| ZigZag and Zingo the Zonies or Zebra Ponies |
When I was a teenager, growing up in Great Falls, Montana, in
the late 60s' - early 70's, my mom, my sisters and I ran a
boarding stable south of town, called Big Spur Stables. We
also had a few show horses, and liked equines that were
"different." Around 1970, I read in the Western Horseman
Magazine about a ranch near Burns, Oregon that was crossing
zebras with ponies, I was hooked on stripes! I wanted a zebra
pony! I don't remember the name of the ranch or its owner
today, so if someone knows, please email me. I think the
owner's name was Harry.
The ranch foreman took us up into hilly country where we
drove around in the rain and looked at the wet ponies with their
striped babies at their sides, as well as some of the older
zonies. I didn't see the zebra stallion. We decided on a couple
yearlings, told the foreman which two we wanted, a male and a
female (we didn't know if they were sterile but hoped they might
breed) and went back to Montana to get the truck prepared.
We were told these were extremely wild animals, and to make
sure they wouldn't jump out on the trip from Oregon to
Montana, we enclosed the stock rack on our pickup truck with a
roof, and returned to Oregon a month later to pick up our little
striped beauties.
The female zony they had ready for us wasn't the one we had
picked, as this one was a light bay with faded stripes, and the
one we had wanted was a sorrel with darker, "loud" colored
stripes. But we were under a time constraint, and decided not
to go out again to the herd and find the one we had picked out.
We purchased the two they had ready for us, and headed
back to Montana. The trip took two days, and I was scared to
death those wild animals would break out of the truck during
the night and make their escape into the wilderness of Idaho,
At night, I backed the truck right up into a cinderblock wall, so
there was no way the zonies could bust the gate open. We
arrived in Great Falls without incident, and unloaded them into
their new corral. We had built the fence 10 feet high, with rails
every 18 inches. The zonies were terrified of us, of their new
surroundings, and of our horses on the other side of the fence.
Their eyes rolled, they dashed and skidded and smacked into
their barn, and would not eat until we had moved away from
their corral. We named the dark bay male with the white rear
stockings "ZigZag," and the female "Zingo." The local
newspaper, the Great Falls Tribune, heard about our zonies
and ran a story on them. After that people would stop by
almost every weekend wanting to see them, so as kids we
thought we could earn "big bucks" by charging people
admission. I made a big sign that said, "Home of ZigZag and
Zingo the Zonies" and ran an ad in the weekly shopping
newspaper. I think we earned a whole fifty dollars that summer,
which was a lot to us kids!
The zonies grew to be about 13 hands high. We owned the
zonies for about five years, and never could get close enough
to them to touch them. When we would approach their corral
and barn with food, we would be greeted by their rumps, and
sometimes a swift kick to the corral rails. We finally sold them
to a man in Helena, Montana who said he was going to break
them to pull a cart. Apparently he did, but we never saw it. We
think if we had purchased weanlings, instead of the yearlings,
we would have had a much greater chance of taming them.
the late 60s' - early 70's, my mom, my sisters and I ran a
boarding stable south of town, called Big Spur Stables. We
also had a few show horses, and liked equines that were
"different." Around 1970, I read in the Western Horseman
Magazine about a ranch near Burns, Oregon that was crossing
zebras with ponies, I was hooked on stripes! I wanted a zebra
pony! I don't remember the name of the ranch or its owner
today, so if someone knows, please email me. I think the
owner's name was Harry.
The ranch foreman took us up into hilly country where we
drove around in the rain and looked at the wet ponies with their
striped babies at their sides, as well as some of the older
zonies. I didn't see the zebra stallion. We decided on a couple
yearlings, told the foreman which two we wanted, a male and a
female (we didn't know if they were sterile but hoped they might
breed) and went back to Montana to get the truck prepared.
We were told these were extremely wild animals, and to make
sure they wouldn't jump out on the trip from Oregon to
Montana, we enclosed the stock rack on our pickup truck with a
roof, and returned to Oregon a month later to pick up our little
striped beauties.
The female zony they had ready for us wasn't the one we had
picked, as this one was a light bay with faded stripes, and the
one we had wanted was a sorrel with darker, "loud" colored
stripes. But we were under a time constraint, and decided not
to go out again to the herd and find the one we had picked out.
We purchased the two they had ready for us, and headed
back to Montana. The trip took two days, and I was scared to
death those wild animals would break out of the truck during
the night and make their escape into the wilderness of Idaho,
At night, I backed the truck right up into a cinderblock wall, so
there was no way the zonies could bust the gate open. We
arrived in Great Falls without incident, and unloaded them into
their new corral. We had built the fence 10 feet high, with rails
every 18 inches. The zonies were terrified of us, of their new
surroundings, and of our horses on the other side of the fence.
Their eyes rolled, they dashed and skidded and smacked into
their barn, and would not eat until we had moved away from
their corral. We named the dark bay male with the white rear
stockings "ZigZag," and the female "Zingo." The local
newspaper, the Great Falls Tribune, heard about our zonies
and ran a story on them. After that people would stop by
almost every weekend wanting to see them, so as kids we
thought we could earn "big bucks" by charging people
admission. I made a big sign that said, "Home of ZigZag and
Zingo the Zonies" and ran an ad in the weekly shopping
newspaper. I think we earned a whole fifty dollars that summer,
which was a lot to us kids!
The zonies grew to be about 13 hands high. We owned the
zonies for about five years, and never could get close enough
to them to touch them. When we would approach their corral
and barn with food, we would be greeted by their rumps, and
sometimes a swift kick to the corral rails. We finally sold them
to a man in Helena, Montana who said he was going to break
them to pull a cart. Apparently he did, but we never saw it. We
think if we had purchased weanlings, instead of the yearlings,
we would have had a much greater chance of taming them.
| ZigZag and Zingo enjoy the warm, spring sun, in their corral in Great Falls, Montana, around 1970. |
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