Friday, October 3, 2008

Pet names for our horses

I ran across this lovely picture while browsing The International Pattern Sport Horse Registry web site. It's part of an online memorial for a horse that looks pretty special. In the text the author gives her horse's registered name, Bimbo's Crazy King, and she states, "Yes, I know, possibly THE stupidest name in horse history." He is "Bimbo" for short. Personally I would have renamed him.

Harvey's name was not quite that bad, but I did rename him. His TB racing name was Sodily Tober. Like totally sober -- get it? Har har. He was Sody for short, which in my mind was equally loathesome.

What's in a name?
I re-christened Sody (shudder) as Harvey, because the affable Harvey from the Jimmy Stewart movie matched his personality perfectly. Of course there are the derivative affectionate names...

Harvster.
Vinkster.
Vinkster boy (That's actually Bob's)
Harvmeister.
Vinkmeister.

How I see Harvey
But I digress. Harv's name mirrors how I think of him -- as a simple, fair-minded, honest, thoughtful, wise old soul--a bit of a worrier. And of course, with a healthy bit of self-interest mixed in. Bob does a "voice over" for Harvey -- imitating how Harvey would sound if he had a human voice. It's a low, deep, kind, but slightly befuddled sounding voice. Harvey's favorite phrase, per Bob's interpretation, is "How can this be?" It's a phrase that goes along with a stricken expression Harvey gets when we run out of treats, or curtail the hand-grazing.

I sometimes walk Harvey out of earshot to graze, and I tell him about my problems -- a bad day at work, hurt feelings, car problems, whatever. It's a one-sided interaction, but I do sense certain responses...

Mind if I eat while you talk?
I saw that coming.
Could we move over to that patch of clover?


It's immensely comforting.

And here's a fun barn game!
Can you tell this is a rambling entry? Stay with me! A year or so ago, the young girls who mucked stalls at Harv's boarding barn played a game while they worked. The game was, "What TV character does [every horse in the barn] most closely resemble?" One of our mares was Elaine on Seinfeld, and I'm pleased to report that Harvey was Joey Triviani from Friends.


12 comments:

  1. "Bimbo's Crazy King" that is just awful!

    Well Armani's real name is "Adel Armani". The "Adel" prefix is from his trakehner mother "Adel Arrhan". I usually call him just "Mani" for short. Really creative huh? I didn't care for it when I got him, but he already answered to it, and it is different. I'm sorry to admit I tend to tease him with pet names like "Mr. Stinky" and "Chubby Butts". But of course no one else is allowed to refer to him like that!

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  2. "Bimbo's Crazy King" is truly awful. However, I think Harvey's registered name is pretty amusing. I can understand your desire to change it, thought. My TB's name was "Mr.Cornell." What are you supposed to call that for short? Corny? *shudder* He wound up getting nicknamed "Smot," which probably wasn't an improvement, but fit him to a T. His new owner calls him "Mo."

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  3. It's a good race horse name, I suppose, but I'm a priss about drinking and alcohol. Initially I changed it to Harvard (show name) which is so impossibly pretentious I can't believe my judgement was that bad a mere 9 years ago. Live and learn...

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  4. My horse's real name is Drezden, which is what we call her usually. But then there's:
    Drez-zee
    Lezy Drezy ( thanks mom )
    Big Mare
    Bear Mare

    My sister's ottb is Dynasarge. He's decidedly not a "Sarge", so he became Captain Ramius ( as in Hunt for the Red October ). Which turned into Rami and more often Ramidoodle.

    And then we have Pony the Pony.

    Drez-ZEE! Ray-ME-DOOOO-dle! Yeah, the neighbors think we're nuts.

    Three of the horses I learned to ride on had pretty bad names:

    Mink Market ( Mink )
    Own Kind of Hat ( Hat )
    Ms. Elvita B ( Regan ) who showed as "Picture Perfect".

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  5. My TB's track name was Track Beau after his father Track Baron. Ugh. Every horse I've known that's gone by Beau has been gray and batshit crazy. He was a bay and... slightly crazy. The place I got him had him for a year and called him David because "they ran out of horse names so they had to use human names". I renamed him Jingles after a plastic rocking horse I had as a child. He went by Jingi a lot.

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  6. Some of the names people come up with are just awful. You kind of wonder what they were thinking at the time. We prefer names that fit the horse and are not too complicated. Although I never liked Dusty's name(every palomino in the world must be named Dusty), I tried changing it to something I liked better, but then she ignored me and wouldn't even look at me if I called her by her new improved name. So Dusty it is whether I like it or not.

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  7. My horses' show name is Solitaire but his barn name is Monty.

    His nicknames include: Monster, Beast, Beastie, Bubba, Buddy, Beemer, Scooter, Filthy Animal and "the Gigolo" (my husband's nickname for him).

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  8. I think hearing about horse names is pretty funny. So many wacky combinations. "Bimbo's Crazy King" is pretty bad. The AQHA world has some goofy names as well...

    My old gelding was Jackson, which I liked. He often misbehaved, I started calling him Jackass instead. I had to be careful who was around when I said that!

    My new horse is Rusty - his barn name was Jessie before and I know a person by that name that I can't stand, so I changed it. I figured that the two names sounded close enough for him to figure out. I sometimes call him Rusty-roo or Pops (seabiscuit)...

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  9. My mare's reg. name is Princess Spright, so of course when I got her she was called Princess.
    My best friend thought that was hilarious as I am SO not a "girly girl".
    I call her Cessa usually but she also gets Baby Girl, Baby Doll, Bug, Punkin and other lovey names.
    Our gelding's reg. name is Super Raincloud. We call him Applejack, which is a really handy name b/c if he's bad you just call him ApplejackASS. lol He also gets called Big Guy (which he's not) and for some reason our farrier calls him Applejuicer.

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  10. I LOVE applejuicer, leave it to farriers...

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  11. My little horse's name is Khanalee after his grand sire, Khemosabi. It's pronounced like canola--Kh-NA-lee. Once when I was at a show, the announcer said, "Kha-na-LEE," and I thought "Who? You're not that sophisticated."
    Variations are Kh-nuckle for Kha-nucklehead, but lots of times when I call, it's "Hun-NEEE!"
    I have 3 horses that are all named Khanalee at feed time. Everyone comes to that name.

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  12. I like Kanucklehead :-). At the Devon breed show there were a lot of babies by the stallion Sir Wanabi--accent on the second syllable, Won-AHHH-bee. The first announcer was pronouncing it Sir Wannabe (accent on first syllable along with unfortunate connotation). It was rapidly corrected.

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