Horse captures Reserve Champion honors at Appaloosa World Show

A lifetime of work paid huge dividends for High View Farm's Gerald and Lindy Waters.

Zippo's Answer, who was exhibited by Waynesboro, Ga.-based Terri Layer, placed in the top eight in Limited 2-year-old Snaffle Bit Western Pleasure Futurity at the 2009 Appaloosa World Show, in a class that featured 29 entries, and qualified for the final round where he placed second, capturing Reserve Champion honors.

Lindy Waters got her first horse in 1966 before she enrolled in college. Her parents offered the option of having a horse or a car; she selected the horse with her reasoning that she could always drive her mother's car.

"That's how it all started," said Lindy.

Waters bought Zippo's Answer's dam when the dam was 2 years old. Zippo's Answer's barn name is Ash.

"Ash's mother was just a really nice horse," said Lindy, who said the mare demonstrated multilevel proficiency and was extremely versatile. "I like horses that can do more than one thing. I bred Rosie and she produced a colt (her first foal), and, due to a mishap in the pasture and a stint in Athens (University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine), we lost him."

The Waterses seem to sense there was something special about Zippo's Answer when he was a foal. A colt with a great disposition, whose natural and outstanding way of moving, seemed to set him apart from the other horses, said Lindy, who was attracted to Appaloosas because of their color.

"He's correct looking in every way," said Lindy. "He's a pretty colt. He has a pretty head, a good shoulder and hip; everything just flows together."

His sire, Miracle Chip (the 2006 Medallion Performance Sire of the Year), is a world and national champion whose progeny included many world champions. The horse met an untoward fate earlier this year, however, perishing in a fire in Oregon, said Lindy.

Layer, who exhibited Zippo's Answer at the World Show, was so impressed with the Appaloosa stallion that she bred a quarterhorse mare to Miracle Chip, said Lindy.

"She was really impressed with how intelligent he (Zippo's Answer) was and how easy he was to train," said Lindy.

The Waterses have a broodmare band of nine mares, and most of them are quarterhorse crosses. They only breed a few mares a year but will breed four mares in 2010 to Zippo's Answer.

The success they've enjoyed with Zippo's Answer is a summation to their breeding program, said Lindy.

"We've bred the best to the best," said Lindy. "We breed our mares to world champion stallions. We like to get the spots. He has a lot of color genetics behind him. You breed a good mare to a good stallion and hope you get a filly. I have a full-sister to Ash, and she's in the broodmare band. All the mares are well bred mares, and some of them did outstandingly well on the show circuit."

Contact Ben Baugh at bbaugh@aikenstandard.com.