Isabel Dodge Sloane
Encyclopedia
Isabel Cleves Dodge Sloane (February, 1896 - March 16, 1962) was an American
heiress
and socialite
who owned a major Thoroughbred horse racing
stable and breeding
farm.
Isabel Dodge was the second of three children of Canadian-born
Ivy Hawkins (1864-1902) and John F. Dodge
, (1864-1920), the co-founder of the Dodge Brothers Motor Company
in Detroit, Michigan
. Her mother died of tuberculosis
when she was six and she was raised by two stepmothers and a series of nanny
s. Educated at Detroit's exclusive Liggett School for Girls
, her family's great wealth brought her in contact with America's social elite and in 1921 she married Manhattan
stock broker
, George Sloane.
Fond of a variety of sports, Isabel Dodge Sloane played golf
and tennis
and enjoyed fly fishing
and game bird
hunting
. She and her husband were listed on the New York Social Register
and attended Thoroughbred
flat races
at Belmont Park
. However, it was in steeplechase racing
that Isabel Dodge Sloane first became involved as an owner and in 1924 she won her first race under the name Brookmeade Stable
. Although she would become a major figure in flat racing, Mrs. Sloane continued to own and compete in steeplechase events for the rest of her life and her gelding
His Boots twice won the most prestigious steeplechase race in the U.S., the American Grand National. Her half-sister, Frances Dodge
, was also heavily involved in horse racing and breeding and owned the renowned Castleton Farm
near Lexington, Kentucky
.
Isabel Dodge Sloane and her husband separated in 1928 and divorced in 1929 after which she substantially expanded her involvement in horse racing. Keeping her married name, Isabel Dodge Sloane owned homes in Locust Valley
on Long Island
and on Park Avenue
, but in 1929 she purchased an 850 acres (3.4 km²) property in Upperville, Virginia
that she called Brookmeade Farm and entered the horse breeding
part of the business. Although she hired top level farm managers, Ms Sloane learned the intricacies of the breeding business. In a 1939 article in the New York World-Telegram
, feature writer Elliott Arnold
wrote that there wasn't a man in the business who knew more about Thoroughbreds than Isabel Dodge Sloane.
Sloane's Brookmeade Stable won many of the major graded stakes race
in the United States including each of the American Classic Races. In 1934 she became the first woman to lead the American owners' list when she won the Kentucky Derby
with future the Hall of Fame
colt Cavalcade
and the Preakness Stakes
with High Quest
. In 1951, she became one of only three women to ever be the Guest of Honor at the annual testimonial dinner of the Thoroughbred Club of America. In 1954, she was elected Vice-President of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association.
In 1959 Sloane captured the Belmont Stakes
with another future Hall of Famer, Sword Dancer, then the following year her third Hall of Fame inductee, the filly
Bowl of Flowers
, was voted the 1960 U.S. Champion two-year-old filly
and then U.S. Champion three-year-old filly
in 1961. Isabel Dodge Sloane died the following year at the age of sixty-six.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
heiress
Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
and socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
who owned a major Thoroughbred horse racing
Thoroughbred horse race
Thoroughbred horse racing is a worldwide sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport: Flat racing and National Hunt racing...
stable and breeding
Horse breeding
Horse breeding is reproduction in horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. Planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in domesticated horses...
farm.
Isabel Dodge was the second of three children of Canadian-born
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
Ivy Hawkins (1864-1902) and John F. Dodge
John Francis Dodge
John Francis Dodge was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.-Biography:...
, (1864-1920), the co-founder of the Dodge Brothers Motor Company
Dodge
Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. Her mother died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
when she was six and she was raised by two stepmothers and a series of nanny
Nanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
s. Educated at Detroit's exclusive Liggett School for Girls
University Liggett School
University Liggett School, also known as ULS and Liggett, is a private, secular school inGrosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1878, it is Michigan's oldest independent coeducational day school....
, her family's great wealth brought her in contact with America's social elite and in 1921 she married Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
stock broker
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...
, George Sloane.
Fond of a variety of sports, Isabel Dodge Sloane played golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and enjoyed fly fishing
Fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...
and game bird
Game (food)
Game is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated. Game animals are also hunted for sport.The type and range of animals hunted for food varies in different parts of the world. This will be influenced by climate, animal diversity, local taste and locally accepted view about what can or...
hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
. She and her husband were listed on the New York Social Register
Social Register
Specific to the United States, the Social Register is a directory of names and addresses of prominent American families who form the social elite, . The "Directory" automatically includes the President of the United States and the First Family, and in the past always included the U.S. Senators and...
and attended Thoroughbred
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...
flat races
Flat racing
Flat racing is a form of Thoroughbred horse racing which is run over a level track at a predetermined distance. It differs from steeplechase racing which is run over hurdles...
at Belmont Park
Belmont Park
Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse-racing facility located in Elmont in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, on Long Island adjoining New York City. It first opened on May 4, 1905...
. However, it was in steeplechase racing
Steeplechase (horse racing)
The steeplechase is a form of horse racing and derives its name from early races in which orientation of the course was by reference to a church steeple, jumping fences and ditches and generally traversing the many intervening obstacles in the countryside...
that Isabel Dodge Sloane first became involved as an owner and in 1924 she won her first race under the name Brookmeade Stable
Brookmeade Stable
Brookmeade Stable was a successful thoroughbred horse racing stable owned by heiress and socialite Isabel Dodge Sloane. Sloane first won using the name Brookmeade Stable at the Manly Memorial Steeplechase at Pimlico in 1924....
