Brown Betty (horse)

Brown Betty was a bay or brown mare with a white star bred in the United Kingdom by Sir Alec Black. As a yearling she was offered for sale and bought for 1,600 guineas by Cecil Boyd-Rochfort on behalf of the American banker William Woodward Sr.. The filly was taken into training by Boyd-Rochfot at his Feemason Lodge stable in Newmarket, Suffolk. Woodward reportedly named Brown Betty after Boyd-Rochfort's niece, Betty McCall.[2] Physically, Brown Betty was described as "a filly of exquisite quality, of great length without being long in the back, and of a hard,dark bay colour that adds materially to her beauty."[3] The French trainer Frank Carter described her as the finest looking filly he had ever seen.[4]

She was sired by George V's stallion Friar Marcus who won the Middle Park Stakes in 1914 and went on to become a successful sprinter. Brown Betty was his only classic winner although he was the damsire of Bahram.[2] Her dam Garpal was a granddaughter of Santa Brigida (foaled 1898), a British broodmare who was the female-line ancestor of numerous major winners including Alcibiades, Mid-day Sun and Sun Stream.[5] Garpal was bought by Alec Black for 3100 guineas from he breeder Lord Derby but sustained a fractured pelvis shortly afterwards and narrowly avoided being euthanised owing to the intervention of a veterinary surgeon.[6]

In their book, A Century of Champions, based on the Timeform rating system, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Brown Betty an "average" winner of the 1000 Guineas.[10]

At the end of her racing career, Brown Betty was taken to the United States by Woodward to become a broodmare.[4] She produced at least two foals:

• Gallant Betty, a bay filly, foaled in 1936, sired by Gallant Fox. Unraced.
• Dusky Fox, bay colt, 1937, by Gallant Fox. Winner.[13]

• Brown Betty was inbred 3 × 4 to Ayrshire and Cyllene, meaning that these stallions appear in both the third and fourth generations of her pedigree. She was also inbred 4 × 4 to St Simon.