Plesch lost two of her six husbands to the same woman, Louise de Vilmorin, a French literary figure, and owned two winners of The Derby, Psidium in 1961 and Henbit in 1980.
"Etti", as she was known, was putatively the elder daughter of Count Ferdinand von Wurmbrand-Stuppach (1879–1933) and his wife, May Baltazzi (1885–1981), a cousin of Baroness Mary Vetsera, mistress of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria.
Etti von Wurmbrand-Stuppach spent her childhood in her family's castle of Napajedla and was raised in Vienna and in Moravia, with travels to other sites throughout Europe.
With her last husband, Dr. Plesch, who shared Etti's passion for Thoroughbred horse racing, for which she had been influenced by her maternal grandfather Alexander Baltazzi, who won the 1876 edition of the Epsom Derby with Kisber.
[6] At the age of 17, she fell in love with Count Wladimir Wladschi Mittrovsky von Mitrowitz (1901-1976), but was forbidden to marry him because he had a blood disease.
[8] After she returned to Europe, she met another distant relative, Hungarian Count Paul Pálffy ab Erdöd (1890–1968) and became the fourth of his eight eventual wives in late 1935.
On the rebound, Etti married Count Tamás Esterházy de Galántha (1901–1964), descendant of the junior comital branch of a great princely family, on 5 March 1938, and went to live in his Devecser castle, in Hungary.
[14] In 1954, Etti married her last husband, Dr Árpád Plesch (1889–1974), a wealthy Hungarian lawyer, international financier, and collector of rare botanical books and pornographic esoterica.