Fylicia Barr may be a five-star eventer now, but she got her start in the sport aboard the most unlikely of mounts. Her first event horse was a gray Arabian gelding named Zanzibar, with whom she did a bit of everything: 4-H, barrel racing, English and western pleasure, and even a little reining. A painting of him—dished nose, delicate ears and kind eyes, standing in a field of flowers—graces the cover of this month’s issue of the Chronicle. 

When Barr, 30, first met “Z,” he was an emaciated, rough-looking youngster at a low-end auction in western New York. Barr was just 10 years old, and she had a total of three riding lessons under her belt. Barr’s mother, Shannon Barr, bought Z on an impulse, despite the fact that neither she nor her young daughter had the requisite skills or experience at that time to manage an unknown horse from auction.

However, in the years to come, Z (named by Fylicia in honor of the main equine character in the “Phantom Stallion” series) would pay back his rescuers in dividends. Not only did Fylicia ultimately event him through training level, he carried multiple young riders to 4-H competitions, and later came out of retirement to become the first event horse for Chronicle cover artist Josie Buller, who took him all the way to the 2021 USEA American Eventing Championships.

“It felt like he just wanted to do right by us,” Fylicia, of Unionville, Pennsylvania, said. “We saved him, and I think he knew that, and he always tried to do everything he could for us. There were definitely moments where he could have said no, but he gave us everything he had. We both did a lot for each other.”

We Meant To Buy A Saddle…

On the day Shannon and Fylicia met Z, they had gone to the auction with a friend, intending to buy a saddle. Instead, they bought a horse with an unknown past, paying just $800 for the gelding—one dollar a pound.

“We saw him, and he was so sad, and so thin—he just looked at us, and we knew we had to try to make something happen,” Fylicia said. “It was truly the blind leading the blind. At auction, you don’t get much info on them, and we saw him with a saddle on and assumed he was saddle broke.”

But when they got him home—to a facility Fylicia describes as a “backyard barn sort of set up,” they found out Z was perhaps only 2 or 3 years old.

“He was young, and not really broke at all,” Fylicia said. “It was a bit of a set up for disaster. I didn’t know what I was doing, he didn’t know what he was doing, but we found our way, together.”

Nursing Z back to health required nothing more than correct, basic care. Over the next several years, Fylicia slowly got him started under saddle. Although she took occasional lessons on other horses, she didn’t have much help with Z; looking back, Fylicia admits she made many mistakes.

“Now, as an equestrian professional, I’m horrified at some of the things he put up with,” Fylicia said. “But he never complained. He used to buck me off for sport, but he gave me a really good seat that I still have to this day, and it was always with a smile on his face. It was a game for him, more than him wanting to hurt me. He’d just sit and wait for me to get back on.

“He made me fearless,” she continued. “He made me feel like I could ride anything. He was always a really, really good boy.”

When Fylicia learned about eventing, she was instantly hooked. She and Z debuted in U.S. Eventing Association competition in August 2011 at the Erie Hunt and Saddle Club Horse Trials (Pennsylvania), where they ran beginner novice. At the same competition a year later, they competed at training level. By then, Fylicia was 17 years old and had acquired a mare named Galloway Sunrise, whom she purchased off Craigslist as a semi-feral 2-year-old. Fylicia began thinking it might be time for Z to step down a level as she continued her own progress forward.

“At training level, the jumps got a little big for him,” Fylicia said. “So we leased him to a couple of young riders that did 4-H shows with him. He was the perfect babysitter.”

Although he was sound and in good health, when his final 4-H lease ended, the Barrs took advantage of an opportunity to retire Z to a farm in western New York. For several years, he lived “his best horsey life” there, while Fylicia continued her own eventing journey with “Sunny,” eventually making it all the way to the five-star level. She attributes her tenacity in working with the quirky mare, and other challenging mounts, to the lessons she initially learned from Z.

“He taught me not to give up on the difficult ones,” Fylicia said. “If you put enough time and effort into trying to understand the tricky horses, you can come out the other side with a really quality partner—if you’re patient, and take the time to understand where they’re coming from.”

It was after Fylicia relocated to Unionville and established her business that she met 12-year-old Buller, who wanted to get started in eventing—but who didn’t have a horse. Fylicia immediately thought of Z.

“When Josie came into my program and needed something to ride, I thought, ‘Let me see if the old man has got a little bit left in the tank,’” Fylicia said. “And he absolutely gave her everything.”

From Starter To The Bluegrass

Buller is now an 18-year-old freshman at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, but she still vividly remembers the day six years ago when Z and his friends moved into the new home of Fylicia Barr Eventing.

