Four World's Fair Blocks

Willoughby Bertie, the 4th Earl of Abingdon, was born in Lincolnshire in 1740. He was acquainted with Johann Christian Bach (the eighteenth of Johann Sebastian Bach’s twenty children). He was one of Joseph Haydn’s patrons, and was himself a composer. He funded the construction of the Swinford Toll Bridge, which spans the Thames to this day. But Bertie’s biggest claim to fame was a chestnut racehorse born in his stables in 1773. The earl wanted to call his young colt Potatoes, and he asked a stable boy to write the name on a feed bin. For some bizarre reason, he boy heard “Pot Eight O’s” and spelled the name out “Potoooooooo,” with eight o’s. The mistake amused the earl so much, he decided make this the horse’s official name. Maybe all those o’s were good luck. The oddly named horse won more than thirty races against some of the best racehorses in England.