What's In a Name

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, as opposed to a prenup--that spells out who gets what portion of specified assets and how liabilities are shared in the event of a divorce." So it is more like a treaty, and treaties, among...

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. But there is another little mystery: where does this name come from? Is there a connection among the horses in the pedigree? The investigation took a while. First line of inquiry: was there a Belardo...

6th-Wolverhampton, £20,000, Cond, 1-4, 4yo/up, f/m, 7f 36y (AWT), 1:26.70, st. AMNIARIX (f, 4, Speightstown--Bold Lass {Ire}, by Sea the Stars {Ire}) Lifetime Record: 5-3-0-1, $29,465. O/B-Bjorn Nielsen (KY); T-Ed Walker. The recent Wolverhampton female winner Amniarix is out of a mare named Bold Lass and her namesake was indeed a very brave young woman. Amniarix was the spy codename of Jeannie Rousseau (1919-2017), who was not only a hero of the French Resistance but also an uncompromising survivor of three German prison camps. Jeannie's command of the German language...

Kudos to whoever was creative and subtle enough to name GERVAIS a horse by DISTORTED HUMOR. The winner of a handicap race at Meydan last week has just that almost risqué name. English actor Ricky Gervais is the creator of The Office, a TV program that stretched the borders of mainstream humor in the UK and in the US. Moreover, Ricky Gervais has presented the Golden Globes five times, always under the threat of being fired because of his outrageous sense of humor and his cutting, take-no-prisoner jokes. With Gervais...

Mad Roman Emperor Caligula tried to make his favorite horse INCITATUS a consul, according to legend--and the accounts of maybe partisan historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Clearly aware of this spectacular milestone of executive overreach, Dante Zanelli's wife Yolanda Del Rosario gave the Italian version of the name--INCITATO--to the colt by GOLDENCENTS out ZABEEL SARAY (by GIROLAMO) her husband bought at Fasig Tipton as a yearling last October. INCITATO, whose literal translation would be "incited" or "spurred", won his maiden spectacularly in Peru in October and now goes for a...

3rd-Fontainebleau, €22,000, Mdn, 11-12, unraced 2yo, f, 9fT, 1:58.95, sf. OMNIA MUNDA MUNDIS (GB) (f, 2, Australia {GB}--Regina Mundi {Ire} {SP-Ity}, by Montjeu {Ire}) Sales history: €190,000 Ylg '19 ARAUG. Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, €11,000. Video, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton. 1ST-TIME STARTER. O/B-San Paolo Agri-Stud SRL (GB); T-Fabrice Chappet. Omnia Munda Mundis could be translated from Latin as "everything is pure to the pure." The expression comes apparently from a letter of St Paul, but has been made sort of famous by a remarkable scene in Alessandro Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi, probably...

The winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf was named by her fortunate owner after a Sardinian wine company, according to her trainer--the great James Fanshawe of Pegasus Stables in Newmarket. Among the wines that the Audarya winery produces are their versions of the increasingly popular Cannonau (red, goes well with red meats, separates the men from the boys) and old stalwart Vermentino (white, goes with seafood and cheeses, separates the female side in all of us). The winery website states that "Audarya means 'nobility of the...

There is a lot of African geography in the background of 2-year-old Khartoum (Pioneerof the Nile-Up (Ire), by Galileo {Ire}). Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, is where the Blue Nile (from Lake Tana in Ethiopia) and the White Nile (from Lake Victoria) meet and unite, forming a greater river. "From there [Khartoum], the Nile continues to flow north towards Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea," states Wikipedia. The Nile is maybe the longest river in the world (the Amazon has a similar claim) and has always been very important to the...

6th-Pimlico, $50,120, Msw, 9-24, 2yo, f, 6f, 1:10.88, ft. WHISKEY AND RYE (f, 2, Maclean's Music--Ava G, by Afternoon Deelites) Sales history: $150,000 2yo '20 EASMAY. Lifetime Record: 2-1-0-0, $25,200. O-Mens Grille Racing; B-Alex Venneri Racing, LLC (KY); T-Hamilton A. Smith. The brave 2-year-old winning filly WHISKEY AND RYE carries another ingenious name derived from the famous song "American Pie" by Don McLean, an American singer-songwriter who had his very great day in the sun in the early '70s. "And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye/Singin' this'll...

Friday, Chantilly, France PRIX ECLIPSE-G3, €56,000, Chantilly, 9-18, 2yo, 6fT, 1:08.48, g/s 1--PLAINCHANT (FR), 121, f, 2, by Gregorian (Ire)                 1st Dam: Nadinska (GB), by Doyen (Ire)                 2nd Dam: Funny Girl (Ire), by Darshaan (GB)                 3rd Dam: Just For Fun (Fr), by Lead On Time 1ST GROUP WIN. (€3,000 RNA Wlg '18 ARDEC; €5,000 Ylg '19 AROCT). O-Alain Jathiere, Maurizio Guarnieri & Sauro-Andrea Fiordelli; B-EARL Elevage des Loges (FR); T-Maurizio Guarnieri; J-Valentin Seguy. i28,000. Lifetime Record: 5-3-1-1, €77,900. The very fast and now Group 3 winner 2-year-old...

6th-Churchill Downs, $101,097, Alw, 9-5, (NW1X), 3yo/up, 7f, 1:21.41, ft. SIR ALFRED JAMES (g, 4, Munnings--Super Phoebe, by Malabar Gold) The Ashford stallion Munnings (by Speightstown out of La Comete) and his winning son SIR ALFRED JAMES (out of Super Phoebe) represent a welcome return to the old tradition of giving painters' names to racehorses. Both father and son are obviously named after Suffolk-born Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959), great classic painter of horses and World War I battle scenes. No one was fonder of this practice than the illustrious...

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. (€40,000 Ylg '18 ARAUG). O-Christopher N Wright; B-Ecurie Taos (Fr); T-David Menuisier; J-Tony Piccone. €28,000. Lifetime Record: 5-2-1-1, €51,592. *1/2 to Penjade (Fr) (Air Chief Marshal {Ire}), SW-US & MSP-Fr, $376,306. Werk Nick Rating: A+++....