John Scott-Ellis, 9th Baron Howard de Walden


John Osmael Scott-Ellis, 9th Baron Howard de Walden, 5th Baron Seaford was a British peer, landowner, and a Thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder. He was the son of Margarita van Raalte and her husband, Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, and was educated at Eton College.
In 1931, he moved to Munich to learn a language, where he bought a car. On his first day behind the wheel, he claimed to have knocked over a pedestrian - Adolf Hitler. He inherited Dean Castle in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, Scotland which, along with his father's collections of arms and armour, and his grandfather' collection of musical instruments, he gave to the people of Kilmarnock in 1975.

Marriage and family

He married Irene, Countess von Harrach in 1934. On his honeymoon in 1934, he met Hitler at a concert and spoke of his driving incident.
They had four daughters:
Irene died in 1975, and in 1978, Lord Howard de Walden remarried with Gillian, Lady Mountgarret, 25 years his junior.

Thoroughbred racing

Lord Howard de Walden became involved in the sport of Thoroughbred racing immediately after World War II. In 1958, he bought Lord Derby's Plantation Stud at Exning, just outside Newmarket. A steward of the Jockey Club, he had success in National Hunt hurdle racing with Champion Hurdle winner, Lanzarote.
On the flat, he won the 1985 Epsom Derby with Slip Anchor. Among his other notable homebreds, Lord Howard de Walden met with considerable success both on the track and in the breeding shed with Kris, who was the 1979 Champion European Miler and 1980 Champion European Older Miler, and who went on to become the Leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland in 1985.