What’s in a Name?
by kpmautner
Names have very special connotations to us humans. The ancient Egyptians felt that by knowing someone’s real name, one had power over them. That being said, there are some really weird pet and horse names out there, and the reasons and techniques for coming up with registration names (especially) are just as weird.
Cameo, according to her breeder, was a seal brown foal. They had dithered and delayed filing her registration papers (the Jockey Club is very strict about time limits) and couldn’t come up with a respectable “Bold Ruler”-related name that hadn’t already been used. So they dithered and dithered, and finally the husband asked the breeder when the registration papers were due. The answer was “This Week”, and that was the name that went on her racing papers!
Moses, on the other hand, was christened Lad’s Imperial Poco, to reflect his ancestry. Holy Moses suited him much, much better. He got the call-name Moses by accident, because the buyer was told that Moses was “the brown one in the field”, there were six brown ones, and she pulled the closest one out. “Moses” stuck there too.
The wittiest use of ancestry in a horse-name I’ve ever heard of was a racehorse I encountered when I worked at the track. His sire was The Axe II, and his dam was Top O’ The Morning. They registered him as Splitting Headache. Also creative was Prince John X Platinum Blond: Stage Door Johnny.
The best one I ever came up with was for a little mare that I rode for a client. She was simple and uncomplicated and her name was Muffin. Whoopee. Thought about it a while, and I wasn’t about to show in the Regular Working Hunters on a “Muffin”. Drafted my liberal arts education and we showed as Much Ado About Muffin. No announcer ever, ever, managed that one without cracking up.
So I ask you, what’s in a name? Got any really good ones?
Been There, Done That 
Previous Horse came with the racename Ucanheara Pindrop. Ick. Overly influenced by the movie Dead Poets Society, I gave him the show name Seize The Day. I thought about Carpe Diem, then I thought about announcers, and went with English. It didn’t really fit. He never felt that a day needed to be seized if he wasn’t in the mood. However, the resulting stable name, Caesar, could have been made for him. I have never met a being (horse, human, dog, cat) with a more imperial opinion of himself.
[…] What’s in a Name? & More Names The wittiest use of ancestry in a horse-name I’ve ever heard of was a racehorse I encountered when I worked at the track. His sire was The Axe II, and his dam was Top O’ The Morning. They registered him as Splitting Headache. Also creative was Prince John X Platinum Blond: Stage Door Johnny. […]