The Jockey Club, the leading sanctioning body in what’s left of the sport of horse racing in the U.S., sent out a clear message Wednesday to anybody thinking of naming their horse after Hitler: Don’t name your horse after Hitler.
The two-year-old colt Austrian Painter made his racing debut Monday with a win in the third race at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Obligatory: He covered the 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.97, and paid $9.00. Afterward, the Jockey Club received objections about the victorious newcomer, but these weren’t the standard post-race protests about a jockey’s obstructing or dangerous ride or a horse’s drug abuse. No, these complaints were about the horse’s name. Because, as reported by ESPN in its Austrian Painter story, “Hitler was born in Austria and was an artist.”
The way they wrote that, I was thinking that Austrian Painter was a kind of horse. “You brought it on yourselves, horse breeders!” Then after a couple of reads, I got that the owner named it that. Of course, I was still doing math on those obligatory numbers to see if any of them were divisible by 88.
I thought the same initially, especially since American Paint Horse is a common enough breed.