Michael Sobell

Sir Michael Sobell (November 1, 1892 – September 1, 1993) was a British businessman, a major philanthropist, and a prominent owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses.

Sobell was born in Boryslav, Galicia, into a Jewish family; he was the only son of Lewis Sobell and his wife, Esther. His family owned factories in the Austro-Hungarian empire and oil interests at Limburg in Germany, but his parents moved to England about 1899 to escape antisemitism. The family settled in Dalston, east London, where Lewis Sobell set up as a confectioner. From 1903 Michael Sobell attended the Central Foundation Boys' School on Cowper Street in Finsbury.

At the age of sixteen, with money provided by his father, he set up as an importer of fancy leather accessories. He and his father subsequently worked as leather goods manufacturers.

Sobell made a fortune as a pioneer in electronics through his Radio & Allied Industries Ltd., a manufacturer of radio receivers that grew to become one of Britain's largest and most successful manufacturers of television sets. His daughter Netta married who joined the company in 1954. In 1961, Sobell's company merged with The General Electric Company plc (GEC) making the family GEC's largest shareholder.

An owner and breeder of thoroughbred racehorses, Michael Sobell's first major racing winner was London Cry in the 1958 Cambridgeshire Handicap. He hired Gordon Richards as his racing manager and in 1960, Sobell purchased Ballymacoll Stud, a breeding farm owned by Dorothy Paget in County Meath, Ireland. Among his racing stable's successes, Admetus won the 1974 Washington, D.C. International Stakes at Laurel Park Racecourse in Laurel, Maryland, at the time the most important international race in America. At home, Admetus won the Prince of Wales's Stakes and several races in France including the Grand Prix d'Évry and Prix Maurice de Nieuil. He also owned Lancastrian, winner of the Prix Ganay, Reform whose eleven wins included the Champion Stakes and Sallust, winner of the Sussex Stakes.

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