Stephen Sanford (polo player)

Stephen Sanford, nicknamed Laddie, was an American polo champion and owner of Thoroughbred racing horses, born on 14 September 1898 and died on 31 May 1977. He sat on the board of directors of the Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company, a family business, studied at St. Mark's School and Yale University and attended the University of Cambridge. He was a member of the Meadowbrook Polo Club and played on the Hurricanes Polo Team, which won the U.S. Open Polo Championship in 1926, 1929, 1930, 1948 and 1949 with him playing, after losing to the Meadowbrook team in 1925. In 1923 his horse Sergeant Murphy won the Grand National at Liverpool, the first American-owned horse to do so. He married the actress Mary Duncan in 1933 and lived in Palm Beach, Florida. He suffered a stroke in 1965 and was confined to a wheelchair at home until his death. He was inducted posthumously into the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in 2015.