I have a long and a relatively unpronounceable surname (unless you’re reasonably fluent in German) so I learnt at a fairly early age that my horses’ names need to be very easy to read, as commentators often go into a bit of meltdown after trying to cope with my name (even when it is spelled out phonetically, as I tend to do now) and then occasionally somehow lose all ability to read the next few words. This has led to some excruciating moments over the years. Usually they first attempt to read it out when we are a few strides from the first show-jump, and it’s a guaranteed concentration-destroyer. Maybe I need ear-plugs for the show-jumping?!
I bought a nice TB many years ago who was by Goldfella out of Feet First, so, trying to be clever, I called him The Alchemist. Gold… first… seeking to make gold = alchemy. Well, I thought it was clever, and I’d been studying the Ben Jonson play of that name at school, and… oh, okay, I was obviously being a bit of a teenage pseud. Whatever. I liked it. I thought it was quite classy, for a classy sort of horse. Until a commentator stuttered agonisingly over my surname and proceeded to read out the horse’s name as Al The Chemist. That was the my first inkling that trying to come up with really clever names for my horses was a really bad idea…
Then there was the ginormous and hugely scopey Moose, who I was going to call Enormoose, but I thought that was pushing it in the ‘trying to be clever’ stakes, so I settled for “XL”, obviously pronounced “Excel”, which I was quite chuffed with. Yes, short and snappy, double meaning, a little bit clever. It even caught the eye of a top rider who asked me about it when we were warming up for dressage once. Woo hoo. Nearly fame, at last. Nobody can possibly get a name that short wrong, huh? Hmm. Until more than one commentator introduced him as “Eleven”. Some fonts show a capital L as an I, it seems, because nobody ever introduced him as “Forty” (another potential pitfall of it being read as Roman numerals, which I’d never dreamt of.) Oh dear. Stymied again.
So, if you have a nice easy surname which just about anyone who can read could pronounce, go for it with your wild and whacky horse names, but if not, it’s probably worth going easy on the commentators you will no doubt encounter in your eventing career.
My first homebred, “Canoodle”, which I thought would be an easy one, was introduced more than once as “Can Doodle”, at which point I totally gave up trying to be clever… I’ve learnt my lesson, I’ll try to stick to really simple names from now on!
I know the feeling.. My first name is misread 99/100. I’ve been Kirsty, Kristal, kris, Kristina to name but a few and I don’t think it’s THAT hard. My first pony was Fingle and was often called finger!
Had to giggle at al the chemist.. Brilliant!
Ha, ha – not riders, but horses – my horse was Dragonfly’s Just A Minstrel which the commentator mentioned as being a bit of a mouthful to read out while doing his XC comments. Unfortunately my friend, who was the next one out, was riding “Stick at Naught Strider”……I think the commentator may have retired to the beer tent after that 🙂
As another with a hard to pronounce surname mine being with French origins (well I did but then got married which fixed that 😉 ) I feel your pain. The variations I have heard from commentators over the years were amusing to say the least and it became somewhat of a running joke as to which one they would come out with each day. In fact there was only ever one commentator (and BSJA judge) who could pronounce it properly and that was the late great Phillip Billington but that was only because I knew him personally.
Thankfully I got a much shorter and easier name when I got married 🙂
The TB has a silly name, but the grey (Soapy Bubble) always gets a funny comment from the commentator no matter where we are.
The Alchemist is really quite easy, I wonder what that commentator would make of all the French and continental names which are so common now 🙁