| Bunty Lawless | |
|---|---|
| Sire | Ladder |
| Grandsire | Ladkin |
| Dam | Mintwina |
| Damsire | Mint Briar |
| Sex | Stallion |
| Foaled | 1935 |
| Country | Canada |
| Colour | Bay |
| Breeder | William F. Morrissey |
| Owner | William Morrissey |
| Trainer | Jack Anderson Pete McCann (age 6) |
| Record | 47: 19-15-3 |
| Earnings | $34,379[1] |
| Major 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 |
|
| Horse (Equus ferus caballus) | |
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 the King's Plate, his country's most prestigious race, was enormously popular with the public.[2] 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.
After winning the King's Plate, Bunty Lawless ran second to Mona Bell in the 1938 Breeders' Stakes then won the Canadian Championship Stakes.
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 became an influential sire whose descendants include the famed fillies Open Mind (winner of the 1988 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and 1989 Triple Tiara) and Go For Wand (winner of the 1989 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies). His other descendants include Canadian Horse of the Year and Hall of Fame inductee Victoria Park.[3]