Senate debates

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

Statements by Senators

Cummings, Mr James Bartholomew 'Bart', OAM

1:14 pm

Photo of Christopher BackChristopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

On a day when we honour Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as the longest reigning monarch on the British throne, I want to honour a king—that is, the 'Cups King', James Bartholomew Cummings, who died last week. I wish to thank Senator Lazarus for allowing me to join him in the formal motion that he moved yesterday to recognise the life of Bart Cummings.

As a veterinarian in racehorse and thoroughbred practice in Melbourne in the early 1970s I knew Bart, and subsequently as the Western Australian Turf Club veterinarian when he raided the Perth summer carnivals each year. He was an absolute legend of the turf. I wish to reflect a little on his record as a trainer, his attitude to the industry and to the community generally and his sense of humour. I also want to reflect from a professional point of view on why I think he was such a great racehorse trainer.

I guess his first major taste of racing came in 1950—the year that I was born—when Comic Court, bred and trained by his father, Jim Cummings, won the Melbourne Cup. Bart was strapping the horse. Interestingly, the horse that ran second to Comic Court was called Chiquita, and anyone interested in races at Flemington would know that there is a lodge called Chiquita Lodge. It is often referred to by race callers as horses pass it.

In 1965 he won the first of his 12 Melbourne Cups with Light Fingers, ridden by 'The Professor', Roy Higgins. It is interesting to reflect that the Melbourne Cup purse for that first of Bart's wins in 1965 was $41,300, and by the time he won his last Cup with Viewed in 2008 the purse was $3.3 million. When you reflect on the fact that the trainer gets 10 per cent of the winning purse, it gives you an idea of how the prize money in racing has increased.

Bart joined with Roy Higgins, again, two years later, in 1967, when he won on Red Handed. Roy jumped off the horse, and it is reputed that he said to Bart, 'If you hadn't put me on board, and if I hadn't ridden it the way I did, you wouldn't have won the cups.' Bart said to him, 'If I hadn't put you on the horses and I hadn't trained them as well as I did, you wouldn't have won the cups.' The second of those wins, in 1966, was Galilee. That was the first of Bart's cups doubles, when he won the Caulfield Cup with Galilee and then the Melbourne Cup a couple of weeks later, ridden by our own Western Australian jockey John Miller.

He should have won 13. In 1969 the great horse Big Philou had won the Caulfield Cup easily and had won the LKS MacKinnon Stakes, beating the subsequent winner, Rain Lover. Regrettably, crime was very much a part of the industry at that time, and a strapper had been paid to nobble Big Philou. He was given the purgative Danthron and only about 30 minutes before the race the horse was scratched. Rain Lover went on to win that year and the next year. As an aside, as a veterinarian some time later, I had occasion to be the attendant veterinarian to Big Philou, and the event of that purgative to him had an absolutely disastrous effect on that horse's wellbeing, and he never returned to the greatness that he should have exhibited.

In 1974 and 1975 Bart won the Cup with Think Big. I have to relate the story that, in 1974, he also had the favourite, Leilani. My mother was visiting us in Melbourne and I had occasion to be at Flemington on the last fast track work morning before the Cup with my employer, Dr Bill Burns, as well as Dr John Bourke and Bart. John Bourke made the point to my mother, 'Mrs Back, these are two of Bart's horses coming around and one of them is favourite to win the Cup.' Mum very politely turned to Bart and said, 'That horse is working very, very well, Mr Cummings, the one on the outside.' Bart said, 'No, Mrs Back, that's a horse called Think Big.' I think his words were something like, 'If he started now, he couldn't win. We think Leilani will win.'

On Cup day I was there with my mother and she said, 'I want you to put some money on that horse of Mr Cummings.' I said, 'No, Mum. The favourite is Leilani.' She said, 'No, the other horse, Think Big.' I said, 'You heard the trainer. He said if it started last Friday it couldn't win.' History, of course, records that it did win, and the only time it raced again in the next 12 months it won the Cup the next year. At track work two or three days after the Cup I remember running into Cummings, and he said to me, 'Is your mother around, by any chance, Chris? I might need her advice.'

