JC / Railbird

Mis- Names

I noticed Pain and Misery’s name among the early Triple Crown nominations and asked the obvious question, “Why?” Jay Hovdey has the answer:

“Ray and I have had a few horses together, but I’ve always named them,” [co-owner Dr. Leonard] Blach said. “I told him it was his turn with this one, but he kept procrastinating. By the time the name was due he’d come down with the worst case of shingles you ever saw, the poor guy. So he just wrote ‘Pain and Misery’ on the papers and sent them in.”

Here’s the punchline:

Hopefully, then, the Mandella crew has a kinder, gentler nickname around the barn for their new shooter.

“Sure,” the trainer said. “We call him Shingles.”

In his most recent start, Pain and Misery finished second to Bench Warrant in the February 15 Baffle Stakes over the downhill turf course at Santa Anita.

Now, this is funny:

Nightly News is a 2-year-old colt bred by Hal Earnhardt, like his champion half-sister, and you can assume from his name that someone takes a low view of NBC news anchor Brian Williams “misremembering” an incident aboard a helicopter during the Iraq war, for which he was suspended from the network.