Horse Racing Expressions used in general conversation - One ODD one

[BettinBilly]

I happened to catch "American's Secret Slang" on The History Channel

They were talking about Horse Racing Expressions used in everyday English. Most we know.

Winning Hands Down, Coming down to the Wire, etc.


But one really caught me off guard. "Someone got his Goat" or "Getting his Goat".

I had NO IDEA that was a Horse Racing expression.

Evidently, back in the day, Goats were kept in pens with race horses to "Calm them down" before a race. If the Goats were removed, the horses got edgy, nervous and sometimes lost the race. If a horse lost, someone might say, "Somebody got his goat". Odd. I never heard that before. Did you?

Pretty cool show. I think it's interesting to find out where our expressions come from. Got his Goat just surprised me.

[Exotic1]

I happened to catch "American's Secret Slang" on The History Channel

They were talking about Horse Racing Expressions used in everyday English. Most we know.

Winning Hands Down, Coming down to the Wire, etc.


But one really caught me off guard. "Someone got his Goat" or "Getting his Goat".

I had NO IDEA that was a Horse Racing expression.

Evidently, back in the day, Goats were kept in pens with race horses to "Calm them down" before a race. If the Goats were removed, the horses got edgy, nervous and sometimes lost the race. If a horse lost, someone might say, "Somebody got his goat". Odd. I never heard that before. Did you?

Pretty cool show. I think it's interesting to find out where our expressions come from. Got his Goat just surprised me.

Did they happen to mention the origin of:

"Are you f'g kidding me?"

Associated with the only speed that doesn't leave.

[taxicab]

Did they happen to mention the origin of:

"Are you f'g kidding me?"

Associated with the only speed that doesn't leave.

Post of the year Robb....... :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Valuist]

I was watching a Curb Your Enthusiasm and Larry and Julia Louise Dreyfus were arguing whether the term was "chomping at the bit" or "champing at the bit."

Julia got it right.

[tanner12oz]

Where does the term "chalk" come from? I never heard it till getting into the game...now its chalk this and chalk that

[Ocala Mike]

The way I heard it, "chalk" derives from the days of legal bookmaking at the tracks, where books had old-fashioned blackboards on which they posted the odds they were offering. The odds would be changed by erasing one quote, and writing in the new odds in chalk on the board. Naturally, as the bookie would take in more money on the favorite, the odds he offered on the favorite would naturally be changing quite rapidly, necessitating a lot of "chalk" on that blackboard for the odds changes on the most likely winner.

[badcompany]

"A trip around the track" is a good everyday metaphor for having done something once and learning from the mistakes.

[KidCapper]

Or how about racing form comments....like this one for describing my sex life after 40.

Dwelt start...distanced...eased.... :lol:

[thespaah]

I was watching a Curb Your Enthusiasm and Larry and Julia Louise Dreyfus were arguing whether the term was "chomping at the bit" or "champing at the bit."

Julia got it right.
One of the best shows ever!!!!

[thespaah]

I happened to catch "American's Secret Slang" on The History Channel

They were talking about Horse Racing Expressions used in everyday English. Most we know.

Winning Hands Down, Coming down to the Wire, etc.


But one really caught me off guard. "Someone got his Goat" or "Getting his Goat".

I had NO IDEA that was a Horse Racing expression.

Evidently, back in the day, Goats were kept in pens with race horses to "Calm them down" before a race. If the Goats were removed, the horses got edgy, nervous and sometimes lost the race. If a horse lost, someone might say, "Somebody got his goat". Odd. I never heard that before. Did you?

Pretty cool show. I think it's interesting to find out where our expressions come from. Got his Goat just surprised me.
Perhaps the most widely used term in sports lexicon is derived( in legend only) from an famous loss by Man O' War in 1919.
It was at Saratoga, in 1919, that the word “upset” entered the American sports lexicon. That’s when a horse named Upset beat the mighty Man o’ War. It was the original Big Red’s only defeat. In those days, the word upset had a more literal meaning, along the lines of tip over, or capsize. But it had no particular connection with sports. Then came Upset’s victory over the seemingly invincible Man o’ War. So shocking was Upset’s triumph over Man o’ War, that sports scribes began to describe unexpected outcomes in other sports like football and basketball by saying so-and-so “pulled off an Upset.” Eventually, the capitalized “U” in Upset became lower case as upset became a part of regular usage, and a word we know well today.

