Windfields

Windfields (1943–1971) was a Canadian Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse who was the first stakes race winner bred by E. P. Taylor and for whom he named his world-famous Windfields Farm.[1]

Out of the mare Nandi,[2] for whom the Nandi Stakes at Woodbine Racetrack is named, Windfields was sired by Bunty Lawless, who in 1951 was voted Canada's "Horse of the Half-Century."[3]

Trained by Bert Alexandra, as a two-year-old in 1945 Windfields won his first start by six lengths, then won the five furlong Victoria Stakes in a time of 0:59.00, breaking Faireno's track record at Old Woodbine Racetrack by 3/5 of a second.[4] The colt followed this win with another track record in the Rosedale Purse but then suffered a knee injury that kept him out of racing.

Ineligible for Canada's most prestigious race, the Kings Plate for three-year-olds, in September 1946 the three-year-old Windfields defeated Plate winner Kingarvie by five lengths in the 1946 Breeders' Stakes. Scratched from the 1946 Belmont Stakes, Windfields won his third straight race, and second in a row at Aqueduct Racetrack, with a win in the mile and one-eighth Gravesend Purse.[5]

Although never a great racehorse, Windfields competed through age six, notably defeating the great Australian runner Shannon to win a Stakes race on January 25, 1948, at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.[6]