Best high school mascot in Kentucky: Top 10 candidates

From Briar Jumpers to Valkyries to Circuit Riders, meet the best high school mascots in Kentucky

It's fitting that Kentucky would have a high school that's home to the Thoroughbreds, but Briar Jumpers?

What's a Briar Jumper? Maybe you should ask the Purples.

SBLive Sports' love for unique mascots with interesting back stories has been well documented.

We've crowned Hodags and Imps the past couple of years in national high school mascot contests, and now we're taking a spin through every state.

Over the next couple of months we'll go from Alabama through Wyoming featuring each state's best high school mascots, and then give readers a chance to vote for their favorite. Our Kentucky poll will post Oct. 21 on highschool.si.com and stay open through Oct. 28.

Vote: Which is the best high school mascot in Kentucky?

Here are the top 10 high school mascots in Kentucky:

Ashland Blazer Tomcats and Kittens

The Tomcats are a juggernaut in boys basketball, winning state and national championships going all the way back to the 1920s, as are the Kittens in girls basketball. The school has a student physically become the school's mascot at sporting events, performing simply as "The Cat."

Bowling Green Purples

This one would be even better if the high school was just called Bowling and the mascot was the Green Purples, but there's a lot to like about these Purples. The mascot is a muscular purple creature with no mouth and an H on its chest. Why the H instead of BG? Bowling Green and Louisville Male both use the H because at the time they were the only high schools in the area.

Campbell County Camels

Not only does Campbell County have one of the best mascots in the country — a camel walking on two legs and wearing a letterman jacket — it's connected to a fantastic mascot that no longer exists. Silver Grove High School, home of the Big Trains, closed in 2019, and those Big Trains chugged a bit south and became Camels.

Corbin Redhounds

Any fan of Clifford the Big Red Dog needs to get their hands on some Corbin swag now. The Redhounds' mascot looks like Clifford wearing a white sweater and white hat with a bold red C on each.

Lloyd Memorial Juggernauts

From the school’s website about the 1928-29 football team: “The Cincinnati Post wrote the Lloyd’s team played 'like a juggernaut’ and the name stuck. Lloyd then became the Juggernauts, being the only school or college with that mascot.”

Newport Central Catholic Thoroughbreds

South Carolina and Florida also have Thoroughbreds as high school mascots, but how can we not choose a Kentucky school to wear the nickname best? It's 103 miles away from Churchill Downs, but that seems like a stone's throw on the first Saturday in May.

Prestonburg Blackcats

With Halloween right around the corner, it's a perfect time to honor the Blackcats, though the mascot looks more like a fierce panther than a black domestic cat whose path should not be crossed.

Sacred Heart Valkyries

From the Sacred Heart website: "Why be just a girl when you can be a Valkyrie? Our mascot is the Valkyrie — a Norse mythological woman who carried the bodies of brave deceased warriors to Valhalla (heaven). At SHA, we consider a Valkyrie to be a strong woman of great faith!"

Somerset Briar Jumpers

Kentucky has its fair share of briar, and one rock-solid way to avoid getting stuck by it is with a good, solid jump. Somerset understands this, and its mascot named Cecil is the biggest Briar Jumper of them all.

Wesley Christian Circuit Riders

We already met the Riders in Delaware, and now it's the Circuit Riders' turn in the spotlight. Circuit riders were clergymen in the early days of America, usually of the Wesleyan tradition, who rode many miles from one group of believers to another for religious instruction and to establish strong churches.

A Bowling Green Purples student puts his hand over his purple-painted heart during the national anthem at a 2021 basketball game :: Alton Strupp/Courier Journal via Imagn Content Services

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-- Mike Swanson | swanson@scorebooklive.com | @sblivesports