Today, the Kala Ghoda Festival is one of Mumbai's key annual celebratory events. The name denotes the crescent-shaped precinct between the National Gallery of Modern Art to the Mumbai University, with the Oval Maidan and the Lion Gate on its either side. The name Kala Ghoda (black horse) comes from the old equestrian statue once erected at the intersection opposite the David Sassoon Library, in memory of King Edward VII, the first prince of Wales to have visited Mumbai in 1875.
Abdullah Sassoon (later known as Albert Sassoon) sponsored the construction of the 12 feet, 9 inch tall statue weighing 2 tons depicting King Edward VII riding a horse in a Field Marshall uniform. On its platform are dexterously carved faces of prominent personalities including Lord Northbrook, Philip Wodehouse, Sir Bartle Frere, Dosabhai Framji, Mangaldas Nathubhai, Albert Sassoon, Salar Jung and heads of provinces like Baroda, Mysore, Kutch, and Kolhapur. The sculptor was London's J E Boehm. The inauguration ceremony was held on June 26, 1879.
However, more than the rider atop and the dignitaries at the base, it was the handsome horse that captured the imagination of Mumbai, and the name stuck despite the fact that this awesome creation was moved to the Jijamata Garden post Independence.
King Edward VII died in 1910 but Mumbai, knowingly and unknowingly, remembers him best in the form of King Edward Memorial Hospital (now fondly known as K.E.M.) which was incepted in his memory in 1926. Ideally, it would have been more fitting to install the statue in the campus of this hospital rather than in the premises of the Jijamata Garden.