On this side of the Atlantic, Gulfstream 2-year-old winner O CAPTAIN (c, 2, Carpe Diem–Mama Nadine {SW}, by A.P. Indy) connects Walt Whitman's most famous poem (“O Captain, My Captain,” on the death of President Lincoln) with Roman bard Horace's “Carpe Diem/Seize The Day,” probably via the 1989 movie “Dead Poets Society,” where an English [...]

Coco has many different meanings in French and it is maybe futile to try to divine which one caught the fancy of the breeder and first owner of brave 3-year-old filly La Petite Coco (Ire) (Ruler of the World {Ire}–La Petite Virginia {Ger}, by Konigstiger {Ger})–a brilliant winner of the G3 Irish Stallion Farms EBF [...]

The logical connection between the name of this winning filly and the name of her dam would have been crystal-clear in the first decades of the twentieth century–at least in Paris, Venice and London. Italian-born Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) was a high society celebrity with strong links to diverse characters in the worlds of art, [...]

FILO DI ARIANNA is Italian for 'Ariadne's thread'. The expression refers to a most melodramatic Greek myth. Princess Ariadne of Crete betrays her royal father and helps enemy Athenian hero Theseus in the killing of her monstrous half-brother, the Minotaur, who resides in a labyrinth. The Minotaur is half man and half bull and 100% [...]

As for intriguing names of winning horses, that was the week that was. Let's start with the seminal power of those two immortal little words Carpe Diem ('Seize The Day'} from Ancient Rome prince of poets Horace (65-8 BC)–also responsible for Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori ('It is sweet and fitting to die [...]

Congratulations to whoever named the very first winner by the Galileo (Ire) stallion Mondialiste (Ire). The 2-year-old filly won a novice at Beverley on May 3 for trainer David O'Meara and is out of Dame Hester (Ire) (Diktat {GB}). The Geoff and Sandra Turnbull-owned filly is named after the most famous Hester of all: Hester [...]

My fellow Americans, I put it to you that the 2021 Liverpool Grand National was an epoch-making sporting event –like the sub-4-minute mile of Roger Bannister in 1954 or the first MLB game of Jackie Robinson in 1947. In the 1944 movie “National Velvet” a very young Elizabeth Taylor faints and slides off her beloved [...]

Racing success makes the name of a horse just right in most cases, and this is likely to happen with very promising 3-year-old filly JOAN OF ARC, a winner at The Curragh Mar. 21, the first day of spring. Still, this beautiful name seems so appropriate even now, because of the underlying historical connection between [...]

Young filly Tenebrism (f, 2, Caravaggio–Immortal Verse {Ire}, by Pivotal {GB}), the dramatically fast winner of the first race at Naas on Mar. 28, carries a brilliant and astute name. “'Tenebrism', from Italian tenebroso (dark, gloomy, mysterious), also occasionally called 'dramatic illumination', is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent [...]

There is a lot of learning and incredible subtlety in the name of 2-16-2021 Chantilly winner Buridan (Fr) (g, 6, Choisir {Aus}–Lady McKell {Ire}, by Raven's Pass). The sire's name is French for “to choose” and not for nothing, the great Australian sprinter was out of Great Selection (Aus) (Lunchtime {GB}), who was out of [...]

There is quite a lot of marriage material in the name and family of 3-year-old winning filly Postnup (f, 3, Declaration of War–I'm Engaged, by Broken Vow). Is the proposal of a “postnup” somehow related to a declaration of war? Hopefully not. According to Google a “postnup” is “a legally binding contract–entered during the marriage, [...]

Every horse is a mystery. And a winner at 33-1 on its racecourse debut is a mystery that is partially disclosed, like in the case of Duke of Verona (Ire) (Belardo {Ire}), who came to win his maiden on 1-22-21 at Lingfield from very far behind–“from downtown”, as a basketball pundit would have put it. [...]