The Legend of Zippy Chippy (31 page)
Read The Legend of Zippy Chippy Online
Authors: William Thomas
A quick burst of rain earlier had left a rainbow arching over the farm and the surrounding woods. Horse lovers and handlers stood to the side or sat on folding chairs as Old Friends founder Michael Blowen addressed the crowd. Shorts, ball hats, and suspenders made up the dress code of the day. All smiled, a few sipped beer from plastic glasses, and most snapped as many photos as they possibly could of this triumphant reunion that would never be repeated. Off in the distance, horses vocalized their displeasure at being ignored. Felix held Zippy hard and tight to his body, knowing full well the horse was capable of turning this wonderful celebration into something that would end with sirens and a tranquilizer dart. Zippy was restless, constantly bellowing at Red Down South, whom he could clearly see in their fenced-in field a hundred yards away.
It was a significant, almost historic moment when Felix Monserrate led Zippy Chippy into the Cabin Creek winner's circle.
After a hundred classes at the school of hard knocks, they were finally being recognized with an honorary degree. All went well for about five minutes of this barn-style pomp and circumstance, until Zippy had had enough. One last shout-out to Red that he was coming home, and Zippy proceeded to kick down the sign reading C
ABIN
C
REEK
W
INNER
'
S
C
IRCLE
. Then he gave Felix a sideways glance as if to say,
I don't want to win that way. Not on a photo op
.
In what amounted to a noisy wake-up call to those gathered in fantasy farmland, Zippy reminded them that there were more important things in life than winning, and one of them was getting back to Red Down South at precisely the same time that the guy with the floppy hat and the armload of carrots arrived at their pen.
Don't eat 'em all, Red!
And then Zippy took to swaying and jerking Felix around. His behavior was so bad, some in the crowd thought he might be staging a comeback.
The Zippy and Felix Show
was back on the air for one final episode. Displaying the infamous poor conduct that had gotten him banished from racetracks and exercise barns, the grumpy gelding was quickly escorted out of the winner's circle before he could actually destroy it. Mission accomplished, he looked rather regal as he was led back to the open-air stall he shared with Red, where they could resume their usual nickering and snickering and pressing their heads lightly together. The boys were reunited at long last. With this defiant act, in what might be the lasting image that underscores his legacy, Zippy Chippy was now banned from his very own winner's circle.
As the ceremony concluded, people shook hands and exchanged addresses and pleasantries before sauntering off with their photos and Zippy Chippy ball caps. The Peppers picked up the pieces of the sign along with their best intentions, and
you could almost hear Walter Cronkite say, “And that's the way it is.”
They make for an interesting pair of bedfellows, these two, the deep-brown Zippy and the chestnut Red Down South. Nine years the younger, Red has done something his pen-mate could only dream of: win a race. He only won twice in thirty-two starts, but he finished in the money often enough to earn a total of $116,650, and $3,645 per outing (Zippy's career total was $30,834.). And yes, I'm sure Red lords that over the Zipster every chance he gets. I can just imagine Red Down South standing in front of Zippy and pawing the ground 30,834 times, then falling down laughing.
With his sunny disposition, Red has a calming effect on the rambunctious Zippy, keeping his buddy in line. On the day I was visiting them in their paradise paddock at Cabin Creek, Zippy did something stupid that nobody noticed, and Red promptly bit him in the ass. After sulking under a shade tree for a while, Zippy came back to Red, all playful and loving again.
The summer after they met, Zippy and Red went on the road, spending a couple of weeks at Michael Blowen's Lexington farm, prancing around the property and showing off for visitors. Never more than a few feet apart, these two sassy seniors would race each other over and around the soft Kentucky knolls and then pull up to the fence, where well-wishers pushed treats into their faces.
There's a home video of the two of them, taken while they were relaxing at the Lexington farm. Their heads are bobbing up and down in anticipation as a guy approaches with his hands full of carrots. As he offers them up and across the top rail, Zippy's head recoils, while Red Down South leans in and demolishes the food, green stems and all. Astonished, the guy in the video turns to his wife, who's doing the filming, and says, “Jesus! Zippy doesn't even want to come first at eating!”
On the day of her visit, Pam Machuga, a fan of the Zipster, expressed great admiration for the two horses smiling at her from a distance. “These horses deserve respect. Work hard your whole life, this is what you should get â a big pasture with lots of love.” Standing apart from a tour group that had just arrived to fawn over Zippy and then Red, the longtime fan of horse racing added, “Think about regular, everyday people in life. We don't always win, but we can at least get back up and keep going.”
This picture is not lost on Michael Blowen. “I think more people can identify with a horse that loses all the time than a horse that wins all the time,” he said. “Because there are more losers in the world than winners.”
Michael Blowen's confidence in turning Zippy Chippy's fame to fortune has paid off quite well. Funny Cide, who would eventually visit Zippy at Old Friends, earned $3.53 million in thirty-eight races. By contrast, Zippy earned perhaps $80,000 during his career, from second- and third-place finishes, a couple of sideshows, some celebrity appearance fees, and a movie option. So Michael Blowen's bet on Zippy's earning power was certainly ambitious. Having missed the exalted Triple Crown by a loss in the Belmont Stakes, Funny Cide may be the greatest horse ever to come to Cabin Creek, but make no mistake about it: the sounds of the cash register and the size of the souvenir bags leave little doubt that the infamous imp Zippy Chippy is the star of this show.
