Who was Prince Monolulu?

In reality, Ras Prince Monolulu, whose real name was Peter Mckay, was born on St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean Sea, on October 26, 1881. Nonetheless, he claimed to be a chief of the Falashas, a tribe of black Jews in Abyssinia, as Ethiopia was historically known, and styled himself as such, in brightly colourful robes, a plumed, ostrich-feather headdress.

Monolulu first arrived in London in 1902 and first attended the Derby at Epsom the following year, but first attracted wider acclaim when offering the 1920 Derby winner Spion Kop, trained by Peter ‘P.P.’ Gilpin, as a free tip at rewarding odds of 100/6. A flamboyant character with quickfire patter, including his memorable catchphrase, “I gotta horse, I gotta horse to beat the favourite…”, he went on to become a fixture not only of Derby Day, but of major racing fixtures throughout the country almost until his death, in London on February 14, 1965, aged 84. In another, probably apocryphal, account, he is said to have choked on a strawberry cream, from a box of Black Magic chocolates, given to him by journalist Jeffrey Bernard.

Monolulu reportedly won £8,000, or just over £300,000 by modern standards, on Spion Kop alone, but his exploits as a maverick tipster aside, became one of the best-known black people in Britain. He made regular media appearances, both in newsreel footage and, briefly, in several films, including ‘Derby Day’, starring Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding, during the fifties.