Wear The Fox Hat looks innocent enough but try saying it in an Irish accent

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s image never quite recovered in many people’s view from the photograph of him picking up his two beagles by their ears. Personally, I was nearly as affronted by the names he had given the two dogs: Him and Her. A dog is entitled to a good name, and so, for me, is a horse. The Tennessee novelist John Trotwood Moore once noted, ‘Wherever man has left his footprint in the long ascent from barbarism to civilisation we will find the hoofprint of the horse beside it,’ and while that may be going it a bit in the age of the drone and the mobile phone, racehorses are noble beasts and the names some people give them are an insult to their breeding.

Flat racing these days abounds with Arabic names such as Mutakayyef, Bahaarah and Elhaame, which don’t mean much to the rest of us. But that is fair enough: most of them have Arab owners who are crucial to the continuance of our sport. What irritates me is the modern fashion for compound names. You could excuse Welliesinthewater, who was after all sired by Footstepsinthesand. And I guess enough of us remember the exchanges between the Voice of Boxing Harry Carpenter and heavyweight Frank Bruno for Unowhat-imeanharry to strike a chord. Perhaps it solved a dispute when Bryan Smart’s winning sprinter was called Nameitwhatyoulike. Imagine, though, being a racecourse commentator and having to cope at speed with a group including Canicallyouback, Formidableopponent, Howyadoingnotsobad, Douneedahand and Alwaystheoptimist. A recent Salisbury race was contested by, among others, Whatdoiwantthatfor and Thatsallimsaying. Even less appropriate for me are the current names Niqnaqaqpaadiwaaq, Tukitinyasok, Wernotfamusanymore and Eeueteotl. They may have seemed like a good idea over a drink or two, but I could not look a horse in the face and land it with a moniker like those, or even the punctuated The Geegeez Geegee.