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.”

  • CombatWombat@feddit.onlineOP
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    3 days ago

    How is this dude not fully banned from everything ever

    It’s a pattern for Herbertson. He had submitted other names to the Jockey Club for Austrian Painter, including “My Struggle” and “Braunau Star.” The former is the English translation for Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf, which he wrote while in prison; the latter seems to be a reference to Hitler’s birthplace Braunau am Inn, although Herbertson claimed it was referencing the birthplace of his wife’s grandfather. He also said “Austrian Painter” was a reference to Gustav Klimt.

  • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    You know when there’s a guy who won’t quit talking about how much of a Nazi he is a good solution is for everyone to just beat the living shit out of him. Have they tried that?

    • modus@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I dunno. Reading about him now. Did he actually even kill anyone? You guys have clearly never experienced rejection before, let alone from an art school. It’s pretty traumatic. Having a horse named to tell your story is a pretty decent honor.

      Edit: reading a little further now… Ok, Yeah, he was one of the baddies. Sorry.

  • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Registered horse names are so fucking stupid aside from the one racehorse I know named Five. That’s his whole registered name which is so short and honestly hilarious. Oh! Potoooooooo is also great.

  • moondoggie@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.

    • egrets@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I thought the same initially, especially since American Paint Horse is a common enough breed.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      In the state of California, the handles and starts are down over 55% in the last 26 years with an average of -3.4% YOY. The industry also kills an average of 1.5 horses per week for the last 6 years, just at the tracks in California alone.

      I’m intentionally leaving out the 2019 fatalities, as that year would push the average above 2.25 horses dead per week, and was a bit of an outlier.

      Basically, the industry is dying, and the tracks are more valuable as developable land.

      #KillRacingNotHorses

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Seems like horse racing is getting less and less popular over time. Most racetracks I know of near me have slots and other gaming machines in them now, and I bet the slots subsidize the horse racing.

      • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        Ah, makes sense.

        At the same time, the actual owning and racing of horses seems like mostly a rich peoples’ sport, so I wonder how that’s working for them…

          • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            Wasn’t that a… outdated breakfast-cereal, or something?

            (good luck if there’s a whole economy based around that disaster, lol)

            • zarathustrad@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Fun facts: (AKA explain the joke, making it less funny to some, but more funny to me)

              Special K is also slang for ketamine, a drug popular with some high profile oligarchs and other elites.

              So the “K” in K-shaped economy (wealth divergence) and the “K” in Special K (ketamine) land on the same social group *the ultra-wealthy on the top arm of the K * making the letter a convenient pun for commentary on inequality and privilege.