January 1, 1970

Introduced by Richard M. Langworth

Clementine Churchill looked upon Winston’s hobbies with the resignation of many a long-suffering wife. When he bought his first thoroughbred she called it ‘a queer new facet in Winston’s variegated life. Before he bought the horse (I can’t think why), he had hardly been on a racecourse in his life’.

The horse was Colonist II, who ran up an impressive set of wins; yet he was one of nearly fifty thoroughbred race horses and brood mares Churchill owned from 1946 through 1962. Katharine Thomson of the Churchill Archives Centre here traces his interest in horses and riding from his days as a cavalry lieutenant and polo player, his first tangle with turf betting as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his own stable of thoroughbreds. Colonist II was always his favourite, but he vetoed the suggestion he put the animal out to stud: ‘And have it said that the Prime Minister of Great Britain is living on the immoral earnings of a horse?’

Read the full article here: ‘Winston Churchill and the Lure of the Turf’ by Katharine Thomson in Finest Hour 102, Spring 1999, scroll to page 26.