Lady Angela gets some recognition
Horse Labelled as the "foundation" of EP Taylor's breeding empire to receive a proper gravestone
An overhead view of the Windfields Farm area shows the location of many of the significant buildings associated with the old horse farm owned by EP Taylor. In the rop right, a marker for Trillium Cemetery shows the location where Lady Angela and several other horses special to the farm were buried years ago. Now, Lady Angela is set to receive a gravestone to mark her final resting place.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
If one were to take a stroll through Trillium Cemetery today, you would never know that that one of the most important horses in E.P. Taylor’s racing empire was buried beneath your feet. Now, 50 years after her death, Lady Angela is finally getting some recognition.
Thanks to residents John Mappin and Muriel Lennox, and approval from both the City of Oshawa and the Heritage Oshawa committee, a grave marker will soon be installed in the cemetery to honour the horse who passed away in 1966. Mappin has also agreed to pay for the construction and installation of the grave marker, according to city reports.
Lady Angela was purchased in the 1950s by Taylor during an auction on the other side of the Atlantic, in Newmarket, England. When she was being shipped over to Canada, she was pregnant with Nearctic, the horse that would go on to become the sire of Northern Dancer, the most famous of Taylor’s horses.
“(Lady Angela is) described by some as the most important horse buried in Trillium Cemetery,” reads a report from the city. “Because of her status as grand dam of Northern Dancer and hence matriarch of a vast dynasty of champion race horses that continue to dominate the world of horse racing.”
In 2010, Lady Angela was inducted in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, which labelled her as “the foundation of Taylor’s breeding empire.”
Trillium Cemetery, protected under the Heritage Act, currently sits on lands owned by Tribute Communities, which is in the process of building a subdivision in the area. The burial ground contains the remains of several other important horses previously a part of Windfields Farm, including Chop Chop, the leading sire in Canada between 1959 and 1963; Bridle Path, the winner of the 1979 Breeder’s Stakes; and Moose, E.P. Taylor’s personal riding horse.