Prince Monolulu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ras Prince Monolulu (1881 St. Croix, Danish West Indies - 1965 Middlesex Hospital, London), whose real name was Peter Carl Mackay, was something of an institution on the British horse-racing scene from the 1920s until the time of his death. He was particularly noticeable for his brightly coloured clothing; as a tipster, one of his best known phrases was the cry "I gotta horse!", which was subsequently to be the title of his memoirs. He frequently featured in newsreel broadcasts, and as a consequence was probably the most well-known black man in Britain of the time.

Although claiming to be a chief of the Falasha tribe of Abyssinia, the reality is that he came from the Caribbean island of St. Croix (now part of the United States Virgin Islands). He styled himself as a Prince after being press-ganged on one occasion, assuming that a prince would be far less likely to be shanghaied.

During the First World War he was interned in Germany.

He rose to prominence after picking out the horse Spion Kop in the 1920 Derby, which came in at the long odds of 100 - 6, and from which he personally made some £8000, a vast amount of money at the time.