“People were putting up white boards by the stalls with the horse’s and owner’s names, and Z’s little white board had my name listed below his, even though I was not the owner,” Buller, of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, remembered. “Fylicia very generously let me do a free lease on him, and act like he was my own horse. The stars kind of aligned, and Fylicia knew Z would be the best teacher for me—and he really was.”

Buller had gotten her start taking lessons a local hunter/jumper program, but when she learned about eventing, decided to shift her focus. Working with Fylicia and Z, she went from being a “rusty” crossrail rider to competing at novice. After gaining mileage at the starter level in schooling horse trials and learning the basics of dressage, the pair moved up fairly quickly. In June 2020, after eight years away from sanctioned competition, Z returned to the sport at the Plantation Field Horse Trials (Pennsylvania) at beginner novice —with Buller in the irons.

“I made a lot of mistakes—I got left behind plenty of times—but he was so, so tolerant,” Buller said. “I always felt untouchable on Z. He’s just the best partner, and we had lots of fun. I’d never really shown, so I did all my ‘firsts’ on Z.”

When Buller was 15, she decided to set a big goal: to qualify for and compete at the 2021 AEC.

“It can get pretty competitive in Area II, and Z, being an Arabian, would stick his head up in dressage, and I didn’t always quite know what to do,” Buller said with a laugh. “But we got a second place at Bucks County [Pennsylvania], and we got to go to AEC.”

Buller describes the experience of competing Z at the AEC, held that year in Lexington, Kentucky, as “magical.” She admits he even was “a little wild” on cross-country after being stalled for so many days. The pair finished 31^st of 38 in the junior novice, 15 and under, championship—and earned the best-scoring Arabian award.

“He was the only Arabian in the class,” Buller laughed. “Some people would say, ‘Oh, you ride an Arabian?’ Well, he’s the best cross-country horse you’ll ever find. A horse you truly care about will always give 110% to you.”

Watching her first horse gallop over the Kentucky bluegrass with Buller made Fylicia feel as if Z’s story had come full circle.

“Obviously, Z and I did not make it to the Kentucky five-star,” Fylicia said with a laugh. “That was my dream growing up, even though I was a 10-year-old kid on an Arabian pony we’d bought for nothing. But watching him and Josie go down the ramp into Rolex stadium, and gallop through the Head of the Lake—that was so special. He made her dreams come true, and my childhood dreams came to life through them at that moment, too.”

Although Buller and Z competed one more time that season, the AEC proved to be their swan song together. 

“We don’t know his exact age, but he is 20-ish, and he had held himself together,” Buller said. “It felt like he was trying really hard, and he didn’t need to keep competing, where I wanted to keep moving up.”

Inspired by her trainer’s work in producing her own horses, Buller moved on to a former Thoroughbred race horse named Lee, whom she competed through training level. But Z remained in Fylicia’s barn, and Buller would still trail ride him once in a while just for fun.

“Most of the time, I didn’t even bother putting a saddle on him,” Buller said. “I’d just hop on, and we’d get going.”

Behind The Cover Painting

As Buller neared high school graduation, she knew that her time with Z was drawing to a close. Fylicia had made the decision to send him to enjoy a final, official retirement with her mother in western New York, and Buller was preparing to head to college. When she painted a watercolor and gouache portrait of him standing in a field of flowers, which she included in her senior gallery, it was intended as a dedication to the horse who changed her life. 

“He absolutely is my heart horse,” Buller said. “Middle school was a pretty rough time for me, and having Z … I went to the barn every day after school, and I felt like I had him in my corner all the time. If I had a really bad day, and I got off the bus in tears, we’d just go out for hours and hours on the great hacking trails around the barn. I kind of felt like every time I stepped into the saddle with him, I got to leave everything on the ground.”

Buller loves floriography, a tradition which looks at the symbolism of flowers and colors. In her tribute to Z, each flower she painted in the field he’s standing in was chosen specifically to convey Buller’s appreciation for all that he means to her—the sweet peas at the front mean “thank you for a lovely time,” the zinnias symbolize everlasting friendship, the heather is for protection, and the Queen Anne’s lace for sanctuary.

When the Chronicle put out a call for submission to its annual Junior Art Gallery (see more submissions from young artists here), she sent it in. Chronicle staff chose the piece to grace the cover of the 2025 Young Rider issue. 

“I’m so happy it got on the cover, because if any horse deserves to be on the cover of the Chronicle, it’s Z,” Buller said. “He has given so much, to so many people. He was Fylicia’s first horse, and now she’s a five-star rider. He helped me through so much in middle school and made me into the rider I am today.

“I think it is so important, on so many levels, for all people to know that every single horse deserves a second chance,” she continued. “Horses always seem to give back, especially those who get into a really good situation after having been in a not so great one. They give you their whole heart, and there is a lot of value in having a horse you’re just really close with. With the right people, no matter what their breed, a horse can do anything.”