[OTM Al]

Perhaps the most widely used term in sports lexicon is derived( in legend only) from an famous loss by Man O' War in 1919.
It was at Saratoga, in 1919, that the word “upset” entered the American sports lexicon. That’s when a horse named Upset beat the mighty Man o’ War. It was the original Big Red’s only defeat. In those days, the word upset had a more literal meaning, along the lines of tip over, or capsize. But it had no particular connection with sports. Then came Upset’s victory over the seemingly invincible Man o’ War. So shocking was Upset’s triumph over Man o’ War, that sports scribes began to describe unexpected outcomes in other sports like football and basketball by saying so-and-so “pulled off an Upset.” Eventually, the capitalized “U” in Upset became lower case as upset became a part of regular usage, and a word we know well today.
Not so

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/05/sports-legend-revealed-did-the-term-upset-in-sports-derive-from-a-horse-named-upset-defeating-man-o-.html

[Mineshaft]

Or how about racing form comments....like this one for describing my sex life after 40.

Dwelt start...distanced...eased.... :lol:






shit at least you got to start. You might of DNF but at least you got to come out the starting gates. **** i cant even find the starting gates.

[magwell]

Was flag-fall to finish, now it's "wire to wire"........:cool:

[Valuist]

One of the best shows ever!!!!

It was the Seinfeld reunion episode. Certainly was much better than the 1998 Seinfeld finale.

[goatchaser]

I happened to catch "American's Secret Slang" on The History Channel

They were talking about Horse Racing Expressions used in everyday English. Most we know.

Winning Hands Down, Coming down to the Wire, etc.


But one really caught me off guard. "Someone got his Goat" or "Getting his Goat".

I had NO IDEA that was a Horse Racing expression.

Evidently, back in the day, Goats were kept in pens with race horses to "Calm them down" before a race. If the Goats were removed, the horses got edgy, nervous and sometimes lost the race. If a horse lost, someone might say, "Somebody got his goat". Odd. I never heard that before. Did you?

Pretty cool show. I think it's interesting to find out where our expressions come from. Got his Goat just surprised me.
All you had to do was ask me.

[mountainman]

My brother Gary is a lifelong race-tracker who wants "FAILED TO MENACE" inscribed on his tombstone.

[ultracapper]

Winning hands down is a poker term. Everybody else folded.

[ultracapper]

We hired him and he was a great worker "right out of the gate".

This project has taken a long time, but we're "in the stretch" now and we'll be done soon.

He needed 75% of the votes to get into the Hall of Fame, and received 75.2%. He made it "by a nose".

They're all over. And "upset" did come from the Man o' War race.

[BlueShoe]

Or how about racing form comments....like this one for describing my sex life after 40.

Dwelt start...distanced...eased.... :lol:
Or "Never in contention." ;) :)

[BettinBilly]

Winning hands down is a poker term. Everybody else folded.

The show i was watching said that's incorrect. They said it was in fact taken from Horse Racing. I had thought it may have been from Poker too. According to the show I was watching, it's Horse Racing - Winning Hands Down, relaxed on the reigns, and not going to the whip on finish.

[OTM Al]

The show i was watching said that's incorrect. They said it was in fact taken from Horse Racing. I had thought it may have been from Poker too. According to the show I was watching, it's Horse Racing - Winning Hands Down, relaxed on the reigns, and not going to the whip on finish.

Billy is correct on this one. There are examples from the mid 1800s.

[OTM Al]

They're all over. And "upset" did come from the Man o' War race.

