Potoooooooo

When it comes to naming racehorses, breeders aren’t afraid to get weird. But there’s perhaps no Thoroughbred with a name as unique—or amusing—as this.

In 1773, a healthy chestnut colt with a blaze was born. According to the lore, his owner, Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon, planned to name the foal “Potatoes,” and told a stablehand to write this chosen moniker on a feed bin.

But the stablehand made a bit of a mistake. He thought his boss had asked him to write “Pot-eight-O’s” and spelled the name as such. Supposedly, the earl was so amused by the gaffe, he kept the wonky spelling. (Some records shorten the name to Pot-8-Os or Pot8Os.)

Potoooooooo went on to have a successful racing career, racking up several wins. He retired from racing in 1784 and became a prolific stallion, siring more than 100 winners.

After Potoooooooo died in November of 1800, he was buried near a tree in Hare Park, the farm where he’d been retired. His body lay undisturbed for about 200 years, when a storm felled the tree and uprooted what’s believed to be his remains. Now, the skeleton stands within the National Horseracing Museum, in the company of other legendary—though less legendarily named—equines.