Dorothy Paget was the daughter of Lord Queensborough and an American mother, and was very wealthy. She first registered her colours in 1930 - blue, with a yellow hoop on body and sleeves, and a yellow cap with a blue hoop. She became involved with Northolt Park in 1934 and was the most successful pony owner of the late thirties. As the leading owner at Northolt, she continued to be closely associated with the course until the outbreak of war. She spent lavishly on bloodstock and betting on racehorses, ponies and showjumpers and was one of the last great eccentrics of racing.
Her greatest racehorse was Golden Miller, which won five consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups between 1932 and 1936 as well as the 1934 Grand National, but her returns from racing were far below her outlay. Her trainers were often blamed for her disappointments and she changed them frequently. She was a demanding and difficult woman who was well known for telephoning trainers in the middle of the night - she would sometimes sleep for three days and then be wakeful for the next three, living her life with little consideration for the more conventional sleeping habits of others. At least one trainer rebelled against her unreasonable behaviour. Walter Nightingall threatened to turn her horses loose in Epsom High Street if she did not take them all away within 24 hours.
When she was driving one day to the races her Rolls Royce broke down. Seeing the local butcher's Baby Austin, she instructed her secretary to commandeer it, offering £200. When this was refused, because the owner was about to his mother for a drive, she raised the offer to £300, plus a trip to the races with her - without his mother. The offer was quickly accepted. (Her secretary routinely carried up to £5,000 for such miscellaneous expenses.) At the course, her welcoming party was looking out for a Rolls and failed to give her the kind of welcome she expected. After this little contretemps she always took two Rolls Royces to race meetings, to avoid any mechanical embarrassment.
Her bets ran into thousands of pounds. She was very superstitious, always wearing the same long blue-speckled coat to races, usually with a plain dark blue collar. Other superstitions were linked with numbers, particularly those of her birthday - 21 February. It was also essential that she took nine well-sharpened lead pencils in a bundle, to give her luck. Despite all this, her losses were prodigious - sometimes as much as £20,000 in a single day.
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