Karen Wood's love for horses even shows through in her style of dress.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Equine Eminence
Karen Wood's quarter horse is a world champion
By Sandy Sims
A broad smile spreads across Saratogan Karen Wood's face when she talks about Chipper Zipper. "He's the Michael Jordan of horses," Wood boasts. Sitting at her desk in a Palo Alto biotechnology company, Wood turns to her computer and clicks her mouse on a website. A video comes on showing Chipper Zipper's winning performance at the 2000 American Quarter Horse Association World Championship in Oklahoma.
"This award," Wood says, "is better than winning the Super Bowl."
Show horse breeder Patti Ansuini describes the competition as the "top breed show in the U.S. In the horse world, it's equivalent to winning a gold medal in the Olympics," Ansuini says.
Two years ago, when Wood asked horse trainer David Busick to take a look at Chipper, Busick could see the bay quarter horse had grace, style, rhythm and was careful with the trail obstacles.
It took only 18 months on Busick's program ("We call it boot camp," Wood says) for Chipper to win a first place in the junior trail competition at the world championships. "That's amazingly fast," Wood says.
It seems that at 40, Wood is succeeding at what she calls her "adult athleticism"--showing horses--quarter horses to be exact. But then, success is no stranger to Wood.
During her "youth athleticism" Wood was All-American in the shot put and discus at the University of Nebraska, she said. Her achievements extend into the business arena, as well. Wood ran her human resources consulting and recruiting business, Bio Researchers, in Saratoga for seven years.
Wood now works primarily as an in-house consultant for a company in Palo Alto. "I was always the boss before," she says, "and had to do everything and work long hours."
Photograph courtesy of Karen Wood
Karen Wood and her horse Chipper train to negotiate carefully through obstacles without touching a thing.
These days, Chipper is getting a fair slice of Wood's time and her money. "This is an expensive sport," Wood says about everything it takes to board and train Chipper.
Thirty-eight-year-old Busick trains some 50 horses, including Chipper, at the Doran Stables in Pleasanton. Some of the horses he trains, Wood says, are worth a cool $300,000. Wood values Chipper, originally purchased for $20,000, at about $150,000.
Wood laughs and says her father tells her, "Why don't you just drive down the road and throw $100 bills out the window."
But it's her father who got her started on this horse trail. He brought home a Shetland pony when she was a child. "Horses are in my blood," Wood says. She grew up in Carson City, riding horses down the road at her uncle's ranch.
As an adult Wood boarded her horse, Dashing Fan, at the Garrod Riding Stables in the hills above Saratoga. There she did barrel racing and was a volunteer docent for the equestrian trail patrol for the Midpeninsula Open Space District. But she didn't start showing horses until three years ago, when she bought Chipper, now a 5-year-old gelding.
When Wood bought Chipper, she wanted a good show horse. She knew Chipper Zipper might be very good. His name is a dead giveaway. Names of competition horses are a kind of code breeders use to show a horse's bloodlines. "Chipper," Wood says, "comes from championship stock."
Wood claims that her horse is a descendant of the quarter horse with the most famous show record ever--Zippo Pine Bar--which was also considered the best producer of offspring. And Chipper's mother, also a descendant of Zippo Pine Bar, is a product of Zippo's most successful son, Zips Chocolate Chip. Hence the name Chipper Zipper.
"He's a showman," Wood says of her horse. "He loves competition. The harder the trail, the better he likes it."
Photograph courtesy of K. D. Montgomery Photographics
Chipper Zipper wins the American Quarter Horse Association's 2000 World Championship Show in the junior trail competition. Trainer and competition rider David Busick sits atop Chipper. Standing, left to right, are Jaleela Al-Saadoon, Karen Wood (Chipper's owner), and Sheryl Busick. Chipper holds his head low in the correct position for Western trail.
But training Chipper isn't easy. It seems this horse--they used to call him Dennis the Menace--has attitude. "Chipper has a strong personality," Wood says. she laughs and says, "He's like me."
"He's got a quirky streak," his trainer Busick says.
"You have to ride his butt all the time to keep him in line because he's mischievous," Wood says. "He doesn't bite," Wood hastens to say, "just nips."
She says, most horses are jittery between events. They whinny and move restlessly in their stalls, but Chipper's different. "When Chipper goes back to his stall," Wood says, "he drinks water, pees, and takes a power nap.
"He knows he's awesome," Wood says. "He's the perfect competitor--cool during competition." Some 45 horses from around the world started the junior trail competition at the world championship show in November. Only 15 made the final cut.
"To win," Wood says, "everything has to click."
Both Chipper and his rider, Busick, must have been clicking that day because all five judges gave Chipper a perfect score. "That's very rare," Wood says. "Chipper made no mistakes."
This is quite a feat because in the Western trail competition horse and rider negotiate a precise and difficult obstacle course, the equivalent of stepping gingerly through a minefield with grace and style.
"I could tell Chipper was feeling confident the day we won," recalls Busick, who adds that Chipper's moves were loose and relaxed during warm-up. "It's like when a runner is in the zone," Busick says. "It's like knowing your kids; You can tell when they feel good about themselves."
Photograph courtesy of Karen Wood
Chipper must turn all the way around in very small spaces for the Western trail competition.
The morning of the competition the rider receives a map of the course. Riders may walk through the intricate pattern and ask questions. But horses don't face the course until show time--which presents a challenge to the skill of both horse and rider and to the communication between them.
A video of Chipper's winning performance shows him loping, trotting, walking the maze, gingerly circling inside tiny squares and backing through narrowly placed logs, all the while keeping the relaxed, head-down, what-a-lazy-day look that is required.
Even Busick, while riding atop Chipper, had to keep a cool, moseying-down-the-trail demeanor. Busick maneuvers the reigns lightly in his two hands and uses subtle body movements to guide Chipper. "You can't look like you are schooling (correcting) the horse," Wood says.
According to Wood, most trainers only like to work with horses that do whatever the trainer wants. Busick, who as a child crawled out of bed early in the morning so he could ride horses before school and then ran from the school bus after school to leap into a saddle, is different. He's willing to take on difficult horses and stick with them.
Busick is one of the few trainers who also coaches riders and Wood is under his tutelage. Wood wants to ride Chipper in the world championship show in 2002. Wood laughs because Busick worries about novice riders ruining his well-trained horses. "He's tough," Wood says.
"David keeps me going, sometimes for two hours, 'til I accomplish something," Wood says. During a recent training session, Busick was teaching Wood to rein. "You have to keep your thumbs up, your back straight," Wood says. "David won't let you get an arm or a rump out of place."
Busick is also training Chipper for the senior division. This step up means that the horse must be even more in the bridle, which indicates he responds to the subtlest touch of the reins on his neck, and the rider must communicate while holding the reins in only one hand.
As the horse improves, the rider does less and less, says Wood. "I'll think Chipper is perfect and then a month later, I realize he's even better."
A video of Chipper's winning performance can be seen on the Internet: www.AGHA.com (Click on Showing; then click on 2000 AQHA World Championship show; then click on World Photos Audio and Video; then click on 2000 World Show Video Archive drop down menu and scroll down to David Busick - Chipper Zipper.)
Saratoga, California Since 1955
