About Us

Copperfox Model Horses is the result of years of collecting and working within the model horse hobby and being frustrated with the lack of British breeds that were being made.

Becky Benfield has collected model horses for as long as she can remember. After leaving school at 16, she set up Utterly Horses as the place to find everything model horse related. From models to stables, riders to accessories and everything in between.

Utterly Horses is known as the Home of the Model Horse. Over the years, customers asked for breeds of models like Welsh Cobs, Dales, Fell, Exmoors and Welsh Section Cs, but no correct model version existed of these popular British native breeds.

In true British entrepreneurial style Becky created Copperfox Model Horses, a dedicated brand created to deliver beautifully crafted models of the great British horse breeds to eager collectors.  An amazing and true story!

Becky was a teenage entrepreneur having founded Utterly Horses in 2001 at the age of just 16.  She has won considerable recognition as a successful businesswoman over the last 14 years.  With 30 awards and counting! In 2014 alone she has won 3 Young Entrepreneur of the Year titles at local and National levels.

The Copperfox models were started as a Kickstarter Project. The project was launched on the 14th November 2014 and ran until 5th January 2015 (52 days). The aim was to raise a total of £25,000 - the final amount ended at a stagering £31,106! A grand total of 291 people backed the project and became Founding Foxes.

 

Eleda Towle, of Triple Mountain Model Horses conducted an interview with Becky Benfield in early 2017, which can be viewed here:

https://triplemountain.com/blogs/news/interview-with-becky-benfield-of-copperfox-model-horses

 

The middle years were bustling with world wide model horse shows and events, and Copperfox burst onto the scene with shows all over the U.K., U.S.A, Australia, and Canada.

 

Copperfox Closes 

 

A surprise announcement came through social media platforms in July of 2018:

"Regretfully, Copperfox Model Horses will be shutting it’s stable door on the 14th August 2018.

We set out to create a range of model horses of British Native breeds for horse lovers worldwide to cherish and with your help and support through many challenges, we achieved this goal. Your encouragement and belief helped us achieve what many thought was the impossible, so a truly heartfelt thank you for making it all a reality.

Our journey now though has sadly come to an end for a number of reasons. We have had a turbulent few months trying to negotiate with our factory and in short, the factory does not want to produce our models, at the quality we know our customers would expect, for a reasonable price. The factory find the models very labour intensive and therefore want to increase the price considerably, which obviously we cannot accept as it’s unsustainable. Despite our ceaseless efforts we have been unable to find an alternative factory in China nor an alternative plan of how we can continue production of the plastic models. The paint team at the factory have already been disbanded as the factory are adamant that they do not want to produce the models. This has added to the ever increasing costs of plastic and shipping, exchange rates, tooling costs and their maintenance, as well as a never ending list of production obstacles.

This difficult time has had to made us review the business in-depth. Since it’s formation, it has put us both under an immense about of pressure taking an extreme toil on our health, well being, family and finances. Bedtimes and family commitments have been missed due to us trying to make it work, together with countless sleepless nights as we were both utterly committed to making Copperfox Model Horses a success. With sadness, we have made the decision that the time has come for us to step away from the model horse world, a community which has changed so much during the 20 years we have been a part of it.

This news means that there will be no more plastic Copperfox Model Horses, even though we were on the verge of a next production run. The samples were confirmed but the production never finalised during our negotiations so no models were created.

We shall be re-homing all our remaining stock from our warehouse over the next few weeks. Both our new models, Winston and Scamp are available, whilst stocks last, in resin as originally planned but there will be no plastic versions of these models.

We would like to thank all you, once again, our Copperfox Ambassadors, Fans and Followers for your continued support and helping us make it all possible. Thank you for joining us on this fabulous journey and giving our models wonderful forever homes.

- Becky and Sharon
Copperfox Model Horses"

 

Copperfox Today

Copperfox Model Horses was purchased by the very first Ambassador for the brand, Julia Eldridge~Nichols in mid-2019. Hailing from New England, Julia had run several successful businesses and been part of the hobby since the 1980's.  Also a part of the new team included her son Cody, who specialized in business management to assist with the family business. A new social media manager Sarah, and Paige, a creative marketer joined the group along with countless vendors, artists and technical team members, including original artists and previous company contributors.   The team researched the feasibility of moving the company to the US for over a year, finally settling escrow and encorporating 5th of May 2019.  

In the fall of 2019, funding and engineering began for the project. The first item on the agenda was getting the British shire into plastic, which had a great many steps to accomplish.

Due to his original sculpture having been destroyed,  the Copperfox team worked tirelessly with the original sculptor and multiple CAD houses to ensure Winston was produced true to every detail of the original.  In early 2020 the operations were to be moved to a large warehouse with 60 painters and artists on site.  Whilst Copperfox remains a  small family owned company, they are mighty-and ready to bring Copperfox back into the market again.

Further news about the plans and future of Copperfox can be found in an interview by Eleda Towle of Triple Mountain Model Horses on her website here: 

https://www.triplemountain.com/blogs/news/copperfox-model-horses-returns