Bunty Lawless

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Bunty Lawless
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Sire:	Ladder
Grandsire:	Ladkin
Dam:	Mintwina
Damsire:	Mint Briar
Sex:	Stallion
Foaled:	1935
Country:	Canada
Colour:	Bay
Breeder:	Willie F. Morrissey
Owner:	Willie F. Morrissey
Trainer:	Jack Anderson Pete McCann (age 6)
Record:	47: 19-15-3
Earnings:	$34,379
Major Racing Wins & Honours & Awards
Major Racing Wins
Clarendon Plate (1937) King's Plate (1938) Canadian Championship Stakes (1938 & 1941)
Honours
Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame (1976) Voted "Canadian Horse of the Half Century" Bunty Lawless Stakes at Woodbine Racetrack
Infobox last updated on: October 16, 2006.

Bunty Lawless (1935-1956) was a Canadian Thoroughbred racehorse who in 1951 was voted Canada's "Horse of the Half-Century".

Racing during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Bunty Lawless competed for purse money that was very small. At age two, Bunty Lawless finished first or second in all but one of his ten races. The one time he was out of the money that year was in the Cup and Saucer Stakes when his equipment broke. In 1938, the horse was the top 3-year-old in Canada and his victory in his countrys most prestigious race was enormously popular with the public. In an era when millionaires still dominated Thoroughbred horse racing, the owner and breeder of Bunty Lawless was the exact opposite. The working man's hero, Willie Morrissey grew up penniless in the poorest section of Toronto, worked as a newsboy, then went on to become a successful hotel owner and boxing promoter. At the race track he sat in the cheap grandstand seats with the rest of the crowd and was frowned upon by the aristocratic elite owners in their top hats and tails, seated in their exclusive viewing boxes.

Retired to stud, Bunty Lawless proved an exceptional sire and was Canada's leading sire four times. His offspring includes the 1949 King's Plate winner Epic and 1946 Breeders' Stakes winner Windfields for whom E. P. Taylor would name his famous farm. Bunty Lawless is also the grandsire of Mint Copy, the dam of Deputy Minister who in turn sired the 2004 World Champion, Ghostzapper. His other descendants also includes Canadian Horse of the Year and Hall of Fame inductee, Victoria Park.