Horse #4
Chocolate Claire – Chocolate is dark, and the name makes you think of eclairs. Mmm!
I forgot to add explanations. The cat/moon references were lines from the Yeats poem The Cat and the Moon.: Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, /
For, wander and wail as he would / The pure cold light in the sky / Troubled his animal blood. / Minnaloushe runs in the grass / Lifting his delicate feet.
I think the rest are pretty self explanatory.
Filly by Trust N Luck–French Reign by Miswaki: Mis Go Go, Luck A Go Go, Those Waki French*, Waki Boots, Waki Socks (or Sox if there’s any Chicago connection or baseball fans in the club)
Sweetsouthernsaint,–Conway Kitty by El Prado: Conway Kitty Country (“Conway Twitty Country” is the name of one of his albums)
*is that offensive? I didn’t think so, but maybe any mention of nationality is offensive these days.
Crudler
– The Simpsons
Sweetsouthernsaint,–Conway Kitty by El Prado: KittyOnMyMind (also a play on a CT album), Sweet Southern Kitty, SweetMeadowMelody (Prado = meadow, melody for CT), SweetSouthrnMelody.
I’m sorry, am I spamming yet? I had surgery yesterday and am on some heavy-duty painkillers. This is fun and distracting 
Wow! There are some excellent suggestions here! Off to a great start. I don’t have time to comment on them all, but I will be submitting them all to the folks who will be voting.
We have named several of our mare’s, Taxquenya, foals over the years. This is the first time her name came into play. Funny how there are more possibilities adding her name with Cactus Ridge. ** Death and Cactus ** is very clever, but I think our group will be afraid to have death in the name, horse people are very superstitious, but it really is clever. And I had no idea that Quenya was an elf language, very interesting. I will have to pass that info on.
I also love Mason-Dixon Feline. **Jade to Black ** is also fun and fitting. And **Purrfect Saint ** or **Purrfectly Southern ** fit well too. **Midnight Gem ** and **Dark Clarity ** are pretty and would match that filly too.
And I would bet **Playing Posse ** would have to make it to the final round. That would especially be a great name for a horse who sits way off the pace, acting like she has nothing, then comes on strong. **Knee Deep In Luck ** is another that really seems to fit that filly. Horse folks are divided on whether four white socks are good or bad luck. So whatever it is, she has it big time with unusually high socks.
I am going to add LongCharmoftheLaw, going from a couple of similar suggetions.
I also followed up on **Hello Again’s ** post, and found a Toby Keith message board and asked those folks for ideas. They might have something…
And It’s Not Rocket Surgery, unfortunately I didn’t own GritsN Hard Toast. I was a big fan of his though. He was not well bred, not very pretty, did not have the best connections. But he sure tried hard and really did much better than anyone would have expected. I love rooting for those underdog types, so preferred taking the name of one of those horses. I think you are the first one here to know I took my name from a horse. And the name fit him, expectations of him were likely that he would not make it to the big time, but run in the lower level circuits, which are jokingly called the Grits and Hard Toast circuits since that is all the folks there can afford to eat. My current hard knocking favorite is Spooky Mulder.
Revenant Threshold, (which sounds like a good racehorse name) you are right about Northern Dancer. He is in most pedigrees today. He evidently was able to pass on the good stuff, and has really impacted today’s thoroughbred. Mr Prospector is another name you will see often. He tends to be able to increase whatever is good in the mare, and doesn’t add any soundness problems of his own.
Secretariat is best known as a sire of mares. His sons did not do so well, but Secretariat lives on in a huge way by siring a mare who had Storm Cat, another of the most popular sires. For years Storm Cat has been getting $500,000 per mare. He does that 100 times a season and it starts to add up to some decent money 
And I could be accused of being biased, but this group we have this year is very well bred considering we breed to race not sell, and that we don’t use the very expensive sires. To get the best value, we often gamble on sires who don’t yet have kids on the track yet.
We are thrilled with our choice of Posse, since he is the top freshman sire for this year. We bred to him before any of his kids ever ran, so we feel we did well with the small amount of money they were asking for him. Next year I am sure we won’t be able to afford him. Others in this crop that are new sires are also doing well, Trust N Luck is #5 and Cactus Ridge is #8. Sweetsouthernsaint was a new sire last year, and had the favorite in the Derby, so that is also good. And Black Minnaloushe has been around for a while, producing nice horses.
Several of our mares are also by leading broodmare sires. Miswaki and Kris S have been around a long time but still make the top 20 list. El Prado also continues to make the list of top sire for all types of horses.
So really any of these yearlings have the potential to be top horses. Their pedigrees are full of champions on the track and champions in the breeding shed. Our group has learned over the years, and can really see the improvement over our earlier attempts. We do feel responsible for the horses we breed. Those that only won once or twice, not showing much chance for improvement, we retired while still sound, and are now award winning show horses, or much loved family trail horses, or very nice broodmares, producing more nice show horses. And odds this year are our in our favor for having at least one go on to the higher levels. Which one it will be, we debate. And that it part of the fun of doing this.
We will be taking name suggestions until July 18th. So keep them coming, and feel free to play off of a suggestion someone else has. Many of the great names come about that way.
Thanks again! I am encouraged we will get some great names from this group.
Snooooopy, I think you are warming up. That is a great suggestion. She is sweet as can be, I think her co owners will like that one.
NajaNivea, I have tried for two years to go with Yeats reference for our Black Minnaloushe’s kids. I will try again with Wander and Wail, The Creeping Cat, Sacred Moon, and Kin of the Moon. I will add your suggestions as well.
