I ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THIS STORY EIGHT YEARS AGO… I’M REPOSTING IT TODAY BECAUSE MANY OF YOU READERS WERE NOT HERE TO LEARN ABOUT FINN WHEN I WAS RIDING HIM OFTEN AND EXCLUSIVELY (and because Pat asked…).   FINN IS AN AMAZING, HAPPY, SILLY GELDING.

Playing in the Imaginary Paintball Championships with my Horse and the Yellow Crested Cyclist…

I know, I know… what the heck is she talking about?!…

Well, “imaginary paintball” was the only description I could think of to tell this story.

Let me explain.  As I’ve said before about Finn, he thinks he is Daniel Boone’s horse.  He has to blaze new trails (as long as they aren’t scary) and he has to explore new horizons at every turn.  The problem with this is that Finn forgets what horizon he was exploring before another thing catches his interest…  If he were a human, he’d be one of the guys in THE HANGOVER.  He’d start out just going for a boys’ weekend in Vegas and end up with a broken tooth, a lion in the bathroom, $40,000 in his pocket and no memory of how any of it happened.  That’s Finn.  A trail ride is never just a trail ride.  We don’t just mosey down the path… we have to go here, check this out, explore that, touch the other thing, look above, jump down, jump over, sniff and basically behave like a ten year old kid in a candy store with ADD.

On the other hand, it is never boring…  And, truth to tell, I find him endlessly entertaining and I spend the entire ride just musing over his horsey thoughts.

So, back to imaginary paintball.

OK here goes:

IMAGINARY PAINTBALL

Finn and I were doing our usual multi-tasking while trail riding…

Me:  OK, let’s go up here…

F:  Up here?

Me:  Yup

F:  What did you say?

Me:  Go up here.

F:  Didja see that??!!

Me:  It was a bird.

F:  Uh uh!  It was a… hey, look — BLACKBERRIES!  YUM.  Can we stop?!

Me:  No, keep going.

F:  Puleeeze?  I’ll stand right here while you get off and pick some.

Me:  No.  Get up here!

F:  OK.  Let’s canter!  Wait!  I think I see…

Me:  C’MON.

F:  A low hanging branch!  (screeching to a halt)  Are you going to cut that?

Me:  No.

F:  What?

You get my drift… It is a constant jibberjabber of nonsense and chatter as we ride.  He always has an opinion and has no fear voicing it.  Of course, I always have an opinion about his opinions so we meander down the trail at uneven speeds, often stopping or playing at will.  It’s so much fun!  It is also a good thing that we do this alone or else I’d have no riding friends left…

TODAY

So, we were making our way up a hill and over a steel pipe that led us into another part of the State Park, when for no reason, Finn defied gravity.  We were in mid-air jumping over the steel pipe when he managed to change direction and crab totally to the right while looking frantically to the left.  As we hit the ground, he was still looking fully left but going to the right in the best side pass run I’ve ever seen!  I was scrambling and trying to figure out what was going on as we flew sideways towards some mean looking brambles.

“Hey, did I scare you?”  It was a biker who had appeared out of nowhere.  A nice biker.  He stopped and said that he didn’t see me.  I told him that we didn’t see him either.  I told him that we were fine, no worries.  We both smiled and parted ways.  He went down one trail and we went down another.

Little did I know, my fuzzy trail riding accomplice had other ideas.  Finn was not happy to have been snuck up upon.  He was making a plan.  And, that plan began with the simple words he uttered to himself, “Game On, Yellow Shirted Dude, Game On!”

GAME ON

Now, the funny thing was that no one but Finn knew we were playing.  I had a hint that something was up but I had no idea what.  You see, immediately after we parted ways with the cyclist, Finn had a vigor that he usually reserves for racing or heading back to the barn!  He was on a mission.

I hadn’t fully grasped this yet.  I was just happy that he had focused on something and that we were really moving out.  He was gaiting and popping his teeth and really happy.  I thought about how fun this was and how much we needed to find some flat areas to scream over more often.  La-De-Da.  Here’s me, all happy and singsongy on the back of my horse while Finn was planning his equine revenge.

And then he stopped, ears pricked.

“Huh?  What is it buddy?” I asked innocently.  His ear twitches from side to front.  He was listening…  And then he took off again like a bullet, straight towards an opening in the trees.  Yes, there was a slight deer trail but it wasn’t really cleared enough for a human on a horse so I didn’t let him go there.  Arrrrrgh!  Oh he was pissed.  He wheeled around and took off down the trail, beating tracks like he was late for a train.  I was starting to get concerned.  Were we late for a train?

