By DAVE KOSONIC

Etobicoke’s E.P. Taylor is described by many for earning his historic place in the winners’ circle of business, local, Canadian and international horse breeding and racing.

His official name is Edward Plunket Taylor and he owned a stately mansion tucked away in the exclusive Lorraine Gardens in Etobicoke, near Burnhamthorpe Rd. and Kipling Ave.

To those close to him he was known as ‘Eddie,’ a business tycoon who passed on at age 88 in1989 in the Bahamas, nine years after suffering a debilitating stroke.

Taylor loved horse racing and accomplished so much during his life and he thrived on challenges including pulling businesses out of the gutter and back to success.

During the highest point of his career, he was one of Canada’s richest people, who was friends of the Royal Family and U.S. Presidents, who would frequent his homes.

E.P. was voted thoroughbred racing’s man of the year in 1973 and the following year was elected to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1977 and 1983 he was named the winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Breeder as the leading thoroughbred breeder in North America.

Taylor’s horses won 15 Queen’s Plate races and were named Canadian Horse of the Year nine times. He was also a founder of the Jockey Club of Canada.

“The sport (horse racing) wasn’t keeping up with the progress made in other areas,“ Taylor said. “I was afraid that horse racing might die here as it did in Quebec.”

He was the first person to breed the winners of both the Kentucky Derby in 1964 with Northern Dancer and the English Derby in 1970 by running Nijinski, a son of Northern Dancer.

To the sadness of horse lovers, Northern Dancer died at age 29, at Taylor’s Windfields Farm in 1990, near Oshawa. The horse went down in history as one of the world’s greatest thoroughbred sires and about 70 per cent of today’s best race horses are among his descendants.

“People do not understand that the principal motivation is not money, “Taylor explained during a 1966 New York Times interview. “I do something that is constructive. There are people who like to paint or garden. I like to create things.”

Windfields Estate was the Taylor family home from 1901 to 1989, where his Royal visitors included Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in the summers of 1974 and 1981, and Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Taylor founded one of Canada’s most powerful conglomerates, which held brewing, grocery, mining and broadcast interests.  He was also a philanthropist, and a portion of his former Estate was acquired in 2013 by Durham College and Ontario Tech University.

A press release at the time indicated ‘E.P. Taylor saw what others could not. Here on his land our students will answer questions that others have yet to ask.’  The land-use agreement included the preservation of Northern Dancer’s grave and the farm’s historic barns.

He was a private man and not much is recorded about Taylor’s personal life. His wife was the former Winnifred Duguid Thornton and they parented a son and two daughters Charles, Judith and Louise.

On a personal note,  my late father owned and operated a home electronics business near the Six Points called Belmont Television and Electronics. He employed factory-trained technicians to do all his in-home electronic installations and service calls.

However Taylor was one of dad’s favorite customers and dad personally did all service calls at his Lorraine Gardens mansion. Dad said that whenever he did Taylor’s work he was given a crisp $100 bill as a tip.