In return for providing financial assistance to the Duke & Duchess of Kent, the future Queen Victoria’s parents, the 2nd Lord Dundas (1766-1839) was created the 1st Earl of Zetland in 1838. His grandfather possessed vast amounts of land, including an estate on “Orkney & Zetland”. Thus, when Lawrence was promoted to the earldom, he chose Zetland as the name for his new title. Zetland is of course now known as Shetland.
The 3rd Marquess of Zetland (1908-1988) was a member of the Jockey Club, Chairman of both Redcar & Catterick Racecourses and a vice president of the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club as he had been a good enough player to have taken part in the Wimbledon championships in the 1940s.
The 4th Marquess of Zetland (b.1937) has been involved with the administration of British racing for many years, is a member of the Jockey Club and was a founding member of the British Horseracing Board.
The Zetlands’ connections (and ownership) of a quantity of northeastern England, combined with their interest in racing, accounts for their name being used at at least four courses in the area.
REDCAR
There’s been a Zetland race at Redcar ever since the course’s inception on turf on 9 August 1872 – quite a record! Prior to that races were run on the beach. The Zetlands were one of the families instrumental in establishing serious racing there – they were to provide the land that forms the mile-long straight. The Zetland Welter Handicap, for horses carrying what were then considered high weights, was the first race on the card. Most of the time since then it’s been an ordinary handicap. The Zetland Cup began in 1950, and was turned into gold two years later. The Zetland Gold Cup was one of a cluster of big handicaps at Redcar when it enjoyed a lot of TV coverage in the 1970s and early 80s. It’s still a fairly good race, a Class 2, entrenched at the late May Bank Holiday fixture.
YORK
The Zetland Stakes was first run at the spring meeting of 1851 on 13 May, a fixture that had been dropped in 1839 through lack of interest. That certainly wasn’t the case this time, for it featured the much-anticipated match (it would be a candidate for Race of the Century) between Lord Zetland’s Voltigeur (qv) and The Flying Dutchman, who belonged to Lord Eglinton (qv). The Zetland was a maiden fillies race for two-year-olds at the Dante meeting as at 1995, when it was run for the last time.
CATTERICK
The Earls of Zetland supported the little North Yorkshire track, with its single annual meeting, before the inauguration of a race with their name in 1868. It was still going, a fillies’ maiden, at the mid-October meeting until 1998. Next year it moved to midsummer and wandered round various dates until its last, on 24 August 2011. Zetland Chases and Hurdles also appeared from time to time, but not since 28 December 2012. Stockton racecourse (later Teesside) also had its Zetland races.
NEWMARKET
There aren’t many turf races for two-year-olds over a mile and a quarter. The Zetland Stakes, run on the Saturday of Newmarket’s first October meeting, is the best of them. It had a good run in the 1990s with the top class Bob’s Return, Double Trigger and Silver Patriarch winning. The most successful victor in recent times was Kew Gardens in 2017, who went on to win the Queen’s Vase, St Leger and in the following year in Champions Day’s drearily-named Long Distance Cup.
The race is a nice example of continuity, for the first Zetland Stakes appeared at Newmarket as long ago as 30 September 1885, when it was an all-aged race during the “First October Meeting”.
Sources include:
https://www.zetland.co.uk/about-us/family-history
https://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/20603671.galloping-history-redcar-racecourse/