Racehorse owners often give their thoroughbreds funny or odd names. In this year?s Kentucky Derby, which will be held Saturday, the competitors include Itsmyluckyday, Charming Kitten, and Palace Malice. But owners can?t name their horses just anything. In 2007, Sports Nut explained the rules against obscene names.
Earlier this year, a man named Andy Hillis decided to christen his racehorse Nutzapper. A Tonight Show guest had used the term when referring, jokingly, to a male contraceptive; since his horse had been gelded, Hillis thought he had a good fit. But naming a Thoroughbred isn't as simple as coming up with a good double-entendre. The Jockey Club, the 103-year-old organization that holds the reins to the Sport of Kings in North America, has to sign off on every moniker. Hillis explained to the registry poobahs that as a young boy in Canada, he loved to zap walnuts in boiling oil and sprinkle them on salads. Satisfied that the name had a tasty, not tasteless, origin, the Jockey Club approved Nutzapper. Hillis, unable to contain his glee, boasted about the name to a Daily Racing Form reporter. "I've never even been to Canada," he said. "I just made the whole thing up on the spot."
Timing is everything when it comes to a good joke, and Hillis picked a bad moment to have a laugh at the expense of racing's powerful ruling body. Three weeks earlier, the Jockey Club had emerged victorious in a long, drawn-out federal court case over freedom of speech rights and racehorse names. After Hillis crowed to the Daily Racing Form, the name was barred within 48 hours. The odds are now stacked mightily against a horse named Nutzapper ever running in the Kentucky Derby.
What is the Jockey Club, and who put it in charge of naming horses? First off, it is neither a club nor comprised of jockeys. In addition to overseeing a myriad of statistical resources and underwriting an impressive amount of equine research, its chief function is as the keeper of the American Stud Book. If you want to race or breed a Thoroughbred, the Jockey Club has the final say, including what you are allowed to call your horse.
Roughly 60,000 Thoroughbred name requests are submitted every year, and registrar Rick Bailey must sign off on each one. Roughly one-third of the requests are rejected, primarily because they match existing names. In an effort to free up more names, the Jockey Club now "recycles" them after 10 years, so it is possible for horses from different eras to share the same name. There is a mind-blowing litany of other rules and regulations, but in general, no horse can have a name longer than 18 characters, a name that breaches a copyright or has obvious commercial significance, or the name of a "notorious" person. Emphatically forbidden are "names that are suggestive or have a vulgar or obscene meaning; names considered in poor taste; or names that may be offensive to religious, political or ethnic groups."
Had Hillis so chosen, he might have challenged the anti-Nutzapper ruling by pointing out numerous examples of lewd names that have slipped through. Despite vigilant efforts?prospective names are screened by a team of censors, matched up against urban slang dictionaries, and run through phonetics software to ensure they don't sound different than they look?the sport's officials sometimes get caught off guard.
Aside from the ill-fated Nutzapper, the Jockey Club's database reveals 131 horses whose names begin with the prefix Nut. Of course, you'd have to be Beavis or Butt-Head to find the vast majority of them titillating. But shouldn't somebody have questioned the precedent-setting Nut Buster way back in 1942? Similarly, Pussy Galore probably should have raised a few eyebrows in 1965. The filly never won a race, but one assumes she was a big hit with the stallions.
You want explicit commands? How about Blow Me (1945), Get It On (both 1971 and 1986), On Your Knees (1977 and 2005), Spank It (1985), or 1963's Go Down, whose sire, of course, was Service. Like 'em young? Embarrassingly enough, Jail Bait (1947 and 1983), Barely Legal (1982 and 1989), and Date More Minors (1998) all made it into the staid registry.
If a clever play on words is your thing, Cunning Stunt (1969) is a decent one. Lagnaf (1978) is a thinly veiled acronym for "let's all get naked and ? ." The names Hardawn (1937) and Wrecked Em (1983) have to be said out loud to elicit the desired potty-mouth effect.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=8476133608ff3884e6bac8534167a983
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