And Sweetsouthernmelody is one letter too long, but would be great as this filly’s half sister is named Century’s Song. Sweetsouthernsong is taken. But if we could do something similar, to match Century’s Song, that would be great.
So what would you suggest if you had to take one letter out of Sweetsouthernmelody? That really would be nice to tie in with her sister, Century’s Song, who is a favorite with our group because she is rather odd looking for a thoroughbred. She is huge by two year old standards, but bred to go all day on the turf. Here she is today, her first day going on the training track, calm and cool, just like you hope, she did great.
http://i13.tinypic.com/4r8zplu.jpg
And I don’t think Those Waki French is offensive. But I will add, Those Waki Irish, to the list, thinking it will get more votes. From my personal experience, the Irish horse racing folks have more of a sense of humor than the French.
I know the feeling. I think I’ve been having the most fun with the names for #2 and #3. I also love that Little Southern Girl#3’s latest picture has the human’s head cut off! 
On to the names!
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Colt by Cactus Ridge–Taxquenya by Kris S.
Quenya is a Tolkein reference? I so didn’t know that! How about Hobbit Ridge? Cactus Strider? Desert Strider? (Although IIRC the word “hobbit” may be trademarked…)
(Thanks to Revenant Threshold for the Tolkein link) -
Filly by Trust N Luck–French Reign by Miswaki.
Miss Irish Luck -
Filly by Sweetsouthernsaint,–Conway Kitty by El Prado.
Regarding the “melody” theme: How about Sweetsouthernmusic, Sweetcountrymusic or Sweet Country Song? Sweetmountainmusic? Sweet Meadow Song?
Non-melody related: Sweet Meadow Cat or Sweet Meadow Kitty
(Thanks to NajaNivea for the “Meadow” link.)
Jumping over to the foreign languages again (Spanish this time, from El Prado):
El Gato Dulce (The Sweet Cat)
La Florida Dulce (Sweet Florida)
Sweet Gato de Flor (although babelfish tells me “Flower Cat” is “gato de la flor”, that makes the name too long–inspired by “Florida” meaning “land of flowers”) -
Filly by Black Minnaloushe-- Claire’s Jade by Jade Hunter.
Claireandthemoon
Claire Moon Light (or Claire Moonlight). Jaded Moonlight
Wandering Jade or Jaded Wanderer
Claire Night or Claire Night Sky
Claire Cold Light
(from the lines quoted by NajaNivea.)
And I really like the “Chocolate Claire” suggestion, too.
I got nothing for #5 Filly right now. 
Another couple for #2: Irishluckprincess or Luckyirishprincess, Royal Irish Luck or Regal Irish Luck, Waki Leprechaun
Yup, but
isn’t 
Horse #3
Southern Darlin – as in Conway Twitty’s big hit, “Hello Darlin.”
I’ve been trying to make something out of the facial markings, but the larger one only reminds me of either: a) A map of Thailand; or b) A picture of the Ebola virus. The little mark between the nostrils looks a lot like the symbol for a quarter rest, which would fit in great with the musical theme except rests just aren’t terribly dramatic.
Now I want to get a horse so I could name it Ebola. “This is my horse, Ebola,” I would say. “Do NOT fuck with my horse!”
Yay! Things for me to do instead of work (it’s been a really slow day today).
Colt by Cactus Ridge–Taxquenya by Kris S.
- for some reason, the only things I can come up with are related to alcohol.
Filly by Trust N Luck–**French Reign ** by Miswaki.
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Take Un Chance (“Un” in French is pronounced kind of like “a”, so “Take a chance”, plus “chance” is French for “luck”).
-
Faux In Socks (with the socks, and the funny pun, and the French…)
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Silv R Lining (reign ->rain ->“every cloud has a silver lining” which kind of deals with the luck thing -> omitting a letter as in “Trust N Luck”)
Filly by Sweetsouthernsaint,–**Conway Kitty ** by El Prado.
- Caterwaul. It’s kind of melody-themed.
Filly by Black Minnaloushe– **Claire’s Jade ** by Jade Hunter.
-Jaloushie. French for “jealousy”, with an added H. Because of the jade, and it’s green, you know, like when you’re jealous… um.
-Claire De La Lune. “Au claire de la lune” is a French folk song; the title translates as “In the moonlight”. (You could even fit the spaces there and still have it under 18 characters, I think.)
Filly by Posse–Charming Mom, by Arch.
- for some reason, the first thing that came into mind was “Rat Pack”, I guess it’s sort of a “charming posse”… I’ve been watching Ocean’s 11 again. I see that’s taken, though, and it might not have been a good name for a filly anyway. “Little Rascal” or “Little Scamp”?
- Western Stories, with the posses and the romantic view of the Wild Wild West?
Okay, I am not a huge Toby Keith fan, but I do enjoy a few of his songs. I couldn’t really come up with anything off the top of my head previously, but I’ve dug through his albums on amazon.com to see if I could come up with anything and here’s what I managed:
Taxapieceofmysoul (or just Tax My Soul) (from song “Get Drunk and Be Somebody”, line “I give him 40 hours and a piece of my soul”)
Broken Ridges (from song title “Broken Bridges”)
Zig Zag Tax or Zig Zag Kris (from song title “Zig Zag Stop”)
Lot More Action (from song title “A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action”, no pedigree tie-in)
The Guy To Do It or Justtheguytodoit (from song title “Just The Guy To Do It”, no pedigree tie-in)
Shock’n Tax (from album title “Shock’n Y’all”)
Unleashed Tax or Unleashed Cactus (from album title “Unleashed”)
Good To Go To Bree* (from song title “Good To Go To Mexico”)
*Or insert other Tolkein-esque place
Or there’s always Tobystaxdeduction.