Family B-16: Lightfoot

This family was included in the Family Table of Racehorses because Gamecock won the Grand National Steeplechase. As with a number of other Irish half bred families, this one includes a mare possibly by Sir Hercules. Prior noted the mare Lightfoot was "said to have been gotten by Sir Hercules, and also by Blackfoot; the latter horse being the more probable." A turf observer in 1927 noted: "Time was in Ireland when a hunter of high price was 'out of a dam by Sir Hercules or Birdcatcher, or Ascetic, or Red Prince II or Artillery [by Touchstone and out of Jeannette by Birdcatcher]!' These famous sires -- and we name only five -- must have served in the respective generations an almost uncountable number of mares if the hunters really traced back to a mare by one of them. The hunters were good and proven performers, and when sent out of Ireland upheld their achievements in the hunting-field or militarily the reputation of Ireland as a horse-producing country; they were worth the high price invariably paid for them, but in the abstract their value was still greater when, supposedly, they possessed a pedigree containing the blood of any one of the great sires which we have named....it was not of uncommon occurrence for 'a plough mare' to breed to a thoroughbred sire a high-class hunter. When she had done so, her owner inferred 'she must have the blood of (say) Ascetic in her."

Lightfoot, about whom nothing else was discovered, produced four winners: Quickstep won the Prince of Wales' Plate at Punchestown, and eight other steeplechases; Bouncer won three steeplechases; Breechloader won the Downshire Plate steeplechase and later was used as a stallion; her daughter Lightfoot, by Gamekeeper (a son of Birdcatcher), won the Louth Hunt Cup, the Westmeath Hunt Cup, and three other steeplechases, and placed second three times at ages four and five. All her offspring, and those of her daughter were bred by Thomas Jackson of Lisnaboe, Co. Meath.

Lightfoot the daughter produced five winners over fences. Her son Bouncer won six steeplechases, and son Gamecock won 28 chases, including the Grand National. At age four, her daughter, Game Hen, won a hunter's flat race and a steeplechase, eight steeplechases in Ireland at age five, and two steeplechases in England at age six. In the stud of the Duke of Hamilton at Easton Park, Suffolk, she produced four foals, and was shown as a hunter broodmare, winning first prize at the Suffolk show in 1892, and a first prize and gold medal at Essex, and places in other shows in 1893. Lightfoot's daughter Game Chicken won a hunter's flat race, three hurdle races, and two steeplechases at age four, and placed second in races at age five; her son, Bill Goode, won a hurdle race. Lightfoot's daughter Limelight won four steeplechases, and in the stud of George Holland of Keele, Staffordshire, was also shown as a hunter, winning two first prizes and a Gold Medal in 1897 at local shows.

Notable Descendants