The interesting story of "Patoooooooo"

in #sportstalk4 years ago

What on earth is that? Right? Well as it turns out "Patoooooooo" is a thoroughbred racehorse from the late 18th century that was owned (as race horses tend to be) by a very wealthy man whose name was Willoughby Bertie. This man was so rich in fact that he dedicated his time to be a patron of the arts, which is something you really only do if you have a life of great luxury and opulence.

Patoooooooo's real name was "Potatoes" and he was a champion race horse that managed to win between 28 and 34 (the records are unclear as you would expect from something that old) out of a mere 40 starts.


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cameras wouldn't exist for another 20 years or so

What's most interesting about Patoooooooo is where his name originated. As a colt Bertie would refer to the horse as potatos for some reason or another and the name just stuck. Later when training the horse to become a racehorse just like its undefeated sire named "Eclipse", Bertie instructed a stable boy to paint the name of the horse on the horse's feed station. When the boy asked what the horse's name was, Bertie, said "Potatoes" but the stable boy heard "Pot... 8 O's" and thus the boy began to paint precisely that in a strange attempt to paint phonetically what he thought was a word his boss had just made up.

When Bertie returned to see the boys work, he wasn't upset but was rightfully very amused. He was so struck by this humor that he permanently changed the horses name to "Patoooooooo." When his name would appear on tickets in future races, the jockey club would sometimes write it as Pot8O's or or Pot-8-Os.

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Patoooooooo would perform reasonably well as a colt but as (bad) luck would have it at his first major race as an adult horse Bertie sold the horse to another very wealthy person named Richard Grosvenor before Patoooooooo even had a chance to race for 1500 guineas The deal was done and Patoooooooo won the race. He would go on to win many more including prized events such as the Clermont Cup, which he won 3 times.

Pot-8-Os was retired in 1784 at the age of 11 and became a breeding horse, which is probably a lot more enjoyable for a horse than racing is. He sired 172 race horses - many of which themselves went on to be champions as well.

Patoooooooo died in 1800 at the age of 27 and was buried in a park. Around 200 years later his skeleton was unearthed during a storm when a tree blew over. His remains were moved to the Kings Yard Galleries of the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket where they remain on display to this day.

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I'll go ahead and admit that I am not a fan of horse-racing and don't really even know a great deal about it other than the fact that you need to have a tremendous amount of money to get involved, which is probably a big part of the reason why I don't know much about it.

However, when a name comes along that is as silly as "Patoooooooo" you can't help but look into that a bit.

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That is really cool. I was unaware of the fact that sucha cute n silly name would have been accepted officially in racing arena too. which is cool.

once i started digging i found a lot of silly racehorse names such as Horsey McHorseFace and Givemeanothername.

HAHAHA! That's quite funny.

Been a while since ive dropped by your posts. I think its the pic change that got me. :)

good to see you again. I haven't been your way for a while either. I'll change that right now.

Patoooooooooooo. It's a funny as it implies. Although we have such here too in Nigeria, some funny horse name which are used in also howerace during festivity such as Helenny, Roooda, Spoooorty, Roooooof, Loooooong and so on. My friend, Thanks for this write up. You are great. That's why I love to always see your post on my feed. I Respect your personality 😉💪

i just know that i had to be very careful every time i was typing the name to make sure I didn't accidentally put too many o's. I think that's why they changed the spelling to Pot-8-O's

Smile. Hahahaha. I thought as much. But not withstanding, those names stood well and the Pot-8-0's made more sense.. I love horses 🐎 of different species. I dream to have one if time permits.

To here about the history about this is amazing.
Never knew the name "potatoes" gave significant important in some aspects of sport

well people give their race horses odd or silly names all the time, this was just a case of a very funny mistake. If it hadn't been for that mistake it is very likely that Potatoes wouldn't have been nearly as important historically.

I wonder if anyone ever made a Pot 9-O's?

that's not very witty but I would imagine it has been done

I went to a horse farm down in Kentucky when my sister lived down there and it was really a whole different world. There is so much money down in the Kentucky area from horses. It is hard to wrap your head around sometimes. That is a very funny and interesting story about this horse. Thanks for sharing!

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Un caro abbraccio 🤗 e un po' di BEER 🍻 da @amico!


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It's funny how Pot 8 O's turned into an actual name... I don't want to be rich, but wow, rich people do actually have ton of a free time. (I know that's not always the case, people who got rich by their power usually dedicate a lot of time to their work.)

I'll go ahead and admit that I am not a fan of horse-racing and don't really even know a great deal about it...

I'm another Horse Racing Noob... I actually only rode a horse 2 times in my life and it wasn't very comfortable experience.

Patoooooooo! haha. I love it!