Adam:
You know names are a funny thing. I don't know about you but to me the name of some things takes on a whole different feeling depending on what it represents.
I mean look at Pine Valley. If you didn't associate the course with that name it would be one of the most unimaginative names for a golf course one could think of, in my opinion. But because of what it represents (PVGC) it takes on a whole different meaning and feeling to me.
I realized this big-time back around 1972 in the horse world, of all things. Back then I went out for a year or two with one of the daughters of the guy who owned and ran one of the biggest and best thoroughbred breeding (and racing back then) operations in the world.
When I first went to Kentucky to see her, just for fun her Dad gave us a whole list of thoroughbreds to name. It was really fun and a little hard. You basically can't name a thoroughbred the same name as any other one listed in the history of the sport. This gal's father also had a sort of odd requirement for all his own horse's names---eg the name basically had to have just four letters. Not just that but you're supposed to think up a name that sort of captures the names or the gist of the names in both the horse's sire and dame lines.
So it took us a while but we named about a dozen weanlings for him.
And then she asked me to come to the 1972 Kentucky Derby with her. I'd never even been to a horse race. So I fly down there from NY and on race day we're all gathered at Claiborne Farm in Paris Ky. to go to the Derby in Louisville. Mr Hancock introduces me to this lady also from NY who has a horse in the Derby. And she's Mr Hancock's client too. Her dad and Mr. Hancock's dad they say had a lot to do with the basic bloodlines of the modern day American thoroughbred.
Her dad had just died and she was basically going to close down her father's famous horse farm in Maryland to pay death taxes. Mr Hancock convinced her to run this little horse in the Kentucky Derby and give her dad's farm one last shot before shutting down forever. I can't remember the name of her dad's farm in Maryland now but it was a famous operation because of Mr Chenery, her dad. But the farm had never won any of the super prestigious stakes races like the Kentucky Derby, Preakness or Belmont.
So when Mr Hancock introduces me to her I told her I didn't know anything at all about horse racing and I asked her the name of her horse in the Derby.
She said it was called Riva Ridge. Adam, I never said anything but I thought that was the oddest or dumbest name for a racehorse I'd ever heard. Riva Ridge?! I thought what the hell does that mean---what a name for a thoroughbred racehorse.
So off to the Derby we all go and we're all in Mr Hancock's box that sits right on top of the wire (finish line) his farm is so old and famous. Riva's owner, Mrs Tweedie from NY is sitting in a folding chair just off my right elbow and slightly behind me.
We all have some mint juleps (actually my mint julep glass from that Derby is right behind me on the shelf) and mill around for a while and then the horses come out and the band plays and everyone in the whole place sings "My Old Kentucky Home". I look at my girlfriend and she has tears streaming down her face.
The horses all sort off walk backwards into the end of the backstretch, turn around and walk slowly back and get loaded from the inside out into the gate and about two seconds after the last one is loaded REEEAAANG, BAANG, the gates snap open and this charge comes at you and right under the wire (I'll never forget how surprised I was how thundering they sound when they go right by you and almost under you) and around into the first turn.
If you've never been to a horse race it's pretty hard to pick out any horse you might want to follow but I knew that Riva Ridge had those big blue and white checks of the Chenery farm.
The din in that place was beyond belief and when the horses hit the top of the stretch everyone was on their feet hollering at the top of their lungs. I think I can remember seeing Riva Ridge take the lead with maybe a furlong to go and under the wire right below us he sweeps to win the Kentucky Derby.
I'll never forget looking around at it all and it seemed like in five seconds the entire world was looking right at this lady right off my right elbow and a bit behind me.
After that I decided I'd never go to another horse race because it could never top that experience, and I've never been to another one.
Riva Ridge lost the Preakness but he went on to win the Belmont Stakes. Mrs Tweedie, who'd come within about a gnat's whisker of shutting down her father's famous Maryland horse operation was back in business.
