Light Fingers (1961−1988) was a
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
bred
thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are c ...
racehorse who won the
Melbourne Cup
The Melbourne Cup is a Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria as part of the Melbou ...
in 1965. In 2017 Light Fingers was inducted to the
Australian Racing Hall of Fame
The Australian Racing Hall of Fame is part of the Australian Racing Museum which documents and honours the horseracing legends of Australia. The museum officially opened in 1981 and created the Hall of Fame in 2000.
The numbers in brackets afte ...
.
Background
The lightly built chestnut was by the highly successful sire of stayers,
Le Filou, from Cuddlesome by
Red Mars
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondary ...
(GB) by
Hyperion (GB).
She was originally called Close Embrace in New Zealand, but the Australian registrar would not allow that name to be used.
Trained by Bart Cummings, Light Fingers would become the first of his 12 Melbourne Cup winners. Cummings had tried to buy the filly on a visit to New Zealand but was unsuccessful. However, he managed to lease the horse, which would carry the most significant weight to victory by a mare to that date..
Racing career
Light Fingers had her first race on Boxing Day in 1963 at the
Port Adelaide Racing Club The Port Adelaide Racing Club (PARC) was founded in 1890.
The first meeting of the club was held in the same year on a course located on Grand Junction Road and in 1895 transferred to a leased site at Cheltenham Park.
In 1921 the club had suffici ...
's track at Cheltenham, where she ran second over 5 furlongs.
She won her next three starts, two at Adelaide, and one at
Flemington, before being sent for a spell.
In her three-year-old year, Light Fingers won 7 races from 12 starts. That year, she won all essential fillies' races, save the One Thousand Guineas, where Reveille beat her.
The mare won her first race as a four-year-old and won the
Craiglee Stakes
The Makybe Diva Stakes, previously called the Craiglee Stakes, is a Victoria Racing Club Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race at Weight for age conditions for three year olds and older, over a distance of 1,600 metres held at Flemington Racecourse in ...
over a mile early in the spring of 1965.
The rest of Light Fingers' lead-up to the Melbourne Cup was filled with obstacles. First, she suffered a virus, and then she injured her shoulder in a near fall in the
Caulfield Stakes
The Might and Power, registered as the Caulfield Stakes is a Melbourne Racing Club Group One, Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race run under weight-for-age conditions, for three-year-olds and upwards, run over a distance of 2,000 metres at Caulfield R ...
.
The injury prevented her from running in the
Caulflield Cup and raised doubts about whether she would make the start of the Melbourne Cup.
Her regular rider,
Roy Higgins, was unsure about whether he should keep the ride but eventually chose to stick with the mare, saying, 'my filly is so good that if she gets to the post, she might just win, and if she does it will break my heart not to be on her'.
Light Fingers pulled up well after her final lead up run in the
Mackinnon Stakes
The VRC Champions Stakes, registered as the ''LKS Mackinnon Stakes'', is a Victoria Racing Club Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race run under Weight for Age conditions over a distance of 2000 metres at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia on ...
, and following a cortisone injection by vet Percy Sykes,
started in the Melbourne Cup at odds of 15/1.
Fifth into the straight, Light Fingers ranged up to stablemate Ziema at the furlong. The two horses hit the line together, with the camera giving Light Fingers the victory by half a head.
Higgins, who rode Light Fingers in the majority of her big wins, was quoted as saying after her Melbourne Cup victory, that as Light Fingers and her stablemate Ziema worked together leading up to the '65 Cup, Higgins felt that when the mare ranged up alongside the big striding Ziema, he seemed to take a look at her and turn it up. Higgins went on to state. "In the last few strides, however, she seemed to sense that something extra was needed. I could feel her gathering herself ,and she fairly dived for the winning post. I only had to wave the whip at her. I did not want to hit her. She was giving all she had."
Following her Melbourne Cup win, Light Fingers ran second to stablemate
Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
, one of the great stayers of the decade, in that race the following year.
Breeding career
Light Fingers had an unremarkable breeding career.
Her foals were:
* Her Boy, a chestnut colt by Agricola, foaled in 1969
* An unnamed bay colt by Alcimedes, foaled in 1972
* Nimble Fingers, a brown filly by Alcimedes, foaled in 1973
* Slick, a bay filly by Zephyr Bay, foaled in 1977
* An unnamed bay filly by Decies, foaled in 1978
* Nimble Touch, a chestnut colt by Smuggler, foaled in 1981
* Nimble Princess, a bay filly by Princes Gate, foaled in 1984
References
{{reflist
1961 racehorse births
1988 racehorse deaths
Racehorses bred in New Zealand
Racehorses trained in Australia
Melbourne Cup winners
Thoroughbred family 20-a