Posts Tagged ‘Belmont Stakes’
“A good name is rather to be chosen than riches”*
From Gregory Ross and his lovely blog Futility Closet…
Unusual names of racehorses, collected by Paul Dickson in What’s in a Name?, 1996:
- Bates Motel
- Disco Inferno
- Up Your Assets
- Race Horse
- Crashing Bore
- English Muffin
- Leo Pity Me
- Cold Shower
- T.V. Doubletalk
- Ranikaboo
- Holy Cats
- Hadn’t Orter
- Strong Strong
- Honeybunny Boo
After the Jockey Club rejected several names for one filly in the 1960s, the exasperated owner wrote “You Name It” on the application form. “We did,” said registrar Alfred Garcia. “We approved the name You Name It, and I think she turned out to be a winner, too.”
This race, run at Monmouth Park in 2010, seems to take on a deeper significance near the end:
(Thorouhbred racing remains a controversial endeavor. Whenever a racing accident severely injures a well-known horse, such as the major leg fractures that led to the euthanization of 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, or 2008 Kentucky Derby runner-up Eight Belles, animal rights groups have denounced the Thoroughbred racing industry. On the other hand, advocates of racing argue that without horse racing, far less funding and incentives would be available for medical and biomechanical research on horses. They note that though horse racing is hazardous, veterinary science has advanced. Previously hopeless cases can now be treated, and earlier detection through advanced imaging techniques like scintigraphy can keep at-risk horses off the track. Still, the argument continues.
More fundamentally, there is a class divide at the root of the sport: racehorse owners are largely the wealthy; “railbirds”– those who bet on the sport– largely working class.)
* Proverbs 22:1 (usually attributed to Solomon)
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As noodle on nomenclature, we might recall tah it was on this date in 1896 that Paulding Farnham of Tiffany & Co. begona work on a commission to create a silver cup to be awarded to the winner of the Belmont Stakes (the third leg of the Triple Crown).
It was commissioned by August Belmont Jr., in memory of his late father August Belmont, the namesake of the Belmont Stakes. Farnham used 350 ounces of sterling silver to craft a 27-inch high, 30-pound acorn-shaped bowl supported by a pedestal composed of three Thoroughbred horse statues representing the foundation stallions Eclipse, Matchem, and Herod. The bowl was 15 inches across and 14 inches at the base and had a prominent acorn and oak motif symbolizing the development of modern racing Thoroughbreds from those three foundation sires. The lid was crowned with a statue of the elder Belmont’s racehorse Fenian who secured Belmont’s first win in the Belmont Stakes in 1869.
The cup cost $1,000 to create and augmented the $4,000 in prize money given to the race winner. In the event, August Belmont, Jr. himself won the Cup when his horse Hastings won the race.
The burden of parting with such a creation– more and more costly over the years was such that, from 1908, winners are presented the permanent trophy for ceremonial purposes only, the winning owner of the Belmont Stakes receives a smaller replica of the trophy to keep. The winning trainer and jockey are also presented with (even smaller) replicas, while the winning groom is given a statuette to commemorate the victory.
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