Photo by Eric Swinebroad.
Since I was in fifth grade, I’ve kept a list of horse names that I’ve collected over the years. Intended originally for the hundreds of racehorses I would co-own with my trainer/breeder husband while I piloted them to victory (thanks, Thoroughbred series), it eventually just morphed into a brainstorming starter for the horses I eventually would own.
I’ve only officially been able to use this list once for the purpose I created it, and I’m currently on track to use it a second time. Like many others out there, I am generally on a tight budget when I get to horse shop. This means I’m pretty focused on acquiring a Thoroughbred, as that is what best fits my wallet.
The first time I shopped, I ended up purchasing a horse named Aiken Pike after the street in Lexington on which he was born. It was fine, but boring. I instantly re-christened him with a new show name and barn name that tied cleverly together, and never gave it another thought.
The second time, well … I haven’t finished shopping yet. But I have looked at some horses with some pretty terrible names but pretty lovely bones, and I’d hate to think that others might walk away from a lovely prospect because they couldn’t afford the fee to change a horrible name.
Why Re-Naming Thoroughbreds Is Not a Non-Issue
The breeders and sellers who are in favor of the FEI’s new $1,000 penalty to change a name seem to be ignoring the quandary of the OTTB owners. They claim that this policy will provide clarity and ensure that the horse’s past is preserved, making it difficult to erase show records through name changes.
When confronted directly regarding the OTTB issue, many of these sporthorse breeders and sellers claim that Thoroughbreds rarely come with papers anyways, so you can feel free to name them whatever you want. This is completely incorrect.
Just because a Thoroughbred doesn’t come with papers doesn’t mean that horse doesn’t have papers. The majority of Thoroughbreds in the U.S. do have papers, regardless of whether or not they are transferred to a new owner. The FEI doesn’t care if you have those papers in hand or not, but they want the name to match those papers regardless. Otherwise, according to the FEI, the fine applies.
Some have suggested that we can just claim the horses were unregistered. Aside from being dishonest, this could be easily disproven using sites like Equineline, Equibase or Pedigree Query, and certainly the FEI knows that most American Thoroughbreds have Jockey Club papers. So after we go through with this charade, we must hope the FEI decides not to crack down on this practice and fine us (or worse) in retrospect.
Let’s talk about the implications of pretending our Thoroughbred is unregistered.
Both the horse registration and life recording forms for the USEF require you to input registered (in this case, the Jockey Club) name of the horse, sire and dam, as well as breed. In order to pretend a horse was not previously registered, I would need to intentionally leave the registered name blank, and additionally also leave sire, and dam blank to avoid being tracked down through the aforementioned databases. Even inputting Thoroughbred as a breed could be a red flag for the FEI, as the majority of them in America do have registration.
So all of a sudden, I’ve erased my horse’s past and made it impossible to track. Isn’t that what we are trying to prevent?
Why the Practice of Name Changing Will Continue
There’s a disconnect about what group of people this fine will actually deter from name changing. The riders and owners who are buying horses from overseas or purpose-bred horses probably have deeper pockets and can afford to change the name despite the steep fee. They’ll complain (as they rightly should, in my opinion), but they will still fork over the money rather than keep the original name if they don’t like it. Some of the sourcers have already stated that they are likely to pay the fee rather than lose the prefix, and ultimately the cost of that would be passed onto the buyer in the price of the horse.
Unfortunately, the group of people who can’t afford it are most likely to be those who are sourcing off-track Thoroughbreds to produce up the levels. Many of these people are young up-and-coming pros, kids looking for a young rider prospect on a budget, amateurs who can only afford one or two horses. A lot of these people have a tight budget, and paying a fine that costs as much as the horse’s purchase price isn’t in the cards. These are the people who will simply be stuck with whatever Jockey Club name the horse originally has.
As we all know, Thoroughbreds can have some of the absolute worst names. Rarely is there any prefix from the breeder included, nor are the breeders gaining any sort of financial advantage by keeping the birth name throughout the life of the horse. So protecting the breeder in the case of Thoroughbreds is a red herring.
