This Racehorse Got a New Name for a Shocking Reason

When it comes to naming racehorses, it should be easy. Owners simply need to pick something that inspires thoughts of speed, agility, and lots of money—not the Führer or The Third Reich.

Yahoo! Sports reports:

The official chart from a 2-year-old maiden race at Horseshoe Indianapolis racetrack on Monday shows a horse named Merrylegs as the winner.

But as the race happened in realtime, the horse had a different and much more controversial name that roiled the sport and exposed, shall we say, some weaknesses in the way thoroughbred names are approved.

The original name was Austrian Painter.

Despite owner Scott Herbertson’s initial denials, it did not take long for commenters on social media to question whether the name was a reference to Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria and had been an artist.

Nein way Herbertson thought that name was sneaky. He all but painted a Hitler stache on that horse.

The article continues:

“I’m not changing the name,” Herbertson wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon, insisting that he had named the horse after the late-1800s/early-1900s artist Gustav Klimt.

A day later, the Jockey Club — the organization that maintains a registry of all American thoroughbreds and is responsible for approving names — released a statement that Austrian Painter’s name had been changed to Merrylegs after a formal complaint initiated a review.

The name “Merrylegs” makes me think of a cute little pony. “Austrian Painter” on the other hand is about to take Europe by storm and commit war crimes.

The change was necessary, but I do wish they had given him a new name with a little more oomph—like Stall’in. I am 100% kidding. Do not do that.

Moving on:  

“The Registrar determined that the name is ineligible under Rule 6.F.9.d, which prohibits names that ‘are likely to be offensive or threatening based upon factors including, but not limited to, color, creed, disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, race, religion, politics or sexual orientation.’ “

Austrian painter is a popular euphemism in some corners of the internet to discuss Hitler while evading censors. Herbertson’s initial explanation did not hold up well when some online sleuths discovered in the Jockey Club’s database that he had submitted backup names to the Jockey Club including My Struggle and Braunau Star.

My Struggle is the English translation of “Mein Kampf,” the political manifesto Hitler wrote while in prison, which outlined the ideology that brought him to power in Germany and presaged his plan to exterminate Jewish people. Braunau is the town in Austria where Hitler was born.

So that rules out the “Gustav Klimt” claim. If Merrylegs comes out for his next race wearing a keffiyeh, we’ll really know where Herbertson stands.