Does anyone have a list of duplicate horse names used in Aus/NZ racing? For example, there are two horses named "Ready to Rule" that are running presently: one in Queensland, one in New Zealand. I just happened to stumble over the fact when investigating a time that looked bogus. Were I using a database and searching via name, the two sets of horse's results would be conflated into one.

If no-one has a list (or feels inclined to share) how would I find these dupes? Is a registry with public/free access kept someplace?

And I just recalled that It's A Dundeel was known simply as "Dundeel" in New Zealand. Do you just have to be in the right place at the right time to hear about these changes? Or is there some means to discover it retrospectively?

I also gather you can't reuse an unrestricted horse name for a number of years after it's left racing or breeding. Do people running a database do some maintenance where, if a horse hasn't contested a race in 5 years, they change its name to "Dundeel (year)", for example, to guard against future duplication?

This only goes back a month or so not much use for past but something to check regularly in the future?

http://risa.com.au/RoR/RenamedHorses.aspx

The example you gave 'Ready to Rule' - The Kiwi horse should be known as 'Ready to Rule (NZ)' by your data supplier

You could also distinguish them by their dam and sire.

If it's a champion racehorse or Melbourne Cup winner, you're not allowed to use those names again. For example, you can't have another Phar Lap, Tulloch, Kingston Town, Makybe Diva, Black Caviar etc.

With just a regular horse, I think there's a 17 year time limit before you can use that name again.

Australian Rule of Racing
"Except with the approval of the Registrar, a name cannot be repeated for 17 years after the birth of a horse with the same name or for 20 years after the birth of the youngest named produce of a horse with the same name"

Also since 2005 the winner of the Cox Plate have name protection

As per New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing

•A name cannot be reused until 15 years has elapsed since the foaling of a similar named horse.
•Names for broodmares cannot be used again until 12 years has elapsed since that name last appeared in a Volume of the Stud Book.
•Names of winners of Group One races are protected.
•Name of a Stallion cannot be used until 15 years after it last appeared in a studbook.

•If you are naming an Australian-bred horse the name must also be approved by the Australian authority.

Thanks for the replies (and apologies to admin who had to move the thread from the Systems forum - I was coming at it as a database issue-y thing so thought it may have belonged there)


Cheers for the link jazzy. I've been able to find a few more snapshots from the past - as far back as August 1st, 2010 - using the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/2011060...amedHorses.aspx. I had no idea renaming was such a frequent occurrence...


I'm web scraping a basic database of my own and unfortunately the source I'm using, for example, treats It's a Dundeel and Dundeel as two separate horses. The latter had 2 starts, one in Ellerslie and another in Wyong, before the name change went through. Presumably had he returned to NZ Racing he would've been "Dundeel" again.

R&S appear to have two fields in their database to handle name changes (or more, if multiple name changes are allowed, I guess): Horse Name and Old Horse Name (and in this instance Old is It's A Dundeel! Do they track these horses as they enter and exit the country!?).

Here's a confusing example: It's 8-Apr-11 and Bejewelled changes its name to Just Saying. Presumably Bejewelled is an Australian horse as, in the RISA Name Change report, there's no country code in parentheses after its name. If correct, R&S has it as a 2004 mare out of Anabaa and Bacchetto that raced up until 3-Jul-10. There *is* a NZ runner called Bejewelled also, racing at the same time (a 2006 mare out of Pins and Lucida). Now check out the R&S record for Just Saying and....not only was it racing at the same time as the previous two horses, it was a 2004 gelding out of Commands and Winning Table. Now *that's* a gear change...

It appears R&S have applied the name change to the old horse Bejeweled, instead of Bejewelled. Which is a good thing, as RISA used the wrong spelling in their listing (the "old horse" was noted in their list as a 6yo gelding, which fits Bejeweled). ...unless there was *another* horse that was registered as Bejewelled but hadn't raced 'til that point at all.

And this is the FIRST record I looked at!

...no wonder commercial databases are so expensive (insert advertisement here). I'm creating my own more for the intellectual challenge/procrastination, and my betting doesn't warrant the expense though.

Had I remained of the opinion a name change was a freak occurence, I would've been happy enough to ignore the issue and have it unknowingly trip me up once in a while, but now I don't know what to do!

Regarding Bejewel(l)ed: the next snapshot has the 8-Apr-11 BejeweLLed->Just Saying notification deleted. There's a new notification, presumably a correction by whomever submitted the initial request given that there is a new date of 9-May-11, for BejeweLed->Just Saying.

I suppose you could avoid most ocurrences from the past by investigating cases where there are duplicate records for New Horse names. Officials wouldn't approve the name change in this instance; the duplication means that the elder record would have been superceded.

Don't know how it would've been handled successfully at the time though. I would've updated past performance records for BejeweLLed to Just Saying on 9-Apr-11 and then, none-the-wiser, updated past performance records for BejeweLed to Just Saying on 10-May-11. Just Saying would get both Bejewel(l)ed's past performances. The next time that BejeweLLed raced it would be - in my database at least - as a maiden, having had its prior performances misattributed.

R&S seemed to handle it though. Perhaps they were familiar with the horse, given its record, and noticed something awry. Surely a spelling error on a form that happens to be the name of another horse doesn't happen all too often... In which case I can probably get by

Horses switching names as they flit back and forth between countries seems more of an issue (as the Old Name It's A Dundeel, for Dundeel, seems to imply)

Many horses change name especially when travelling to NZ and back.
I remember My Lightning Blue became Lightning Blue etc etc.
As far as duplicates, you know by the date, as no two horses with the same name will be racing in the same period. Also Sire / Dam.

__________________
RaceCensus - powerful system testing software.
Now with over 399,000 Metropolitan, Provincial and Country races!
http://www.propun.com.au/horse_raci...ng_systems.html
*RaceCensus now updated to 31/03/2024
Video overview of RaceCensus here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W821YP_b0Pg