Award-winning humourist William Thomas has written ten books featuring his dogs, his mother, his brother-in-law and/or his cats. The Legend of Zippy Chippy: Life Lessons from the World’s Most Lovable Loser is his first book about horses, but as the subtitle suggests, it is not so much a horse story as a philosophy of life wound around a tale of two characters. One is a man, trainer Felix Monserrate. The other character happens to be a horse.
The horse in question is a thoroughbred racehorse named Zippy Chippy, who began his career at prestigious Belmont Park but was raced mostly at the Finger Lakes Racetrack in upstate New York. He was a cantankerous troublemaker who was expected to live up to his stellar lineage—Northern Dancer, Buckpasser, Nearctic, Native Dancer, Nearco, Man O’War, War Admiral—and leave his competition in the dust. Instead, as losses piled up with head-shaking regularity, he became the holder of the world record for losing...
Shelley Peterson has written seven novels about social issues and coming-of-age problems with horses playing central roles: Dancer (Porcupine’s Quill, 1996), Abby Malone (Porcupine’s Quill, 1999), Stagestruck (Key Porter, 2002), Sundancer (Key Porter, 2006), Mystery at Saddle Creek (Cormorant, 2012), Dark Days at Saddle Creek (Dancing Cat Books, 2012) and, just released, Jockey Girl (Dundurn, 2016). She owns and operates a horse-breeding and stabling facility called Fox Ridge in Caledon, Ontario.
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