Heiress, Socialite. Isabel Dodge Sloane was a prominent Detroit and Palm Beach socialite, heiress and owner of a major Thoroughbred horse racing stable and breeding farm. Daughter of Ivy Hawkins (1864-1901) and John F. Dodge, (1864-1920), the co-founder of the Dodge Brothers Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan; which would become the world's largest producer of automobiles. Educated at Detroit's exclusive Liggett School for Girls, she was an accomplished sportswoman; favoring golf and tennis, though she also excelled in the fields of fly fishing and game bird hunting. An avid swimmer, she swam every morning in the salted pool of her sumptuous Palm Beach estate ~ 'Concha Marina'; designed by Addison Mizner. Eager to learn how to dance the rumba, she suggested to her friends that they all take dance classes, with the lessons being held at 'Concha Marina'. Among the many guests she invited were Mary Sanford, Ellen Ordway and Howard G. Cushing III. Especially fond of horse racing, she attended the annual Thoroughbred flats races at Belmont Park; however it was in the steeplechase racing that she first became known, winning her first race in 1924. Her 850 acre estate in Upperville, Virginia, 'Brookmeade Farm' became internationally known for it's race-winning bred horses; winning numerous awards for her horses in 1924, 1934, 1951, 1959, 1960 and in 1961; her total winnings in 1934 amounting to $251,138 for that year alone! making her one of the most successful ladies to ever compete in horse-racing. In 1959 she won the Belmont stakes with her horse Sword Dancer; which led to his being awarded "Horse of The Year". She died of an illness at the West Palm Beach Hospital. Having divorced her husband in 1924, she left no immediate family. In a 1939 article in the New York World-Telegram, feature writer Elliott Arnold wrote that there wasn't a man in the business who knew more about Thoroughbreds than Isabel Dodge Sloane.

Bio by: Bobby Kelley