Dorothy Paget by Graham Sharpe

Author:Graham Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910497388
Publisher: Raceform

Twelve

SHOWING OFF

Pat Smythe, one of Britain’s leading showjumpers, on Dorothy’s fine horse, Scorchin’, who competed in the Olympic Games.

At the 1950 International Horse Show, at London’s White City stadium, Dorothy’s equine superstars Golden Miller and Insurance made personal appearances, to the delight of the large crowd. ‘It was the last time,’ wrote Gregory Blaxland in his biography of the Miller, ‘Miss P. saw them.’ The conjunction of this end of an era in her horse racing career with this venue is perhaps no coincidence, because it was in this same year, according to the top British showjumper Pat Smythe, four times winning rider in the Ladies’ European Championship, that Dorothy decided to turn some of her attention to showjumping.

Had Pat seen the front page of Gloucester’s Citizen newspaper on Monday, 11 July 1949, she’d have picked up a hint as to the coming conversion – for in it was a photograph of the well-known showjumping personality and Olympic medallist Colonel Harry Llewellyn partnering Dorothy’s horse Housewarmer, who had fallen and finished 6th and 4th in the last three runnings of the Grand National, at the Lydney Horse Show two days earlier.

Once she had decided to enter the world of showjumping, Dorothy sought advice on who to get to look after her horses, and asked Harry Llewellyn.

Llewellyn suggested Peggy ‘Pug’ Whitehead, herself an experienced showjumper, born Dorothy Mary Verity in October 1912, who had taken an early interest in horses after holding a milkman’s nag while he went on his round, before helping out with his other horses at weekends and visiting local shows. She and husband Reginald had opened a riding school in Birmingham, before moving to Abergavenny where she had joined the Monmouthshire Hunt Club and established herself as one of the finest huntswomen of her time. Horse & Hound magazine described her as ‘doing it a great deal better than most men’. After the war she turned her energies to showjumping, and was soon competing abroad, including at Ostend – where she also rode a winner on the Flat at the local racecourse.

Dorothy sent Pug Housewarmer, her top-class jumper. The horse didn’t make a very successful transition to the new discipline, but it was still a more successful start than might have been anticipated, as, along with Housewarmer, Dorothy gave Pug two blank cheques and, perhaps hoping to repeat the Golden Miller/Insurance double purchase, told her to buy the two best showjumping horses in Britain. Pug bought Scorchin’ and Eforegiot (pronounced ‘E for Eejit’), and subsequently rode both in the British team, as well as another of Dorothy’s horses, Tommy XIII, and a number of others.

Pug’s obituary in the Daily Telegraph recalled that working for an eccentric such as Dorothy Paget was not without its moments. The horses, for example, were not allowed to leave a showground in the evening until Miss Paget had given them the order to. It was not uncommon for all the horses to be unloaded again in the near dark so that the great lady could spend a penny in the privacy of the horsebox.

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