Elizabeth Taylor, who died aged 79 on Wednesday, had a lifelong love of horses.

Starting as a 12 year-old in the 1944 movie National Velvet, Taylor played a young girl who trains a horse for the Grand National Steeplechase, ends up disguising herself as a male jockey, and rides the horse to victory.  Many of the scenes were filmed at Santa Anita.

Elizabeth did most of her own riding and stunts in National Velvet.  “I felt National Velvet was an extension of myself,” she recalled years later.  “I got my first horse when I was three – It was the only sport that I really excelled in.”

Each morning Elizabeth was allowed to ride out before going to the studio and she felt it was one of the few times while under contract to MGM that she had absolute freedom.

In the 1950s, Taylor lived in Lexington while filming Raintree County with close friend Montgomery Clift.  Bloodhorse reported she was there the day Lester Piggott won his second English Derby on Crepello.  And she was at Longchamp when Vaguely Noble defeated the brilliant English Derby winner Sir Ivor in a celebrated edition of the Arc de Triomphe.

Taylor was married to politician John Warner in the 1970s and they bred and raced thoroughbreds from Atoka Farm in Virginia.  In latter years the iconic actress went racing at Laurel, Hollywood Park and Keeneland where she presented the inaugural Beaumont Stakes trophy to Classy Cathy’s trainer Joe Bollero.

A further tie with Taylor and horse racing comes through Hall of Fame horse Nashua.  He died in 1982 and is buried at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington.  The farm commissioned a statue and the sculptress was Taylor’s daughter Lisa Todd.