The Legend of Zippy Chippy (30 page)

Oh, my friend, it is not what they take away from you that counts.

It's what you do with what you have left
.

Hubert Humphrey

“Domestic terrorism orange alert! Warning to all American retirement institutions that accept horses as residents: Zippy Chippy is looking for a home!” For the owner of a boarding farm, receiving a request to permanently room and board Zippy Chippy was akin to learning that Mike Tyson was booking a long stay at your quaint little B&B.

Six years of semi-retirement had passed uneventfully for Zippy Chippy since he had last raced in 2004 for his one hundredth consecutive loss. Reflecting on his victories – two against baseball players and two against horses in leg restraints – it seemed that thoroughbred racehorses had been Zippy's more persistent problem. Unofficial retirement for Zippy included training sessions during the season with Felix's other clients at the Clifton Springs stable and wintering at Whispering Winds Farm in nearby Penfield, NY.

Approaching twenty years of age, Zippy looked good, his health was fine, and he remained unusually agile, suffering no long-term effects from the pounding punishment he had endured in a decade chasing faster horses around some of racing's most
unforgiving tracks. Zippy was in good shape. Except for the scars and bruises in the shape of a horse's hoof, Felix was in pretty good shape too. Emotionally, though, Zippy's trainer, owner, and father figure wavered back and forth about the horse's future. “I've got him for a long time,” he said. “Then somebody take him from me? I don't think so. Even if he retires, he will always be in my barn.”

After a turbulent decade of racing, Felix still believed that Zippy might race again: “He's still strong for a horse his age.” Of course, having been pinned to the wall occasionally, Felix knew Zippy's strength firsthand.

Although he could have used the money, Felix was dead set against selling Zippy or any of his other horses, a real problem in a business where most trainers traded their underachieving prospects like baseball cards. When it came to Zippy's ornery nature and abysmal track record, few doubted the owner when he said, “If this horse was in somebody else's hands, he be dead by now.” With any other owner in thoroughbred racing, this horse would have likely gone to auction and then to a processing plant north or south of the border.

Although Emily and Felix had been in the thoroughbred horse business almost all their lives, for them it had never been a matter of business. They had sold a few horses, but only to people they knew, horse people who shared their love for these beautiful beasts.

“We keep the horses Felix buys. We take care of our horses,” Emily said, without having to add that a lot of other owners do not. The quick-flip sellers of thoroughbreds who buy low and sell a little higher after the horse has had a promising race or a strong time trial are called “churners.” The Monserrates, all four of them, were definitely not churners.

“One week after we had Zippy Chippy, I knew Felix would never sell him, as bad a horse as he might be,” recalled Emily.
“No, he was ours for good, plus … well, he wasn't all that sellable, to be honest with you.”

Maybe not back in his racing days, but now, with all his hard-earned notoriety, Zippy Chippy, who had somehow escaped all those claiming races, was very “sellable.” Oh, the irony of it all.

The great horses, from Secretariat to Seabiscuit, retired in ankle-deep Kentucky bluegrass, frolicking for the cameras and procreating their brains out on the off chance they might sire another hall of famer. But where do the ordinary horses go? The lame-gamers and last-placers and not-so-hots whose names nobody can remember a week after their last trip around the track? Sadly, these “orphans of the oval” have no value to racetracks or owners once their careers are over.

Such horses “go to glue,” as Felix once said, with the despair shared by every backside worker who has seen firsthand the sweat, the struggle, the gallant efforts these animals have given to their years at the track abandoned quickly once their earnings end. Zippy filled up a lot of race cards in his time. A hundred, to be exact.

A few discarded thoroughbreds might earn their keep as show horses or riding horses. Fewer still are the lucky ones who become pets of big-hearted rural landowners or helpers at equestrian centers. The situation has become so dire that some old horses go to rescue and retraining farms where they are cared for by prison inmates. (They're keeping Zippy away from this program, because frankly, the really hardcore criminals wouldn't stand a chance!)

After years of dithering about Zippy's future, Felix received a novel proposal from Michael Blowen, founder of Old Friends Equine, a retirement home for unwanted thoroughbreds. Michael's rescue operation, located on the outskirts of the small town of
Georgetown, Kentucky, not far from Lexington, is a model sanctuary for over the hill stallions and unmemorable mares who left their hearts out on the track. Old Friends now cares for about one hundred and fifty-four retired racers, who cost about $2,500 each in annual care. In their prime, these same horses earned a combined total of more than $90 million for their owners.

Michael made the offer to purchase Zippy Chippy after he set up a second farm, Old Friends at Cabin Creek, near Saratoga Springs, New York. The plan was to use Zippy as the retirement home's poster boy and, naturally, its main attraction. With a million dollar operating budget to care for his growing brood of abandoned horses, Michael needed a familiar face for fundraising campaigns and a well-known ambassador to promote the humane treatment of old racehorses. He needed America's most famous also-ran. He needed Zippy Chippy.

It was a brilliant marketing strategy to build on Zippy's celebrity status and use him as a kind of Walmart greeter at Old Friends at Cabin Creek, where he would attract fans of horse racing to come and meet yesterday's warriors. Merchandising Zippy Chippy memorabilia would earn funds to support the retirement and care of horses at both of Michael Blowen's retreats.

“I guarantee you that within a year, Zippy Chippy will earn more in retirement than he did on the track,” said the man who was once the film critic for the
Boston Globe
. First Felix and now Michael – when it comes to optimists, Zippy seems to attract them like a magnet.

