A loser by a neck, Zippy Chippy had run a bold and gritty race, his closest brush with victory ever and, sadly, his eighty-seventh consecutive loss. Meanwhile, the horse’s exploits were being heralded internationally as no less than twenty-five million copies of Guinness World Records hit the bookstores, announcing, tersely and factually, “The most consecutive losses by a racehorse is 87, by Zippy Chippy …”
One person not lining up to buy a copy was the tireless trainer who loved the sport and the excitement it brought to his otherwise quiet existence. Having guided Carrie’s Turn to eight victories in a short period of time, including the Finger Lakes Stakes, Felix had been to the winner’s circle, even if Zippy had not. Yet when the yelling stopped and things calmed down, it was clear that Felix had more fun losing with Zippy Chippy than he had ever had winning with Carrie’s Turn.
Naturally, Felix was impressed and inspired by Zippy’s valiant performance. “I’m proud that he gave me a good race today. Second is good,” he said, beaming. It still wasn’t champagne, but those first cold beers tasted especially good to the two of them that day.
It was becoming increasingly clear that as a trainer, Felix Monserrate’s level of excellence was definitely not that of a New York Yankees manager or even the assistant manager of a Jiffy Lube, but he and Zippy were in the thick of it again, and the world of horse racing was watching. Scrappers both, they had gone to war many times – sixty-seven times as a team – and they had come out the other end, alive and ready to re-enlist. After the Black Rifle brawl, the dream of winning had been reignited in the mind of the owner and in the hearts of tens of thousands of the horse’s fans. Knock, knock, knockin’ on the door of victory were horse and owner together.
Nipped at the wire and with a third-place finish before that, Zippy was on a roll again. After his best effort ever, he had this blissful faraway look in his eyes, a kind of dazed gaze of disbelief. Excited but confused, he seemed to be asking those around him in Barn M, Where am I and what just happened? Zippy had that once-in-a-lifetime look – the “Bronko Look.”
ZIPPY’S
BRONKO LOOK
There were bad days, when the starting bell freaked him out or the watering truck nearly backed over him or a Latino hot-walker called him “Zippy Nova,” which sounds like the name of a shooting star but actually means “Zippy Doesn’t Go!” There was a long list of things that pissed this horse off, and he must have been constantly thinking, What the hell’s going on here, anyway? I try and I try but the world just won’t cooperate! Emily Schoeneman later recalled the times when Zippy got “the look”: “He’d be standing quietly in his stall, and his eyes would glaze over and look skyward. His head would be tilted up and to one side in a pondering pose, and it seemed he was looking at something nobody else could see.”
A facial expression set somewhere between sudden curiosity and an altered state of amazement, the “Bronko Look” comes not from a bucking bronco but from a football player.
Bronko Nagurski, the toughest payer in the NFL in the thirties was a great fullback and lineman for the Chicago Bears. Head down and running like a freight train, he once carried the ball through an entire team, stopping only when he hit a concrete wall. Legend has it that when he got to his feet he told a teammate: “That last guy hit me awful hard.” Tenacious and fearless, born in Rainy River, Ontario, to Ukrainian parents, Bronko played hard and partied harder. After a big win at a Bears victory celebration, Bronko had a tad too much to drink and fell out of a window at the bar where the team was celebrating, landing one story down and out cold on the sidewalk.
When he finally came to, there was a cop standing over him.
“What the hell happened here?” asked the cop.
With that look of calm and utter bewilderment, Bronko replied, “I dunno. I just got here myself.”
Zippy would often get that look that Bronko Nagurski perfected. At night, deer staring down cars on highways also have that look.
FIFTEEN
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears …
Henry David Thoreau
On September 16, 2000, one year after Black Rifle ruined everybody’s day, Zippy Chippy went off at the Northampton Fair as the 2–1 favorite. His longtime fans were now pinching themselves and thinking, Good lord, this horse just might win a race! Having seen it all before, Juan Rohena was not so quick to jump on that bandwagon.
From the number eight post, farthest from the rail, Zippy broke best and shot to the lead. He led the six-and-a-half-furlong race at the three-quarter pole by a head over Sadler’s Critic. At the half pole he surrendered to Sadler’s Critic by two lengths but roared back strong as the two leaders entered the stretch. Neck and neck, stride for stride, they battled for home. As Zippy moved up to recover the lead, Sadler’s Critic made a bold move to go inside, allowing Miner’s Claim to come up suddenly and fast on the outside of both of them. Sadler’s Critic pulled slightly ahead as Samjackie confronted Zippy for second place. Zippy typically chose to go wide where there was less traffic, but of course this meant more ground to cover. Tired, he faded as his two challengers drove hard to hit the finish line, coming in third behind them. Zippy had again been beaten by two horses who themselves had never known victory.
Yet a second-place finish followed by a third was nothing short of a vast improvement for a horse that used to mistake the starting gate for a Comfort Inn. The Zipster was making people forget all about those record-setting losers Gussie Mae and Really a Tenor. Zero for eighty-eight starts, he alone was daring to go new distances, while others had fallen by the wayside.
There was a weird kind of upside-down, favorable rating index happening here. Although Zippy was still losing, finishing two for two in the money was quite remarkable, as attested by the large crowds and increased press coverage. It was like when Toronto mayor Rob Ford admitted smoking crack and binge drinking: after his confession, his popularity rating shot up six points in the polls. If your support base is enamored by you and also somewhat loony, then anything is possible.
Doing a victory jig for his adoring followers, Zippy was on a holy tear, which brought a proud smile to Felix’s face and prompted him to pay his big four-footed friend the highest of compliments: “He been losin’ real close lately.”
