With the Belmont Stakes taking place tomorrow, Gretchen Atwood checked in a few days ago and asked if Uni Watch planned any coverage of New York State’s “odd rules for jockey silks.” When Uni Watch confessed a deep and abiding ignorance of the subject, Atwood pointed Uni Watch toward this page, which includes the following: “In most places there are no restrictions on how silks can look, but in New York, where the New York Jockey Club regulates colors, the rules are very stringent.”
The next stop was the New York Jockey Club’s silks registration page, which has a series of interesting links. This page lists some very basic rules; this PDF file shows the 52 jacket-design templates and 19 sleeve-design templates that are eligible for registration; and this PDF file is the silk-colors registration form, where applicants are supposed to draw their design onto an endearingly crude template. It’s all rather impressively geeky.
Uni Watch knows relatively little about the ponies, but there’s no denying that silks (which are actually made of nylon, not silk) look totally cool — the old ones, the current ones, even the illustrations of them. Check out this gallery — amazing stuff. Want a set of your own? These guys appear to have the goods. And if you want some good historical background, look here.
As for the Belmont, you can see the lineup of silks (and, yes, the horses too) here. Uni Watch is particularly intrigued by the designs being worn by the jockeys for Sacred Light, Bluegrass Cat, Deputy Glitters, and SunRiver.
Coming up any day now: Full Uni Watch coverage of greyhound silks.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Good article here about Wisconsin high school softball unis, some of which are sleeveless (with thanks to Louis Mercer). … Dwyane Wade’s shorts fell down during last night’s NBA Finals game, revealing his super-padded compression shorts (screen-grab courtesy of Uni Watch webmaster John Ekdahl). … Speaking of the NBA: As is customary, the Mavericks are wearing a jersey patch of the Larry O’Brien Trophy on their upper right chest area. But the Heat are the one team that wears the NBA logo on that side, so they’re wearing the trophy patch on the other side.
I’ve been wondering all playoffs. Dwyane Wade doesn’t wear tights, he wears black socks, black knee pads and compression shorts. So the question is don’t teams have to wear the same color socks? All other Heat have white socks.
the variance in silk designs is rather interesting…i wonder whether there are trends in the community, e.g if stripes are the cool thing one year, check patterns the next…
On the opposite end of the sporting aesthetic world, there’s an overview of the big three World Cup jersey brands up on Cool Hunting. link.
In reference to the Heat wearing the NBA logo on the opposite side (of course due to the flame coming up off the “T” of the home jersey) than is customary, how do you think they will adress this when they have to attach the trophy patch to their white unis? That has the potential of looking really bad.
I caught that shot of Wade’s shorts last night too, making me wonder if he is wearing a pair of tights that he cut off into socks, or are they just like soccer socks? with fellow socks/tights fan jason williams, plus pure knee highs with van horn, terry, posey, and then the calf-length dudes in walker and howard, it seems like this is shaping up to be a big finals for hosery.
The black padded shorts prevent injury. remember the thigh contusion shaq sustained in 05 versus the other O’neal. Limited hinm throughout the Playoffs and immobilized him in the 05 conference finals. Wade’s just protecting himself from cheap shots going into the hole. And incase your wondering, Shaq’s wearing it too. I can only wonder if they both agreed, or Superman Convinced Flash.
Tubby
here is a good view of what wade wears.
im thinking that those are some sort of leg sleeves or altered tights. high socks would have the required nba logo on them somewhere.
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sorry, try this.
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That website with the jockey silks was ok…but something was missing… oh yeah:
Where are all the Nike Logos and advertisment patches? It hardly seems like a sport without them… ;)
Ecuador’s goaltender had his flag painted across his face today:
Soon enough Wade and other NBA-ers will be sporting full body armor, ala Bonds, Biggio, Bagwell, etc. What a bunch of Nancy’s!
Speaking of the Larry O’Brien Trophy logo, was it really necessary for the Mavs to put a supersized version at mid-court? That looked ridiculous, we all know we’re watching the NBA Finals.
This isn’t a uni comment, but did anyone see the hair on Bastian Schweinsteiger of Germany today in Munich? I’d call it a faux-hawk, but it was more like he shaved one side of his head and left the other side while spiking what was left in the middle. Not as bad as Ronaldo in 2002, but pretty bad. Sorry, no picture to prove it, but if you watched the match, you know.
I think the criticism of the German kit was a little misplaced, especially when viewed from afar. Up close, not that great, but it looked very classic in every view but the very close shots.
That isn’t something the Mavs did on their own, that is an NBA thing…I think it started last year.
The NBA giant trophy logo is just hideous. Why does the NBA this trophy is so cool? It’s at best the third best trophy, way behind the Stanley Cup and World Series trophies.
Ecuador keeper Christian Mora was rocking the keeper pants today, along with the facepaint.
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The referee uniforms are quite barfworthy this year. Check these out.
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Has anyone else notice how all the World Cup teams that wear Puma apparel have non-capitalized surnames on the back of their jerseys? I’ve seen all capitalized surnames and regular-case surnames, but ever a name that is not capitalized. Can anyone give anyone give any more examples of teams (in any sport) that have non-capitalized names on the back of their jersey?
as far as non-capitalized surnames go, the columbus blue jackets have kind of a weird thing going on. most players are capitalized but if you look at pictures of rick nash’s jersey it looks like “nASH” the n is not capitalized but everything else is. it’s different for sure. that’s the only one that comes to mind for me
Yeah you can kind of see that here:
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However, I think that is just the font the Blue Jackets use on their jerseys. Unfortunately, there is no other player, other than Nash, with a last name that begins with an “n” on that team, so there is no one to compare him to.
Could this be the answer to people wondering about the white Miami Heat home jersey?
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Shoot, let’s hope not!
I caught an oddity while watching Mexico beat Iran this morning. The announcers continually praised Brazilian immigrant (now Mexican citizen) Zinha (pronounced ZI-ña) on his play and the controversy he stirred. He played beautifully (Joga Bonito!) with an assist and a goal. But I noticed the back of his jersey said A.Naelson. (Side note: every Mexican player had his initial before his last name with no space between the period and the surname) I thought he might have borrowed the jersey since it wasn’t his name on the back.
Further research shows his real name is Antonio Naelson Matiasar. Those Brazilians and their mononomes. I assume that Zinha is some sort of nickname but it didn’t translate when I tried. Anyone?
Check out the roster on this page, it shows both names.
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This picture shows it on the old jerseys:
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You can see the last couple letters here:
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That’s the best I got…
Robert Fick of the Nationals homered in stirrups and sanitaries today.
I was watching the Indians White Sox game tonight and Bob Wickman should be added to the list of players with things written under their caps. I’m not technically savvy enough for a picture, but on Sundays night he had writing.
The Orlando Solar Bears used to wear a third jersey that had lower case letters (the first letter was capitalized) but that is the only other example of lower case letters I’ve ever seen. Great Blog!
Johnny K
P.S. I saw the Wickman writing as well. It’s one his left side of the bill.
Gotta love these stirrups:
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no mention of the logo creep on the wisconsin highschool softball pic?
Why hasn’t P.Diddy, Russell Simmons or Peter Capalino caught onto jersey silks jackets as the next urban style craze… talk about off the charts…wow!!!
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people what wade wears are calf sleeves, knee pads and thigh sleeves