The Legend of Zippy Chippy (20 page)
Read The Legend of Zippy Chippy Online
Authors: William Thomas
And that was their life â a numbers game played by Zippy the independent and Felix the codependent. It was an odd and awkward relationship â Zippy and Felix, Felix and Oscar, Oscar the Grouch and Elmo. Slowly but surely they had adapted to each other, and now it was love on another level â okay, a lower level, but love all the same.
They were less like an old married couple, the kind you see sitting in restaurants not talking to each other, and more like a couple of army buddies who had fought in the trenches of a war that was not over. Yet losing the battles did not stifle their spirits, and they celebrated small victories together: a second here, a third there, a couple of cold beers each in the quiet of the shed row at the end of a long day. They had accepted each other and their predicament. They mellowed. Their constant bickering turned to laughter, because really, what else can you do but laugh at the ridiculous? And from there on, life was easier for both of them. Now, way too late to separate, Felix and Zippy were staying together for the family and the memories and the records, such as they were. The horse was still an athlete, the man was still a trainer; both were still players in the only game they knew and loved â horse racing.
So with few prospects and less hope than an airline pilot attempting a safe landing after a Canadian goose strike over the Hudson River, Zippy and Felix plodded on together, and life got better for them both. Stubbornness and perseverance have their rewards. The trick was to harmonize these two strong traits against the competition, not use them against each other. One day Zippy and Felix would take a day off and go to the ballpark together, and there would be fun in their lives once again.
WANNA HAVE FUN
I was fifteen years old in the fall of 1961, and although I had only a vague notion of a racetrack being located at nearby Fort Erie, Ontario, I certainly had heard of Puss n Boots. He was the horse famous for going for a swim in the middle of a thoroughbred race.
Trained by the great horseman Frank Merrill, Puss n Boots was brought to Fort Erie from Gulfstream Park in Florida, where he had earned the reputation of a promising sprinter but a bit of a nutter. During one outing a piece of paper flying around the Florida track had sent him into a tailspin, and he almost jumped the rail to get away from it. Brown, hard-nosed, and nondescript, Puss n Boots looked a lot like Zippy Chippy.
It was a hot September afternoon at Fort Erie, a beautiful track naturally appointed with shimmering infield lakes, well-trimmed shrubs, and flowers in full bloom. Puss n Boots was leading by five lengths at the top of the stretch on the mile-and-one-sixteenth turf course when the jockey's right-handed whip to his bum set him off. Apparently he was fine with a slap on his left cheek, but never the right one. Either Merrill hadn't told the jockey about this particular quirk, or the rider just forgot.
Whacked and wanting to flee the track, the horse spotted a narrow opening in the hedge, which was used mainly by the groundskeepers to enter and tend to the infield gardens. At full speed and carrying a very startled Ronnie Behrens on his back, Puss n Boots shot the gap. The quick left turn sent the jockey sailing over the horse's head and onto the ground, sprawled out. Approaching the infield lake at full speed,
the horse suddenly hit the brakes, and a disbelieving crowd of 14,106 people got to see Puss n Boots slide slowly into the water, ass-first.
Trust me, when a bettor puts a wad of money on a rising star like Puss n Boots, expecting him to win the race, the last thing he wants to hear from the horse is the sound of a really big splash.
Immediately, Behrens jumped into the lake to save his horse â¦Â until he remembered he could not swim. Immediately, trainer Frank Merrill went thrashing into the lake to save his jockey â¦Â until he remembered he too could not swim. With one horse and two men now flailing away in deep water, the entire starting gate crew kicked off their shoes, stripped down to their skivvies, and then plunged into the lake like a team of very pale lifeguards. A big horse, a small skiff, three guys mostly naked, and nobody said, “You're gonna need a bigger boat”?
Although the gate guys hauled the jockey and trainer out of the drink, that horse just wanted to have fun. Leisurely, he swam in circles in the middle of the lake like it was his private backyard pool. It took a man in a rowboat and the starting crew forty-five minutes to get a hold of Puss n Boots and lead him to land. They all got a standing ovation.
This amazing moment in horse racing history is commemorated annually with Fort Erie's $30,000 Puss n Boots Cup, after which the winners â jockey, trainer, and owners, but no, not the horse â jump into that same infield lake.
I can only imagine if Zippy Chippy and Puss n Boots had been stablemates in Florida. Top of the six o'clock news: “This afternoon, at Cypress Gardens near Winter Haven, Florida, two stray racehorses tried to ride Nemo the Killer Whale, and in the process accidentally crushed to death Twiggy the Waterskiing Squirrel. The horses were last seen headed for Disney World on the shoulder of State Road 400.” Yeah, Zippy and Puss â a two-horse, one-week, Jimmy Buffettâstyle spring break.
I just don't want to see you give up on your dreams âcause
you're holding onto the one thing that's letting you go
.
From the movie
Small Town Saturday Night
The only way Felix Monserrate would ever get one of his horses into the Kentucky Derby would be to arrive at Churchill Downs late at night and bribe a security guard to let them both in the side door. Felix did, however, have a keen eye for the obvious, as well as a flair for fairground theatrics.
