Featured ANY INFO/AGE OF BIG, OLD PRIMITIVE WOOD & FUR(?) PULL TOY HORSE?

Found this at a local thrift store yesterday. It almost looks like a old taxidermy model with all the stitching coming loose.
And it appears to be real fur!
Under the fur is a carved wood model of a horse - see 3rd from last photos; I pull back the 'fur' so you can see carved wood leg - BUT under the fur of the neck it looks like burlap?
It is big: 22" wide x 23" tall not counting the base.
Any idea of it's age?
I paid $40 but in this condition did I get a good deal?
Any info/thoughts would be appreciated.
Thank you!

 

This must have been one expensive toy in its day. Does it still roll? Could be covered in actual horse hide. Not so cheap now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/141865972949

A search for 'antique toy horse on wheels' turned up this one & several others that are similar.

This is relevant:

https://www.realorrepro.com/article/Horse-Toys

 

It rolls but wheels are really loose. I think base is newer because wheels are held in place with old slot screws (wouldn't it be nails if really old?)

 

I think the screws are correct. These fetch good money but this one is a little moth eaten so to speak. I am a shameless lover of everything horse and have admired such toys from afar before. I am sure the market has softened as with everything else but I think you would still find someone interested in this for a little gentle restoration. Decent find IMHO Journey. I would have bought it.

 

I have always seen these classified as "Victorian Era" as far as dating it Journey. I think that is likely accurate enough.

 

I'm a horse lover to - I had a mustang (really) as a kid & my sister a palomino + my mom and step dad had the 'Diamond R ranch in NC - it had a 1/4 mile race track & we had a pretty big event each year with all kinds of racing (from barrel to calf roping to 1/4 mile) + bar b que's & camp outs the whole week-end.
Plus my mom and grandparents had a carnival when she was a kid - and she had a trick pony named 'Trigger' that she'd tell us about every chance she got!
In fact, her last boy/friend was Lash LaRue (B movie "King of the Bullwhip" cowboy/actor) who stayed with her until his passing
But living in Miami now I've gone from country to Cuban - hola!

 

Every kid should have a horse. You learn a lot of responsibility. After years of hearing how bad I wanted a horse my dad relented when I was 12. It came down to a sweet little Appaloosa mare or a BIG Tennessee Walker with a gait so smooth you could sip hot coffee while riding him. Of course I went for the Tennessee Walker!

He had apparently been out to pasture for a few years and forgotten most of his training and he firmly believed that a little girl was not going to tell him what to do. I learned to ride very well after I got a bit with a high curb and shanks about 7 inches long so I had some braking power. I rode him every day just to irritate him.

It was never the fairy tale horse story I had envisioned but I have some hilarious stories about him getting creative to get me off his back and how vengeful the equine mind can be!!! Over the years we got used to each other but my mom, my brother, and the neighbor boys were terrified of him!!!

 

I never got over my horse love. This is my old boy. Anyway, I did wonder if someone's pet pony died and was made into a toy riding horse.

 

It does look like taxidermy, right? Has anyone seen others with the hide/fur stitched on like this?
What should title read? "Antique Carved Wood Pull Toy Horse with Real Horsehide"?

 

Yes I have seen a quite a few Victorian pieces done with real horse hide. Kind of creepy but it was the gold standard then. I would call it "Large Victorian Pull/Rocking Horse Toy" and add about the hair in the description. People who are familiar with them will know.

 

I'm going to post this again because it gives at least partial answers to questions about what to call it, when it was made & what it's made of:

https://www.realorrepro.com/article/Horse-Toys

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=vic...AUICygC&biw=1680&bih=917#imgrc=lnaIj6b_gpk7nM:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1880s-Anti...690119?hash=item3af7fd84c7:g:~hIAAOSwHMJYPPBT

It seems that many people are describing the ones with real hair as being made in Germany but I do not know how to confirm that.

 

This does look old enough to be Victorian, and the style of the wheels looks correct for that, roughly. I'm not sure it is necessarily horse-hide; a little research shows that riding and rocking horses were often made with cow-hide. Some of them were made much later than the Victorian period - when I was a kid I had a large rocking horse with "real" horse-hide. In retrospect, it could have been cow, though.
Some online research will show a number of vintage pull or rocking horses made into at least the 1930s with real hide, and mine was new when given to me in the early 1950s.
I don't know if mine was made over a wood base, but I suspect that was likely the case.
By the way, Bronwen's link above is very informative, and indicates that horses with real hide were shown in the Sears 1912 catalog. OP's could certainly be older than that, judging by condition.

 

Lash! Wow!!

 

Yipes!

 

Think Roy Rogers

 

I did think just that!
And sad I passed by a number of times but never went there.

 

Hi,
I think I heard that the placed closed down a few years ago. Wonder what happened to Bullitt and the rest?
greg

 

That was my point, sorry.
Quite a while ago.
I think there is a western museum somewhere. Maybe there?

 

wikipedia:

After the original Trigger (Golden Cloud) died in 1965 at Rogers' new ranch in Apple Valley, California, Rogers arranged for Everett Wilkensen of Bischoff's Taxidermy in Los Angeles, CA (now Bischoff's Taxidermy and Animal FX in Burbank, CA) to preserve/mount the horse.[6] The hide was professionally stretched over a foam likeness of Trigger, and the resulting mount was put on display in the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum when it opened in Apple Valley, California in 1967. The mount was later moved with the museum to first Victorville, California in 1976, and then to Branson, Missouri in 2003.

At some point, a 24-foot (7 meters) replica of a rearing Trigger was produced to sit atop the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville. The 1300-pound (600 kg) replica could be seen from the freeway and served as a landmark until the museum closed and moved to Branson. When the fiberglass replica of Trigger was being made, Rogers was approached by the owners of the Denver Broncos. Rogers allowed another statue to be made and then broke the mold. "Bucky the Bronco", Trigger's twin, stands above the south scoreboard of the Denver Broncos stadium.[7]

After the closing of the Victorville museum in 2009, its contents were placed at public auction on July 14–15, 2010, at Christie's auction house in New York City.[8] Trigger's preserved taxidermy remains sold for $266,500 to television channel RFD-TV, which plans to start a Western museum.[9] Bob Tinsley, a Victorville developer who had built Roy Rogers' home in nearby Apple Valley, bought the fiberglass replica in April 2010. Tinsley's plan is to make the statue a part of historic Apple Valley Village. He explained, "I just couldn't see letting him go anywhere else."[10]