All of a sudden, we burst through the foliage and stopped dead on the trail.  Finn was still listening intently.  No one was around so I gave him the rein because I was now really, really curious what was up with him.  As quiet as a mouse, he backed up ever so slightly into the brush and we waited.  Actually, I didn’t realize that we were waiting.  I just thought we were listening.  And then, in a powerful jet of emotion, Finn leaped out onto the trail, took about 6 steps, rounded a corner and came face to face with the cyclist again.  BLAMMO!, Finn planted his front feet right in front of the cyclist and halted like a statue.  The cyclist stopped immediately and Finn did a little jig and jumped backwards about 5 feet.  “GOTCHA!”  Finn was tittering with glee!

It all happened so fast.  Did I just experience what I thought I experienced?  I was floored.  I could not comprehend what had just happened.  Did Finn just ambush the cyclist?  How could that be?  I dismounted and asked the cyclist if he was OK.  He was.  He asked if my horse did that on purpose… because it seemed like he did.  I said that horses don’t think like that.  They are prey animals and blah blah blah.  Weird, though.  I apologized profusely and told him that I had no idea he was coming down the blind trail.  (But obviously my horse did.)

OK, fast forward about 10 minutes.  I had totally forgotten the cyclist and was just keeping up with Finn’s ongoing chatter.  We were jerking down the trail, doing this and that when all of a sudden, he pricked his ears again and really, really wanted to go very quickly towards something.  I went with it because I could not believe it was happening again.  (I still don’t.)  This time, Finn perched us above a path.  He purposefully went to the spot and stopped.  We were on an upper hill of a path, looking down.  His ears were pricked up the path.  I heard nothing.  And then, flappyflappyclickyclick…  The bike was coming.  I couldn’t believe it.  How could this possibly be happening again?  So, I waited.

Yup.  It was him.  It was the same yellow shirted cyclist, coming down that particular trail.  And, as if in a dream because I couldn’t believe this was happening, Finn asked me if we could jump down there.  Finn was agitated and excited.  “FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, NO!”, I yelled at him.

The cyclist heard me and stopped.  “WHAT IS GOING ON?!”   Now he was a little upset, sort-of.  More startled, really.

I said, “I’m so sorry!  He is crazy today!  He thinks we are playing paint ball or something!”  The cyclist was pretty amused and he started laughing.  “OK, are you saying that the horse is playing with me ” he said.  “I know it sounds impossible, but I think he is…”  “Fine, let’s play!”  He said he would go down this path and then veer off somewhere unknown.  He dared us to find him.

I didn’t need to tell Finn.  He was still playing…

Now this is the part where I feel like I’m from another planet when I tell you that Finn continued on with a mission… He ran and jogged and smelled the ground and the air and we were flying through the brush like it was an open meadow.  Finally, he paused behind a very skinny tree next to a single track.  (Isn’t it funny how horses sometimes think they are hiding if the tree is as wide as their heads?)  He stopped so quickly, I was about to eat his mane…  And, we sat there, waiting.

Low and behold, the cyclist was behind us.  Finn’s ears were pricked backwards.  He knew.  But, I also think he thought he was hidden by this measly tree in front of us.  Of course, this made no sense, but in his horseyhead, this was hiding.  Anyway, the cyclist came up behind us and stopped.  Finn erupted backwards and wheeled around as if to blow at him.  But, the cyclist was just standing there on the ground with his bike next to him.  Finn was confused.

“Sorry, Dude, you lose… Gotcha!”  and he reached out and tagged Finn on his loin.  With that, the cyclist shot off down the trail, laughing really, really loudly.

Finn looked at me as if to say, “But how could he see me?  I was hidden?!”

It was clear that the biker was going back to the parking lot so I made Finn go another way.  I felt weird and kinda stupid that my 1100lb horse was playing paintball chicken with a cyclist — or I am insane…   After about 10 minutes and long enough for the cyclist to have driven away with his bike securely fastened to the roof, we headed back to the lot.  Finn charged forward, thinking he might just meet his foe once again.  And, as he pranced into the trailer area where all the horse chariots awaited, Finn set his eyes on the car lot instead.

Out from the trees stepped the yellow breasted cyclist.  “Hey Buddy, wanna carrot?”  Finn was in horsey heaven!  “Sure!”  We gaited over with the same gusto as when we were on the trail.  Finn stopped on a dime in front of the cyclist and sort of sneeze/blew/whinnied at him and gingerly took the carrot.   While he chewed, he bobbed his head so pleased with himself…

“I’ve never seen a horse act like this horse,” the cyclist said with a smile.

“Me, Neither”, I said as I looked at him and shook my head, “I forgot my camera and no one will believe this.”

He smiled, got into his Subaru and said, “Well, I’m gonna tell this story for the rest of my life!”

Finn just stood there so proud — obviously he had won the game.  He got a carrot!  You coulda popped his chest with a pin.

You see, with Finn, what might start out as just a trail ride, ends up as the Imaginary Paint Ball Championships against the Yellow Crested Cyclist!

I love him.

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