Robservations: A horse by any other name…
Here at your friendly neighborhood community newspaper, we sometimes rely on the Associated Press wire for our national news.
In searching for these stories, we sometimes use the AP’s Internet site, which divides all the news into categories such as “Sports,” “World News,” and the like.
My favorite menu, though, has to be “Offbeat.” Because it covers — literally — everything weird that’s going on, and sometimes those weird stories even involve the sporting world.
The latest, for your horse racing fans, is truly one for the history buffs.
A thoroughbred race horse owner in Lexington, Ky., has sued in federal court for the right to name his horse “Sally Hemings.”
Don’t know Sally? No problem. I don’t think they touched on her in my high school history courses, either. So to the uninformed, a brief character sketch.
Sally Hemings was a slave, owned by founding father Thomas Jefferson. But apparently, she did a lot more for the author of the Declaration of Independence than darn his socks, if you catch my drift.
Years ago, Madison Hemings claimed he was the son of Sally and Mr. Jefferson, bringing to light a Lewinsky-esque political scandal that was a few centuries too old to cause any great uproar.
Until, apparently, Garrett Redmond decided to name his filly.
Redmond, who considers naming a horse after someone such a fine honor he has an animal on his farm named after his own wife, came by the Hemings name using pretty infallible logic.
The as-yet-unnamed filly’s mother, you see, is named “Jefferson’s Secret.” The father? A stallion named “Colonial Affair.”
Put them all together, and that’s not only pretty darn funny, it also makes pretty darn good sense.
But The Jockey Club, which oversees what thoroughbreds are named, doesn’t see it that way. In fact, they feel the name “may be offensive to persons of African descent and other ethnic groups,” and may be offensive to Hemings’ descendants, according to the offbeat wire.
But come on. It’s just a horse, after all. And as we all know, a horse is a horse, of course, of course. That is, of course, unless the horse is named after the mistress of a diplomat who wrote “all men are created equal” even though he forced other human beings into servitude, considering them his property.
But that’s another topic for another time, and certainly for another section.
According to Jockey Club rules, thoroughbred names can be no more than 18 letters, and horses can’t be named after famous people without permission of both the Club and the celebrity.
With that in mind, the Jockey Club actually told Redmond he could name his horse after Hemings, if he could provide Hemings’ written permission to use her name. Of course, she’s been dead for 170 years, so getting a response back from Sally could be pretty difficult.
Wait a minute.
No more than 18 letters, you say? And all you need is the permission of the Jockey Club, and the person you’re naming the horse after?
No problem.
I hereby, in the presence of each reader of this column, give permission for the first owner who so desires to name their next thoroughbred “Robservations.” If you see it on the Daily Racing Form, drop a sawbuck on it for me.