Edward Plunket Taylor, (January 29, 1901 – May 14, 1989) was a Canadian business tycoon and famous breeder of thoroughbred race horses. Known to his friends as “Eddie,” he is universally recorded as “E. P. Taylor.”
While a student at Montreal’s McGill University in 1918, E. P. Taylor was introduced to the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing at Blue Bonnets Raceway. As a businessman in the 1930s he established Cosgrave Stable to race horses which notably owned and raced the future Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame filly, Mona Bell.
In the 1950s, E. P. Taylor and his wife, Winnifred, began breeding Thoroughbreds. Their involvement led to the acquisition of Parkwood Stable near Toronto and then Windfields Farm at Oshawa. The Taylor thoroughbred horse breeding operation produced Northern Dancer, the greatest sire of the 20th century. In 1970, he was the world’s leading horse breeder measured by money won. He was president of the Ontario Jockey Club from 1953 to 1973 where he consolidated numerous money-losing tracks throughout the province into fewer, but viable businesses. He 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.
