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I believe we have had a similar conversation in the past, but cannot find the thread.
The 5.00 at Gowran Park today is the Tetratema Cup Hunters Chase, run over 3m 1f.
Tetratema was one of the greatest sprinters of the 20th Century; although he won the 2,000 Guineas, he failed to stay in both the Derby and Eclipse and wouldn’t have stayed three miles in a horsebox.
What other races are there where the distance or conditions of the race are completely inappropriate for the horse being honoured?
I quite liked the Red Rum chase being over 2 miles on the same day as the National itself. Presumably that’s why they chose the 2 miler. Now like they’ve done in a different way with the National they’ve foregone tradition and now run the Red Rum on a different day altogether.
At least this year’s Tetratema Cup was won by a sprinter (My Best Valentine – 1998 Abbaye winner)!
Le Garcon D’Or who won loads of sprints (34 out of 179 runs) in the 1960s in Scotland and the North of England has a Handicap Hurdle run in his name at Kelso.
At least today’s running of the Prix Bog Frog at Compiègne was staged on very soft ground. (Bog Frog was a pretty decent staying hurdler back in the day).
The Thyestes Chase, over 3 miles and a furlong, is named after a horse who won both his races… over 5F and 6F!
Re:Red Rum Chase Aintree have no respect for tradition as was shown by moving the Aintree Hurdle away from national day despite it being there since it inception and turning its historic winners enclosure into a bar.
Not quite an inappropriate race name, but since the Thyestes Chase has been mentioned…
The original Thyestes was a character in Greek myth who was served human flesh at a banquet. In the 1990s I think, the race was sponsored by Cuisine de France, perhaps not the most appropriate sponsor for it!
If I didn’t know that the Brown Advisory was a horse race, I’d have sworn it’d be a poo test for bowel disease.
Nottingham in October have two maiden races celebrating the 1985 Triple Crown heroine Oh So Sharp (who made her debut at the course over 6F) and runaway 1985 Derby winner Slip Anchor (who won his second race as two year old over 10F at the course).
The Oh So Sharp Maiden Stakes is run over a mile which given that she did win the 1000 Guineas seems on point even though she would go on to win the Oaks over 12F and St Leger over 14F but when it comes to the Slip Anchor Maiden Stakes (and I kid you not) that is a race that is actually run over 5F!
Back to the Thyestes, the race is named after a horse who was a 5 and 6 furlong sprinter as a 2yo, won 2 out of 2 and then got injured and didn’t race again. That said, it wasn’t a direct naming, the Thyestes Trophy was awarded to the winner of a young hunter class at Kilkenny Show and the owner presented it as the trophy for the first running of this race in 1954.
LD – a slight correction: Slip Anchor’s win at Nottingham came over a mile, not ten furlongs.
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