Hipparion (Jurassic Hunters by Geoworld)

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Ancient horses really don’t get much love in the toy market. Aside from Starlux and Bullyland, no one has added to the herd of prehistoric equinids. That is until Geoworld brought out their rendition of Hipparion, one of the most successful horses ever, lasting 22 million years and covering almost every continent, before dying off in the Mid-Pleistocene, possibly being out competed by the modern horse. Such a success deserves to be immortalized in plastic. Question is, did Geoworld do a good job of it? Let’s see…..

As with any Geoworld review, I will start on the fact card. As with the other mammals, this features an airbrushed version of the figure. No plagiarism. Moving on.

Now to the figure! The colour scheme is interesting, mixing zebra stripes with yellows and browns. Unfortunately, this does highlight the chinasaur nature of the plastic, the textures coming out nicely, but showing the plastic as cheap. It measures 6″ long and 5″ high (5.6″ with the rock), giving it a scale of 1:20, rather large for an animal the size of a pony. The pose is nice, perhaps whinnying or braying, telling challenges to back off. Pretty good.

Now to accuracy. As this is pretty close to a modern horse, a lot works well, with long legs and a horse shaped head, brilliant for a grazer. The major issue is the feet. While Hipparion had three toes, the outer toes were vestigial, being unable to touch the ground, unlike the horse like main toe, whereas this looks like the foot of a far more ancient horse. The zebra/donkey like tail is questionable, but there is no real way to tell if it should be more horse like. Not terrible, but needs work.

Honestly, I am glad that Geoworld made this figure. If it weren’t for the feet and cheap feeling, this would be an easily recommendable figure. As it is, I can see collectors avoiding it for those problems. Prehistoric horses are very rare though, and I feel this figure has some great qualities. If you like it, I think it’s worth it.