A Day at the Track

What's in a (horse's) name?

Note to Readers: My stack o’ stuff promises to provide “Thoughts and observations (both political and personal), and an occasional chuckle.” I hope you all got at least a chuckle from my last post, but I think we could all still use another about now, so I hope one of my favorite jokes will provide it; I found myself telling this the other day, and so now I’ll share it with all of you.

But, before I do, and just free-associating about racehorses, I’m reminded of a guitar-player in a friend’s band whose first name was “Kelso” (It’s a man’s name, of Scottish origin, but to “people of a certain age” it was the name of one of the greatest thoroughbreds in history). When we were introduced, I teasingly asked, “‘Kelso’? Wasn’t that the name of a horse?” And without batting an eye he replied, “Yeah, but not just any horse!”

A Day at the Track

An orthodox rabbi is walking down the street on a windy day, and the wind catches the rabbi's wide-brimmed black hat and blows it down the street. A passerby sees it, gives chase, retrieves the hat and returns it to the rabbi. The rabbi thanks him profusely and adds, "God bless you!"

As the man walks away, he starts thinking, "Wow! I've been blessed by a rabbi! Even though I'm not Jewish, this has to be good thing! This might very well be my lucky day!"

And, since the fellow is a horseplayer, he decides that, if this is, indeed, his lucky day, he might as well try his luck at the track.

And, at the track, there's a horse running in the first race named "Stetson." The man thinks, "I saved the rabbi's hat, and Stetson is a brand of hat. This must be a sign." So he bets on Stetson and, sure enough, Stetson wins the race.

In the next race, there's a horse named "Fedora." And the man thinks, "This must be another sign," and he bets on Fedora, and Fedora wins.

And this goes on: In every race, there's a horse with a hat-related name. The man bets on "Sombrero," "Homburg," and "Porkpie." He bets on horses named "Borsalino," "Deerstalker," and even "Fez." Every one of them wins, and every one of his bets pays off.

He finally makes it home, and his wife asks, "Where have you been?" And he tells her the story of saving the rabbi's hat, and being blessed, and feeling lucky and going to the track, and betting on all the horses with hat-related names, and winning big. Naturally his wife asks, "So where's all the money?"

And the man says, "Oh, I lost it all on the last race." "How did that happen?" his wife asks.

"Well," he explains, "in the last race there was a horse running called 'Chateau,' and I knew that 'chateau' is the French word for 'hat,' so I bet on Chateau and he finished last."

"You idiot!" his wife exclaims. "The French word for 'hat' isn't 'chateau,' it's 'chapeau'! You are so stupid!"

"You're right," the man says, sheepishly. "I know that now. But it doesn't matter anyway, because some Japanese horse won the race."

And his wife says, "A Japanese horse? Whaddya mean, a Japanese horse?"

And the man says, "Well, it had a Japanese-sounding name; the horse's name sounded like 'Yamaka.'"