How Preakness Winner Cloud Computing Got His Nerdy Name
His owner's barn is full of giant nerd-horses.
Cloud Computing, a horse owned by a couple of hedge-fund managers, won the 142nd Preakness Stakes on Saturday, edging out the more traditionally named Classic Empire at the wire.
The Preakness is the second leg of the Triple Crown, the annual competition that begins with the Kentucky Derby in May and ends with the Belmont Stakes in early June. Cloud Computing didn’t race in the Derby, and so he can’t win the coveted Triple Crown, but he will go down as one of the strangest names in horse-race history after today — which is saying something, as professional racehorses often get some extremely weird names.
Cloud Computing, a name that would have been fictional in the recent past, is owned by Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence, a partnership of two finance dudes who love to name their horses after wonky terms in their industry.
Lookit that big nerd hoss run, y'all.
Cloud Computing was a longshot — the bookies only had him at 13-1 to win, but much like investing in Apple Computer in like 1985, sometimes a long shot pays off.
To be fair, weird tech terms are actually pretty great horse names. The Jockey Club, which governs horse racing in North America, has pretty strict rules for what you can and can’t name a horse. They don’t allow names that are “in poor taste” or are clearly commercial, so don’t expect to see a horse named Facebook Messenger or Oculus Rift in the gates anytime soon, but it’s honestly only a matter of time before one of the dudes who founded Reddit buys a racehorse and names it Narwhal Bacon or Upvotes to the Left or something.
