When Frank Di Giulio, Jr. saw the date of the Thorncliffe Stakes, he knew The Force would be with Ontario-bred Patches O’Houlihan.
“When I saw that this race was scheduled for May the fourth, I said, ‘This is too good,’” said Di Giulio, Jr. (
right, Dave Landry photo). “I was looking forward to it, but I did not expect him to break the track record. I just thought, ‘Okay, it has to be his day.’”
Patches O’Houlihan, a Di Giulio, Jr. homebred who is out of the mare Maythefourthbwithu, smashed the Woodbine track record for 5½ furlongs on the Tapeta on Star Wars Day with a dominant 1:02.28 performance for jockey Sofia Vives and trainer Bob Tiller.
Di Giulio, Jr., who believes in the power of names and pop culture, doesn’t think it’s a complete coincidence, despite being more amused than anything.
Horse racing, after all, is a sport built on luck and karma.
For decades, the Torontonian – who has three Canadian Horses of the Year to his credit: Patches O’Houlihan (2024), Pink Lloyd (2017) and Win City (2001) – has been having a blast planting equine Easter Eggs all over the Ontario horse racing scene by naming horses after his favourite songs, lyrics, TV shows, cartoons and movie characters.
He’s delighted when fellow pop culture fans get the references.
“You don't want it to be too obvious, but you don’t want it to be too obscure, either,” Di Giulio, Jr. said.
Take Patches O’Houlihan, named for Rip Torn’s character in the 2004 cult comedy favourite Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. The character is famous for saying, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball,” and “If you're going to become true dodgeballers, then you've got to learn the five Ds of dodgeball: dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!”
“I like stupid movies, that one and Happy Gilmore and Zoolander and Old School,” Di Giulio, Jr. said. “I like Will Ferrell, I like Vince Vaughan, I like Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler. I probably shouldn't like them because of my age, but I do. My kids like them too, which is cool. So, it's neat. They don't make [movies] like that anymore.
“Patches O’Houlihan is a cool name, but it's way better because he's a good horse.”
Di Giulio, Jr. also named Maythefourthbwithu after buying her as a yearling and noticing she was foaled on May 4. Though not a huge Star Wars fan, Di Giulio Jr. said the name, “was too obvious to pass up.”
DI GIULIO, JR.’S INFINITE EQUINE PLAYLIST
Mostly Di Giulio, Jr, a self-professed “child of the ‘80s,” said he likes to name horses after music.
“A higher percentage of names come from music, either titles of songs or lines from songs,” Di Giulio, Jr. said. “I enjoy music, and if the song means something to me, or the line from the song means something to me, or I think it's catchy, then I'll go with something like that. I started doing song titles, but often they're either copyrighted or they won't allow you to use them. So that's why I ended up going more lyrics.”
There are a lot of Canadian bands in the mix. Di Giulio, Jr. is a huge fan of The Tragically Hip and has named horses after Hip songs
Fifty Mission Cap,
Hundreth Meridian, Philly Completely (after the album and song Fully Completely),
The New Maybe and more. His horse Drop a Caribou is a lyric from the Hip song
Long Time Running.
There are also two horses Di Giulio, Jr. named after one song:
Home For A Rest by Canadian band Spirt Of The West. He named one horse Home for a Rest and another So Called Vacation, which is a lyric from that song.
“It's such a great song,” Di Giulio, Jr. said. “It’s something you just tap your foot to for sure and the lyrics are good, too.”
There was also Echo with Laughter, a horse named for a lyric from Led Zeppelin’s classic
Stairway to Heaven.
“He was by Old Forester and there’s a line [in Stairway to Heaven], ‘and the forests will echo with laughter,’” Di Giulio, Jr. said.
He also named a horse Go Kart Mozart, which is a lyric in the song Blinded by the Light written by Bruce Springsteen and best known for the version
recorded by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. On April 26, when the Go Kart Mozart broke his maiden, Woodbine race caller Robert Geller tied the horse name
into a great call referencing the song by saying, “Go Kart Mozart was doing more than checking out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside. And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly. And asked me if I needed a ride.”
Di Giulio, Jr. said it’s what he hopes all race callers do if they catch the reference behind a horse’s name.
If nothing else, the names of his horses will serve as something of a snapshot of his life.
Other Di Giulio, Jr. horses with music names include:
Di Giulio, Jr. is also a fan of the 1960s TV show Get Smart and has named horses Agent Eighty Six, Cone of Silence and Misseditbythatmuch.
