The Second Coming of John Henry?

When it comes to horse racing, I have this thing about names. I always want to see a great horse have a name that fits. They don’t always.

I guess Man o’ War was the most felicitous meeting of horse and name in the annals of the track. Some of his descendants proved nifty enough animals, but their names were an annoyance. War Admiral was a Triple Crown winner, but there is something about that name that jars. Fleet Admiral would have been better. Or War Lord.

Some horses that won the Kentucky Derby had a nice ring to their names. Swaps, for some reason, gets the proper image. So does Twenty Grand. Cavalcade.

Shut Out, I could live with. I’m not sure it has happy connotations, but it rings nicely. But what are you going to do with Pleasant Colony, for instance? What kind of name is that for a Kentucky Derby winner? Can Stephen Foster write a song about that?

I’m not too crazy about Citation, to tell you the truth. His stablemate, whom he beat in the Derby, Coaltown, had the better handle of the entry.

Lots of times, non-winners have the better of the monikers. I wish Royal Attack had been a better horse. I wish Candy Spots could have moved up two places in his Derby. Chateaugay does nothing for me. So far as Spend A Buck goes--yeeech! Genuine Risk is not such a bad name--but for only the second filly ever to win the race? She should have been called Garbo. Or Claudia. Or Cleopatra.

Exterminator was a great name for a racehorse. Aristides won the first Kentucky Derby ever run, and we should be grateful for that. It could have been a horse called (ugh!) Bob Wooley, who ran fourth.

Horses named after towns pass the test--Johnstown, Omaha, Spokane. Even Baden-Baden makes it. So does Needles, although I’m not sure its connections had the city in mind. More like a sewing basket. I wish Houston could have won.

Horses named after men leave a lot to be desired. Clyde Van Dusen, George Smith, Joe Cotton, Lieut. Gibson, Paul Jones. Omar Khayyam is all right. Paul Jones could have made it with a John in front of his name. Capote, oddly enough, was fitting. Except he couldn’t run a lick as a three-year-old. Jaklin Klugman may be the worst handle ever fastened on a male horse, and he almost won the Derby (third in 1980). I’m sure glad Leo Castelli was seventh.

Reigh Count is just fine. Any Count--Count Fleet, Count Turf. I don’t like pun names. And deliberate misspellings drive me up a wall: Rhoman Rule, for example. Esops Foibles, I find offensive. That sins on two counts. Thank God, Air Forbes Won lost.

Oxymorons are out. Confederate Yankee won’t do.

So, it would stand to reason I would be rooting for Summer Squall to win this Saturday’s Gold Cup at Hollywood Park. After all, I rooted for him to win his Kentucky Derby two years ago--he was second. It’s a name right out of a Loretta Young movie. He won the Preakness, which was some consolation.

But the name that gets to me in the Gold Cup is not one of the co- favorites. It’s a grass horse with the take-a-deep-breath-and-let-it-all-out name of Itsallgreektome.

Itsallgreektome is the invention--and purchase--of the trainer Wally Dollase (“Doll-ossy”). Dollase bought him at the Lexington yearling sales, named him, gelded him and turned him from a so-so dirt-track runner to a Hall of Fame performer on grass.

Itsallgreektome got his name for the most practical of reasons. Dollase bid rather more than planned--$75,000--to get the horse, after a canny, David Harum-type, Clyde Rice, whom Dollase respected, kept the bidding up. To make the horse--and the price--palatable to his owners, who had Greek relatives, Dollase thought he’d better find a Greek word for it.

He found a whole sentence. Multiple words run together are more commonplace today than they used to be, but they date back to 1926, when a horse called Bagenbaggage finished second in that year’s Derby.

In those times, the Jockey Club permitted only 14 characters to a name, including spaces. Now it allows 18.

Itsallgreektome returns to the main track this week because Dollase has visions of his becoming the most famous gelding since the legendary John Henry.

Itsallgreektome was gelded because of a physical infirmity, not an attitude problem. Royally bred, by Sovereign Ruler out of a Grey Dawn II mare, he had been only moderately successful on dirt--three fourth places in a row. “You run fourth all your life, doesn’t do you much good,” Dollase says. Itsallgreektome was switched to grass as a three-year-old and immediately became all-world. He ran second, by a neck, to Royal Academy in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and won grass-horse-of-the-year honors in the Eclipse Awards voting.

Dollase is taking a gamble returning the horse to the main course. The notion of the trainer is, it opens more options for him. “I hope to run him four more years, and this gives us more ways to go,” Dollase says.

It is the opinion of some that Dollase is simply taking dead aim at becoming the new John Henry. John Henry was the undistinguishedly bred commoner--a $1,500 purchase out of a blue-collar stud named Ole Bob Bowers--who won more money, $6,597,947, than any horse in history. “He’s no John Henry,” Dollase says of his horse. “But he could leave his mark.”

He may be no John Henry but, only a 4-year-old, he’s already earned $1,138,398. John Henry, through his 4-year-old season, had $299,563.

John Henry’s lofty totals--39 victories, 15 seconds, nine thirds--may be hard to top. Itsallgreektome has 32 firsts to go, as well as 10 seconds and eight thirds. But when John Henry won the Hollywood Gold Cup in 1981, he got $37,500. When he won it again in 1984, he got $100,000. If Itsallgreektome wins Saturday, he will get $550,000.

John Henry was a great name for a pile-driving race horse. But if Itsallgreektome ever passes his $6-million-plus mark, they should change his to Whatsinaname?