Zippy's never-give-up attitude finally paid off in the end. He is the undisputed leader of the pack at Old Friends, and he is now helping pay for Red Down South's upkeep. As a matter of fact, Zippy's huge popularity with visitors to Old Friends is helping raise the funds to care for all the great horses boarding there. Incredible but true: Zippy the Clown is now supporting the entire circus.
In the end, Michael Blowen made the smart choice, and Felix Monserrate eventually came to a wise decision â Zippy Chippy was put out to pasture for what were to become the best years of his life. Fittingly, he earned the gold standard of retirement packages: room to roam, a buddy to play with, lots of visitors to fawn over him, and yes, carrots. A dignified retirement at the end of a courageous career was what everyone wanted for Zippy Chippy. And that he has in spades.
The prediction of Michael Blowen, the guardian angel of old, discarded horses, quickly became a marvelous reality. As Zippy's fame continued to flourish after his landmark one hundredth race, his faithful followers grew in numbers and displayed their loyalty in cash. A thousand people a week, and sometimes three hundred a day, come to pet him, feed him, buy his monogrammed merchandise, and pose for pictures worthy of their wallets. Yes, Zippy has earned more, much more, in retirement than he ever did racing.
Besides the caps, T-shirts, and lucky charms, the best-selling Zippy souvenir is a coffee mug. Below a cartoon of Zippy Chippy screwing up a race are the words that sum up his career, words that will serve him well as an epitaph, and words we all could live by. Under the comical sketch of the silly, galloping Zipster are the words
WINNERS DON
'
T ALWAYS FINISH FIRST
.
THE ULTIMATE CHARITY AUCTION
When I was twenty years old, I used to hang around with the wrong crowd. His name was Carvalho. He was older than me, shorter than me, and smarter than me, and one summer he introduced me to the track.
As a university student, Carvalho had a summer job as a Canadian customs officer at the Peace Bridge, which connects Buffalo, New York, to Fort Erie, Ontario. When American owners and trainers brought their horses to race at Fort Erie Race Track, they had to first get past Carvalho. Government paperwork could take a few minutes or a few days, he'd say â what did they have in the way of betting tips?
As a university student, instead of taking a summer job, I started a company in which I grossly underpaid high school students to paint houses. It was like a sweatshop operation, except they toiled out in the fresh air. I'd work with them in the mornings, then go to Fort Erie Race Track in the afternoons to bet the horses on which Carvalho had been given tips. We seldom won a race.
But Carvalho had a “system,” and as he explained it to me, you had to stick to the system because it would pay off sooner or later. “Later” for me was September, by which time I had transferred all the profits from my painting business to the Fort Erie Race Track. I spent that following year operating a spark-splashing swing grinder at Atlas Steels in Welland, Ontario, to make enough money to go back to university.
I mean, losing was one thing, but we once bet on a horse that went sideways across the track and up to the grandstand, at which
point his jockey yelled into the crowd, “Which way did they go?” I tell ya, we bet on a horse that was so slow, his jockey carried a change of underwear! We were so good for business that if I wasn't at the betting window for the first race, the racetrack would send a hired car to my house. Seriously, it's true what they say â a racehorse is an animal that can take a thousand people for a ride, all at the same time.
And Carvalho? Like one of those amazing little ironies you read in
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
, he got a job as a paid tout, a handicapper of racehorses. That's right, the guy whose luckiest day at the track was when he met somebody who lived on his street so he didn't have to hitchhike home got a job in which they paid him to give advice to bettors. He wrote a column for the
Daily Racing Form
, the bible for North American pony players.
But Carvahlo, he was funny. We'd go to the track together on weekends and in those days, Fort Erie Race Track charged an admission fee, except those who came late, say after work, could get into the seventh and eighth races for free. One day, tapped out after the seventh race, we were walking through the parking lot, pissed off and not speaking to each other as usual. Carvalho was slapping his thigh compulsively with that day's program, which had cost two bucks to buy. An American in a new Cadillac pulled up beside us, rolled down the window, and said, “Hey, buddy, do you mind if I have that program?” Instantly, I knew this wasn't going to end well for the moocher.
Carvalho gave the car a long look, from the gleaming hood ornament to the shiny chrome back bumper, and finally said, “So how'd you pay for the Caddy? Collectin' fuckin' pop bottles?”
We carried on toward my car and said nothing to each other for, oh, about six full seconds. Then I laughed so hard I really thought I'd pulled something near the base of my spleen.
Lesson learned: No horse can disappear around the far turn faster than the money you bet on him. Knowing that you'll lose it, take no more than twenty or forty dollars to the track, and have a wonderful afternoon playing with the ponies.
For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name,
He marks
â
not that you won or lost â but how you played the game
.
Grantland Rice, “Alumnus Football”
Oh, what a career the Zippy horse had: one hundred races, eight second-place finishes, twelve thirds, a whole bunch of fourths, four owners, four trainers, thirty-four jockeys, ten racetracks, one ball field, two harness tracks, a one-vehicle demolition derby, and total earnings of $30,834 on the track.
