Royal Worcester Shire "Manor Premier King," by Doris Lindner

Wouldn't you know it?

As soon as I decided I wanted to dramatically reduce the size of my model horse collection (again), I found a model horse on eBay that I had wanted for many, many years at a fair price. He's the Royal Worcester Shire Stallion "Manor Premier King," RW3759, one of a limited edition of 500 issued in 1963. 

My copy of the model is missing most of its mane flags/bobs, but I don't mind. Most of my collection bears the damage of the decades, which endears them to me all the more. He'll fit right in.

British newspapers covered the release of the highly collectible horse.

The Daily Telegraph (London), 25 March 1964

Manor Premier King is another example of the intersection of real horse and model horse history. This is the real Manor Premier King, owned by Mr. R. A. S. Pleavin.

Manor Premier King, in The Listener magazine, 13 April 1961.
Found on the Internet Archive website. 

Foaled in 1954, he was one of the outstanding Shire show horses in the UK during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Source: All Breed Pedigree 

Manor Premier King really came into his own in April 1963 when he won the Shire Stallion Championship at the National Heavy Horse Show. The venerable Farmer & Stock-Breeder magazine covered his win in its 11 April 1963 edition. 

The book The Shire Horse: A History of the Bred, the society and the Men by Keith Chivers contains a picture of Manor Premier King in action.

Lindner captured that sense of action and style in her design.

Indeed, Doris Lindner told the Allentown, Pennsylvania Morning Call newspaper that Manor Premier King was her personal favorite of all her designs!

* * *

Here's my post on the Royal Worcester Percheron "Saltmarsh Silver Crest" (sometimes spelled "Silvercrest") by Doris Lindner, and the real horse that inspired it:

https://modelhorsehistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/royal-worcester-percheron-saltmarsh.html

Here's my post on Doris Lindner's American horse designs:

https://modelhorsehistory.blogspot.com/2025/08/sharing-from-california-horse-history.html