Willie the Kid was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 Thoroughbred

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...

 racehorse

Horse racing

Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

 best known for winning the eighty-first running of the King's Plate

Queen's Plate

The Queen's Plate is Canada's oldest thoroughbred horse race. It is run at a distance of 1¼ miles for 3-year-old thoroughbred horses foaled in Canada. The race takes place each summer in June or July at Woodbine Racetrack, Etobicoke , Ontario...

, Canada's most important race.

Bred by Willie Morrissey, Willie the Kid got his owner's nickname. He was out of the mare Mintwina, who was also the dam of Morrissey's Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame

Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame

The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame was established in 1976 at the Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario to honor those who have made a significant contribution to the sport of harness and thoroughbred horse racing in Canada....

 inductee, Bunty Lawless

Bunty Lawless

Bunty Lawless 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...

. He was sired by Roselyon who had sired the 1930 King's Plate winner, Aymond

Aymond

Aymond was a Canadian Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 1930 King's Plate.Bred by Whitby, Ontario's James Heffering, he was out of the mare, Ablaze, and sired by Roselyon, a son of the 1911 Epsom Derby winner and British Horseracing Hall of Fame inductee, Sunstar...

. Roselyon was a son of the 1911 Epsom Derby

Epsom Derby

The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...

 winner and British Horseracing Hall of Fame

British Horseracing Hall of Fame

Britain does not have a Horseracing Hall of Fame. This is a list of horses in the archive at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket, Suffolk, United Kingdom and includes both runners and breeders.-References:* -See also:...

 inductee, Sunstar

Sunstar

Sunstar was a British Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2,000 Guineas Stakes and followed with a win in the Epsom Derby and was a successful sire....

.

Willie the Kid raced under the name of Willie Morrissey's girlfriend, Miss Mildred A. Kane. Trained by Gordon McCann

Gordon J. McCann

Gordon J. "Pete" McCann was a Canadian Thoroughbred horse trainer. He was born in East York, now part of the city of Toronto. Known to his family as Gordon, in racing circles he was nicknamed Pete....

, the oft-injured colt did not race at age two but as a three-year-old won three times in ten starts. In the May 18, 1940 King's Plate

Queen's Plate

The Queen's Plate is Canada's oldest thoroughbred horse race. It is run at a distance of 1¼ miles for 3-year-old thoroughbred horses foaled in Canada. The race takes place each summer in June or July at Woodbine Racetrack, Etobicoke , Ontario...

 he beat a field that included Curwen, the Harry Hatch

Harry C. Hatch

Harold Clifford "Harry" Hatch was a self-made millionaire industrialist from Prince Edward County, Ontario specializing in the business of wine and spirits....

-owned colt who had been sent off as the betting

Parimutuel betting

Parimutuel betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vig" is removed, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning bets...

 favorite. The victory marked the first time a female owner won the Plate, and it was the first of six career Plate wins for trainer Gordon McCann.

In the ensuing Prince of Wales Stakes

Prince of Wales Stakes

The Prince of Wales Stakes is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually at Fort Erie Race Track in Fort Erie, Ontario. Restricted to three-year-old horses bred in Canada, it is contested on dirt over a distance of a mile and three sixteenths . In 1959, the Prince of Wales Stakes became the...

, Willie the Kid again beat third-place finisher Curwen but was second to race winner, Hood. Willie the Kid came out of the race with an injury that ended his racing career. He was retired to stud

Stud (animal)

A stud animal is a registered animal retained for breeding. The terms for the male of a given animal species usually imply that the animal is entire—that is, not castrated—and therefore capable of siring offspring...

duty but was not a success.