Kentucky Derby: Ranking the horse names from great (Commandment) to ridiculous (Wonder Dean)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — One of the first things you notice after entering Churchill Downs are the name plates of all 151 Kentucky Derby winners affixed to the paneling of the grandstand.

From the first winner Aristides to last year’s winner Sovereignty, those names are going to remain there for generations. As such, it is always nice when the winner of America’s most important horse race carries a name befitting their place in history.

That doesn’t always happen, of course.

Sometimes you get Strike the Gold or Majestic Prince, names that sound impressive right off the bat. Other times you get Mine That Bird or Lil E. Tee.

There are rules around how horses are named. The Jockey Club mandates that names must be no longer than 18 characters (including spaces and punctuation) and can’t be vulgar (though some double entendres seem to slip by every now and then). Names can be re-used after a period of time, but certain names are off-limits like any horse in the Hall of Fame or former Triple Crown race winners.

Some owners use the bloodlines to come up with horse names. One good example is Alysheba, the 1987 Derby winner, who was sired by Alydar out of a mare named Bel Sheba. Some names are more whimsical like 2012 winner I’ll Have Another, who was named after the owner’s favorite expression when his wife baked cookies. It’s become in vogue lately to name horses after people, some of which have won the Derby like Giacomo in 2005. The owner, Jerry Moss, was a music industry executive and named the horse after the son of Sting.

With all that said, here are the 20 names in this year’s Derby ranked from what we’d most like to see on the Churchill Downs walls in perpetuity to the least.

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1. Commandment: Simple, clean, rolls off the tongue like a Derby winner should. No real story behind the name; the owners just liked the way it sounded. They were right.

2. The Puma: This horse was named for trainer Gustavo Delgado because he resembles Venezuelan singer Jose Luis Rodriguez, whose nickname in their home country is El Puma. Also, it just sounds cool.

3. Potente: The Italian word for “powerful.” When you see this athletic-looking bay colt, it makes perfect sense.

4. Renegade: You can almost hear NBC announcer Larry Collmus lifting his voice in the Derby stretch to call Renegade rolling down the center of the track. Great Derby name.

Great White trains on the track during morning workouts ahead of the running of the 152nd Kentucky Derby. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

(Michael Reaves via Getty Images)

1. Great White: Once you get a glimpse of this gray horse, it’s pretty easy to see where they came up with the name. He’s just a massive physical specimen who stands out on the racetrack like a great white shark.

2. Litmus Test: The dam, Study Hard, is where the test part comes from. It’s a common enough phrase that would stand the test of time as a Derby winner.

3. Emerging Market: Owner Seth Klarman, a hedge fund manager, uses business or political phrases to name his horses. Some of his more notable stakes winners include Domestic Spending, Early Voting and Program Trading.

4. Pavlovian: Owner J. Paul Reddam and trainer Doug O’Neill campaigned Pavel, this horse’s sire, from 2017 to 2019. Kind of a nice balance here between honoring the sire and a relatively well-known term. Pavlovian Response might have been an even better name.

5. Further Ado: Unlike the horse, the name is a bit plain and forgettable. Not bad, not elite. The expression from which it comes feels a bit old fashioned. Would not be an embarrassment to the legion of Derby winners.

6. Chief Wallabee: It’s a cool name at first glance but loses points because it’s an homage to the Wallabee shoe brand.

7. Golden Tempo: Two useful words in horse naming that don’t really fit together particularly well.

8. Six Speed: Won’t make sense in 100 years when everyone has abandoned bikes for flying skateboards.

9. Incredibolt: Pretty good horse name, but not for the Derby. Sounds a little too much like the name of a comic book.

10. Robusta: Is this a horse or the kind of coffee you’re ordering at Starbucks?

11. Intrepido: According to the L.A. Times, the owners wanted to name the horse Intrepid but that name had already been claimed so they got it by The Jockey Club simply by adding an ‘O’ at the end. Not a very good story or a good name.

12. So Happy: Obviously a spin off the sire, Runhappy, it just feels a bit lazy given how many different variations you can pull off the word “happy.”

13. Albus: Apparently named for Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore, it’s pretty niche if you’re not a fan of the series.

14. Danon Bourbon: The Japanese tend to use the owner’s name in their horses. And in this case, Danon represents the company of the ownership group. Since there is no actual Danon bourbon brand (they used Bourbon because he’s a Kentucky bred), this would be confusing to future generations.