6 ms·
Potoooooooo
- aprao 5y agoWhy is it that race horses have such unusual names?
- relyks 5y agoWhen an owner registers their horse to complete in major races, they need to satisfy a bunch of requirements. Some of which: the name can’t be the same as another horse, it can’t use a copyrighted term, there is a length limit, the name can’t be the same as a real person’s name, and it can’t be profane. Also, a lot of people choose names because they think those specific names will bring them luck or just because they are fun. Sometimes, people also try to include names in the horse’s name that are related to its lineage
- Apocryphon 5y agoSo a little like private boat names?
- munificent 5y agoI think it's basically a limited namespace issue. Racehorse names are required to be relatively short, and must also be unique, so over time they get weirder.
- motohagiography 5y agoCuriously, this namespace issue is solved in other sporthorses with microchips and horse passport numbers. I suppose it's the betting that causes them to have to make rules. The convention in European sport horses is typically the registered name uses the first initial of the sire (so a horse named Donnerhall's decendents all have D names, and if you have the name and breed, it's like designer advertising for what line they're from) with the exception of the Lusitanos and Spanish PRE's, which use names where the first letter is assigned to the year of their birth. So a Portuguese or Spanish horse named "A"ndro would have been born in 2004, and a horse named "E"duardo would have been in 2009, and it's a useful convention you can know a horses age from its name. Their studbooks are relatively narrow with fewer foundation stallions and breeders.
- jessaustin 5y agoThoroughbreds also have microchips in their necks now, but those solve a different problem. Microchips, and lip tattoos in previous years, ensure that the horse being examined is a particular horse registered at the Jockey Club. However, no one wants to root for or bet on a horse identified by a long random number. So, printable and pronounceable names are still used.
- throwthere 5y agoMaybe 18th century Potoooooooo would think "aprao" and "ycombinator" are unusual names.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 5y agoI prefer Orb[0]. Orb is horse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb_(horse) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb_(horse)
- maushu 5y agoKind of interesting that you can follow the sire line of that horse until you reach pot8o.
- echelon 5y agoKeep going and you get to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darley_Arabian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darley_Arabian , > Most Thoroughbreds can be traced back to Darley Arabian. In 95% of modern Thoroughbred racehorses, the Y chromosome can be traced back to this single stallion.
- OJFord 5y agoCertainly! But how on Earth did you stumble across that?
- contravariant 5y agoHmm, now I'm curious. If the wikidata project is somewhat up to scratch you should be able to do a SPARQL query on the horse and its ancestors (which is kind of an ideal use case for a graph query language).
- teddyh 5y agoOrb? What, “Consider a spherical horse…”? “Hi-ho cylinder!”¹? 1. https://www.wastedtalent.ca/comic/hi-ho-cylinder https://www.wastedtalent.ca/comic/hi-ho-cylinder
- neonnoodle 5y agoHorse (orb): https://www.walmart.com/ip/Wild-Horses-Musical-Water-Snow-Globe-By-Twinkle-Inc/763991456 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Wild-Horses-Musical-Water-Snow-Gl...
- Apocryphon 5y agoAnd here I thought this type of rebus wasn't invented until 20th century advertising campaigns. This horse witnessed the American Revolution.
- OJFord 5y agoAt quite a distance, sure.
- willio58 5y agoThis horse gets posted at least once a year, every time I chuckle at the name
- randycupertino 5y agoFor more horsey fun I recommend this horse race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u-Fr8CXCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u-Fr8CXCQ
- ranza 5y agoReminds me of my friends who own a motion graphic company called https://ccccccc.tv https://ccccccc.tv
- jszymborski 5y agoFurther proof that naming things is hard.
- Igelau 5y agoI'm thinking something along the lines of the taters scene in LotR. "Stable boy! The horse's name is Potatoes!" "Potatoes? Mi'lord?" "Yah! POT-AYT-OES!" writes Potoooooooo
- User23 5y agoThe article explicitly gives this explanation.
- peanut_worm 5y agoalso the name of a freakish bird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potoo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potoo
- MontyCarloHall 5y agoPronounced po-too-toe, I presume?
- legostormtroopr 5y agoIf Potoooooooo's is Pot-eight-ohs, wouldn't Potoo be Pot-two-ohs?
- robertwt7 5y agogood read pot8o is pronounced pot-eight-o = potato. Usually "potato" term is considered as weak / bad as far as I know, but then here "potato" is a champ.
- prpl 5y agoBetter in spanish than english
- wly_cdgr 5y ago*Poto6o