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E.P.Taylor
For those who do not know, Edward P. Taylor was a very successful Canadian businessman in the twentieth century. Most importantly for me, he was the founder and builder of Windfields Farm, home of hundreds of wonderfully successful thoroughbred racehorses, highlighted by the magnificent Northern Dancer.
When I finally read a biography of Mr. Taylor, written by Richard Rohmer, thus learning the story for the first time, I received the shock of my life to learn that E. P. Taylor almost did not survive World War 11. There very easily might not have been a Windfields Farm, or a Northern Dancer, in the world into which I was to arrive in 1950. And I never would have known the difference.
Here is the story. On December 13, 1940, Mr. Taylor was on the British passenger ship, the Western Prince, part of a team of Canadian officials sailing to England on government wartime business. That night the ship was fatally torpedoed. The passengers who escaped in the lifeboats, including E. P. Taylor, faced certain death by exposure and starvation because the British government, in the face of severe losses of ships in the Atlantic, had ordered all British ships not to attempt, almost totally the rescue of persons who had suffered a u-boat attack. This was to prevent the would-be rescuer ships from becoming victims themselves. The German submarine which had carried out the initial sinking might be lingering to attack further.
Fortunately for the history of international horse racing in the second half of the twentieth century, a British merchant ship in the area, the Baron Kinnaird, was captained by a man, L. Dewar, who decided to break the law. He surveyed his crew, and upon seeing the flares sent up by the Taylor boats, decided to attempt a rescue. In a further instance of improbable luck, a British destroyer came on the scene, and promptly agreed to offer protection to Dewar and his ship.
E. P. Taylor thus landed safely in England, and a huge part of the future horse racing world, and my great pleasure, advanced. Unfortunately, Captain Dewar would be stripped of his captaincy commission for the remainder of the war, for carrying out the rescue.
In retrospect, one rejoices in the rescue of E. P. Taylor, but I ask myself how many possibilities arising from other lives did we lose in all wars from the less fortunate who died.
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