A keeper: Zilverbergs’ “Unicorn” horse was all-around talent with an unknown pedigree
A chance purchase on an unknown palomino gelding brought Gary and April Zilverberg and their kids, daughter Tanegai and son Zane, an unforgettable relationship with a one in a million horse.
“A Bit Of Snipper,” Snipper, came onto their ranch near Holabird, S.D. in the spring of 2006.
A man with a trailer full of ten horses showed up, wanting to sell them.
“I had told guys I was looking for colts,” Gary remembered. “This guy was from Aberdeen, and he drove into my yard with the ten on the trailer and I bought all ten, for $800 each.”
No one had any idea that one of those geldings would be one of the smartest, kindest, most talented horses the Zilverbergs had ever seen.
Gary put two weeks of riding on the young palomino, named Snipper, then Zane, who was eight at the time, started riding him.
Momma April wasn’t crazy about the horse, though, because of his antics. He’d escape from his pen, to be found in the feed, and step on toes, trying to get closer to people.
But she changed her mind instantly when she witnessed what she saw in the barn one day.
“I had just stepped into the barn,” she said, “to see Snipper with his leg extended back, caught in a rope that was tied to the roping box, where the guys had been flanking and tying calves.” He was tethered there, while Zane, who was trying to lead him out of the barn, was calling to his dad, telling him Snipper won’t come.
Zane, who was eight years old, “was leaned back, pulling as hard as he could, and Snipper just held his position.”
The horse didn’t panic, didn’t move, he just stood there.
Gary recalled the moment. “Zane pulls on the leg, Snipper backs up, and Zane takes the rope off. April saw it, and right away, I knew, ‘we’re going to have to keep that son of a bitch, aren’t we?'” he laughed.
But the horse was so much more than kid-friendly and bomb-proof.
The kids rode him for 4-H rodeo and high school rodeo, and Gary and April rode him at Northern Ranch Cowboy Association rodeos.
Snipper was good at everything: heading and heeling, barrels, poles, goat tying, tie-down and breakaway. Zane even rode him for English.
And Snipper was good at the ranch, too.
Gary recalls Tanegai going out to catch horses. She’d catch Snipper first, then ride him bareback and bridleless to bring in the other horses.
One day, before Gary went to a rodeo, the brood mares were out, so he rode Snipper across a plowed field and caught up with them. “We roped them and got them in,” he said. Then, that same day, Tanegai’s goats were out, so he rode the palomino again, roped the goats, and put them back in their pens. Then he and Snipper went to the rodeo that night.
“He was the kind of horse you could do anything on that needed to be done,” he said.
The horse adjusted to match his riders’ skill level.
Several high school kids rode him, when their own horses came up lame. “He was adaptable to whatever people wanted him to do,” he said.
Australian and Alaskan high school rodeo athletes rode him for the National High School Finals. April noted that the Australian kids’ riding style is different from the Americans’, but Snipper adapted to whoever was riding him.
One time, at a 4-H state finals, the Zilverbergs let a young girl ride him for the breakaway. She walked into the arena aboard Snipper, throwing the reins on his neck. The horse “walks into the box, turns around, backs into the corner, and I said, ‘Sierra, pick up your reins,'” Gary said. The girl caught her calf, winning second in the round.
“The horse was real kind and gentle to kids like that in the box. He would switch modes where a kid could rope on him and I could rope on him.”
Gary never bulldogged on Snipper, but did use him to line out steers
It was at a rodeo where he and Danny Cross were bulldogging, and their hazer didn’t show. They didn’t have a haze horse, so Gary decided to use Snipper. Danny jumped on him, and the steer came hard left, then right, and “Danny picks him up and sends him to me, and I’m winning the bulldogging,” Gary said. It was the first time he’d been lined on.
Tanegai would laugh when her dad would tell her about the breakaway score. “I was always telling her how to get out, and she’d say, ‘Dad, tell Snipper. I’m just along for the ride.'”
He even did some English at 4-H horse shows, and he loved it, Gary said. “He was hilarious about it. He’d get his tail up, his head cocked, and he’d trot down the arena like, hey, look at me, I did it.”
Several times people offered to buy the gelding.
The horse started as Zane’s, and Gary remembers a neighbor offering Zane ten of his registered cows in exchange for him. Zane, who was young, said, “I guess I’d sell him for ten registered cows AND your ranch.” The deal fell through. “I guess the old boy wasn’t quite ready to give that much,” Gary laughed.
Once in California, a man asked if Snipper was for sale. Gary said, yes, for the right price. The man came back ten minutes later with checkbook and pen in hand, offering $50,000. Gary told him he’d need to talk to Zane; it was Zane’s horse. Gary explained to his son that $50,000 could get him a whole lot of fun things, but Zane said no.
The man wasn’t very happy, asking Gary what he was going to do with him. Gary replied, “If he’s in my pen, I’ll always have a good one to ride.”
He was papered, but Gary didn’t recognize any of the names on his pedigree. “He was just one of those horses that a person stumbles onto, and they think they’re a great trainer, because they got this awesome horse. It didn’t make any difference who trained this horse, he was going to be an awesome one.”
Snipper was Tanegai’s horse in 2020, the year she qualified for the National Finals Breakaway Roping. On Snipper, she was the 2020 Cody, Wyo. co-champion, held the fast time for the WCRA for two years, and holds the fast time at the Badlands Circuit Finals (1.7 seconds, in the third round in 2020). The duo got the nickname, “One Swing Win.”
It was at a college rodeo in 2021 that Snipper was injured, which caused his passing.
He got kicked by another horse and broke his front leg. The family took him to Iowa State University. Veterinarians fixed it, but when he went to get up, he struggled, and broke it worse. He was 19 years old when he died.
“We put him in a trailer and brought him home,” Gary said. “We buried him on the hill behind the house.
“He loved people,” he said. “Zane always had him around, and he would get so mad because he’d eat a hamburger out of his hands. Snipper took care of people.
“I’m going to put a sign on his grave,” Gary said, “that says, ‘this is the best damn son of a bitch I’ve ever put a saddle on,’ and there are years I train 300 horses.
“I told my kids, every time you swing a leg over this horse, you thank God you have him because you may never swing a leg over a horse like this again. He’s just that unique.”
“The fact that he would go from putting a green kid on him, to win her first ribbon roping buckle at a 4-H rodeo, to where I could take him to a rodeo that night, and win on him.
He was one of those unique animals that God put in this world, and we were lucky enough to get him.”