. Although she would become a major figure in flat racing, Mrs. Sloane continued to own and compete in steeplechase events for the rest of her life and her gelding
Gelding
A gelding is a castrated horse or other equine such as a donkey or a mule. Castration, and the elimination of hormonally driven behavior associated with a stallion, allows a male horse to be calmer and better-behaved, making the animal quieter, gentler and potentially more suitable as an everyday...
His Boots twice won the most prestigious steeplechase race in the U.S., the American Grand National. Her half-sister, Frances Dodge
Frances Dodge
Frances Dodge was an internationally known horsewoman.She was the eldest of the three children of John Francis Dodge and his third wife Matilda Dodge. She finished boarding school at Mt. Vernon Seminary in 1933 and married James Johnson on July 1, 1938...
, was also heavily involved in horse racing and breeding and owned the renowned Castleton Farm
Castleton Lyons
Castleton Lyons near Lexington, Kentucky, is an American horse racing stable and breeding business best known by the name Castleton Farm....
near Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
.
Isabel Dodge Sloane and her husband separated in 1928 and divorced in 1929 after which she substantially expanded her involvement in horse racing. Keeping her married name, Isabel Dodge Sloane owned homes in Locust Valley
Locust Valley, New York
Locust Valley is a hamlet located in Nassau County, New York. Locust Valley is an unincorporated area of the Town of Oyster Bay...
on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
and on Park Avenue
Park Avenue (Manhattan)
Park Avenue is a wide boulevard that carries north and southbound traffic in New York City borough of Manhattan. Through most of its length, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east....
, but in 1929 she purchased an 850 acres (3.4 km²) property in Upperville, Virginia
Upperville, Virginia
Upperville is an unincorporated community in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States, located along U.S. Route 50 fifty miles from downtown Washington, D.C.. Founded in the 1790s along Pantherskin Creek, it was originally named Carrstown by first settler Josephus Carr...
that she called Brookmeade Farm and entered the horse breeding
Horse breeding
Horse breeding is reproduction in horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. Planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in domesticated horses...
part of the business. Although she hired top level farm managers, Ms Sloane learned the intricacies of the breeding business. In a 1939 article in the New York World-Telegram
New York World-Telegram
The New York World-Telegram, later known as the New York World-Telegram and Sun, was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966.-History:...
, feature writer Elliott Arnold
Elliott Arnold
Elliott Arnold was an American newspaper feature writer, novelist, and screenwriter.He was born in Brooklyn, New York and became a feature writer with the New York World-Telegram...
wrote that there wasn't a man in the business who knew more about Thoroughbreds than Isabel Dodge Sloane.
Sloane's Brookmeade Stable won many of the major graded stakes race
Graded stakes race
A graded stakes race is a term applied since 1973 by the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association to thoroughbred horse races in the United States and Canada to describe races that derive their name from the stake, or entry fee, owners must pay...
in the United States including each of the American Classic Races. In 1934 she became the first woman to lead the American owners' list when she won the Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry...
with future the Hall of Fame
National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame
The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame was founded in 1950 in Saratoga Springs, New York, to honor the achievements of American thoroughbred race horses, jockeys, and trainers...
colt Cavalcade
Cavalcade (horse)
Cavalcade was an American Hall of Fame Champion Thoroughbred racehorse.In the early 1930s, Bob Smith, a trainer with a history of spotting talent, had been hired by heiress Isabel Dodge Sloane to stock her newly formed Brookmeade Stable. A descendant of the 1893 English Triple Crown champion...
and the Preakness Stakes
Preakness Stakes
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds ; fillies 121 lb...
with High Quest
High Quest
High Quest was an American Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 1934 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series of races....
. In 1951, she became one of only three women to ever be the Guest of Honor at the annual testimonial dinner of the Thoroughbred Club of America. In 1954, she was elected Vice-President of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association.
In 1959 Sloane captured the Belmont Stakes
Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes Thoroughbred horse race held every June at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. It is a 1.5-mile horse race, open to three year old Thoroughbreds. Colts and geldings carry a weight of 126 pounds ; fillies carry 121 pounds...
with another future Hall of Famer, Sword Dancer, then the following year her third Hall of Fame inductee, the filly
Filly
A filly is a young female horse too young to be called a mare. There are several specific definitions in use.*In most cases filly is a female horse under the age of four years old....
Bowl of Flowers
Bowl of Flowers
Bowl of Flowers was an American Hall of Fame Thoroughbred Champion racehorse.Bowl of Flowers was the product of two horses owned by Isabel Dodge Sloane...
, was voted the 1960 U.S. Champion two-year-old filly
Eclipse Award for Outstanding 2-Year-Old Filly
The American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly is an American Thoroughbred horse racing honor awarded annually to a female horse in Thoroughbred flat racing. It became part of the Eclipse Awards program in 1971....
and then U.S. Champion three-year-old filly
Eclipse Award for Outstanding 3-Year-Old Filly
The American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly is an American Thoroughbred horse racing honor awarded annually to a female horse in Thoroughbred flat racing. It became part of the Eclipse Awards program in 1971....
in 1961. Isabel Dodge Sloane died the following year at the age of sixty-six.