Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 211, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1912 — TRACED TO RACING STABLES [ARTICLE]

TRACED TO RACING STABLES

Slang Phrase, “Getting His Goat,” So Popular Now, Had Origin in . Actual Occurrence. Unlike many other vivid or picturesque slang expressions, which enrich and enliven the English language, but the source of which is either obscure or totally unknown, the origin of the phrase, "to get his goat," can fortunately be traced. Until it came into popular use, about half a dozen years ago, the phrase was confined to racing stables and to running horses and was part of the language of the racetrack. It was formerly the rather widespread custom among owners of racing stock to keep a goat in the same stall with a horse, either from the superstitious belief in mascots or from the more scientific belief that the goat imparted some of his strength or magnetism to the horse. Ardent friendships have been known to spring up between goats and horses living thus in close intimacy and sleeping together. When a hors«that had the companionship of a goat chanced to win the jockeys would attribute his success to the Influence of the goat, and it more than .once that a stable boy would “get the. goat” of the winning horse by entering the stable surreptitiously at night and faking the animal to the stall es his own favorite. If the horse that was deprived of his goat friend should lose the next day and the other horse should win, that would, of course, strengthen the belief in the efficacy of the goat The practice of relying on goats to help a horse win a-race is said to be dying out but it has left behind one of the most expressive phrases, which seems destined ultimately to become as respectable as any English idiom.#