ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Zippy Chippy, winless in 86 horse races, had no better luck against two-legged competition.

The losingest horse in the recorded history of U.S. thoroughbred racing was vanquished yet again Thursday night, this time in a 40-yard sprint against a minor league baseball player.

Jose Herrera, 27, the base-stealing center fielder for the Rochester Red Wings, bolted far ahead of the 9-year-old gelding on the track on the outfield grass at Frontier Field and went on to win by at least three (horse) lengths.

"By the time he started running, Jose was far away," owner-trainer Felix Monserrate said with a shrug. "Forty yards is not enough for him to get warm. He let Jose win to make him feel good."

The "2000 Red Wings Derby" was staged before Rochester's game against Scranton/Wilkes Barre.

"I try hard, like a warrior," said an ebullient Herrera, who high-fived all-comers as he was carried across the field in triumph on his teammates' shoulders. The race lasted less than five seconds.

"I'm unbelievably fast," joked Herrera, who claimed previous experience racing against horses while growing up on a farm in the Dominican Republic.

Herrera leads the International League with 152 hits. He's stolen 10 bases this season, raising his career total to 166. He spent 1 1/2 years in the majors, hitting six homers for the Oakland A's in 1995 and 1996.

Oddsmakers had the horse as a 2-to-1 underdog, and even jockey Pedro Castillo wasn't confident.

"If it's 100 yards, I got a chance," Castillo said. "He was a little impatient, probably never saw so many people at once and got nervous."

One fan, Gaven Hurley, 57, wasn't impressed with the spectacle.

"Let him go out to pasture and enjoy his days -- if he ever wins, that could ruin him," he said.

Zippy Chippy has been banned from competition at the Finger Lakes Race Track in nearby Farmington and, because of reciprocal agreements, from most other racetracks.

But Monserrate predicts the horse he bought for $2,500 in 1995 will win before notching 100 losses. He's entered him in a licensed race Sept. 1 at a fair in Northampton, Mass., the same track where he finished third in his record-breaking 86th race on Sept. 9, 1999.

Zippy Chippy has had six second-place finishes, including a loss by a neck in 1995, and 10 third-places in a career that began with an eighth-place finish at Belmont Park in 1994. His problem of late has been leaving the starting gate too slowly, or not at all.

When he lost his 85th race, he went into the record books alongside Gussie Mae and Really A Tenor. Both those horses won their 86th career starts -- Gussie Mae in 1995 at Atlantic City and Really A Tenor in 1990 at River Downs.