For his daddy, I Like Hot Chips has Blazing Hot, a two-time world champion and in-demand pleasure sire. For his maternal grandsire, he’s got Zips Chocolate Chip, also a world champion and hot property on a western-pleasure pedigree.

So it’s no surprise that this 2-year-old gelding was pointed toward the show pen. What’s interesting is that when Jay Starnes went looking for prospects, he looked in the pasture before he looked on the papers.

“We bought him as a weanling” from breeders Robbie and Joan Schroeder, who own Blazing Hot, Starnes said. And when he’s looking at horses, “We go out in the pasture and pick out what we like. We liked his legs.”

Jay Starnes and I Like Hot Chips rode away with the gold World Show trophy November 18.

Two years later, those legs loped into the winners circle at the World Show, besting 67 other entries in the 2-year-old western pleasure class.

“He’s easygoing,” Starnes said of the horse nicknamed “Bert” because he has a full brother named “Ernie.” Cruising effortlessly around the pen, “He was really good … never tried anything bad.”

Starnes’ mother, Cathy Starnes, owns the horse, and she was watching his finals performance live on the Fort Dodge World Championship Webcast at www.aqha.com/showing.

When she talked to her son, “she was crying because she wasn’t here,” Jay Starnes said. After placing sixth in amateur western pleasure with Hot Lopin Louise, who is also by Blazing Hot, Cathy flew home because “our barn help quit after the Congress.”

The World Show was just the fourth show for Bert, but he proved to be level-headed in both attitude and his way of traveling.

“He’s a great mover,” Starnes said. And he’s no trouble at home. Starnes rides six days a week, but with Bert, “if he’s good, I’ll ride him 10 or 15 minutes and put him up.”

The horse’s next outing will be with a new owner: youth rider Ana Helms of South Carolina, who trains with Starnes.

TWO-YEAR-OLD TRIVIA

Zippo Pine Bar, a 1969 stallion by Zippo Pat Bar, is already a member of the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame, but the 2-year-old western pleasure finals at the 2005 World Show just added to his reputation.

All but one of the 15 finalists are closely related to Zippo Pine Bar – some as grandsons and granddaughters, and others a little farther down the line.

Zippo Pine Bar is the maternal grandsire of three of the finalists, and his well-known son Zips Chocolate Chip is the grandsire of three others, including the winner, I Like Hot Chips. The champion’s sire, Blazing Hot, is a grandson of Zippo Pine Bar.

Other finalists trace back to Zippos Mr Good Bar, a son of Zippo Pine Bar who has won more than $36,000 in the National Snaffle Bit Association.

Zippo Pine Bar himself carried the blood of the breed’s earliest royalty, including Three Bars, Leo, Poco Bueno, King and Joe Moore. He earned a Superior in western pleasure in 1972 and was the high-point western riding horse the same year. He also was an AQHA Champion.