What's In a Name | Horse Racing Free Tips

What’s In a Name: Amniarix

6th-Wolverhampton, £20,000, Cond, 1-4, 4yo/up, f/m, 7f 36y (AWT), 1:26.70, st.
AMNIARIX (f, 4, Speightstown–Bold Lass {Ire}, by Sea the Stars {Ire}) Lifetime Record: 5-3-0-1, $29,465. O/B-Bjorn Nielsen (KY); T-Ed Walker.

The recent Wolverhampton female winner Amniarix is out of a mare named Bold Lass and her namesake was indeed a very brave young woman. Amniarix was the spy codename of Jeannie Rousseau (1919-2017), who was not only a hero of the French Resistance but also an uncompromising survivor of three German prison camps. Jeannie’s command of the German language was apparently perfect and she had access to Nazi war planners as part of her work for a French company in occupied Paris. Her reports to British spymaster R V Jones were remarkable for their quality and led to the famous August 1943 raid on Peenemunde, where the Germans were developing the V-2 missile-bombs. Jeanie was arrested by the Germans in April 1944, just a few weeks before D-Day and the Normandy landings; she was only 25 years of age. Her captivity took her to the camps of Ravensbruck, Torgau, Konigsberg, and to Ravensbruck again–in a truly horrific war odyssey. When the Swedish Red Cross rescued her from Ravensbruck at the end of the war, she weighed only 31kg (70lbs). Spy chief R V Jones was not the only one to think highly of Amniarix/Jeannie Rousseau (he called her “one of the most remarkable young women of her generation”): the CIA awarded her the Seal Medallion in 1993, under Director R James Woolsey. This legendary spy was also modest: she did not talk much with reporters and historians, and her incredible story is not that well known. Therefore, credit is to be given to whoever gave this historic name to this tenacious US-bred 4-year-old filly, whose persistence, by the way, won her the race after having been hampered at the start.

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What’s In a Name: Gervais

Kudos to whoever was creative and subtle enough to name GERVAIS a horse by DISTORTED HUMOR. The winner of a handicap race at Meydan last week has just that almost risqué name. English actor Ricky Gervais is the creator of The Office, a TV program that stretched the borders of mainstream humor in the UK and in the US. Moreover, Ricky Gervais has presented the Golden Globes five times, always under the threat of being fired because of his outrageous sense of humor and his cutting, take-no-prisoner jokes. With Gervais live at the microphone, everybody knows that everything is possible. Gervais’s closing refrain “I don’t care, I don’t care” – sounds funnier than it reads… – is the manifesto of a comedy that is both old (British) and new (the sky is the limit).

Gervais, g, 6, Distorted Humor–Ruth E, by A.P. Indy. Meydan, 12-3, Hcp. (AED82.5k), 1600m, 1:38.87. O-Jumaa Mubarak Al Junaibi. B-Darley (KY). T-Ali Rashid Al Rayhi. *£30,000 HRA ’17 GODSEP. **1/2 to Ruthless Quality (Elusive Quality), SW-US, $190,620.

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What’s In a Name: Incitato

Mad Roman Emperor Caligula tried to make his favorite horse INCITATUS a consul, according to legend–and the accounts of maybe partisan historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio.

Clearly aware of this spectacular milestone of executive overreach, Dante Zanelli’s wife Yolanda Del Rosario gave the Italian version of the name–INCITATO–to the colt by GOLDENCENTS out ZABEEL SARAY (by GIROLAMO) her husband bought at Fasig Tipton as a yearling last October. INCITATO, whose literal translation would be “incited” or “spurred”, won his maiden spectacularly in Peru in October and now goes for a Grade 2 on Saturday. Let’s hope this tenacious colt with a powerful closing style creates his own legend.

IN PERU: Incitato, c, 2, Goldencents–Zabeel Saray, by Girolamo. Monterrico, 10-17, Maiden, 1900mT. B-Columbiana Farm LLC (KY). *$7,000 Ylg ’19 FTKOCT.

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What’s In a Name: Omnia Munda Mundis

3rd-Fontainebleau, €22,000, Mdn, 11-12, unraced 2yo, f, 9fT, 1:58.95, sf.
OMNIA MUNDA MUNDIS (GB) (f, 2, Australia {GB}–Regina Mundi {Ire} {SP-Ity}, by Montjeu {Ire}) Sales history: €190,000 Ylg ’19 ARAUG. Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, €11,000. Video, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton. 1ST-TIME STARTER.
O/B-San Paolo Agri-Stud SRL (GB); T-Fabrice Chappet.

Omnia Munda Mundis could be translated from Latin as “everything is pure to the pure.”

The expression comes apparently from a letter of St Paul, but has been made sort of famous by a remarkable scene in Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi, probably Italy’s greatest novel. In the episode in question, a God-fearing friar reprimands his fellow clergyman Brother Christopher for arriving in his convent in the middle of the night with two women who are trying to escape the predatory clutches of Don Rodrigo, the baddie of the story. The sanctimonious friar’s reprimand is along the lines of “What will the people think of this?”.

“Omnia Munda Mundis”, the sudden riposte from hero of the novel and purity personified Brother Christopher, shuts up the petty pedant for good. Three brilliant little words, and a brilliant name for this tenacious 2-year-old winning filly by Australia and Regina Mundi (assonance with her daughter’s name, but Latin for “Queen of the World”). Congrats.

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