The 1965 Melbourne Cup Carnival will forever be known for Jean Shrimpton’s miniskirt and the little mare Light Fingers. While the former drew racecourse outrage, the latter drew fame and glory on both herself and her then 37-year-old trainer, Bart Cummings.
When Light Fingers stepped onto Flemington to contest the Cup on November 2, 1965, she already had behind her wins in the Wakeful S., VRC Oaks, AJC Oaks and Craiglee S. She’d won over anything from five furlongs to a mile-and-a-half, and she was favourite in both hearts and minds.
For Cummings, the final furlong of the 1965 Cup was unforgettable.
Light Fingers and her stablemate Ziema (NZ) went clear of the field by nearly 4l before grinding the narrow finish out between them, with the mare the better by just a half-head. It was Cummings’ first Melbourne Cup victory.
Light Fingers and Bart Cummings
“When they locked horns, I felt a feeling of exaltation, I suppose,” the trainer said years later. “My first Melbourne Cup win was coming up, but I think I hoped for a dead-heat.”
Four-year-old Light Fingers set a mare’s weight-carrying record that afternoon (8st.4 or 53.3kg), defeating the previous record set by Evening Peal (Delville Wood {GB}) in the Cup of 1956. In winning, she sat behind only Wenona Girl (Wilkes {Fr}) on the then list of all-time Australian stakes-winning mares.
In that year’s Cup, her brother The Dip (NZ) (Le Filou {Fr}) was unplaced, and it was a messy event with three horses coming down at the five-furlong point.
The following year, Light Fingers was second to Galilee (NZ) (Alcimedes {GB}) in the Cup, proving without a doubt that she wasn’t a one-trick pony. Forevermore she was the apple of jockey Roy Higgins’ eye, he famously declaring that “if she could cook, I’d marry her”.
Roy Higgins aboard Light Fingers
Light Fingers was bred in New Zealand in 1961, at the Pirongia Stud of breeders Fred and Molly Dawson, some way south of Hamilton. She was from the mare Cuddlesome (NZ) (Red Mars {GB}), who in turn was a daughter of Fondle (NZ) (Leighton {GB}), a mare that had been gifted to the Dawsons years earlier.
Cuddlesome proved an excellent producer, getting Light Fingers in 1961 and The Dip in 1958. The latter won the The Metropolitan and Chipping Norton S. in Sydney, while Cuddlesome also foaled the 1967 South Australian Oaks winner My Fair Lady (NZ) (Summertime {GB}). She later proved the grandam of Big Philou (NZ).
As such, Light Fingers was impressively bred, and she was impressively named too. Though she was originally registered as ‘Close Embrace’, her eventual and highly popular name was a throw to her Champion French sire Le Filous (Fr), which translated as ‘the pick pocket’.
Le Filou (Fr) | Image courtesy of Westbury Stud
The Dawson family owned Light Fingers for all of her life, but they leased her to Wally Broderick, a one-time VRC committeeman, for the entirety of her racing career. Broderick also raced The Dip, and it was because of that gelding that he had approached the Dawsons for Light Fingers.
When Cummings, directed by Broderick, went to see Light Fingers for the first time, he wasn’t impressed. He said she was too small to amount to anything, which proved famously off the mark.
After her retirement in October 1967, Light Fingers returned to New Zealand and, living to well into her 20s with Molly Dawson, among her foals was the G3 STC Canterbury Cup winner Nimble Touch (NZ) (Smuggler {GB}).
Light Fingers (outside) defeating stablemate Ziema (NZ) in the 1965 Melbourne Cup
Her first foal, a colt by Agricola (GB) called Her Boy (NZ), went to the bidding of Cummings at the 1971 National Yearling Sales at Trentham, a bargain buy at NZ$17,000. He was stakes-placed.
Only a little slip of a thing, Light Fingers was hardly bigger than a pony at a shade over 15 hands, but in a career that saw her race against the likes of Galilee and Tobin Bronze, it was fitting that she won her defining race, the Melbourne Cup of 1965, by the width of her little heart.
