Nomenclature & bibliophilia

Newmarket Open Weekend.  We shall be opening on Sunday.  I had thought that we wouldn't be able to do so, as I was intending to run White Valiant at Plumpton.  However, he isn't running, so we shall open.  White Valiant had to miss Fontwell two weeks ago after he knocked a scab off a cut on his hind leg when schooling two days before the race.  I had thought that he would be fine to run at Plumpton two weeks later, and indeed he is fine: he galloped well this morning.  But that was his first gallop for two weeks.  He had to have too many easy days last week, and we would have been going to Plumpton on too interrupted a preparation.  But Fontwell 13 days later, ie two weeks tomorrow, should be fine. 

The drawback to the Open Day is that the forecast for Sunday is very grim, with solid rain expected throughout the day.  But weather is weather - you can't do anything about it.  It's still the Open Day; the weather can't alter that.  I hope that plenty of people come and enjoy it.  What else is happening?  Well, I've been mulling over a few musings on the topic of heavy-handed stewarding, but I was pleased yesterday to receive news that common sense has been applied to one of the cases which was looking like being dominated by over-zealous officiousness.  So I'll restrict myself now to our antipodean friends, and move off at a tangent from there.

This is one of those things that is so strange, so hard to believe, that I'm almost thinking that I must have dreamt it.  But I didn't (I think).  (I think) it definitely happened.  A man in Australia (I think in Queensland) took a smutty liberty by applying for a name which is the Italian phrase for something rather rude.  Inevitably, whichever steward had to approve or reject the application can't speak bawdy Italian, and the name got through.  Tee hee hee.  What is the upshot?  When the stewards became aware of this little wheeze, became aware that this lewd little joke had slipped through, THEY WARNED OFF THE OWNER FOR 18 MONTHS.  I oughtn't to use bad language on this blog for fear of being warned off for 18 months - but, f*@k me!

(And, of course, in effect the man wasn't warned off for naming the horse with an X-rated name: the stewards did that.  Effectively, he was warned off for applying for an X-rated name, which was then approved).  It would have been interesting to know whether he would have been warned off if the steward responsible for approving (or otherwise) the name had been an italophone (is that a word?) and had knocked the name back.  The owner's offence would have been just the same.  Mind-blowing.  (And to move off on my tangent). The timing of this, of course, provides us with a classic example of being overtaken by events because this has all blown up shortly after David Ashforth's new book, 'Fifty Shades of Hay' (which relates various horse naming brahmas) has come out.

I suppose that we shouldn't be too surprised about this draconian punishment.  Our colonial cousins have always had more delicate sensibilities than we have.  We found that out in the '30s when Lord Rosebery's horse The Bastard headed Down Under for stud duties at Lyndhurst Park Stud in Queensland.  He had won the Yorkshire Cup in 1930 and finished third in the Ascot Gold Cup, as well as supposedly setting a world record for a mile and a half when winning at Newmarket's July Course (in a time which, of course, has to be taken with a massive pinch of salt because timing the staying races at Newmarket, where there is no spot from which one can see both the start and the finish of the races, in the pre-CCTV days would have been a very hit-or-miss process).

Anyway, The Bastard was clearly well established in the Form Book as The Bastard - except that the genteel Queenslanders couldn't cope with this, so he became The Buzzard, under which name he topped the General Sires' Premiership in Australia in both 1946/'47 and 1949/'50, as well as siring the Melbourne Cup winners Old Rowley (1940) and Rainbird (1945).  So perhaps this latest crackdown by the Colonial Nomenclature Police shouldn't surprise us too much.  I've named a few horses over the years, but I don't think that I've ever strayed too close to the line which divides the acceptable from the shocking.

The name of which I have been most proud was A Monk Swimming.  I didn't own him, but I came up with the name and his owners (Lawrence Wadey, Bill Benter, Gerry Grimstone, in the guise of the 1997 Partnership) were kind enough to use it.  He was by Among Men out of Sea Magic.  If you haven't read the book this will mean nothing to you, but this is the title of Malachy McCourt's first book of memoirs.  He explained the title as coming from his youth when he and his elder brother Frank were at school in Limerick and were reciting their Hail Marys,  They didn't pick up on the words correctly, and thought that it was, "Blessed art thou a monk swimming".  Which turned out to be very apt for a strictly-raised Irish Catholic who emigrated to New York and found himself adrift in the big, wide, cosmopolitan, multi-faith and faithless ocean of humanity over there.

I was also very pleased with the name which I gave to a horse who ended up never racing, Abetterplacetobe.  He was by Night Shift out of a mare by Blushing John whose name I can't remember.  If you know (and therefore love) 'Greatest Stories Live', you'll appreciate the name.  If you don't, you should make yourself familiar with the album.  (And that's good advice).  In the interim, this should explain things.  This is how Harry Chapin introduced the song at the concert at which the recording of the song which appeared on the album was made: "This is probably the favourite thing of mine, at least to me, that I have written.  It's about a small town upstate New York called Watertown, New York. (Applause) That's more than it deserves.  I spent a week there one afternoon, and I came away with this story, which is a rather strange tale of a little midnight watchman, a rotund waitress, and a girl who picks up one night, and it's called, 'A Better Place To Be'."

There's always plenty in a good name; less so in a couple of the weaker ones which David has highlighted in the Twitter tasters which he has been giving us this week: Gangrene and Dishcloth.  This will be a very good book.  Written by pretty much anyone with a decent sense of humour, it would be good; written by David, London to a brick on that it will be extremely good indeed.  When I'll read it, though, I don't know.  I'm currently in the second half of Nick Godfrey's 'Postcards from the World of Horse Racing - Days out on the Global Racing Road', and loving it. And then I have quite a pile already assembled.

Too many good people have died this year.  The great novelist Philip Kerr died in March of cancer, aged only 62.  He must have used his final months most productively as there are two Bernie Gunther novels which he will have published posthumously.  Remarkable.  Humbling.  The first of these is due to come out on 4th October, and the second one next spring.  Reading those will be a very special, very moving experience.  Additionally,  I have recently discovered that, as well as creating the great Bernie Gunther, he created a character called Scott Manson, who features in three novels: 'January Window', Hand of God' and 'False Nine'.

If Scott Manson is even half the character that Bernie Gunther is/was, then these will be terrific.  They are on order; while another of his novels, Research (published 2014) arrived yesterday.  Alan Partridge's 'Nomad' is on the side, and I have recently acquired four more racing books (one of which, Henry Custance's memoirs, 'Riding Recollections and Turf Stories', I have read previously when I was lent a copy by Bill O'Gorman) and have one more on the way, all of which are on the list.  That's the thing about life: so many books to read, so little time to read them in.