Tribute to Bart Cummings

By: Bryan Martin OAM - This is Your Racing Life
Sunday, August 30, 2015

Australia lost an icon in sport with the passing of James Bartholomew [Bart] Cummings in the early hours of Sunday August 30th 2015. Bart’s health had deteriorated over recent years and he had been confined to living on his horse farm at Princes Farm in New South Wales.

Bart Cummings’ record of training winners in the sport of kings is unparalleled. He has the amazing record of training 12 Melbourne Cup winners including 5 quinellas [1st and 2nd] between 1965 and 2008. His record outside the Melbourne Cup stands alone having prepared the Caulfield Cup winner 7 times, the Golden Slipper 4 times as well as the Cox Plate 5 times. Bart has the astonishing record of training 32 Derby winners and winners of the Oaks on 24 occasions. His overall record of feature race winners at Group One level stands at 268. Bart’s record of winners Australia wide is around 6,000.

Of Irish descent, Bart Cummings was the strapper for his dad Jim when Comic Court won the Melbourne Cup in 1950 and obtained his training license in Adelaide in 1953, when his mother and father took an extended holiday back to their homeland of Ireland.

1) A strapping young Bart with his dad's champion Comic Court. Bart strapped the horse on Cup day 1950.  2) Facing the elements early morning at Flemington, the great man is at home there. 3) Bart and a great favourite Ming Dynasty, dual Caulfield Cup winner.

Despite all his amazing success at the highest level in racing, Bart Cummings remained a very shy person, a deep thinker with an innate ability to communicate with horses, an ability to know when a horse had had enough training or racing, when to change the routine of training and importantly when to change the feeding, so much of this knowledge was passed down from his father Jim.

Bart mixed with royalty, greeting Her Majesty The Queen when his horse Beau Zam won a special race in front of the Queen in Canberra to celebrate the Bi-Centennial in 1988. 

He survived bankruptcy in the mid eighties when a tax driven syndicate of bankers lured him to a buying spree of multiple millions at the Sydney sales. Bart had signed for all the yearlings purchased when the company collapsed, leaving Bart with a bill of millions of dollars. He fought his way back in true Cummings fashion, paid the debtors and got back to training his winners...and remarkably, had one of his best decades ever through the nineties, winning 4 Melbourne Cups.


1) Great moment to savour for Bart and family after Let's Elope won the cup in 1991. 2) Bart with Saintly, one of his best horses.

We will never see the likes of this true racing icon again. We will, in our time, never see his feats equalled or passed. A devout catholic, a good friend to all in the Media, a wicked Irish wit, the prince of one-liners, that was Bart, a legend in our time.

We celebrate a great life well lived.

 
Written by Bryan Martin OAM - This is Your Racing Life, for Tobin Brothers Funerals

 

Leave a comment
Name*:
Email:
Comment*:
Please enter the numbers and letters you see in the image. Note that the case of the letters entered matters.

Comments

Please wait

Previous Posts

Introducing our #SayItNow Ambassadors for 2024

#SayItNow 2024 Ambassadors #SayItNow returns in 2024 as Victorians join the conversation to celebrate the important people in their lives. #SayItNow is an annual initiative of Tobin Brothers Fune...

#SayItNow Returns for 2024

#SayItNow returns for 2024 #SayItNow returns in 2024 as Victorians join the conversation to celebrate the important people in their lives. Victorians young and old are being encouraged to celebra...

Celebrating the Life of Father Gerard Dowling OAM DE

Fr Gerard Dowling OAM DE  (1932-2023) Fr Gerard was a close friend of Tobin Brothers, a tremendous writer, radio host, qualified counsellor and a Catholic Priest to the Archdiocese for 65 yea...

Father Gerard Dowling OAM DE celebrates 50 years on radio!

On Sunday 3rd September 2023, Fr Gerard Dowling OAM DE celebrated a wonderful milestone of 50 years on Sunday evenings on the radio.   It was in 1973 that Fr Gerard first hosted his first ra...

Rosebud Q&A session: Pre-Paid and Pre-Arranged Funerals

  Have you ever wondered what is involved with pre-arranging a funeral? You are invited to a Q&A: Pre-Paid and Pre-Arranged Funerals to assist you in making an informed decision and to...

Introducing… