Read The Legend of Zippy Chippy Online
Authors: William Thomas
The Legend of Zippy Chippy (3 page)
And these creepy jockeys with frilly, silky outfits who straddled you tightly with both legs, all the while spanking you with a riding crop. What the hell was that about? I mean, that was strange even for Kentucky, where owners of horses wore plaid pants with red blazers, and women, to their credit, refrained from pointing and laughing out loud. Then again, maybe the women couldn't actually see the men for all that Derby hat.
And that ghastly starting gate â it was one long line of tiny little jail cells, and once you were locked in there they would scare the crap out of you with that unbearable bell. RINGGGGGGGG!
Even when you knew it was coming, that thing was frightening, and Zippy Chippy would need a moment or two to compose himself and get his bearings, and, well, in horse racing, where trainers are often seen draped over fences staring at stopwatches, these are known as very valuable seconds.
Native Dancer and Northern Dancer be damned! They were Zippy's ancestors and they were great racehorses, but really, where does greatness stop? He may have been just a gangly little foal, but Zippy inherently knew a few things to be true: to compete against those deemed better than you, to challenge for the lead and hold it, to thrive and drive and whirl away and find another gear â those were the dreams of his forebearers, not his. He had smaller dreams that played in slow motion, and these did not include being fawned over by the owner's family in the winner's circles of American tracks, having his picture taken by the official photographer, or having blankets of roses draped round his neck. A quick glance at his stats tells you that Zippy may in fact have been allergic to flowers and felt that jockeys who came in first all the time were just showing off.
No, not everybody dreams in color or yearns to finish first or takes losing to heart. Zippy would go on to have fun and frivolity in his career as a racehorse â something that, if you've ever seen the movie
Seabiscuit
, you know that horse never had. All that blood and guts and the lower-body injuries â man, give it a rest! Chill would have been an excellent name for this gamboling, devil-may-care four-footer. His casual gait and wandering mind spelled
RELAX
in caps and boldface. “Stop and smell the fumes that little filly Heart's Desire is giving off down the row” â that was Zippy's motto.
No, Zippy Chippy would not go on to become what sports writers call a “phenom,” an exceptional athlete who defies the odds by surprising everyone with a series of eye-popping victories. The only thing Zippy Chippy and Secretariat had in common was that they ate from food buckets and randomly soiled the straw in their stalls. Yet Zippy would go on to defy everything and everybody, especially those people who handled him. And in the end, what he accomplished was nothing short of phenomenal. Very few thoroughbred horses ever run one hundred races, and none ever accomplished that feat with the zeal and admiration, the aplomb and the arrogance, the style and the dash of the Zipster. (Okay,
dash
may have been a bad choice of words.) Secretariat may have set the racing world on its ear establishing track records at will, but he never once lunged at his closest competitor and bit him in the ear!
Oh, Zippy Chippy would run, alright, at a time and place and pace of his choosing, but he would never bide a harness willingly or bear a saddle kindly. Leather straps and blindfolds, time trials and claiming races â that was the stuff of trainers and track masters, handicappers and long-shot bettors. He was neither a speedster nor a steeplechaser, not a long-haul closer or a railside racer.
He was Zippy Chippy, a free spirit at large and far from the grind of greatness, not sweating but celebrating the small stuff of life. He was at all times a professional racehorse, thriving, indeed rejoicing, in a quirky little world of his own. They broke the mold when they made the Zipster â to which many, particularly people who bet on horses to win, would say quite frankly, “Thank God.”
And what was his reward for showing such rugged individualism and singular focus early on in his career? They cut his nuts off, that's what they did. No warning, no consent form, no “It's your last night as a real stud so we left a stable door open for you. Heart's Desire. Third on the left.” No, it was four swipes of the scalpel, and two prairie oysters hit the stainless steel surgical dish. Oh yeah, this is not a pretty story. But still, I think it's a pretty good one.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS NONSENSE MEAN?
Maidens and stakers, stables and rakers, starting gates and handicap weights. Program hawkers, railside gawkers, betting touts, and workout clockers. I know what you're thinking â this horse racing stuff is way too complicated. No, not really.
When soccer and the World Cup first came to the United States in 1994, Americans were confused by the strange rules and unusual terminology of this sport that the rest of the world was madly in love with. So the brilliant Tony Kornheiser, then a columnist with the
Washington Post
, wrote a primer explaining “footie football” to the uninitiated.
Don't call it a game, it's a “match.” Don't call it a field, it's a “pitch.” â¦Â You don't get a penalty, you get “booked.” â¦Â Referees give out a yellow card for a cautionary penalty. If you get two yellow cards in one game, or commit a blatant foul, you get a red card, which means immediate ejection from that game, and the next game as well. If you get a green card, you can work at 7-Eleven. If you get a gold card you can charge all your purchases at 7-Eleven.”
And sports fans embraced it all with gusto â “Okay, got it. Blow the whistle, drop the ball, and pass me a cold tallboy.”
From a weanling to a yearling to a rambunctious young colt, a male foal grows into a stallion. Same with a filly until she is five; then she's a mare, and sometimes a broodmare, raising her own little hellion.
A horse wearing blinkers can still see the track, while trailing in the field or leading the pack. He prefers the jockey's hand ride without the whip, but if it'll help them win, then he'll respond to the clip.
