The Jockey Club, the leading sanctioning body in what’s left of the sport of horse racing in the U.S., sent out a clear message Wednesday to anybody thinking of naming their horse after Hitler: Don’t name your horse after Hitler.
The two-year-old colt Austrian Painter made his racing debut Monday with a win in the third race at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Obligatory: He covered the 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.97, and paid $9.00. Afterward, the Jockey Club received objections about the victorious newcomer, but these weren't the standard post-race protests about a jockey’s obstructing or dangerous ride or a horse’s drug abuse. No, these complaints were about the horse’s name. Because, as reported by ESPN in its Austrian Painter story, “Hitler was born in Austria and was an artist.”
He was indeed! Austrian Painter’s owner and breeder is Scott Herbertson, a 58-year-old California native now based in Texas. In 2014, he founded the Herbertson Racing Stable. I could find no Kentucky Derby horses or winners of any other graded stakes race in his barn. But while he’s not a major player in the sport and seems more likely to enter his animals at unglamorous tracks like Horseshoe Indianapolis than Saratoga, Herbertson has spent lots of time in winner's circles. In 2014, the Thoroughbred Owners of California named him to their Rookie of the Year roster. According to Herbertson's page in the racing database Equibase, his horses have finished in the money 351 times in 561 starts, with a very impressive 164 wins. Herbertson's total earnings are now just over $2.5 million. Alas, nothing his horses ever did on the track brought Herbertson anywhere near the attention that this has.
Questionable names have always been a part of horse racing. I covered the sport for several years in the late 1990s, as a stringer for the Washington Post. It was the greatest job ever, but reading the racing program always came with headshakes over horrible handles. But there are bad names, and then there’s "Austrian Painter." Herbertson, to use a phrase that Marge Schott used and the horse owner himself is quite likely familiar with, just took things too far.
It's a pattern for Herbertson. He had submitted other names to the Jockey Club for Austrian Painter, including "My Struggle" and "Braunau Star." The former is the English translation for Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf, which he wrote while in prison; the latter seems to be a reference to Hitler's birthplace Braunau am Inn, although Herbertson claimed it was referencing the birthplace of his wife's grandfather. He also said "Austrian Painter" was a reference to Gustav Klimt.
While announcing Austrian Painter would be stripped of his name, the Jockey Club also disclosed that it would no longer allow another of Herbertson’s horses to run under her birth name: New Order. That was a term used by the Nazis in reference to the plan they wanted to impose on Europe. As Herbertson was taking fire for his name games, he claimed the name was a reference to “my favored band.” That might be more believable in a vacuum, but when you're trying to name another horse "My Struggle," a pattern emerges.
Herbertson’s social media past is riddled with the hate and idiocy you’d expect from a guy into these kinds of names. For example, one tweet from August had him denigrating the WNBA in a reply to John Rocker's misogynistic reply to Enes Kanter Freedom's misogynistic tweet. Quite a trifecta.
In another tweet, he has a germane answer to a pretty vile poll:
Austrian Painter will heretofore run as “Merrylegs.” That’s a nice name—as far as I know.
