Sunday, Deauville, France PRIX MINERVE-G3, €56,000, Deauville, 8-16, 3yo, f, 12 1/2fT, 2:54.11, hy. 1–WONDERFUL TONIGHT (FR), 123, f, 3, by Le Havre (Ire)                 1st Dam: Salvation (GB), by Montjeu (Ire)                 2nd Dam: Birdie (GB), by Alhaarth (Ire)                 3rd Dam: Fade (GB), by Persepolis (Fr)    1ST BLACK-TYPE WIN; 1ST GROUP WIN. [...]

 There are names and there are characters, but at times the name is the character. THE BRUMBY (3, g, Spirit of Boom–Rhiannons Girl, by General Nediym), a maiden winner and stakes-placed in Australia, has been bestowed with a name that reflects his true colors. “Brumby” as a proper noun denotes free-roaming feral horses in Australia, [...]

Marylin Monroan, the (roan) dam of Saratoga stakes winning 3-year-old colt Jolting Joe, is the gift that keeps on giving, when it comes to ingenious names. After her foals Mr President, a full-brother to Jolting Joe–and Somelikeithotbrown (Big Brown), we now have a lovely reference to Marilyn's second husband Joe DiMaggio, one of whose nicknames [...]

There is plenty of music in the pedigree of Newbury listed winner Cabaletta (GB). She is out of Allegretto (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) (moderately fast tempo in classical music, 102-110bpm technically speaking), herself out of Alleluia (GB) (Caerleon). Still, the name of this filly is particularly fitting: a “cabaletta” can be defined as an operatic aria [...]

Group 3 winner Valeria Messalina (Ire), a 3-year-old filly by Holy Roman Emperor (Ire), carries a name heavy with reputation–good and bad but never indifferent. There were many Roman Emperors in the life of the historical Valeria Messalina, who lived in the first century, during the first decades of the Empire: her husband Claudius (she [...]

Godolphin's Pinatubo (Ire) (Shamardal) exploded with speed in the last furlong of Sunday's G1 Prix Jean Prat in Deauville, as is appropriate for a horse named after a volcano. Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines “is most notorious for its VEI-Level 6 (max is 8) eruption on June 15, 1991, the second largest one of the [...]

Saturday's GII Appalachian S. winner Enola Gay and her dam Dakota Queen carry names of WW2 flying machines (with parallel connections to family females). Enola Gay is the world-famous nickname of the B-29 aircraft who dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945 (mother of the pilot, Paul Tibbets, was Enola Gay Tibbets), [...]

Julius Caesar was almost a Roman Emperor. He was prevented from being one by the assassins led by his adopted (and natural, some say) son Brutus, while on his way to the Senate on March 15, 44 B.C. According to Shakespeare-validated legend, Caesar uttered “Et Tu Brute?” ('You too. Brutus?') when he saw Brutus among [...]

Not far from the Baltic Sea, Tilsit was a contested town of many names, in different languages: it was Tilsit in German, Tilže in Lithuanian, Tylza in Polish, and now Sovetsk in Russian, since 1945. Napoleon signed two treaties in Tilsit in 1807, at the apex of his power: first with the Russian Czar Alexander [...]

GAMINE is “a girl with a mischievous, boyish charm,” according to Google Dictionary. It is therefore a fitting name for the terrific filly by Into Mischief who dominated her fellow females in the GI Acorn S. at Belmont Saturday. GAMINE, 120, f, 3, by Into Mischief                 1st Dam: Peggy Jane (SP, $102,050), by Kafwain [...]

In 1961, former foundryman Yuri Gagarin was the first cosmonaut to orbit the earth, and the first man in space outright, getting an early lead for the Soviets in the Race to the Moon. The name of the 4-year-old Kempton winner by Sea The Moon (Ger) out of Soviet Terms (GB) is a thoughtful and [...]

There is quite a convergence of different languages in the brilliant name of Gulfstream winner and Classic player Sole Volante–Italian for “Flying Sun”. His sire's name Karakontie (Jpn) (whose dam is Sun Is Up) is Mohawk (American Indian) lingo for, voila'!, “Flying Sun”. Great name: every horse tells a story, some even more so. 9th-Gulfstream, [...]