Horse Can’t Even Win Futility Record

For misbehaving, many 7-year-olds are sent to their rooms. For losing too many races, this 7-year-old has been sent to his stall.

Zippy Chippy is a New York-bred gelding who finished fifth a month ago at Finger Lakes Race Track, for his 84th loss without a win. He’s one defeat from tying one of thoroughbred horse racing’s most unwanted records, but for the moment, the Finger Lakes stewards have sent him to the sidelines.

Owner-trainer Felix Monserrate said this week that Zippy Chippy has had a couple of good workouts recently, but Rick Coyne, a steward at Finger Lakes, has told Monserrate to give his horse a rest.

“For the protection of the public, we’ve recommended that the horse take some time off,” Coyne said after Zippy Chippy’s last loss. “We want to make sure that the horse doesn’t come back and try to run [every week or two].”

At Finger Lakes, the little track about 20 miles northwest of Rochester, N.Y., the bettors may indeed need protecting. On July 6, despite losses by a combined 55 lengths in his three previous starts, the early odds were 2-1 on Zippy Chippy before they went up slightly by post time. He has frequently gone off at surprisingly short odds and has not been more than 22-1 in two years.

“People like to see him run,” Monserrate said. “The old-timers that come to the track all the time are asking about him every day.”

Coyne can’t fault the horse’s condition, but in the last two races--sprints at six furlongs or three-quarters of a mile--Zippy Chippy was tardy out of the gate, falling 10 or more lengths behind in the first quarter-mile.

“He’s sound as brass,” Coyne said. “But he just can’t run. Maybe he’s reached cult status.”

The record, 85 losses at the start of a career, is shared by two horses. After winning a race in her 86th start, Really A Tenor, a foal of 1985, finished her career with that one victory in 102 starts. Gussie May, a foal of 1989, finally won in his 86th start, then won once more by the time he got to his 106th race.

The Puerto Rico-born Monserrate, 54, has raced Zippy Chippy for the last 64 losses, 12 this year.

In 1997, as Zippy Chippy’s losses piled up, so did Monserrate’s. By early September, horses from Monserrate’s barn were winless in 88 starts. Monserrate said he won four races for the year. And this year, with a stable of 27 horses, he won 19 races through July and was tied for 11th in the Finger Lakes standings.

Asked if he was embarrassed by Zippy Chippy’s losing streak, Monserrate said: “Not at all. Some maidens [nonwinners], they don’t win and you try to get rid of them fast. This horse is happy when he runs, and he’s fine for me. A horse that’s lost all these races, you might think he wouldn’t eat and might lay down in his stall. But this horse doesn’t do that.”

Maria Monserrate, the trainer’s 9-year-old daughter, can go inside Zippy Chippy’s stall and feed him carrots, but she is the exception.

“He’s a horse that wants you to stay out of his way,” said Bryan Hobson, a Finger Lakes veterinarian. “He can get very aggressive. You shouldn’t be turning your back on him.”

Monserrate usually runs Zippy Chippy in non-claiming maiden races or in claiming races, in which a purchaser can pay to claim the horse, for prices that are higher than the horse is worth.

“If I lost him on a claim, I’d claim him back,” Monserrate said. “I think he’ll have to die with me. I don’t want to see him fall into the hands of someone who’d abuse him, and I don’t want him going to the killers [a rendering plant]. I think that’s what would happen if I didn’t have him.”

Still, Monserrate has entertained offers for the horse. People looking for a riding horse have inquired.

“I think he’s too mean to be a show horse,” said Jared Schoeneman, Monserrate’s assistant trainer. “People will look in his stall and he’ll pin his ears and go right for them. You see that and you know that he’s not a horse that you want to take home to your 8-year-old girl.”

Finger Lakes, which opened in 1962, has a history of slow horses. The winner of the track’s first race ran six furlongs in a snailish 1 minute 17 3/5 seconds, slow even for Zippy Chippy.

Noting the 1:17 3/5, Red Smith, the legendary New York columnist, wrote: “That time was excellent for a mule and phenomenal for a fat man.”

Zippy Chippy’s career started in 1994 at Belmont and Aqueduct, another New York track, where trainer Carl Domino saddled him for seven races, two of them third-place finishes. Considering his pedigree, grass courses might have been Zippy Chippy’s calling, but after finishing third on turf, he was beaten twice by almost 50 combined lengths.

Before he arrived at Monserrate’s barn, Zippy Chippy ran for two other trainers. The horse ran at Finger Lakes for three races at the end of 1994, and from January to July of 1995 he ran 10 times--twice at Aqueduct, six times at Suffolk Downs near Boston and twice at Finger Lakes.

Running for a $5,000 claiming price at Suffolk in late April that year, Zippy Chippy finished third, then ran fourth in consecutive starts at Finger Lakes. That’s when Monserrate bought him for $2,500.

“He was a sound horse, and he had run everywhere,” Monserrate said. “It looked to me like he was a horse that didn’t like to pass other horses, but he did like to run, and I thought I might give him the opportunity to win some races.”

In the 64 starts for Monserrate, Zippy Chippy has finished second six times, including a loss by only a neck over 5 1/2 furlongs on Oct. 3, 1995. That’s the closest he’s come to victory.

In April, Zippy Chippy ran five times in 25 days, sprinting to a couple of second-place finishes, once by 2 1/4 lengths and then by one length.

“That’s when we had some hopes,” said Schoeneman, the assistant trainer. “The horses that beat him those two races came back to win again, so they weren’t just beating our horse. But the truth of it is, this horse just can’t run very fast. I think he’s got mental problems.”

Monserrate has tried everything--different jockeys, short and long distances, breaking him closer to the front and taking his blinkers off. He has run him for as little as a $3,500 claiming price, and for as much as $15,000.

Asked when he thought Zippy Chippy might run again, Monserrate said: “Don’t get me talking about the stewards. But I think in another month they might give him another chance.”

With six seconds and 10 thirds, Zippy Chippy has earned $27,806. Monserrate was contemplating another jockey change. Benny Afanador, who has frequently ridden Monserrate’s horse, has won 22 races at Finger Lakes this season. But all he usually gets with Zippy Chippy is the standard jockey’s mount fee--$40 a race.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

With 84 in a Row

The horse hasn’t finished first in 84 races.

ZIPPY CHIPPY’S RECORD

*--*

Year Starts 1st 2nd 3rd 1994 11 0 0 3 1995 26 0 3 3 1996 15 0 0 2 1997 20 0 1 1 1998 12 0 2 1 Totals 84 0 6 10

*--*