It may have been popularized by that race but it was used in the context of a favorite getting beaten as early as 1877. There is a Times article describing races at Monmouth with heavy favorites and the thought that there may be an upset. Here is another debunking of the Man O' War myth

http://colinsghost.org/2009/08/myth-about-upset-1919.html

[OTM Al]

Here's one I can't find but may also have to do with racing, possibly at Epsom or Ascot. When we shoot league pool, people use the expression "on the hill" to denote when you only need one more game to win the match. A great number of these idioms come from racing so I thought maybe this did as well as I believe on both of those courses the finish comes after an uphill stretch drive. So if one is on the hill, he is in the stretch and nearing the end of the race. Anyone else ever heard about this one?

[affirmedny]

Or how about racing form comments....like this one for describing my sex life after 40.

Dwelt start...distanced...eased.... :lol:

Mine is "speed, tired"

[banacek]

Quite a few years ago I was watching Australian racing and a horse flipped in the gate. As the horse was being checked out, the announcer said there would be a slight delay while they vet the horse.

So obvious, but it never occurred to me before. Now when someone at work talks about vetting a candidate they are often surprised to hear the origin of the term.

[Ocala Mike]

Mine is "speed, tired"

The worst one of all, I would say, is "finished early"!

[ultracapper]

The show i was watching said that's incorrect. They said it was in fact taken from Horse Racing. I had thought it may have been from Poker too. According to the show I was watching, it's Horse Racing - Winning Hands Down, relaxed on the reigns, and not going to the whip on finish.

That makes perfect sense. Thanks. I've been mis-informing drinking buddies for years.

[ultracapper]

It may have been popularized by that race but it was used in the context of a favorite getting beaten as early as 1877. There is a Times article describing races at Monmouth with heavy favorites and the thought that there may be an upset. Here is another debunking of the Man O' War myth

http://colinsghost.org/2009/08/myth-about-upset-1919.html

I'll be damned. Mo'W totally made it popular, but there it is. This game is GREAT.

There really are tons of statements made daily that originated with horse racing. If you listen carefully, and read articles carefully, and think about it, you see it damn near every day. Some of them, like "right out of the gate" are so common, that if you asked somebody where it came from, they'd say "I don't know". Then if you said horse racing, they'd say "No shit. Obvious."

[cnollfan]

3-point basketball shot is often called a trifecta.

Interception for a TD in football is a Pic-6.

[dinque]

isn't shoe-in derived from Willie Shoemaker ?

[affirmedny]

"also ran" is another one

[dinque]

and the famous artist.....tolose atthetrack

[BettinBilly]

"Dark Horse" for the unknown horse in the race now commonly used in Politics for an unknown candidate

[Longshot6977]

Soccer---My wife threw out my old and rare baseball cards during our recent move. Now I have to teach her a lesson and soccer. :lol:

[Nosed]

"Got it from the horses mouth" when you get inside info on anything.

[Ocala Mike]

isn't shoe-in derived from Willie Shoemaker ?

I looked that one up for you:

Shoo-in

Q I was wondering if you could possibly find out the origin of the term shoe in, meaning someone will win for sure.


A This one is spelled wrongly so often that it’s likely it will eventually end up that way. The correct form is shoo-in, usually with a hyphen. It has been known in that spelling and with the meaning of a certain winner from the 1930s. It came from horse racing, where a shoo-in was the winner of a rigged race.
In turn that seems to have come from the verb shoo, meaning to drive a person or an animal in a given direction by making noises or gestures, which in turn comes from the noise people often make when they do it.
The shift to the horse racing sense seems to have occurred sometime in the early 1900s. C E Smith made it clear how it came about in his Racing Maxims and Methods of Pittsburgh Phil in 1908: “There were many times presumably that ‘Tod’ would win through such manipulations, being ‘shooed in’, as it were”.

[DeltaLover]

An expression that sometimes I have heard used by my collegues (none of them knows anything about horse racing) is that we completed the XYZ project with FLYING COLORS..

