US Arabian Nationals Trophy by Gladys Brown Edwards

I'm always looking for traces of California's equine history, and readers of this blog will know that one of my favorite places to look is a yard sale or estate sale that advertises horse items.

Over the past weekend, I found something I've always wanted to spend some time with: an Arabian Horse Association US Nationals trophy. This one is a Reserve National Champion award given in 2006. It's about 13 1/2 inches tall and weighs an impressive 8 1/2 pounds.

The award for Reserve National Champion is coppery in color, as opposed to the National Champion award, which has more of a silver tone that can take on a slightly golden tone in indoor light. The example below is Khemosabi's 1973 US National Champion Stallion award, which graces the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona. (Notice that it stands flat on its wooden base.)

The design dates to 1968. A short article in Arabian Horse World showed a photo of the plaster version before it was first cast in metal. 

The original version of the trophy had GBE's initials, a copyright symbol, and the year on the underside of the horse's belly. This is the mark on Khemo's trophy.

The Horse Library collection holds a couple of other US Nationals trophies, which show variations in shading.

The trophy awarded in 2006, that I found at the sale this past weekend, shows that sometime after Gladys' death in 1989, the IAHA removed the mark on the underside of the belly and mounted the horse on a metal base bearing the organization's Service Mark.

I'm not sure of the exact date, but it appears that sometime after 2010 the Arabian Horse Association started using a similar, but definitely different, design for its National awards. 

Side note: More than one model horse collector has commented to me that the Breyer Proud Arabian Stallion resembles the original Nationals trophy horse. The PAS was first issued in 1971, not long after the debut of the trophy in 1968. 

Breyer designer Chris Hess may have been inspired by the Gladys Brown Edwards design, but there's no way to know for sure. Regardless, they look like they get along well together. 

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As always, thanks to the staff at the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library for their help in researching the trophy's history for an article I wrote for Arabian Horse Life magazine a few years ago. 

https://libguides.library.cpp.edu/wkkahl

The legendary Khemosabi has his own Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khemosabi

In addition to the 1973 trophy, many other items from his storied life are part of the collection at WKKAHL.