The other day, I was thinking about when we talk about
humans first using fire, making pottery, or sticking a shotgun in a rabbit hole
only for it to come out a second rabbit hole behind them, causing them to shoot
themselves in their own little butts, we always say it was “tens of thousands
of years ago.”
That’s clunky, using “of” twice, right? “Tens OF thousands OF years”? Why don’t we say the mathematically equivalent “thousands of decades”?
Maybe it’s because we want to think of early humans as being on a very slow, but constant, trajectory to the present. Introducing decades to the concept suggests cavemen progressing through their own flower power-to-disco-to-hair metal-type cycles. That’s too many hyphens to think about when ruminating on early man.
“Tens of thousands of years,” on the other hand, repeats the very simple sound ov, which is a very caveman-sounding word. One can imagine a troglodyte using ov to convey anything from a pointy stick to the inevitability of death.
“Hundreds of centuries” is another equivalent phrase, but I’m not going to talk about it because this is a review of the names of the 2025 Kentucky Derby racehorses.
Neoequos
Neo equos is Latin for “new horse,” which is what Holly Golightly would name the second horse that wandered into her field if she were in ancient Rome.
I’m disappointed in horny internet writers, as I was unable to find any Breakfast at Tiffany’s / Caligula cross-fic on fanfiction.net.
Neoequos is a stupid, lazy name, but it’s a stupid, lazy name in a dead language, so let’s call it a C.
Coal Battle
If you see the name Coal Battle and don’t immediately think, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with coal,” your mind doesn’t do the right things. Picture it: soldiers bashing chunks of coal into each other’s heads; guerillas having to improvise with charcoal; slings making the comeback of the millennium; it’s gorgeous in the sootiest way.
It’s a phenomenal name until you remember the Ludlow Massacre. B-
Journalism
Edward R. Murrow. Ida B. Wells. Lois Lane. It’s the Fourth Estate, baby! Without newspapers, we wouldn’t have Calvin and Hobbes, papier-mâché, or birdcage liner. Without magazines, we wouldn’t have meandering popular science articles or rad vintage cigarette ads. Without cable news, we wouldn’t have a crumbling society.
Put all of that together and what do you get? A damn fine racehorse. A
American Promise
I’m Gen Y. This horse is a lie. F
Luxor Cafe
Naming your horse after a place that sells sandwiches? Eh, who am I to judge? My rule is I won’t eat anything I’ve been friends with, and that doesn’t really rule anything out.
The first Luxor Cafe restaurant I found on Google was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The menu on their website lists the Turkey Chipotle sandwich twice. D
Tiztastic
The kingdom has found itself at war. The king’s bravest knight is the first to prepare for battle. “Bring me my horse,” he says to his page. “Bring me Tiztastic.”
The page dutifully collects the horse, but he is concerned. Ever since Sir Wilmot got hit in the head with that big chunk of coal, he’s been…compromised. He’s been soiling himself. He now refers to water as “the blue wet.” He even named his new horse “Tiztastic.” F
Sovereignty
“Powerful-sounding abstract concept” has long vied with “some place in Germany” for the right to be the leftmost head on the Mount Rushmore of regrettable horse names. They’re stupid, boring, and hard to write about. In the sense of due diligence, I ran Sovereignty through the ol’ anagram server and discovered it can be rearranged to Severing Toy. That’s an intimidating horse!
Score for
Sovereignty: D
Score for
Severing Toy: B+
Citizen Bull
Let’s revisit some fundamentals: a racehorse can’t be a bull, a bull can’t be a citizen, and a citizen can’t be a racehorse. Dear reader, this is a rock paper scissors variant. B
Render Judgment
Because Remember to Rank Me Based on Where I Place in the Race is over the character limit. D-
Baeza
I researched this one by skimming a paragraph on some Google result, and it turns out that Baeza is probably a German occupational surname meaning “fine collector.”
Now, if you sell your fine collections, that’s an occupation, but that’s just called “trader.”
If you charge people to look at your fine collections, that’s called “museum guy,” even if you aren’t a guy. I don’t make the rules.
If you glue your fine collections to your van and drive around town blaring Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride,” that’s called “Portlander.”
However, I fail to see how simply collecting fine things is an occupation. D+
Sandman
Someone wanted to enter this animal. F
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| It's astounding that "BOO!" is an actual lyric in this song. |
Owen Almighty
I think the implication here is that this animal has the comedy chops of a Jim Carrey or a Steve Carell. As a man who never laughs and who reads The Death of Ivan Ilyich once a month, I have no idea whether that’s impressive or not. But I can definitely see the thinking behind winning a race by distracting the other horses with gags about being omnipotent. C-
Burnham Square
Introducing the worst infomercial product of all time: the Burnham Square! It’s a square pan that’s guaranteed to burn your ham! Ruin Easter! Ruin Christmas! Ruin sandwiches and more! With the Burnham Square pan, you can burn ham galore! D
Chunk of Gold
This is a chunk of coal derby, thank you very much. D+
Publisher
The horse of
publication
In charge of
publishin’
He’s read the sexploitation
You have just
sent in
The risk is cancellation,
So censoring
begins…
Go vanilla; show
divorce
A murder would be
nice of course
The horse, the
horse
The horse, of
books!
A-
East Avenue
This just doesn’t seem like a street we gonna rock down to, but I'll give it a few bonus points for being an avenue that starts with E. C+
Admire Daytona
Daytona is known for its racetrack, but that one’s for cars—the very thing that made horses obsolete. It’s like naming your girlfriend Sex Robot, but with way fewer roadblocks at the courthouse. F
Final Gambit
I always prepared for my finals, but I frequently dream about being in school during the week before finals. I’m taking four or five courses, and I haven’t gone to two of them since, like, the second week. For the rest, I haven’t touched the reading in a month.
I know I’m
screwed, but I’m also thinking about how I won’t enroll next semester, since I’m a
middle-aged man who already has a degree. But what about the hit to my GPA?
I guess my gambit here is either to get so stressed out that I wake up, or to focus on getting lunch so hard that the dream becomes about finding someone to eat with and remembering where the restaurants are in my imaginary college town. We end up at Rally’s a lot, but the Rally’s is, like, a motocross theme park or whatever.
Just study, kids. C+
Flying Mohawk
I’m in no position to mock the idea of airborne hairdos. B
