Ruth Wood, Countess of Halifax

Ruth Alice Hannah Mary Wood, Countess of Halifax (née Primrose, 18 April 1916 – 31 August 1989) was a British racehorse owner. She was one of the first three women to be elected as a member of the Jockey Club in December 1977, alongside her half-sister Priscilla Hastings and Helen Johnson Houghton.

She was the only child of Neil Primrose, son of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, and Lady Victoria Stanley, the third child of Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby. Her parents were married on 7 April 1915, but her father died in Palestine in 1917. Her widowed mother was remarried in 1919, to Malcolm Bullock, who was a Conservative MP from 1923 to 1953 and became a baronet in 1954. Her half-sister Priscilla was born in 1920, but Lady Victoria Bullock was killed in an accident while hunting with the Quorn 1927.

She married Charles Wood in 1936 and became Countess of Halifax after the death of her father-in-law in 1959, when her husband inherited the title of 2nd Earl of Halifax.

They had three children:

She won the Epsom Derby with Shirley Heights in 1978

Her husband was master of the Middleton Foxhounds for more than 30 seasons. He died in 1980.

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