How every Kentucky Derby horse got his name. It’s harder than it looks

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Jane Lyon is the owner of Summer Wind Farm in Georgetown, and well known for the top-class racehorses she produces there. What might not be as well known is that Lyon is one of the few breeders who likes to name all her yearlings before they go to the sales ring. Most breeders send them to sales without a name because usually the horses’ owners want to pick one. But Lyon’s names have become so well known that many owners will keep them after they buy the horse. And so it was for Kentucky Derby contender Confidence Game, owned by Don’t Tell My Wife Stables.

“Right from the beginning he was always an independent and confident colt,” Lyon said of the bay colt. “Sometimes they just come to me, that’s what I thought when I would watch him.”

Naming Thoroughbred racehorses can be a difficult game. The Jockey Club, which registers all Thoroughbreds and oversees naming, has plenty of rules, most notably that two active racehorse can’t have the same name. With 450,000 names in the database, you’d be surprised how often names get rejected. Once a horse stops racing, the name is put back into circulation. Other rules include a limit of 18 characters, no famous people, nothing vulgar, and nothing already in rotation.

Some horses, like Confidence Game, name themselves through personality or performance. Forte, the morning-line favorite, was named for one of his early workouts, according to the Kentucky Derby. He was so fast he received the name Forte, which means strength in Italian.

Most names are inspired by a horse’s sire or dam, particularly so people remember who they’re dealing with. That’s particularly true in this year’s Derby.

Practical Move’s sire is Practical Joke. Angle of Empire gets a perfect double whammy: His sire is Classic Empire and dam is Armony’s Angel.

That’s true for Tapit Trice as well. He’s sired by the stallion Tapit, and his dam is named Danzatrice. Sometimes people get more cute and less practical: Raise Cain, for example, is by Violence, and Verifying is by Justify. Mage, which is a kind of magician, is by Good Magic. Disarm is by Gun Runner. Hit Show is out of a mare named Actress.

Jace’s Road takes his sire’s name, Quality Road, and then gives a nod to a man named Jason Loutsch, also known as Jace. Co-owner Dennis Albaugh frequently names his horses after friends and family, said Jeff Lifson of West Point Thoroughbreds.

It’s nice to be friends with racehorse owners. Skinner’s owner, Lee Searing, named the horse for Don Skinner, a man he met in 1956.

“He worked for my father and turned out to be one of the best salesmen in my industry, which is steel products,” Searing told the Daily Racing Form. Skinner, 86, retired from Searing Industries five years ago and remains a friend.

Two Phil’s co-owner Phillip Sagan formed a racing partnership with Vince Foglia of Patricia’s Hope, and picked a name for the colt.

“My father is Phillip and my friend Jerry La Sala who got us started, his father’s name is also Phil. They’re both in their 80s and they’re both characters,” Sagan told the site True Nicks. “They really are. Someone in my family came up with it ... everyone loved it, it stuck, and we went with it.”

Lord Miles plays slightly off his dam, Lady Esme, but he’s named for a relative of owner Peter Vesgo’s wife named Miles.

Rocket Can is owned by Frank Fletcher, who once had a beloved dog named Rocket. All of his horses have Rocket in the name.

You never know what personal aspects can come into a name. Hiroyuki Asanuma, the Japanese owner of Derma Sotogake, is a dermatologist, while a “sotogake” is a wrestling move. The second horse from Japan is named Continuar . A connection said that the racing club that owns him thought Continuar was the Spanish name for dragon which does come up in Google as that translation. Far more common though is “el dragon.”

On the other side of the world, Kingsbarns is named for the popular Scottish golf course, according to Spendthrift Farm.

Reincarnate is named for one of his forebears, 1994 Horse of the Year Holy Bull. According to the Daily Racing Form, the horse looks just like Holy Bull, another big, rangy gray horse. Gavin Murphy, a fan of Holy Bull who manages SF Racing, one of the colt’s co-owners, thought up the name. It doesn’t hurt that his sire is named Good Magic.

The most dramatic name in the race naturally has a dramatic story. Dr. Ramon Tallaj, a New York physician and devout Catholic, was at the yearling sale at Saratoga when he decided to pray to God to show him a good horse. After he opened his eyes, he saw the Into Mischief colt in the ring, and as RT Racing, Tallaj bought him in partnership with Cypress Creek Equine. According to Cypress Creek racing manager Ryder Finney, Tallaj named him Sun Thunder because the sun represented God and thunder is the way God speaks to us.

“The thunder that came back from the sun was this horse,” Finney said.