One of the newly introduced LEGO® Friends characters has a very special connection to the original group of girls. Autumn, who has a limb difference, is the daughter of the original Friends character, Mia. After appearing together in Autumn’s House from the first wave of new 2023 LEGO Friends sets, Autumn is going it alone in this new Friends set, I’m taking a look at today. Saddle up and join me in a closer look at Autumn’s Horse Stable.
Product Details
Set Name: Autumn’s Horse Stable | Set Number: 43745 | Pieces: 545 | Theme: Friends
RRP: £57.99/$59.99/62.99€ | Number of Bags: Bags x 6 | Instructions: 1 x Paper booklets + Builder App | Stickers: Sheet x 1 | Characters: Autumn & Aliya, plus 2 horses
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & General Retail
The new LEGO Friends sets offer an interesting mix of builds. These include new things such as the bedroom sets, the larger buildings and the amazing Botanical Garden. But there are sets which hark back to the classic LEGO Friends sets and the Horse Stables is one of those. It’s also a companion set to one which was released earlier this year. As the set’s name suggests, the stables house Mia’s horses and Autumn is tasked with looking after them as well as riding them with her bestie, Aliya. The set features two instruction booklets with the first focused on a very basic horse carriage and an outdoor tap nestled in a small storage area, plus a jump with two removable jump poles.
Unsurprisingly, with the set being a stable, it does include horses. There are two featured in the set. One brown and one white, as with all the animal features in the Friends theme, they differ vastly from the standard LEGO animals. They are far more cartoony but fit the visual style of the mini-dolls. Similar to the System counterparts, Friends horses have a section in their back that can be fitted with a 2×2 jumper plate and a 2×2 curved brick or the jumper plate can be switched out to attach a cart. Or the whole 2×2 section can be removed to add a saddle. There are also harnesses that can be attached to the horses, although they are quite fiddly to slip over the horse’s heads. They certainly offer more play features but I still prefer the System style of animals.
It’s safe to assume that Autumn’s stable is in the same vicinity as her horse, which was previously featured in the first wave of all-new Friends sets. So it’s nice to see a few details that sync both sets. The colours used for the stable have a countryside feel to them just like the house and things like the shutters are the same as those on the house. The interior of the stables is fairly basic but there are a couple of beds in the upper section above the stable bay. Plus two stalls to house the horses.
Oddly, for a set of this size, it only includes two mini-dolls. However, they are both unique to this set, thanks to both their torso design and the ability to swap their hair for riding helmets. Both Autumn and Aliya are featured in the set and they are joined by two horses. The white one is brand new, with the brown coloured one only being found in one other set. Both mini-dolls can ‘ride’ the horses, but due to the design of both the mini-doll and the horse, they awkwardly stand in the saddles.
Overall
It’s not the most exciting of the new Friends sets but I do like that it expands on Autumn’s house form earlier this year. The horses are OK, I’m just not a fan of the more cartoony animals that feature in the Friends set and adding the harness and mini-dolls can be very awkward. The overall design of the stable building is really well done. I really like the use of 1×1 round tiles to give the impression of logs being used to construct the roof. The stable stalls are also quite cool, especially with the new half-door elements used to create them.
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