John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever educated at Eton College and at New College, Oxford. Upon his father's death in 1919, John Jacob V inherited Hever Castle near Edenbridge, Kent, where he lived the life of an English country gentleman. John Jacob Astor V represented Great Britain in rackets at the 1908 Summer Olympics, winning the gold medal in the men's doubles competition together with Vane Pennell, and winning bronze in the men's singles event. Astor had been the British Public Schools rackets champion in 1904–05, and in the same year as his Olympic competition he played singles and doubles in the British Army rackets championships.
Hever Golf Rose in the straight, but faded in the closing stages to finish eighth of the thirteen runners behind Desert Stormer. Hever Golf Rose failed to win in thirteen starts as five-year-old, despite running prominently in top sprint races all over Europe. She finished second in the Goldene Peitsche, the Holsten Trophy, the King George Stakes, the Taby Varsprint and the Bénazet-Rennen, and third in the July Cup, the Nunthorpe Stakes, the Prix de l'Abbaye and the Premio Omenoni. After her narrow defeat in the King George Stakes the "Independent's" correspondent described her as "one of the most willing and popular horses