“Stop-that-Smoke.”

Bits of history are wrapped up even in horse names, among pakeha and Maori alike. Many a page could be written about the lore of racehorsenaming. There were whimsical names such as that given by a Wanganui sporting settler to his steeplechaser long ago, “Johnny-come-through-theraupo.”

A Maori war veteran, the ancient Te Huia Raureti, who is still living on what was once the frontier of the Upper Waikato, told me this incident of the war of 1863, when a Maori force unsuccessfully attacked the Pukekohe East stockade, a fortified church.

“On the retreat from Pukekohe to the Waikato River, we spent a night in the bush. Our party kindled a small fire. Early in the morning there was an alarm that the soldiers were upon us, and the quick command was given —“Haha te paoa! meaning to extinguish the blaze and cover up the embers lest the smoke [paoa] should be seen rising through the trees. We captured a settler's horse that day, a piebald. We took it with us right up the Waikato, in fact we brought it to Te Kopua, on the Waipa, and we named it 'Haha-te-Paoa,' in memory of that incident.