A handicapped horse is not in any trouble. You can bet him to win or put him in the double.
A horse can lead, stay close, or bring up the rear. He can lose and get claimed or become Horse of the Year. He can struggle to hold the lead as the finish line nears, but the real champions switch to even higher gears.
While a light ride given to a horse is a hack, the equipment of the rider is known as tack. A length is a measuring of eight or nine feet. The leader at the stretch, that's the horse to beat. Horses in a pack are all in the fight; while the sprinters rush to lead, the champions sit tight. A horse can win by a nose or lose by a head. When they finish in a photo, the results hang by a thread.
A furlong is not too far to run, for a rider and a horse weighing half a ton. A gelding can never be a sire, and a speedster wins leading wire to wire. They run on grass, they run in mud; horses eat hay, cows chew cud.
The speedster is the rabbit the rest of them chase. The closer is a winner coming from far and away. More than just speed, pace makes the race. And somebody â as the song goes â always bets on the bay.
Money, horse racing, and women
â
three things
the boys just can't figure out
.
Will Rogers
Not a lot is known about the early days of Zippy Chippy's career, because apparently nobody wants to take the blame for it. Born with great promise on that spring day at Capritaur Farm in upstate New York, Zippy had impeccable bloodlines, which included La Troienne, the greatest brood mare of the twentieth century.
As a foal Zippy was allowed to romp and roll around with other newborns on the farm, occasionally being hand-walked for a little formal exercise when he was two or three months old. Although he was probably teased and called a “weenie” by the other foals on the farm, he was technically a “weanling” until his first birthday, when he was separated from his dam, Listen Lady. Between the ages of one and two, Zippy's training gradually got more serious, with circle walks on a lead and wide rotations followed by tight turns, all directed by voice commands and a lunge line to keep him out and away from the trainer. Slowly he got used to a bit in his mouth and a saddle on his back. Then on gangly legs he was allowed to “hack” or run at his leisure across the fenced-in countryside, getting a sense of his own strength and speed. One day
a rider began carefully lying across his back with his belly over the saddle so the horse could feel the weight of a person on him. The rider patiently let Zippy tire himself out from all the physical protesting. The saddling and mounting procedures became easier with each outing as the young colt got used to the routine. Soon the rider started to actually mount him, left foot into the stirrup and right leg over the top.
From “Rider up!” it was only a matter of time before Zippy was galloping with a jockey on board, slowly at first, alone and then with other horses his age. Soon Zippy was ready to assume the title of professional racehorse. Even as a youngster he was a bit of a comedian â always sticking his tongue out at people, smiling for strangers with cameras, and tear-assing off in the opposite direction of his pack of one-year-old pals. Yet with a few rehearsal races under his belt, the son of Compliance and Listen Lady was off to the races to make a name for himself. And that he would do in spades, but not like any other thoroughbred ever had, not like any of his handlers had ever planned.
Charles “Bill” Frysinger, an oil and gas executive from Ohio with a passing interest in racehorses and a not-so-keen eye for investing, became Zippy Chippy's first owner, by proxy. He met a New York financial track manager who created thoroughbred investment packages for moneyed men like himself. Everything from the purchase of the horse to the training, boarding, and racing schedule was handled by the manager. All Frysinger had to do was provide the cash and watch his investment grow. Except anything to do with racehorses is a huge gamble, and though Bill couldn't have known it at the time, Zippy Chippy would go on to a great career of disappointing bettors. He was to gamblers what carpal tunnel syndrome is to a little old lady addicted to slot machines.
Much like Zippy Chippy, Belmont Park was the product of blue blood and high breeding. August Belmont II built a European-style racecourse on 650 acres of prime New York real estate at Elmont, the “Gateway of Long Island.” This property already included a stunning and turreted Tudor Gothic mansion, which later became the track's exclusive Turf and Field Club. On May 4, 1905, forty thousand racing fans made a muddy mess of the narrow dirt road leading up from New York City, and most missed the first race, in which August Belmont's Blandy held off the 100â1 shot Oliver Cromwell to win the $1,500 Belmont Inaugural, a princely sum of a purse back then.
Five years later, Wilbur and Orville Wright drew 150,000 spectators to their international air show at Belmont Park. The “Back the Attack” war-bond promotion held there in 1943 raised nearly $30 million in a single day.
Belmont Park hosts the third jewel in racing's Triple Crown, a unique honor bestowed upon a horse who has already won the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs and the Preakness Stakes at Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course. So rare is a Triple Crown winner, Belmont Park has witnessed this grand finale only twelve times in its 111-year history. This crucial race, the longest of the three at a mile and a half and known as the “Test of Champions,” has crowned some of the finest racehorses that ever entered a starting gate, from Sir Barton in 1919 to Gallant Fox, Omaha, and War Admiral in the 1930s; Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Assault, and Citation in the 1940s; Secretariat in 1973, Seattle Slew in 1977, Affirmed in 1978, and now American Pharoah in 2015. It was here in 2007 that Rags to Riches beat Curlin to become the first filly in 102 years to win the Belmont Stakes. Whereas most of his royal relatives triumphed regularly at historic Belmont Park, one of America's classiest tracks,
Zippy Chippy would put up numbers that showed he had no sense of history.