After that the name Riva Ridge didn't sound so odd or dumb to me any more and it never will again. Just the sound of it took on a whole new feeling because of the racehorse the name represented.
Maybe a couple of years before the Chenery operation bred to the greatest American sire, Bold Ruler, (now there's a name that sounds really good and really strong to me because of just the sound of the words alone) who belonged to NY's Ogden Phipps and stood at Mr Hancock's Claiborne Farm. Mr Phipps apparently had some novel breeding deal where oft times there were two horses (two breedings) involved with Bold Ruler. Anyway the way they'd decide was on a coin toss and whoever won the toss would get first choice of the two weanlings.
This particular year, obviously 1970, Mr Phipps wins the coin toss with the Chenery Farm. There was a filly and a colt. For some reason Mr Phipps wanted that filly or he thought he had to have it for some reason. So the Chenery Farm loses the coin toss and has to settle for this reddish colt who turns out to be----you guessed it---arguably the greatest thoroughbred racehorse ever, the otherworldly SECRETARIAT!!
Adam, I'll never forget the first time I heard his name. I thought to myself---what is the matter with these people---don't they have any idea how to give their horses a name that sounds good or sounds great? To me Secretariat sounded sort of like some old diplomatic outpost somewhere in the middle of Africa---about the last kind of sounding name anyone would want to name a thoroughbred race horse.
That was in 1973 and the rest is history. SECRETARIAT went storming through his 3 year old year like a massive freight train not only winning the Triple Crown and just about everything else but setting track records in each one of the TC races including a record in the Belmont that'll probably never be touched as it crossed the finish line 31 LENGTHS in front of the 2nd place horse.
After that SECRETARIAT didn't sound odd to me any more. It sounded big and powerful and all conquering, like the horse it represented.
In the spring of 1972 Penny Tweedie was within a gnat's whisker of shutting down forever the famous old racing farm of her dad that although famous had never won a super stakes race. Mr Hancock just convinced her to give it one last shot in one race with Riva Ridge and looked what immediately followed.
By the fall of 1973, in two racing seasons Mrs Tweedie had won 5 out or 6 of the Triple Crown and was back in business BIG TIME!
There's one last little addendum to this horseracing story also involving a name. Remember I told you Mr. Hancock always named his own racehorses with only four letters?
Well, Mr Hancock had a really good two-year-old horse of his own in 1972, the three-year-old year of Riva Ridge. Its name was Sham. I thought that was kinda weird too but not that bad. Mr Hancock died in the summer 1972 but his Sham did OK in his two-year-old year despite being the same age and up against two-year-old Champion SECRETARIAT.
Claiborne sold all Mr Hancock's racing stock at a big private sale at Belmont that I went to. Mr Hancock's very best horse, Sham, at that sale was bought by Sigmund Sommer of NY.
In the Kentucky Derby of 1973 Sham ran a gallant second to SECRETARIAT. In the Preakness he ran a gallant second to SECRETARIAT again. In the last leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, he was hanging just 2nd to SECRETARIAT at the end of the back stretch when suddenly Ron Turcotte let him go and SECRETARIAT put the hammer down like nobody ever saw before and took off to win by 31 lengths as well as running a final furlong in a mile and a half race with no competition within sight that the racing world still can't believe.
Unfortunately, when SECRETARIAT shot away from Sham, he stumbled and broke down and that was the end of his career. I saw Riva Ridge and SECRETARIAT's great trainer Lucien Lauren again at some point and he said horses have feelings and what you saw with Mr Hancock's Sham is an otherwise great horse who may've won the Triple Crown himself if he hadn't been up against SECRETARIAT get beat one too many times by the same horse. He said after racing against each other for two seasons, SECRETARIAT, with that Belmont stretch move finally broke Sham's heart at the end of Belmont's backstretch and broke the horse down.
Pine Valley, Riva Ridge, SECRETARIAT and Sham----names on their own that sounded terrible to me as just words but when you put those names with what they represent those names take on a whole different meaning to me. How about you?