Another one, is about the expression STABLE as used for a couple of friends sharing common interest

[OTM Al]

An expression that sometimes I have heard used by my collegues (none of them knows anything about horse racing) is that we completed the XYZ project with FLYING COLORS..

Another one, is about the expression STABLE as used for a couple of friends sharing common interest

Flying colors is nautical. In a sea battle, surrender was indicated by striking colors, ie pulling down your flag. Thus if you come through an engagement flying colors, you won the battle, or at least didn't lose.

[DeltaLover]

Flying colors is nautical. In a sea battle, surrender was indicated by striking colors, ie pulling down your flag. Thus if you come through an engagement flying colors, you won the battle, or at least didn't lose.

Today i have learned something !

[thaskalos]

Today i have learned something !

You must be from the mountains...

[DeltaLover]

You must be from the mountains...

not exactly Thask.. not exactly

[highnote]

I laugh whenever I hear a sportscaster use the phrase "We're at the quarter pole in the season" in reference to the sport being 1/4 of the way into the season.

Most sportscasters don't realize the 1/4 pole is 1/4 of a mile from the finish line. Funny that sportscasters wouldn't know something so fundamental to the sport of horse racing.

Being at the quarter pole means 3/4 of the way through the race in a one mile race and 1/3 of the way through a 6 furlong race. It has nothing to do with being 1/4 of the way through a season.

[ultracapper]

2/3 of the way through in a 6f race. Very important in handicapping a 6f sprint ;)

[highnote]

2/3 of the way through in a 6f race. Very important in handicapping a 6f sprint ;)


2/3 -- that's what I meant. :)

[Valuist]

I laugh whenever I hear a sportscaster use the phrase "We're at the quarter pole in the season" in reference to the sport being 1/4 of the way into the season.

Most sportscasters don't realize the 1/4 pole is 1/4 of a mile from the finish line. Funny that sportscasters wouldn't know something so fundamental to the sport of horse racing.

Being at the quarter pole means 3/4 of the way through the race in a one mile race and 1/3 of the way through a 6 furlong race. It has nothing to do with being 1/4 of the way through a season.

I laugh when I hear that because the announcers who say it probably wouldn't know a quarter pole from a stripper pole.

[1st time lasix]

The worst one of all, I would say, is "finished early"! Guess this gets you a "zero Beyer"

[BlueShoe]

I laugh when I hear that because the announcers who say it probably wouldn't know a quarter pole from a stripper pole.
Mainly due to the fact that most sportscasters have spent far more time in girly bars than they have at racetracks.

[thespaah]

Not so

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/05/sports-legend-revealed-did-the-term-upset-in-sports-derive-from-a-horse-named-upset-defeating-man-o-.html
The entire story agrees with your point.
I just didn't feel like posting the whole thing.
It goes on to state that the event at Saratoga is mere legend.
I guess I should have posted the link to the story.
GRRRR.....

[OTM Al]

The entire story agrees with your point.
I just didn't feel like posting the whole thing.
It goes on to state that the event at Saratoga is mere legend.
I guess I should have posted the link to the story.
GRRRR.....

Ah! Thus the "(in legend only)" part of the post. Skipped right over that.

[thespaah]

I laugh whenever I hear a sportscaster use the phrase "We're at the quarter pole in the season" in reference to the sport being 1/4 of the way into the season.

Most sportscasters don't realize the 1/4 pole is 1/4 of a mile from the finish line. Funny that sportscasters wouldn't know something so fundamental to the sport of horse racing.

Being at the quarter pole means 3/4 of the way through the race in a one mile race and 1/3 of the way through a 6 furlong race. It has nothing to do with being 1/4 of the way through a season.
In standardbred racing it is the opposite.
Because the vast majority of races are the 'standard distance' of one mile, the first call is the quarter pole. Then half then three quarter pole.
So the expression 'we're at the quarter pole of the season' is accurate when applied as a harness related expression.

[ultracapper]

"Came outta nowhere"

Could be a boxing term also I guess. The old left hook.