Harley D Zip

If you ever swung into the saddle on a Harley–or in this case, the “Harley”–you’d know there was a lot of motor under the seat.

Harley D Zip earned $254,036 in the show pen, including a record $115,937 in AQHA Incentive Fund money, $78,817 in AQHA World Championship Show earnings and $59,282 in National Snaffle Bit Association money. He also accumulated more than 6,000 AQHA points, multiple world championships and year-end high-point titles that together fill 20 computer screens on the AQHA awards database. A four-time year-end all-around senior horse, Harley is the only horse ever to have won the same class in all divisions (youth, junior, senior, amateur and Select) at the AQHYA, Select, Amateur and Open world championship shows.

Bred by Kristy L. Tingle of Georgetown, Maryland, Harley D Zip is one of three AQHA Champions and 41 Register of Merit qualifiers from 102 foals by Maximum Zip, whose grandsire is Hall of Fame stallion Zippo Pine Bar. Foaled in 1995, Harley is one of three full siblings out of Miss Faithfully, who earned 148 performance and halter points in open, youth and amateur competition.

Built for cruising, Harley traveled through owners Lori Spera of Morgantown, Pennsylvania; Rodney Ale of Bridgeton, New Jersey; Harriet Yakatan of Hermosa Beach, California; Mark and Rebecca Pine of Weatherford, Texas; and Joetta Meredith Bell of Millsap, Texas.

“I don’t believe there will ever be another horse that will even come close to the records he set in his career,” says Jason Martin, the AQHA Professional Horseman who was Harley’s longtime trainer and open exhibitor from his Highpoint Performance Horses at Pilot Point, Texas.

In 2003, Harley became the pride and joy of the Papendick family of Rapid City, South Dakota, where for the next nine years, owner Kristina Papendick showed him in amateur; Kristina’s sister, Ali, rode him in youth; and their mother, Kerry, showed him in Select.

“I am most proud of the opportunities that Harley has given my daughters,” Kerry says. “He has taught them to be dedicated to goals and given them the chance to interact with many wonderful people throughout the country.”

Harley shone brightest on the biggest stages, with a Breyer Horse model on the mantle, heavyweight trophies bowing shelves and his photo gracing the Journal cover of April 2009, when Harley took the lead in Incentive Fund earnings.

Harley died in August 2021. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2023.