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Gets My Goat.
Makes you mad.  Elicits an emotional rather than logical response.  Annoys severely.

This expression, while known to most Americans and used since the early 1900s, does not have its beginnings documented.  According to H.L. Mencken in American Language (1945), the saying probably originated around horse racing tracks.  He was told that there was a practice among some horse trainers of quieting a particularly high-strung horse by putting a goat in its stall.  Opponents would “Get One’s Goat” by taking it from the stall, causing the horse to become unsettled and lose the race.

"Get Your Goat" - The Expression

Calming Race Horse Companion
One popular explanation tells the story of race horses who were kept calm before races by a companion goat. If someone wanted the horse to run poorly, he took the goat to upset the horse.
Somebody's Got My Goat
There was even a song published in 1908, "Somebody's Got My Goat"
Somebody's got my goat
He must have gone a-strollin'
Though he was old enough to vote
He's lost, strayed or stollen
When he began to feel his oats
He went out chasing nanny goats
You never struck such a giddy old buck
Has anybody seen my goat?
(words by Edward Madden, music by Theodore Morse. [15640] F. B. Haviland pub. Co., New York, N. Y. C 182830, June 3, 1908.)
Goat = Anger
A 1904 book, "Life in Sing Sing," identifies "goat" as a slang term for "anger, to exasperate."
A Boxing Term
Boxing journalists were among the first to popularize the expression. According to the American Dialect Society, the following was included in the Kansas City Star, Nov. 22, 1905, p. 21: "No, none of them can punch like Corbett. He got my goat that day and he got it good."
He Lost His Goat
The Jersey Journal, March 21, 1906, p. 2 referenced how, not only could someone get another person's goat, but a person could also lose their goat by losing their composure. "Joseph Dunn, 24 years old, of 88 Beacon Avenue, lost "his goat" yesterday when small boys with hard snowballs used him for a target."
Chairman's Goat
Americans are credited for coining the phrase because the first non-US citation is from English author John Galsworthy's 1924 story, "White Monkey": "That had got the chairman's goat! - Got his goat? What expressions they used nowadays!"
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