This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about Big Brown below in the comments.

The simplicity of a brand name or symbol confers status on a company. Decades ago, the symbol might literally have been a stock symbol: the oldest companies got one letter ticker symbols from the New York Stock Exchange. United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) now gets that status by taking an entire color: brown. (Granted, it's not a primary color like IBM's Big Blue, but it still shows the company's clout.)

The company first started using its trademark brown trucks in the 1920s when it delivered appliances and other goods for department stores, says Mike Brewster, author of Driving Change: The UPS Approach to Business. Pullman brown was a good choice because "their department store clients wanted the company to be more under-stated, because the stores didn't want the fact that they no longer had their own trucks highlighted." That, and the dark trucks were easier to keep looking clean.

Brown is much more than a truck color now. It's the uniform. It's the logo. It's what the company calls itself in commercials. UPS employees bragging about their loyalty will say they "bleed brown." This year the company sponsored a horse named Big Brown, which won two-thirds of the Triple Crown.

But, hard as it is to believe now, UPS almost gave up its trademark color. "The company almost changed the color in the '90s during one of several re-brandings, but decided to stick with brown, much to the disappointment of many in the company," says Brewster. "But the 'What can Brown do for You?' campaign has given the color new life at the company."

The outcome of the Belmont Stakes where Big Brown came in last instead of first is just one more example of the difficulty one has in making predictions. I know little about horse racing, and the only thing I know about the Triple Crown is that there has not been a winner in 30 years (and counting). As irony would have it, the winner of the Belmont was the 38-to-1 long shot Da Tara that went wire to wire.

This event stands out in my mind because I am asked to predict future events on a regular basis (whether it makes sense or not), and because I am in the middle of reading The Black Swan about randomness and uncertainty by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I highly recommend the book to fellow investors and business leaders interested in getting some perspective on risk and the many fallacies we all overlook.

The number of variables that can affect a specific outcome like a horse race are significant, and in the case of the Belmont Stakes, on this occasion something was amiss. When Big Brown turned for home, something wasn't right. Jockey Kent Desormeaux knew the big bay colt was finished. Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., who guaranteed racing's first Triple Crown in 30 years, knew it, too.