Horse Racing Greats. Hank Style.

To call Hank meticulous might be somewhat of an understatement. He's thorough. He's methodical. He's legalistic in his thought process. And, above all else, he's completely literal.

When he received a new horse Webkinz as a birthday gift, he had to have a special name. A perfect name.

"How about Barbaro?" I suggested, knowing his love for that particular Kentucky Derby winner.

"OK!!" he enthused. Long pause. "But we'll have to look up his picture first to make sure he looks enough like my horse."

Off googling we went. We looked at Barbaro.


"Noooo, now quite close enough. See, Mom, not enough of a white blaze."

Oh. OK. Of course.

"How about Seabiscuit, Hank? You love Seabiscuit!"


Hank's disgust at my inability to grasp that this horse needed to look just like his was palatable.

I sighed. Clearly the memory of a great racehorse wasn't going to do it for Hanker. He didn't care how lame the name was, just that it physically resembled his new horse.

"How about I search for Man O' War, Hank?" I pleaded one last time.

"Does he have a thick white blaze, Mom?"

I gave up searching for the racing greats and instead googled "racehorse, white blaze." We finally settled on Northern Dancer who, while apparently well known in racing circles, doesn't quite conjure up the same feelings of greatness and majesty of some other previously named horses but does look quite a bit like Hank's Webkinz. And, to him, that was all that mattered.