What’s in a name?

Sep 17, 2018 Jennifer Caldwell/Brisnet.com

In 1780, Sir Charles Bunbury and the 12th Earl of Derby flipped a coin. Heads for Derby, tails for Bunbury.

Heads faced up when the coin landed.

And that, or so the tale goes, is how England’s iconic race came to be known as the Derby Stakes and not the Bunbury Stakes.

Fast forward more than two centuries and today we celebrate the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, on the first Saturday in May instead of the Kentucky Bunbury.

This is but one example of how important a name is to a race. But it is also a bit of an anomaly. Racing is well known for naming – and renaming – stakes based on prominent people and historic horses.

Case in point, the upcoming American Pharoah Stakes (G1) on September 29 at Santa Anita Park.

Everyone knows who American Pharaoh is; the charismatic bay colt who swept the famed Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. If anyone deserves to have a race named in his honor, it’s the Bob Baffert trainee.

So Santa Anita Park officials took the FrontRunner Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile Grade 1 contest for juveniles, and renamed it the American Pharoah Stakes.

However, the race had only been called the FrontRunner since 2012; before that it was known as the Norfolk Stakes. That contest, along with the other fall meet stakes run at the Arcadia, California, track, underwent renaming in 2012. Among the changes, the Lady’s Secret was renamed the Zenyatta Stakes (she did win it three years in a row).

But Santa Anita stakes are not the only ones to undergo an identity crisis. Fair Grounds celebrated one of the greatest champions to step foot on its grounds by changing the name of one of its three-year-old filly prep races leading to the Kentucky Oaks (G1).

What began life as the Davona Dale Stakes in 1982 was changed to the Silverbulletday Stakes in 2001. Nine years later, its moniker changed to Rachel Alexandra, the filly who holds the record for the longest winning margin at Churchill Downs after taking the 2009 Kentucky Oaks by 20 1/4 lengths.

But that’s not to say all race names are changed based on the popular horses of the time. For instance, the Man o’ War Stakes at Belmont Park has been around, under that designation, since 1959. Same goes for Arlington Park’s Secretariat Stakes, which was launched under the 1973 Triple Crown winner’s name in 1974 and remains so to this day.

American Pharaoh deserves to have his name attached to a major event at his hometrack.

The countdown is now on for when a race will be christened Justify.