LuAnn Knost was a trailblazer and record breaker during her long and successful show career. Knost and her 1976 bay gelding, Melody Zipper (Zipper) were three-time AQHA World Champions; seven-time AQHA Reserve World Champions; six-time Honor Roll champions, three-time consecutive Congress Amateur All-Around Champions and a two-time winner of the AQHA All-Around Amateur Honor Roll title. The legendary duo also amassed 1476 points in the Amateur division.
While all of these awards are truly impressive, Knost is the only one who can say that they were awarded the first ever Amateur All-Around Award at the AQHA World Championship Show. AQHA first gave this title at the 1983 AQHA World Show where Zipper and LuAnn were Reserve Amateur World Champions in Western Pleasure, Hunter Under Saddle, Horsemanship, and placed third in the Hunter Hack and Hunt Seat Equitation.
Now living in Plano, Texas and the mother of Professional Golfer and PGA Tour Member, Colt Knost, and AQHA trainer, Judd Paul, LuAnn says that earning the first Amateur All-Around title is her favorite showing memory and she couldn’t have done it without her very special horse.
“Zipper was by Zippo Pine Bar, and he was actually the first one to put Zippo Pine Bar on the map. He had a unique style and he was way ahead of his time,” Knost recalls. “My husband, Don Paul, and I first saw him as a coming three year-old at the Florida Gold Coast in 1979. We bought him on the spot from Tom and Diane Gregerson.”
LuAnn continues, “That spring we started winning everything in the Amateur All-Around events. Trainer Doug Lilly wanted him for the Junior Western Pleasure and a great partnership was formed. Zipper had a heart of gold and would do anything you asked of him. Back then, you could show the same horse in western and english, it wasn’t as specialized as it is now.”
At the 1979 Congress, Zipper won the Junior Western Pleasure and the Three Year-Old Maturity with Lilly in the saddle. The same year, LuAnn won the Amateur Western Pleasure, Amateur Horsemanship and Amateur Hunt Seat Equitation, and the All Around Amateur title.
“We also won it the next two years in a row,” LuAnn remembers about the Congress Amateur All-Around. “Zipper was my best friend. I know it sounds corny, but I knew him inside and out. All I had to do was whistle and he’d be by my side, even as he got older and was retired. He lived to be 24.”
In 1985, LuAnn recalls a special moment when AQHA asked them to represent the association at The Challenge of the Breeds in St. Louis, Missouri.
“Zipper and I took hunter lessons so we could participate at this event,” LuAnn says. “We won the hunter jumping division being the first time ever to do it, that was pretty exciting.”
Knost continues, “At the Congress this same year, his trainer, Clark Denton, showed him in the Working Hunter and ended up second out of 99 entries. The very next morning; I showed him in the Amateur Western Pleasure and was second out of 143 horses! He was the biggest hearted horse I’ve ever had, and I miss him dearly.”
On an interesting side note, LuAnn and her (now deceased) husband, Don, also bought another legendary horse, Guns Flash Bull when he was a yearling.
“Guns Flash Bull won literally every time he went into the arena in hunter under saddle,” LuAnn recalls. “He had a beautiful top line and heart girth and one of the thickest longest tails you have ever seen back then. I could hear people say, ‘look at that tail!’ Back then you couldn’t use fake tails so his stood out.”
Knost remembers Guns Flash Bull as being quite challenging, “He was way more unpredictable than Zipper. Zipper was so dependable, and Gun, you just never knew. That was the fun thing about him, he kept you on your toes. We sold him to Pam Foster and she went on to win the AQHA High Point title in the nation the following year. Gun had a fabulous show career later too with the Kaplow family. Melody Zipper and Guns Flash Bull are two of my all-time favorites and I was so lucky to have owned them both!”
