0:00.0	Off to the races. I'm Jason Horton. I'm Rebecca Leib. And this is Ghost Town.
0:20.3	I love horses. I always have. I always will. I'll admit it. While racing horses is a fraught sport
0:27.3	to say the least, it's also one that really reflects the traditions and misunderstandings
0:31.9	of a certain era. I think you'd agree that one of the most fun things about horse racing
0:36.2	are the ridiculous horse names. I'm here to share a story of arguably the most ridiculous race
0:42.1	horse name. Today we're talking about one of the greatest race horses of the 18th century,
0:47.2	a horse named Potatoes spelled P-O-T-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O. That's Ados, if you're counting.
0:56.6	I can't overemphasize the fact that this horse is still respected to this day. A chest not
1:01.6	cult bred by Willoughby Birdie, fourth Earl of Abington, in 1773. He was sired by the undefeated
1:08.7	eclipse who was considered the greatest race horse maybe of all time. As a note, the expression
1:13.9	eclipse first, the rest nowhere, an expression of dominance, is from the stellar career of eclipse
1:19.7	the horse. Anyway, also famed for his endurance, many of Potatoes' 34 victories were at distances
1:26.6	over four miles and the Stallion race successfully for seven years. But why do we remember this perfect
1:32.4	example of English thoroughbred breeding and accomplishment? Because his name was Potatoes.
1:38.4	There are a lot of stories about how this name came about, but really the gist of all the stories
1:42.9	are the same. Willoughby Birdie, also a great name, the fourth Earl of Abington had this horse
1:48.8	sports mistress, bred with eclipse. Sports mistress had a cult in 1773 and the Earl wanted to
1:55.8	name the horse Potatoes. Cute, whatever. The story goes that the Earl told the stable hand to
2:01.2	write Potatoes on the young horse's feed bin, and the stable hand, misunderstanding the horse's
2:06.1	name or maybe not knowing how to spell Potatoes, broke down the word Potatoes into P-O-T plus
2:13.1	A-O's. So the horse's feed bin said P-O-T-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O, which the Earl loved. Very funny,
2:23.1	very tickled by this. So now Potatoes ran raced formally under the name Potato, again A-O's,
	...

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