Copenhagen (horse)

Copenhagen stood 15 hands high[9] and had a muscular physique on a small compact frame.[8] When Copenhagen was purchased for the Duke of Wellington as a five-year-old, he was described as "a dark chestnut with two white heels, [he was] a hollow-backed, powerful horse"[10] but reportedly had "bad shoulders."[11] Copenhagen allegedly "never refused his corn" but had a unique habit of eating while lying down.[8] Wellington said of Copenhagen, "There may have been many faster horses, no doubt many handsomer, but for bottom and endurance I never saw his fellow."[12] His "enduring qualities" were often attributed to his "Arabian blood."[13]

In his first start at the Craven Meeting in April, Copenhagen was third in a 100-guinea sweepstakes race, losing to the filly Sorcery and an unnamed filly by Dick Andrews.[15] A few days later, Copenhagen won a 50-guinea match race against Mr. Fisher's colt "brother to Spaniard"[16] and was beaten by the filly Tippitywichet in a match race.[17] At the First Spring Meeting in Newmarket, Copenhagen paid 20 guineas forfeit to Lord Bentinck's colt Pheasant[18] and a few days later was beaten by the Duke of Rutland's colt Momus in a 100-guinea match race.[19] At Huntingdon on 6 August, Copenhagen won a sweepstakes race, beating a horse sired by Ambrosio and Cressida (the full-sister of the Derby winning mare Eleanor and the dam of Derby winner Priam)[14] and the next day, Copenhagen was third in a Gold Cup race to the horse by Ambrosio and the colt Juvenal.[20] At Northampton, Copenhagen was third in a 70-guinea County Purse race after finishing second in all of the heats.[21] Copenhagen finished third in a sweepstakes race[22] and was third in the Oatlands Stakes at the Tarporley-Hunt meeting on 7 November.[23]

Copenhagen started three times in 1812. At Chester on 4 May, Copenhagen was third in a £50 Maiden Plate run in three heats, finishing fifth in the first heat and second in the remaining heats.[24] A few days later at the same meeting, Copenhagen finished third in a £70 Cup race run over three heats, finishing fourth in the first heat and second in the remaining heats, and was fourth in a Handicap Sweepstakes in the final start of his career.[25] Copenhagen was retired from racing at the end of the season.

Copenhagen's headstone with faded epitaph beneath the Turkey Oak planted by Mrs. Apostles in 1843 as photographed in 2009.

Copenhagen died on 12 February 1836 at Stratfield Saye at the age of 28 years,[11] reportedly due to indulging in too many sugary "dainties" such as "sponge cakes, bath buns and chocolate creams,"[29] but he most likely died due to his advanced age. He was buried "very early in the morning"[30] the next day with full military honours in the Ice-House Paddock[7] at the Duke's country residence, Stratfield Saye House. The Duke personally witnessed the horse's burial and reportedly "flew into a most violent passion" when he noticed that one of Copenhagen's hooves had been cut off as a souvenir.[11] The Duke reportedly exhumed Copenhagen's body a few months after his death to retrieve the other hooves as keepsakes, but "his three remaining hoofs had rotted away."[30] The pilfered hoof was eventually recovered. According to one source, a farmer bought the hoof for a little over three shillings and returned the hoof directly to the Duke.[30] In another account, a servant confessed to the Duke's son many years after the incident to taking the hoof, stating that at the time, "None of us imagined that the first Duke would trouble his head about the carcase of the horse."[11] The returned hoof was later made into an ink-stand by the second Duke.[11]

Copenhagen was buried without a headstone, and a few years after his death, the Duke was asked by the United Services Museum to disinter his body so that Copenhagen's skeleton could be publicly displayed alongside the skeleton of Napoleon's horse Marengo. The Duke refused and claimed that he did not "know for sure where Copenhagen was buried,"[7] a false statement given that the Duke had witnessed Copenhagen's burial.[11] The paddock where he was buried at one time had "a noble cluster of elms in the centre" and his grave was once surrounded by a small railing.[13] The large Turkey Oak[7] that presently shades Copenhagen's grave was planted by the elder Duke's housekeeper Mrs. Apostles seven years after the horse's death on 21 November 1843 in commemoration of her twentieth year of service to the Duke.[9]

After his father's death, his son personally created an epitaph for Copenhagen and placed a marble grave marker beside the tree that was planted over his burial site.[9] A lead plaque with the inscription and "some coins of George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria" were buried at the grave site.[9] The inscription, the bottom-half faded over time, reads:

Head-on view of Copenhagen in the Wellington Statue designed by Matthew Cotes Wyatt and unveiled in 1846. The second Duke thought that the horse's face was a good likeness of Copenhagen.

Copenhagen was depicted as "a bay, a grey and a chestnut"[33] in various paintings during his lifetime and after his death. In one instance the choice of his coat colour was due to personal preference. Copenhagen was painted accurately as a chestnut by Edwin Landseer, but the original work was repainted with Copenhagen as a grey on the orders of Lady Charles Wellesley due to her "having a preference for the grey colour in horses."[33]

The Duke of Wellington and Copenhagen were the subject of a "colossal" bronze statue designed by Matthew Cotes Wyatt and his son James.[34] Construction of the statue began in 1840, four years after Copenhagen's death, and lasted until 1843. The 40-tonne (40,000 kg), 8-metre-long (26 ft) and 9-metre-tall (30 ft) statue was unveiled on 28 September 1846[35] with much fanfare and was hoisted into a prominent position on top of the Triumphal Arch,[34] then located a short distance from the Duke's London residence, Apsley House, on Hyde Park Corner.[36] Copenhagen's belly had a girth of 22 feet and eight inches and the section was used to host a "celebratory dinner" for Wyatt before the work was completed, and a "rider on horseback could readily pass under Copenhagen's torso without danger of scraping his beaver hat."[37] The portrayal was generally ridiculed in the press and by the public with a French spectator to the unveiling reportedly saying, "We have been avenged!"[34] A young soldier reportedly said Wyatt's statue was "warning ambitious young officers of the fate that awaits them if ever they are so unfortunate as to achieve greatness."[36] The statue was viewable from Apsley House and remained at the Hyde Park location for the remainder of the Duke's life.

Wyatt reportedly had difficulty sculpting the figure of Copenhagen and did not want to base the statue on Copenhagen's actual form in his later years, which was short, "calf-kneed and cow-hocked [with] quarters that drooped in a most unattractive fashion."[36] As a substitute, he based the statue on the conformation and measurements of the Thoroughbred racehorse Recovery, which he obtained from The Pictorial Gallery of Racehorses.[36] During construction, the Duke's son and the artist Edwin Landseer toured Wyatt's foundry and viewed the cast of the horse's head. The rendition of Copenhagen's face with prominent flared nostrils was likened to "something like a pig's snout" by the press,[38] which the second Duke asserted was an accurate portrayal and "very like Copenhagen."[30]

• Copenhagen is played by Daniel Rigby in BBC Radio 4's Warhorses of Letters, "the world's first epistolary equine love story", a comic exchange of letters between Copenhagen and Napoleon's horse Marengo (played by Stephen Fry).[39] The comedy ran for three series.
• Copenhagen also appears alongside the Duke of Wellington in Bernard Cornwell's novel Sharpe's Waterloo; in the historical note to his later novel Sharpe's Prey, depicting the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, Cornwell mentions Copenhagen's birth and commemorative naming.
• Copenhagen was mentioned in Georgette Heyer's Regency Romance novel, The Grand Sophy, when the heroine, Sophy, talked about her own horse, Salamanca.