HAYDAY has nothing to do with the dried grass our horses love to eat. In fact, HAYDAY is a misspelling of the word HEYDAY. Please don’t fret if you have mistakenly used HAYDAY, it’s a common error with an impressive history – we’ve been misspelling it for over 200 years

HEYDAY first appeared in 16th century English as a noun meaning “high spirits”. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark tells his mother, “You cannot call it love; for at your age/The heyday in the blood is tame….”

In the 18th century the meaning of “day” shifted to mean a period of time bringing us to HEYDAY’s current meaning “the peak of success”. For example, “In his heyday, no other horse could beat Secretariat”.

Here is a simple mnemonic to help you remember to use HEYDAY.

“Hay is for horses, not for this word”

Read WARHorses’ earlier posts about the origins of DEAD RINGER, HOLD YOUR HORSES and EXTREME VETTING.