In 1991 Bart again won the double with a horse called Let's Elope. My recollection is that he actually trained and owned Let's Elope. He won another interesting double with Saintly in 1996—the Cox Plate, which is the major sprint race at Moonee Valley, and a week and a half later the Melbourne Cup. He took the horse to Japan but, whilst it was a red hot favourite to win the prestigious Japan Cup, unfortunately the horse fell ill and had to be brought back to Australia.

I mentioned Viewed in 2008, because those of us who listen to Australia All Over on Sunday morning, with Ian McNamara, would know that Macca always phoned Bart on the Sunday of the Racing Mass, the Sunday two days before the Cup, after the VRC Derby, and had a chat with him. Macca would say to him, 'What have you got running, Bart?' That year Viewed was the bottom weight horse. I remember him making a comment along the lines of, 'Two miles is a long way, and if you aren't carrying much weight you will probably do fairly well.' Of course that was the last of his Cup wins.

He won five Cox Plates, including two in 2009 and 2010 with a magnificent horse called So You Think. He won over 7,000 races in his career of which 760, more than 10 per cent, are what are known as 'stakes races'—in other words, a higher quality of race.

I want to reflect briefly on his sense of humour. When he was a young trainer in Adelaide, his neighbours were complaining about the number of flies in the stable. The health department came around to tell him he had too many flies. Bart's response was, 'How many am I allowed to have?' On one occasion an outstanding jockey called Darren Beadman went to Bart. Darren had found religion, and he said to Bart, 'I've spoken to God and God wants me to give up riding and join the ministry.' Bart's response was, 'You ought to get a second opinion.' I also remember that in the early seventies it was reputed that an owner came up to Bart and said, 'How much will you charge me to train my horse, Mr Cummings?' Bart said, 'I'll charge you $500 a week if I train it and $1,000 a week if you want to help me.'

Of course the humour was not lost on his family either. His son, Anthony, who is also a respected trainer in Melbourne, when asked on one occasion said, 'Bart taught me everything I know about training. The unfortunate thing is that he hasn't taught me everything that he knows about it.' It is a wonderful industry, full of people with great senses of humour.

In that same vein, I did the veterinary work for George Hanlon, who won Melbourne cups with Piping Lane, the Tasmanian horse, and with Arwon, 'Arwon' being the word 'Nowra' spelt backwards. The horse was owned by a group in Nowra. George was asked by a young journalist, 'How important is breeding, Mr Hanlon, to a Melbourne Cup winner?' And George said to him, 'Son, it is absolutely critical. If the horse is not bred to win, there is no way you can get two miles and win a Melbourne Cup.' The journalist said, 'Well, what is Arwon's breeding, Mr Hanlon?' He said, 'I wouldn't have a clue, Son.' It was a great industry to be in.

In the last few moments available to me, I want to reflect on why the likes of Bart Cummings, Tommy Smith and Colin Hayes were such great trainers. It is really to do with their capacity to pick a horse that is capable and that can gallop; but more than anything else over and above other trainers, in my observation, was their ability to keep horses eating. They put great emphasis on the fact that if you could not get enough feed into a horse you could not put enough work into a horse and therefore you could not get a horse fit enough. The other comment I would make about those great trainers is that lesser trainers go into a race with their horse being 90 per cent fit, hoping like hell that it will have an extra 10 per cent. I think the likes of Bart Cummings probably trained their horses to 110 per cent, hoping that all they were going to need was the 100.

Bart was widely honoured. He was a member of the Order of Australia. He was in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as one of the inaugural inductees. He won a Centennial Medal. He was an absolute ambassador for our sport and for the industry. It remains only for me to extend my sympathy, and that of colleagues interested, to his wife Valmae, to Anthony and to their family on the memory of a great man.