- This topic has 48 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Would depend on the age of the person and if you actually asked them to name a horse themselves or if you said a name and asked if they knew the name.
I would imagine Red Rum, Dessie, Shergar & Frankel are the most likely as they managed to get off the back sporting pages.
Maybe a very outside chance of Minella Times simply because of his association with Rachael Blackmore being the first woman to win the National on him (although most likely they wouldn’t remember the actual horse’s name).
Minella Times was another on my shortlist LD73. Being a recent National winner and the Rachael Blackmore connection are both decent claims to current fame.
I think I have Arkle a bit too high on my initial list. He was so long ago, and I have probably been overly influenced by his revered place within the sport.
Agree with LD that people are far more likely to know Rachael Blackmore than Minella Times. One of those horses who suffers from Boring Name Syndrome.
Al Boum Photo is President of that association. I genuinely believe that horse – a two time Gold Cup winner – would be far better known if he had been blessed with a name people liked, such as Best Mate.
Racing’s profile has been so diminished that few of the modern era would qualify, even Frankel and Sea the Stars.
Red Rum
Desert Orchid
Arkle
Nijinsky; the name conjures. The point about Al Boum Photo is well made, CAS), and compounded by only seeing him 3 times per year.Red Rum, Shergar, and as John Hanmer might have said, there’s an awful long gap to anything else. Possibly Dessie, Tiger Roll.
I don’t think Frankel would register with any of my friends. Enable might as well be Unable. Arkle, Nijinsky and possibly Mill Reef may have had a decent shelf life but probably falling into oblivion now.Excuse me being parochial, but Arkle would still be well-remembered in Ireland. Perhaps he was a symbol; Ireland up to the 60s was deprived and dominated by the church, and Arkle was the first sign that the times they were a-changing.
Just did a quick vox-pop with a few friends who are sporty; the only names that registered were Red Rum, Shergar and Arkle.I think with Arkle in Ireland it is a whole different conversation/level because the general public in Ireland are much more horse orientated in general than we are over here and Arkle pretty much eclipsed everything in the country.
The real shame is that Flyingbolt isn’t as well remember/revered by the actual racing fans because quite frankly if you look at what they both accomplished he was arguably the better horse (definitely the more versatile) at their peaks….he won the QMCC and then 24 hrs later finshed 3rd in the Champion Hurdle!
The most telling comparison is when they both won their Irish Nationals, Arkle (fresh of his 1st Gold Cup) carried 12st whilst Flyingbolt (of the aforementioned two Cheltenham runs) carried 12st 7lbs – both happened to beat the same horse (Height of Fashion) – Arkle beat her 1.25L giving her 30 lbs whilst Flyingbolt beat her 2L giving her 40 lbs!
Racing question in tonight’s pub quiz. Answer was Tiger Roll. Nobody on my team had heard of him (apart from me). All had heard of Red Rum and Desert Orchid. One also knew Nijinsky and Arkle. They are all around my age and all have a bet in the Grand National every year (albeit usually their only bet of the year). Still didn’t remember the horse who won it twice within the last 5 years though.
I’m old enough to remember watching Flyingbolt; 2 mile champion by a distance, a close 3rd in The Champion hurdle, and then the Irish National, which I think was 3 miles, six furlongs at that time. Phenomenal!
“Stateside, it might be Secretariat back in the day and now Flightline if he got a lot of mainstream news coverage out there.”
Nobody outside the racing world has heard of Flightline, he got zero mainstream coverage.
If you asked someone in the US to name a racehorse, any racehorse, they’d likely say Secretariat or Seabiscuit. But in terms of name recognition (as in, you give them a name and they say “oh yeah, I know that horse”) it’d be, in descending order:
Secretariat
Seabiscuit
American Pharoah
Man O’War
Barbaro
Whoever won the most recent Kentucky Derby (this recognition diminishes over the course of the year)
Mine That Bird
Ruffian
ZenyattaSome horses are more regionally famous: Funny Cide in New York, Smarty Jones in Pennsylvania, Zippy Chippy (infamous in the early 2000s for losing 100 races) in New England, the harness racehorse Dan Patch in Minnesota.
Red Rum might get some head nods, he’d be the only jumper or non-American horse that caught any sort of fame here.
So Secretariat, Seabiscuit and, for a British horse, maybe Red Rum.
Sounds about right tbh.
And I’d disagree with those who think Desert Orchid is that well known outside of racing.
How many times was he on Sports Personality Of The Year?
How many times was he kidnapped?
Because that’s what it takes and even those names are fading over time.
Time’s a killer – I bet more young Irish people than you might imagine have never heard of Arkle.
Racing has a lower global profile than many who love racing realise.
Even many tanked up casual Saturday day out racegoers couldn’t tell you the name of any of the horses they saw by the Monday morning.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I asked my wife last night. We have been together 25 years and she has no interest in racing but I thought she might have retained some names given the amount of time it is on the tv in our house or I talk about it to my Dad or friends still in the game.
She came up with Arkle and Frankel. To be honest I think she remembered Arkle from Only Connect last week.
Flip this on its head, take a sport you don’t know about and see how many names you can come up with.
I watch all sorts of sports and could name dozens of players from most without even thinking, but for some reason I’ve never had an interest in rugby league (which is fairly mainstream at least in parts of the country), and I’m struggling to get to double figures. Take out players I know who have crossed over to/from rugby union, which I do know about, and I’ve got no chance.
If you don’t know, you don’t know. I saw a few RL World Cup games on TV recently but like the tanked up crowd at a Saturday race meeting did not retain the knowledge.
I’ve just conducted my own research, with my two colleagues this morning. Both are around 60 years old.
They both said Red Rum immediately, and one came up with Nijinsky. That was it.
Nijinsky got a mention on a episode of Only fools and horses
even Rodney thought he was a ballet dancerBlackbeard to conquer the World
“Both are around 60 years old.”
And they were from my generation.
Ask the “before my time” brigade and you’ve two hopes, Bob Hope and no hope.
And no, they won’t have heard of Bob either.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I have come across two work colleagues, both forties, who claim to be racing fans but looked nonplussed when you mention Nijinsky – it is the equivalent of someone saying they are footy fans but who have never heard of Eusebio or Puskas. They are also not familiar with Kieren Fallon – unbelievable.
I call these the ‘ Rooster Booster brigade’ after that survey the RP conducted around ten years back asking for readers to nominate who they thought was the best Champion Hurdle winner and shockingly Rooster came out top.
I can guarantee that those who got hooked in the 70’s if faced with a similar survey would have been enthusiastic enough to have gone back down the years and put the likes of Sir Ken, Hatton’s Grace and Persian War under consideration, besides those greats of that then present decade.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.