With his fate sealed at eighty-eight starts and his record losing streak confirmed by Guinness World Records, Zippy had earned a nice and comfortable retirement, and now was probably the time. With winter approaching and Zippy coming up to his tenth birthday in the spring, Felix shut him down.
After all, he wasn’t the losingest horse in the whole world. An English steeplechaser by the name of Quixall Crossett had, at this point, lost 98 races in a row and would go on to lose 103 races in an eleven-year career. And here’s the kicker: Quixall Crossett was a jump horse. On most jump courses, horses have to clear twenty low, hedged fences. Neither Deep Blue, once the world’s most powerful computer, nor the fanciful mind of Felix Monserrate could ever imagine Zippy Chippy racing on a track where hedges are used as hurdles. In no time at all, Zippy’s jockeys would be known as “hedge hogs.” That would be just cruel. Quixall Crossett once lost a three-and-one-eighth-mile race by an astonishing one hundred lengths, something Zippy Chippy could never manage … mainly because American tracks are so much shorter.
At fifty-seven years of age and battered by setbacks, Felix was getting tired. He and his horse were starting to feel their ages. Yeah, he should probably put his buddy out to pasture at the farm. Still, there were all those adoring fans, thousands and thousands of them.
Then, at the end of 2000, just as Felix was warming up to the idea of retirement, People magazine did a follow-up article on Zippy, reporting that his “perfect track record remains unblemished.” Zippy didn’t quite make it onto that issue’s list of the twenty-five most intriguing people of the year, which included Michael J. Fox
, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Tiger Woods, and The Rock, he of the overarching eyebrow. Fittingly, Zippy came well back in the field of celebrities, a place where he was quite comfortable.
Having just signed a contract with the Texas Rangers that would assure him $25 million a year for ten years, Alex Rodriguez was a featured celebrity that year. Home from the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, with five gold medals around her neck, Marion Jones was covered in the same issue. Am I the only one who sees the inquiry sign flashing with great urgency here? Imagine a celebrity match in which both “A-Rod” and Jones, subsequently disgraced for using performance-enhancing drugs, fade in the stretch as Zippy Chippy, the honest warrior, rushes up between the two cheaters to win the Trustworthy Stakes and the top spot on the cover of People magazine. Ah, life: so unfair and yet … yeah, so unfair.
The magazine people showed up at the family farm with a huge tortoise for the highly hokey photo shoot. “That thing was huge,” Marisa said later. “You could almost ride it!” Under a photo of Zippy nudging the terrified turtle, the caption read, “On his home turf, Zippy Chippy noses out the competition.” In the photo, the turtle looks like he’s about to abandon his shell and make a run for it. Zippy looks like he’s been tricked. How can I eat this thing with all that armor?
The article made reference to a previous edition of People that had tagged Zippy as “the losingest horse in racing history.” Felix shrugged it off. “Every time he runs, he comes back happy. I don’t get disappointed, no matter what.” Emily, who loves horses more than humans, locked herself in the house for the afternoon of the shoot. Forced to pose next to a stupid, land-dwelling reptile, Zippy wished he was with her. And yet, for the growing legions of people who related to Zippy on a very basic level – you lose, we lose, life is tough, and you do not suffer alone in this world – the magazine had nailed it. One fascinating personality was he, the Zipster.
He had been singled out by People magazine for his one undeniable gift: consistency. From paddock to gate, gate to wire, and finish line to backside, Zippy’s behavior was solid. Before every race he would fidget nervously and bob his head vigorously in the paddock as Felix gave him instructions for the impending test. He would neigh and nod as if he knew exactly what was expected of him. And he did know, because despite all their squabbles and disappointments, these two guys understood each other. I get it, Felix. Start strong, keep pace, drive hard for home. Then the bugle would sound, but Zippy wouldn’t hear it because from another area of the barn, from another part of the brain, he would hear Frank Sinatra singing, “I did it my way.”
So it wasn’t Zippy’s fault, it was Frank Sinatra’s fault. No, it was Henry David Thoreau’s fault for telling everybody they should listen to some far-off drummer instead of the manager, and that it was okay for everybody to pass you by like they were on a subway train and you were taking a leak up against a building, which they used to do in New York City before the Big Cleanup. Thoreau encouraged everybody to go sit quietly by a pond for hours at a time and gaze at their navels, which is really, really difficult to do if you’re a horse.
By the time Zippy reached the track, all his brain power had been reduced to a really shrill Steven Tyler scream, and he was trying to remember whether Felix had locked the barn door before or after he got out, and … then he’d say to himself, Just stop. Right now. Focus. And then that goddamn bell would go off, and Zippy would stay calm by staying put in order to assess the situation, which cost him a lot of time and earned him a lifetime ban from most American racetracks. So, you see, this horse just could not win for trying.
It was not easy for Marisa to watch her father throwing his hands up at the finish line, cursing under his breath and watching the pride of his stable galloping down the dirt track, struggling to find another way to lose.
Felix had spent too many afternoons watching the horse he loved like family not keeping pace with his companions, time after time after time. But Felix could always find goodness in a failed performance by Zippy, and after he had bandaged his routine bite marks, he would tell the horse that everything was okay, that there was always next year, that eighty-nine would be the charm, even though everybody knows eighty-nine is a number just itching to turn ninety.
And that was their life – a numbers game played by Zippy the independent and Felix the codependent. It was an odd and awkward relationship – 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 – 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 – 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.
HORSES JUST
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 … until he remembered he could not swim. Immediately, trainer Frank Merrill went thrashing into the lake to save his jockey … until he remembered he too could not swim. With one horse and two men now flai
ling 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 – jockey, trainer, and owners, but no, not the horse – 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 – a two-horse, one-week, Jimmy Buffett–style spring break.
SIXTEEN
I just don’t want to see you give up on your dreams ‘cause
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.
The Legend of Zippy Chippy Page 13
