ago when Stevens was a resident here and a close friend of Herbert Samson, modelled Racine, famous Arabian stallion at the Kellogg ranch near Pomona." (emphasis mine)



I have never been able to find out whether that stolen copy was recovered. 

I don't think *Raseyn, or Ferseyn, would have cared if we pronounced their names to rhyme with "SEEN" or "SANE" or somewhere in between. The important thing is that we appreciate and cherish their memories, and their huge impact on Arabian horses in the 20th century.  

And now thanks to the Breyer Zayn, their legacy continues!

_____________________________________________________

Here's my blog post on Ferseyn:

Breyer Model Horses:

*Raseyn's history is documented in Lonnie Hitchens' video on YouTube:

Here's a short clip of Ferseyn as an older horse:

Artist Lawrence Tenney Stevens was profiled by Phoenix magazine in 2022:

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