Your Majesty (1905–1934) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire, best known for highly unpopular wins the Eclipse Stakes and the Classic St Leger Stakes in 1908. The colt ran at least twelve times and won five races in a career which lasted from June 1907 until July 1909. Your Majesty was campaigned against the best of the year's two-year-olds in 1907 but won only once from five starts. The following season he finished unplaced in the 2000 Guineas and missed the Derby through illness. He then won four races in succession: the St. James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, the St George Stakes at Liverpool and the St Leger at Doncaster. He was the leading money-winner of the British season but his successes were poorly received owing to the unpopularity of his owner. Your Majesty stayed in training as a four-year-old but failed to win. He was retired to stud where he became highly successful as a breeding stallion in Argentina.
Your Majesty was a dark-coated bay colt, standing 15.3 hands high, bred by his owner Jack Barnato Joel, the South African mining magnate and three-time British flat racing Champion Owner.[1] The colt was foaled at Joel's stud at Northaw House in Middlesex.[2] Joel sent his colt to his private trainer Charles Morton at Letcombe Bassett in Berkshire.[3] At the end of his three-year-old season Morton described Your Majesty as "a natural stayer" and "dead game", but admitted that the colt tended to be nervous and excitable.[4]
Your Majesty was sired by Persimmon, whose wins included the 1896 Derby, St Leger, Eclipse Stakes and Ascot Gold Cup and who went on to be British champion sire on four occasions.[5] Your Majesty's dam, Yours, who failed to win a race herself,[2] had previously produced Our Lassie, a filly who won The Oaks for Jack Joel in 1903. Our Lassie went on to become an influential broodmare, being the direct female ancestor of Mill Reef, Blushing Groom and Wollow.[6]
Your Majesty's racing career began at Royal Ascot in June 1907, when he finished unplaced in the five furlong New Stakes behind Sir Archibald. The following month he showed his first sign of promise when he finished second to Vamose in the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Goodwood. Your Majesty's remaining starts of 1907 took place at Newmarket. He recorded his first win in the Boscawen Stakes and then contested two of the season's most prestigious two-year-old races. In the six furlong Middle Park Stakes he was unplaced behind Lesbia, a filly who had previously dead-heated with Vamose in the Imperial Produce Stakes. In late October Your Majesty ran unplaced in the seven furlong Dewhurst Stakes. which was won by the filly Rhodora.[7]
In the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket in May 2008, Your Majesty lost a great deal of ground at the start before finishing strongly to take sixth place behind the American-bred Norman, who won from Sir Archibald and White Eagle.[8] The colt was then trained for The Derby but was withdrawn from the race after contacting strangles, a bacterial respiratory infection.[9]
In the summer of 1908, Jack Joel brought a prosecution for blackmail against Robert "Bob" Sievier, a racehorse owner and trainer. Joel claimed that during Sievier's time as the proprietor of a newspaper called "The Winning Post", he had attempted to extract money from Joel in return for not publishing potentially damaging stories.[10] The British public appear to have sided completely with London-born Sievier and became hostile towards Joel who, as a foreigner and a Jew, was regarded as an outsider.[7][11]