One day â and this usually meant trouble, if not outright disaster â Felix came up with an idea. This was not the result of a sit-down family meeting with Emily and Marisa to create a new plan for Zippy Chippy, since the old one (horse racing) had not been working out so well. Over time, in nearly forty years of teaching horses how to race, Felix had noticed two things that were both related and irrefutable. First, horses run faster than humans. This idea may have come to Felix as he was picking himself up off the ground after being head-butted by Zippy from behind. Horses were definitely faster on their feet than people, which is why you would never see the 130-pound Felix Monserrate in a race around a dirt oval track with the 1,100-pound Zippy Chippy splayed across his shoulders, although I understand men do that in Finland with their wives. Honest â it's called
eukonkanto
.
The second thing Felix knew to be true was that humans loved to watch horses run, especially his own little impulsive imp. Bingo! Humans watching horses race against humans. Bottom line: have fun for a change, because all this losin's gettin' real old.
Luis Rivera, a former jockey and president of Rochester's Puerto Rican Festival, championed the idea of just such a celebrity match race, because Zippy Chippy was badly missed by his local fan base since he had been given the heave-ho from Finger Lakes. Dan Mason loved the idea because outrageous stunts were part of his job as general manager of the Rochester Red Wings.
The event was billed as the “2000 Red Wings Derby” and scheduled for an early summer's evening at Frontier Field, home of baseball's Triple-A International League Red Wings. Zippy Chippy, with a career record in losing to horses, would race against Jose Herrera, the Red Wings' speedy center fielder with an impressive 155 career stolen bases. “Man against Beast” flashed on the scoreboard. The posters read “Horse against Human.” Zippy's followers lapped it all up. If any horse in the world needed a win, any kind of a win â against a human, a tractor, a senior citizen on one of those electric scooters â it was Zippy Chippy!
The mood was light and breezy at Frontier Field as approximately nine thousand spectators showed up to party with the Zipster and watch the race, which was staged before a night game that pitted the hometown Red Wings against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. Although there was no betting, money still changed hands (“I'll take the exactor â horse to win, human to come second”), with lots of laughter and family fun. At the concession booths, the ballpark's traditional white hot dogs crackled and the Scotch ale spilled into large plastic cups, leaving a beige head of froth at the top. Hootin' and hollerin', the faithful
brought gifts of food for Zippy and newspaper and magazine clippings for Felix to sign. Felix might have looked skyward and given a grateful thumbs-up to circus impresario P.T. Barnum. This sideshow was coming together nicely.
A confident Pedro Castillo sat comfortably in the saddle, which was belted over a green and white blanket emblazoned with Zippy Chippy's name. Pedro wore white silk pants, a Red Wings tunic over a black long-sleeved shirt, and a great big grin. With a white braid running the length of his neck, white leather reins and bridle to match, and four white leggings wrapped from ankles to knees, Zippy looked absolutely angelic. Trotting onto the dirt warning track, he kept nodding and looking up at his fans, who were packed onto the walkway above.
Wearing tight white pants, a black T-shirt, a gold chain, and his Rochester Red Wings hat sideways, Jose Herrera looked like he meant business. This was not a new or unusual situation for the speedy ballplayer. He told the press the story of how he used to race against horses on a farm in his native Dominican Republic, which makes you wonder what the game of baseball looks like in that country. No naïve rookie, Herrera had already spent two seasons in the big leagues with the Oakland A's.
Up in the grandstand, nobody dared to go to the bathroom, and everybody had an opinion. Finger Lakes Racetrack handicapper Dave Mattice said the odds favored Herrera because the distance was too short. “If Herrera had to carry a jockey,” Mattice joked, “it would be a lot more fair.”
The racecourse had been meticulously mapped out in the outfield with double lanes of white lime that would keep the competitors a healthy distance from each other. Zippy had never bitten a ballplayer before, so there was that temptation Felix had to worry about.
Approaching the start, a groom steadied Zippy on one side while Felix and a beaming teenage Marisa held him on the other. Manager Dan Mason beckoned the racers to the starting line, where he held a black and white checkered flag high above his head. Dan raised his free hand to engage the crowd, and immediately they began the countdown in unison.
“Ten!”
“Nine!”
The players on the sidelines razzed Herrera unmercifully.
“Eight!”
“Seven!”
Herrera and Castillo exchanged words in Spanish and then laughed like hell.
“Six!”
“Five!”
Zippy's fans punched the air with their fists, keeping time with the chant.
“Four!”
“Three!”
The happy mob waved their ball caps high over their heads, and their cheers could be heard out on the street.
“Two!”
A cameraman on the sidelines, jockeying for a better angle, crashed into his sound technician.
“ONE!”
The flag came down, a roar went up from the crowd, and the starter yelled, “Go!”
The race unfolded like one of those TV dream-scene ripples: a horse nods knowingly toward the stands, bowing to his retinue of admirers, while a skinny guy in red and black runs for his life. The same horse starts to graze the outfield grass, thinking,
Man, this is a lot better than that scraggly stuff at the track
. Suddenly the crowd is yelling, pointing at the sprinter. The jockey slaps the horse on the rump. From the sting of the crop the horse bolts, the base stealer hits top gear, and the Red Wings Derby is on.
The noise was deafening, the runners covered the distance quickly, and the whole thing was over in less than seven seconds. Given that Zippy's distant relative Man o' War had a full stride of 28 feet and Usain Bolt, the world's fastest human, legs it out at 9.35 feet, the result of the race was a logical and foregone conclusion. Keeping in mind the biological precept that horses are naturally faster than humans, the race wasn't even close.
