Schleich have come a long way since I was a child with a drawer full of blue smurfs! We have a decent selection of farm animals from Schleich and a lot of plastic horses from Playmobil, so I was really excited to be sent the new Horse Club Pick Up With Horse Box to review because I knew my horse loving 7 year old would be thrilled with it.
The Schleich Horse Club Pick Up with Horse Box comes neatly packaged in a good sized box. It comes with a booklet of instructions on how to set it all up, but in reality it’s a matter of adding a few wheels, clicking the box into place and sticking on stickers, so not as tough as some other self-assembly sets, and as a result a bit more hardwearing, I think, as you don’t constantly have bits falling off it.
Inside the box you’ll also find a sheet of stickers for decorating the horse box, and licence plates for the pick up.
There are individually packaged bits, including a seated (driving) male figure and a standing female figure – she’s meant to be grooming the horse. There are also smaller bits – a saddle blanket for the horse, a harness, hay bale, carrots and some brushes. These are very similar in size and appearance to our Playmobil ones, so they slot nicely into our small world play sets.
The pick up truck comes individually packaged, and is more maroon in colour than the pink it looks in the image on the box – I think the actual colour is an improvement. There are four wheels that need to be clicked into place. The doors open on hinges, as does the bonnet and the rear flap, and the steering wheel turns. I was quite impressed by how detailed the inside of the cab was too, complete with speakers and a cubbyhole.
The horse box requires a little bit of assembly, but the instruction booklet is sufficient and my seven year old could put it together without problems. The rear door opens and closes on this too. The roof of the horse box is removable so that two horses can fit inside, and there’s ‘hidden’ storage space for the saddles and bridles and everything too. It’s all rather well thought out!
Finally, the horse. This is a beautiful horse complete with ribbons in her mane and tail. While it is a plastic toy, it’s plastic-ness isn’t it’s overriding feature. It’s a sturdy, heavy-for-its-size toy, and like all Schleich figurines, is really well made and oozes quality.
All in all this set is really easy to put together, it is sturdy and can handle the rough play of two sisters and it fits in so perfectly with other small world items that it doesn’t look out of place but of course it also fits with the other Schleich Horse CLub horses and stables, all of which you can see here. The main positive for me in this vehicle specifically is that I don’t have to put parts back into place a hundred times a day!
The Schleich Horse Club Pick Up With Horse Box has an RRP of £39.99 and is available from various online retailers, such as Amazon
.