There have been multiple horses named for The Three Stooges, along with Bugs Bunny names and other plays on words such as I Scream Sunday and Tequillamockingbird.
But, perhaps, none top Pink Lloyd.
PINK LLOYD’S ENTOURAGE
Ontario-bred Pink Lloyd is so beloved and successful in Canada he has a stakes race named after him – a race, incidentally, Patches O’Houlihan won in 2024.
Over a decade ago, Di Giulio, Jr. – who normally owns and breeds his horses solo – teamed up with his cousin, Victor Mele, and friends Ed Longo, John Peri and John Lucato to form the Entourage Stable. The group purchased Pink Lloyd as a yearling and named him after the character Lloyd Lee in the HBO show Entourage.
The stable has had a few other names connected to the show – Chasing Vinny, Ari Gold Speedwagn, etc. – but none of the horses came close to matching Pink Lloyd, a gelded son of Old Forester—Gladiator Queen by Great Gladiator bred by John Carey and purchased by the Entourage Stable for $30,000 at the 2013 CTHS Canadian Premier Yearling Sale. Pink Lloyd won 29 of 38 career starts, earned more than $1.8 million and collected eight Sovereign Awards (including the aforementioned 2017 Horse of the Year title) over a six-year racing career that ended in 2021.
Is Patches O’Houlihan a version of Pink Lloyd reloaded? Patches certainly wins with Pink Lloyd-like frequency. The former, a 5-year-old gelded son of Northern Dawn stallion Reload, already has 12 wins in 15 career starts, three Sovereign Awards and nearly $750,000 in the bank. He is now in his fourth racing season and the win in the Thorncliffe has Di Giulio, Jr. breathing easier, especially after going the fastest 5 ½ furlongs in Woodbine Tapeta history.
“I said to Bob [Tiller], ‘Not that he needed to justify it, but at least this shows people were right for voting for him [for Horse of the Year].’ It put a bit of an exclamation point on it,” Di Giulio, Jr. said.
It also provides some good karma to start the season.
“Anytime you lay them up, you wonder if they're going to come back the way they were before,” Di Giulio, Jr. said. “But Bob was really confident in the way he was training. So that helped ease a little bit of the anxiety. And then to watch him run like that, it looks like he might be the boss as long as he stays [healthy]. It gives you a lot of confidence heading into the rest of the year, for sure.”
Patches O’Houlihan was instrumental in helping Di Giulio, Jr.
rank second in 2024 Ontario Breeders’ Awards with $177,604.
“I take 100% of the money and put it back in the business,” Di Giulio, Jr. said. “I've already pre-spent the money. So, it's a matter of trying to pay off a line of credit that was used to pay expenses. I've invested it before I even earned it, to be honest.”
He also told Ontario Racing that bonus money for breeding Maythefourthbwithu to an Ontario stallion was a great incentive to keep everything in the province.
RACING HORSES IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN
Now Di Giulio, Jr. is relishing the chance to have another talented horse, especially given the boost it has brought to Tiller.
“[Tiller] doesn’t have a ton of good horses… So, it's nice for him. I think he picks his head up and it is more enjoyable for him to do his job for sure,” Di Giulio, Jr. said.
“I'm having a lot of fun with [Patches O’Houlihan]. Pink Lloyd was wonderful, and it was great to have partners, but to be able to say, ‘I bred [Patches O’Houlihan],’ and just the financial part of it, because he does help pay the bills for all the other ones, that’s important in my position. He’s helping keep me in business.”
While he’s staying in the business, Di Giulio, Jr. is going to have fun doing it.
“When I was a kid, I always dreamt about [naming horses],” he said. “I have a lot of fun doing it. A lot of these names are not original. I didn't think of them. Obviously, somebody else wrote the song or wrote the lyric, but it means something to me. It’s got to be a band that I like, and it's got to be something that has a bit of meaning, or the phrase is catchy, that type of thing.”
It also is exactly the kind of silly little thing that can draw fans to the game.
“I'm sure most people like songs or movies or books or whatever, and I think it's just a cool way to express your personality with your horses,” Di Giulio, Jr. said.
“We were at the races yesterday, sitting at a table, and there was a group celebrating a birthday, and my daughter was listening to them talk about picking horses. And she goes, ‘Those people that come to the races are picking horses based on names.’ My daughter does that. Names and numbers. They’re not going to sit and read the form. So, why not have fun with it?"
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