Due South (Gus)
His previous owner used Gus as both his barn and show name. Great name for in the barn, but not elegant enough to use as a show name. At the time I bought him, my favorite TV show was Due South. The main character was this almost perfect Canadian Mountie who always did right and got his man. Gus was this character’s four-legged twin, so naming him after the TV show just suited.
Woodbine (Woody)
His previous owner (Hi Leslie!) registered him with the APHA as Pickeroon and called him Roony for short. I used his registered name the first couple of times I showed him, but either the organizer misspelled it or the announcer pronounced it incorrectly. The final straw was when he was listed in a show program as “Pickaroom”. About the time I determined he needed a different show name, one of our TB babies broke his maiden at Woodbine Race Track in Canada. Decided the name Woodbine would work well and the nickname Woody most definitely matches his personality.
Ground Force (Hank)
Although he trained on the track, he never raced and his previous owner never got around to giving him a registered name (poor fellow is still listed with the JC as 2000 Roan Colt). They just called him Gus. Since I already had a Gus, I changed his barn name to Hank after he came to me because he was a goof ball the first several times I jumped him and I sometimes needed to grab a “hank” of mane to stay with him as he flung himself over the fences with his legs going in four different directions. The war in Iraq was just heating up about that time and the media was constantly reporting on the movement of our troops on the ground. I gave him the show name Ground Force as a tribute to these brave men and women.
Arlington Park (Tex)
His previous owners registered him with the APHA as Mosaic Minstrel and called him Striker for short. Both were great names, but I just didn’t think they particularly suited him that well. The first time I had to draw his markings for his Coggins test, I discovered one of them was shaped almost exactly like the state of Texas, so he became Tex in the barn. When it came time to give him a show name, I wanted it to reflect both his marking and barn name. Since I’m a huge sports fan, I decided to name him after the home stadium of the Texas Rangers.
Keeneland
Her previous owners (Hi Glenn!) registered her with the AWS as Dolly Pardon and called her Dolly for short. Although she is a fairly hefty Clyde/TB cross, she is a girlie, girl so Dolly really suited her for in the barn. Her registered name, however, was not that appealing to me. I knew I wanted to change it, but couldn’t come up with anything that I liked. On the day I had to send in her USEA registration and first event entry, I was still stuck without a name. We had a bunch of babies going to the Keeneland Yearling Sale and their registration forms were on my desk next to Dolly’s USEA registration form. Since Keeneland is my favorite track and is absolutely gorgeous in the spring when the pink dogwoods on the final turn are in bloom, I figured I would temporarily use that as her show name and change it later. Well, seven years later she is still Keeneland.
Others include:
Icando (Oliver) = came with an FEI passport with that name (named after Oliver Wendell Douglas, the main character from the tv show Green Acres)
Whitehill Lad (Peewee) = came with an FEI passport with that name (tongue-in-cheek name for a 17.0 hand, 1500 lb almost pure white Irish Sport Horse)
Vandenberg (Randy) = Last air force base at which my dad was stationed (the name of my coach’s husband)
Annie Hall (Olivia) = combination of her sire’s and dam’s names who are Hall of Fame and Apalachee Anne (means “liver” which suited because I purchased the breeding to Hall of Fame from the COTH Auction for Aiden)
Finding Neverland (Parris) = combination of her sire’s and dam’s names who are Never Bend Better and Keeneland, also after the movie of the same name (the name of a close friend)
Incantation (Bailey) = I was the only one present when she was born and from start to finish it was a magically experience, almost as if someone had cast a spell over the entire night (the name of a dear friend’s mother)