{"id":72337,"date":"2014-06-07T10:38:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T14:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=72337"},"modified":"2016-12-13T14:17:36","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T19:17:36","slug":"a-horse-named-paris-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/07\/a-horse-named-paris-review\/","title":{"rendered":"A Horse Named Paris Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Paris-Review-Race-2\"<\/a>

Go baby go!<\/p><\/div>\n

With the Belmont Stakes upon us, today is an apt day to revisit\u00a0our Spring 1976 issue<\/a>, in which George Plimpton made an astonishing equine discovery:<\/p>\n

\n

This office received a letter from an English writer who reported that at the racetrack he had put a fiver on a horse named Paris Review \u2026 We have looked into the matter. Paris Review, a chestnut with a handsome star on his forehead, was born in 1972 in the U.S.A. (by Noholme II out of Pride of Paris), bought by John Hay Whitney\u2019s Greentree Stables at the Saratoga Stakes, and named by Mr. Whitney soon after.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Paris Review, pictured above, may never have enjoyed the cultural primacy of your California Chromes, your Secretariats, or even your Mister Eds\u2014maybe it was that missing definite article holding him back\u2014but he had his day in the sun. In his second year, he won, placed, and showed in a series of races in England. After that, he was bought as a stud and sent to Australia, where presumably he had a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

Plimpton closes the piece by \u201cpassing on to the Australians a few suggestions of titles of poems and stories \u2018out of\u2019 the literary Paris Review<\/em> which could be applied to Paris Review\u2019s offspring\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

Looking Backward; Last Comes the Raven; Ho Ho Ho Caribou; Phenomenal Feelings; Travel Dust; Chest of Energy; The Flying Fix (!); Mister Horse. If there were not a limit imposed by the Racing Commission on the number of letters possible in a horse\u2019s name, we would offer these two poem titles, Going Downtown to Buy Some Pills, and (our favorite) Nimble Rays of Day Bring Oxygen to the Blood.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the essay here<\/a>, and gamble responsibly this evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Belmont Stakes upon us, today is an apt day to revisit\u00a0our Spring 1976 issue, in which George Plimpton made an astonishing equine discovery: This office received a letter from an English writer who reported that at the racetrack he had put a fiver on a horse named Paris Review \u2026 We have looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[14214,14215,14216,14,2813,9295,2741,14217],"class_list":["post-72337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-14214","tag-belmont-stakes","tag-california-chrome","tag-george-plimpton","tag-horses","tag-names","tag-racing","tag-who-knew"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Horse Named Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For the Belmont Stakes, read the history behind the race horse 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