Thanks, guys. I have actually been feeling a bit embarrassed, because my naming of the horse has drawn more attention than Gavin Schafer's breeding of him, and Gavin is the guy who deserves all the credit. My involvement started when one of Gavin's horses bred on Mauritzfontein won a race when I happened to be in the Tellytrack studio and I ribbed Gavin on air (I have known him and his brother, Victor, for years) about his choice of name, saying he could have been a bit more creative.
I got an SMS from him suggesting that if I thought I was so clever he would send me the breeding of a few of his recently born foals and I should have a go. I think he sent me about eight and the two which were eventually accepted by the Jockey Club (some of my suggestions had already been taken) were Slumdog Millionaire and Pylon. However, we were forced to run the two names together in the case of Slumdogmillionaire because the name exceeded the allowable number of letters.
The name came to me very quickly, actually. The movie had just been released and with the sire being Strike Smartly and the dam Make A Million (by Last Tycoon), it was a bit of a no brainer. However, the horse could have ended up being called Jamal Malik, which was the name of the main character played by Dev Patel in the movie, and nobody would have known what it meant!
I heard that something had gone wrong with the colt early in his career and didn't really expect him to hit the headlines, but I think Gavin Van Zyl was actually being very patient with him and it's paid off spectacularly. Anyway, his turning out to be a superstar has given me a lot of pleasure, and now Pylon has won too, so it was altogether a fun week.
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