The degree of bend on the newer Proud Arabian Mares varies from Paso-like paddling to near perpendicularity. Here's a slightly blurry but still legible front end shot of my J.C. Penney's XMAS SR Solid Bay with stripe, ca. 1983. I bought her from a very reputable collector, so I know there was no funny business involved:
I've gotten conflicting stories as to what was wrong or missing from the original Mare's mold when they decided to bring her back. Was it half the mold, part of the mold, or just the cooling boards? I don't know.
The most common explanation I received back in the day was that the cooling board fixtures were missing. These fixtures are essentially metal "braces" that freshly molded parts are placed in to minimize warping and twisting while the plastic is cooling. You can see pictures of some of these fixtures on page 9 of Marney Walerius's Breyer Models:
This bending occurs because Tenite is a semi-synthetic plastic, and is subject to even minor changes in the environment. The heat, the humidity, the quality of the plastic, the quantity of regrind in the plastic, what the mold operator had for dinner the night before can affect the degree of warpage.
Another potential source of the problem is the original source material: the large H-R Zara. As reported in Nancy Young's classic tome Breyer Molds & Models, some Zaras also experience the toeing out phenomenon. In reworking or recasting whatever parts were necessary from the H-R original, the flaw inherent in the Zara mold as it existed back in the early 1970s may have been passed on to her descendant, the Proud Arabian Mare.
