Ask the Anorak: Aga's grandfather caused no shock with non-Muslim names.

Byline: John Randall 

I was intrigued to learn from the Racing Post (June 10) that the first Irish Derby winner owned by the present Aga Khan's grandfather was called Zionist and his last, Hindostan, also hinted at a non-Muslim religion. Is there a story behind those names?

S Martin, Manchester

The Anorak says:

Aga Khan III, like his grandson the present Aga Khan, gave most of his horses names which attested to his Islamic religion and culture, such as Mumtaz Mahal, Bahram, Mahmoud, Nasrullah and Tulyar.

Yet he was not only the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims but also a cosmopolitan plutocrat and politician, and some of his horses' names reflected those aspects of his life. Zionist, his first Irish Derby winner in 1925, was so called because his dam was Judea (by Roi Hrode), who had won the Irish Oaks for another owner in 1918.

At the time, 23 years before the founding of Israel and the subsequent deterioration in relations between Jews and Muslims,

no-one expressed surprise that a prominent Muslim had given a horse such a name.

Hindostan (which means `country of the Hindus') became the last of the Aga Khan's record five Irish Derby winners in 1949. The name reflected the owner's close connections with India - he was born in 1877 in Karachi, which was then part of British India, and represented India at the League of Nations in the 1930s.

The Aga Khan was of mostly Persian ancestry, and Tehran, the capital of Persia (now Iran), was the name of his 1944 St Leger winner.

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