2017 Kentucky Derby Horse Names Review

The Kentucky Derby is a grand sporting tradition dating back to 1875, when confused Hermeticist Kenneth Tuckyderby misinterpreted the prisca theologia and decided it necessary to periodically have horses run around in a circle to “wind up” the heavens and keep the universe in motion. He was never corrected by other members of his faith because they all really liked the hats they got to wear to the annual “Winding of the Celestial Clock” ceremony.

Tuckyderby died in 1891 while attempting to alchemize cadmium into hand cream in a poorly ventilated bathroom, but his legacy lives on. The Kentucky Derby has transcended Hermetic culture and achieved widespread acceptance, owing mostly to the hats, but also to the names breeders give their horses.

Below are the names of the 2017 Kentucky Derby contestants.

Irap

Either this is a miscapitalized nickname for a knockoff breakfast chain called International Residence Admitting Pancakes, or someone didn’t mind their p’s and q’s when naming an animal “Iraq.”

Score for IRAP: C-

Score for Irap: F





Gunnevera

If your firearm spends too much time in the sun and ends up getting burned, rub some gunnevera on the affected area. Gunnevera: It’s Aloe Vera for Guns! F



Tapwrit

If you guessed “tapwrit” was the past tense of “typewrite,” congratulations! (You’re wrong, but it feels like you should be right, and that’s kinda good enough these days.)

I could also see some post-apocalyptic sci-fi wherein technology has to be rediscovered; meanwhile, English spelling has lost conventions like a North Carolina expo center. In this bleak world, “tapwrit” is a decent new name for a typewriter, but it’s still a shitty name for anything that either exists now or is alive ever. D-

Classic Empire

I don’t know about you, but when I think of ancient Greece, Rome, the Mongol Empire, or even the Xiongnu, I think of a horse running around in a circle for no practical reason. C

Always Dreaming

This horse is the plot twist in about 10,000 movies. I guess “Dead All Along” and “Turns Out They Were Family” were already taken. C

Irish War Cry

Why use an actual Irish war cry to name something when you could just name it “Irish War Cry”? Likewise, if you want to name your son after your granddad, just name him “After Your Granddad.” D

Gormly

People with the surname Gormly: Don’t read this.

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Everyone else: “Gormly”? GORMLY. Say it aloud: Gormly. This is one of the worst words I’ve ever heard. This is the dwarven character in a fantasy novel you’re supposed to despise. It’s a curse a gypsy puts on you that makes your skin look like a fleshy Koosh ball. It’s a kind of porridge made of maggots and possum cum.

Gormly is pretty much the worst combination of syllables ever to exist. Z

(If anyone named Gormly did read this: You are beautiful and I would like to have your children.)





Practical Joke

Picture it: The race is about to begin. Tension is high in the starting gates; the jockeys are waiting for the bell with the taut anticipation of a dog watching a person grill bratwurst. It’s painfully still for what seems like eternity, but suddenly—THEY’RE OFF!

Heartbeats quicken and mint juleps are spilled as hooves drum on the track like golf ball-sized hail pummeling the roof of a Ford Aerostar. The competition is fever-pitched as the racers fight to solve for R in R=D/T.

Except for one guy. One jockey is still in the starting gate, utterly nonplussed. Why won’t his horse move? I’ll tell you why, bucko: That isn’t a horse. It’s a near-perfect animatronic replica of a horse, and I’ve got the remote control. Suck on that! C+





Battalion Runner

Well, they’re half-right. This creature is 100% runner, but 0% battalion. Normally, a 50% score gets you an F, but in the world of Kentucky Derby names, it’s a solid B.

Malagacy

Sometimes it’s hard to be an internet horse name critic. It can be a tough job. Most people don’t realize this, though, because

1. It isn’t a job, and

2. It isn’t really that tough.

But when you’re given a name like “Malagacy,” which I’m not even sure how to pronounce, things get tricky. I assume it sounds like “Mal legacy,” which could mean it’s what a bad person leaves behind after they die, or it could be Justine Bateman’s legacy as a TV character. I don’t know. All I do know is that “Malagacy” seems like a rejected name for a character in Krull.

Don’t even watch the Kentucky Derby. Just watch Krull. D-

Lookin At Lee

“Why pay for Levi’s when Lee is arguably the better brand?” the horse. C+

Battle of Midway

This horse is going to turn 75 next month, which means it’s currently 71 years too old to run in the Kentucky Derby. In the late ‘80s, this would’ve easily been a greenlit premise for a comedy starring George Burns as the voice of the horse. It would suck, but I’d still watch it once, probably. B

Hence

If we have to name animals, we might as well name them after adverbs. B+

(Why isn’t Krull on Netflix?)

J Boys Echo

I don’t know what j boys are, and I don’t know what makes them more resonant than other boys, but they do appear to be edible. D

Fast and Accurate

“So! What do you want to name this horse?”

“Well, I definitely want it to sound fast.”

“I’ve got it! We’ll name it ‘Fast.’”

“Hold on. There’s more.”

“…Ok…”

“I want it to sound accurate, too. Like a rifle.”

“Accuracy isn’t really an important attribute for race—“

“This horse needs to sound like it can fell a moose at 400 yards.”

“Not a lot of moose in Kentucky, sir.”

“And we’re gonna keep it that way.”

…I don’t even care about the name; I just liked writing that skit. A-

McCraken

Everyone knows this horse’s first name is Phil, but that’s boring.

Instead, this is the son of the Kraken. It looks like this:

B+

Thunder Snow

Lightning creates thunder, and thunder shakes the snow out of the clouds. That’s just science. B-

Girvin

If I were going to make a character who was a combination of pocket protector-nerd and caveman, I’d name him Girvin. Funny thing is, Caveman Games already made that character, but called him Vincent. I’m giving preference to Girvin, though, because it sounds a bit like “give in,” and I love a quitter. C+

Untrapped

This is the only contestant in the race that chooses to live in a barn that reeks of shit. Presumably it even pays rent and supplies its own blinders. D

State of Honor

“State of Honor” is exactly the kind of banal appellation one presupposes from a possessor of equine sprinters.

There. The only thing more tedious than the first three words of that sentence are the last ten. D-

(I don’t actually even want to watch Krull, but it seems like something I should be able to do at will in this, the futuristic year of 2017.)

Patch

You might think this guy was named “Patch” because he only has one eye, but in fact, it’s because of his lifelong nicotine addiction. Dude was up to 6 patches a day. Ended up injecting vape juice directly into his eyeball and went berserk. He tried to take a cop’s gun, but then realized he had no thumbs and smacked himself in the face so hard his eye fell out. Seems to happen somewhere every year. C+

Sonneteer

If a musketeer fires muskets, and a rocketeer fires rockets, it stands to reason that a sonneteer sets fire to sonnets.



(And THAT’S how you get out of writing a poem, my friends.) B