“We all told him,” said Marisa of her father. “Me, my mom, my brother, everybody, told him that Zippy Chippy going to Cabin Creek would be the best thing that could happen, but …”

Felix's immediate reaction was adamant: “Sell the Zippy horse? No way, Jose!” In his head, he knew that the sale of his
buddy to this retirement farm was the best possible option for everyone involved. Zippy would be a happy retiree, romping in the spacious pastures on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs, three hours down the thruway from his Finger Lakes farm where the Monserrates could easily visit him. Above all, he knew the $5,000 sale price Michael was offering would go a long way to help keep his stable of horses operating. In keeping with his luckless history as a trainer, in the two years following Zippy's last race, his other horses had presented him with fifty-four losses in a row. Coming up to seventy years of age, Felix did not have a whole lot to show for a half century in the racing game. Still, in his heart, he held on: “I love the Zippy horse. He's been family for a long time. I don't want to lose him. There is only one Zippy Chippy.” And with the Zipster permanently snipped, there could never be another. He could never assume the role of a breeder. Traditionally, studs and mares produce foals that are destined to enrich thoroughbred racing, not vaudeville.

After several months and many changes of heart, Felix finally did the right thing by handing over his horse and halter to the gentle folks at Cabin Creek, where Zippy would do what he was born to do – act up, run around in crazy circles, eat treats, and pose for lots of photographs. His role would be to star in the Cabin Creek seniors' brigade, which included such fine stakes winners as Thunder Rumble, Will's Way, Cool N Collective, Midnight Secret, and Moonshadow Gold.

In the early spring of 2010, after the longest three-hour drive of his career, Felix pulled into the driveway of Old Friends at Cabin Creek with Zippy in tow. After Zippy was backed out of his trailer, he took off running – “No, no, that way, Zippy. That way!” – over the rolling hills and green pastures of his new fenced-in home.

Zippy was suddenly separated from the loves of his life – Marisa, Emily, and of course Felix, his favorite punching bag. Adored by hordes of fans, Zippy had thrived as the center of attention throughout his ten-year career, but he had shown disdain for the other horses, those speedy elitists who had barred him from the victory club. Now, here at Cabin Creek, he was surrounded by them – stakes winners and champions alike.

At first he preferred to stay outside alone, refusing to be groomed. “It took a few days for him to get used to my voice,” recalled JoAnn Pepper, who operates the equine nursing home along with her husband, Mark and son, Cody. “You know, to figure out who was the boss.” (I'm guessing –
him
?)

But then Zippy's life took a sudden turn for the best. He fell in love. It was platonic, of course, and after a soft nose touch, some serious sniffing, three nudges, a bump, and two approving neighs, Zippy Chippy and a stocky, capable racer by the name of Red Down South became pasture pals for life.

“Right there,” said JoAnn, pointing to what is now the farm's logo, a photo of Zippy and Red meeting for the first time and gently caressing each other's snout as if they were shaking hands. “In that moment they became best buddies forever.”

The Peppers live at the top of a hill that looks out over the beautiful barn where over twenty retired racehorses reside. The barn is made of pine, with multiple peaks and a long front porch, and the stables are both huge and homey. The ninety-two-acre property is ringed by thick stands of leafy maples, and each retired resident has his own large, fenced-in paddock, with room galore to run and play and roll around in the dirt.

Their paddocks separated by only a wooden fence, Thunder Rumble and Will's Way boarded side by side. Both were champion high-stakes speedsters who had each won Saratoga's prestigious
Travers Stakes. They were great pals in retirement, yet once in a while, at some mutually agreed-upon signal, Thunder Rumble and Will's Way would suddenly take off, running at full tilt the length of their fields, reliving their greatest triumphs just for the pure, unadulterated fun of it all. Free at last at Cabin Creek.

During the busy summer meet at the nearby Saratoga Race Course, almost one thousand people a week come to visit the great racehorses of the past, especially the Not-So-Great One. “Oh, swell,” they say, coming down the path to the pens. “Okay, there's Funny Cide and Behrens, but where's that Zippy Chippy horse?”

Most of these grassy, half-acre, square pens have shade trees. All have open protective sheds, or “run-ins,” where the horses go to feed and steer clear of bad weather. But only one is home to two geldings, and that's where Zippy Chippy and his best friend for life, Red Down South, can be found. Protective of each other, they are absolutely inseparable. When he was about to leave on a summer road trip to the Old Friends farm in Kentucky, Zippy flatly refused to board his traveling trailer. Not two or twelve handlers were going to force him in. He threw a bloody fit, bucking and bolting until the only thing they could do was walk him around to try to calm him down. But when he saw Red Down South enter the trailer, Zippy hustled up the ramp all by himself.

“They do everything together,” said JoAnn. “Zippy's getting a little arthritic, and I think he prefers to stand around. But Red keeps him moving, keeps him walking. And that's good for both of them.” After three deaths during the long, cold winter of 2015, Zippy is now the farm's elder statesman.

On a hot and sunny day in July 2010, Old Friends at Cabin Creek officially became “the Bobby Frankel Division,” after the legendary New York trainer who died too early in life. It was also Zippy Chippy's debut as the farm's most famous retiree, and five
hundred people showed up for the outdoor dedication ceremony. And there he was, the “Cad of Cabin Creek,” in all his goofy glory: eyes narrowed and looking for trouble, with his scraggly tail flipping behind a well-rounded middle. Odd that infamy had trumped fame on this auspicious day, with all the great retired racehorses watching Zippy Chippy's ceremony from their respective pens.

Listed on the program as Zippy's former owner, Felix Monserrate was right there beside him. Proudly, they posed for photographs, enjoying casual banter with fans. In the shade of the barn's large, peaked entrance, a winner's circle had been created with flags and flowers and bales of hay. Waiting for them inside was a lush and fragrant bed of roses, the symbol of victory used to adorn winners of the Kentucky Derby. This was special, a haloed place of triumph that Zippy and Felix had never gotten to enjoy together in their ten years of trying.