“There was one I really had to be careful with called Norfolk And Way.”
Breeding, training and owning a stakes-winning pacer are some of the goals folks at Fraser Downs Racetrack have neatly tucked away in their file of harness racing dreams.
A bit further down the list is “naming” and there are some at The Downs who seem to take special delight in dreaming up names to make life, if not miserable, at least more interesting for officials at Standardbred Canada.
The only official limitation placed on the imagination of the owner/breeder is that the name can’t be more than 18 characters including spaces. It’ll be rejected if the name is already in use, of course.
With the character limits in mind, Leslie Godlien runs her names together.
“Stepbackandreload was a nice little horse with a big heart who once won five in a row and is now my 10-year-old niece’s riding horse.
“His brother is Stepuptotheplate and he won the three-year-old $75,000 stallion stakes.”
The reference to plate in the name is because all three of her daughters, Alysha, Steffanie and Carly play softball.
“It’s fun,” said Godlien. “I’ve been doing it for about 15 years since Rick (Lancaster) and I got together. I see some names and I just don’t get it. I think they’ve got to have a decent name to be a good (race) horse."
CFL fan and Fraser Downs driver Jim Marino named a yearling Buck Pierce a few years back after the BC Lions quarterback. And when he was alive, all of Robert Murphy’s horses names would begin with Red Star. Lots of stables such as KG (Karin and Gordon Bryan) begin the names of their horses with the stable name.
There was a horse called Keldanigmar at Fraser that was a combination of the first names of owners Kelly Hudon, Dave Hudon, Nigel Holmes and Marsha Holmes.
Submissions by veteran owner Rick Mowles are scrutinized extra carefully in the Standardbred Canada offices. He has been successful in getting Betterfrombehind (a stakes winner), Areyouinorout and Goodontop all through the approval process.
“I told them (Standardbred Canada) it was all in their minds,” said Mowles with a mischievous grin.
Of course track announcer Rick Uppal has to get his tongue around some weird looking monikers while they are pacing twice around the Downs oval.
“Some of my favourites have been Nag Nag Nag, Magic To Kareem, Lionsntigersnbears, Youdontknowjack and my wife (trainer Casandra Uppal) had one, Nacho Pappa.
“Depending on how you emphasize it, you can do things with Nag, Nag, Nag. I try and make it fun. I hope the public likes it."
(Fraser Downs)