Happy Lucky Dragon Win | The declining state of Hong Kong horse names - and the true meaning of Llaregyb

Since we first tackled the declining standard of Hong Kong horse names a little over a year ago, quality has slipped and it seems owners need a refresher on how best to name their new charge.

More and more owners want to stray from the tried-and-true Happy Lucky Dragon Win template and be all clever. Listen, it doesn’t work, ok? Stick to Happy, Lucky, Dragon, Win or a list that includes Super, Fortune, Elite, Red, Golden, Money or a lucky number of your choosing. Win, Wins or Winning are also an acceptable prefix or suffix. Win Win Wins would be a fine name. What about Super Money Win Wins? See, they all work.

You just need any two words from that list and you’ve got a classic Hong Kong horse name, the more nonsensical and grammatically incorrect the better.

Things became so bad that an unraced John Size-trained horse has simply been named “Dragon” – that’s just plain lazy, you might as well just call it “Horse”. Dragon is a snub to the fine lineage of Dragons, from Fat Dragon to Fairy Dragon, to Great Dragon and Gay Dragon. Ambitious, Arrogant, and Handbag – all the Dragons that have raced. On its own, Dragon just isn’t trying hard enough. But the new names that really caught our attention are where the owners might have tried a little too hard: Packing Llaregyb and Peniaphobia.

Packing Llaregyb is an Andreas Schutz-trained import whose name is causing all manner of confusion in the race callers’ box and consternation among the masses. If you didn’t know Llaregyb was a Welsh word, and therefore didn’t know the double L was pronounced like a double “F” (of course it is), and you pronounced the word at face value you come off sounding like you’ve had too many jelly shooters in Lan Kwai Fong.

But even knowing it is a Welsh word doesn’t help much, it’s not a word designed for an Australian race caller’s delicate palate that’s for sure – so how the heck do you say it?