Chasing Rainbows

An odd thing happened to me earlier this week.  I opened up a Breyer blind bag and found a "chase" piece -- one of those that are packed in one out of every four boxes.

It's odd because this has never happened to me before and I'm a big fan of blind bags -- I like the surprise.  But in all the blind bags I've purchased over the years, this is the first time I've ever found a chase piece inside one of them.

And there have been a lot of chase pieces over the years.  I might be missing some, but the Stablemate chasers have included a silver charm mini Alborozo, a greeny-gold Friesian, a pink Icelandic, a blue Endurance Arabian, a copper filigree Django, a gold Rearing Andalusian, a war painted Mustang, a blue mini Alborozo unicorn, an orange and black dappled mini Magnolia unicorn, and even a gold Scrambling Foal (in a Mystery Foal surprise pack).  Mini Whinny chasers have included a silver filigree Running Thoroughbred, a pink filigree Jumping Morgan, a green filigree Cantering Thoroughbred Mare, and a gold filigree (or florentine) Show Stance Drafter.  That's a whole lot of chase pieces that have somehow eluded my grasp.

Of course, I'm working at a bit of a disadvantage here.  There's no store nearby that I can get to where I can fondle the blind bags in person -- as a lot of collectors are known to do -- in hopes of making out the shape of the chase piece.  I'm not sure if I'd do that even if I could, anyway.  As I said, I like the surprise, and I'd be concerned that the rubbing of the bag would damage the finish of the horse -- both my own rubbing and the rubbing of all those who have come before me.

So it's been both out of necessity and out of preference that I've been buying my blind bags from distributors who promise not to manhandle any blind bags before shipping.

The oddest thing - a Spirit Series 2 "chase" piece!

 
Some of the chasers, too, are issued only to special distributors in the U.S.A., like Walmart and Cracker Barrel.  With a little inventiveness -- calling in favours and such -- I could probably get my hands on some of these, but I still wouldn't want to have my blind bag pre-fondled by my buyer, and there's no way I can guarantee that that wouldn't happen, particularly if that buyer was also looking for chase pieces.  So I've never set my heart on having that blue Arabian from Cracker Barrel or the orange and black unicorn from Walmart.

I hadn't actually set my heart on getting any particular chase pieces at all, as all but one are fantasy "new decorator" colours, and although I'm fine with them now, I still prefer realistic colours in general.

The one piece that is not technically a fantasy or decorator colour is the Series 2 blind bag Spirit chase piece, featuring Spirit nearly covered in war paint.  While it is true that the amount of paint on him seems excessive, it's actually remarkably close to the war paint Spirit wore in the season two finale of the Netflix series Spirit: Riding Free.  There are some minor differences between the model and the animation, particularly around the face -- on the show, Spirit had much more elaborate red rings around his eyes, three stripes as opposed to a solid swoosh over the bridge of his nose, and both nostrils ringed with red.  The purpose of the war paint overkill was to disguise Spirit so that Lucky could ride him in a race.

Spirit in war paint - Image courtesy of DreamWorks TV

So despite the fact that the Spirit Series 2 chase piece is a portrait of a cartoon horse, it's the most realistically-coloured chase piece of the lot (eyebrows notwithstanding).

Now here's where this week's discovery of a chase piece hits maximum oddity:  the war paint Spirit was the chase piece I found.  Although I wouldn't scorn any of the others if I were to find them, the war paint Spirit is actually the one I like the most.

How's that for a surprising bit of luck?