Ultimately, the buyers of the warmbloods, imports and purpose-breds will generally continue to change the names while paying the fee. This won’t make the RF, FE, Fernhill, Clifton or Cooley prefixes go away. It will just increase the number of names like Bimbo Collect, Anna’s My Mom, or Decend to Xanadu (all actual Jockey Club names of horses owned by EN readers). And yes, Decend to Xanadu is spelled incorrectly. Do we really think it’s that out of line to allow these horses a new name?
Why the Rule Could be Better Written — And Applied
So, what appears to be the purpose of this fine?
The first reason seems to be to clarify the identity of the horse throughout its past, and ensure that the competition record stays preserved throughout its life. Well, the FEI already does that. Search a horse by their current name in their database and all of their previous FEI show records appear, regardless of what name the horse was showing under at the time. Ta da! Problem solved.
What about a horse who has his name changed four times before he is 6? Well, this fine does nothing to solve that issue unless the owner is actually applying for a passport, at which time the horse would be forced to revert back to the birth name. Or, the owner could just pay $1,000 and change the name. Again. Registering a different name, or even changing it once or twice with the USEA, USDF or USHJA doesn’t trigger the FEI fine. So that practice will continue anyways.
The second reason seems to be to curtail the use of commercial prefixes in horse names. The breeder exception appears not to necessarily be to protect the breeder prefix from confusion with a sourcer prefix, but to differentiate exactly at what point a prefix is deemed ‘non-commercial’ or non-profitable.
At this point we need to discuss what exactly constitutes a commercial prefix. There are two types of commercial prefixes; those provided by companies looking to seek exposure, like fischer, Revitavet or Fleeceworks. There are also commercial prefixes given to horses that have been sourced by certain individuals, such as Fernhill, Cooley or RF. Many of the sourcers have relied on the continuation of their prefix to build their business, essentially creating a brand, and some have even gone as far as writing financial penalties into the sales contract should the prefix ever be dropped.
It has been pointed out that with the rise of sponsorship of championships and arenas and venues, the FEI may have been concerned about competing sponsors with prefixes promoting their brands in the names of horses. The commercial fine may have initially been designed to curb the use of companies including their name in a horse’s name to prevent a situation in which a horse with a Rolex prefix competes in an event sponsored by Longines, for example.
I’m not quite sure why the breeders can be exempt from the prefix fine and the sourcers can’t. Both situations use the prefix to promote themselves, either their breeding abilities or horse-finding abilities. Many breeders are chiming in that there is confusion due to the prefixes because people believe that the prefixes always indicates who bred the horse. To me, that is a matter of educating buyers as to the difference between breeders and sourcers, and not a matter for the FEI to take up.
As stated before, the sourcers will continue to use their prefix, but will unfortunately simply have a financial penalty to do so; the confusion will remain. The breeders also claim frustration when a name is changed to drop the breeder prefix, but they are as equally able to preserve their prefix through the sales contract as a sourcer.
Ultimately, the $1,000 fine is poorly written and poorly applied; Thoroughbred names in particular appeared to have been an afterthought, if that. The fine is large enough to deter people from changing the names on a large group of horses that generally have particularly terrible monikers, and no real advantage to keeping their racing identity. But the fine isn’t large enough to really deter name-changing on the group it apparently targets.
What’s the Best Solution?
The best solution could be to allow one name change from the birth name without incurring any fine. Attempting to change it a second time could incur an even larger fine, which might actually deter even those with deep pockets. This would let people like the Thoroughbred owners drop the truly heinous names, but rein in the practice of re-naming a horse four times.
The sourcers’ prefix should be differentiated from a commercial prefix, with the commercial prefix requiring the fine as it is. The sourcers’ prefix should be permitted either in the one name change clause or perhaps as a one-time licensing fee.
If the breeders’ prefix really needs to have special treatment, the FEI could make the fine applicable only if the horse’s birth name contained a breeder prefix and was altered to exclude the breeder prefix. Everyone could be best served if the breeders imitated the sourcers and included a similar clause in their sales contract prohibiting the removal of the prefix without a heavy financial penalty.
The FEI and all of the National Federations should include the birth name and previous competition name in their database searches. This is no different than the current capability of searching for a horse by sire name.
Better solutions could be found.
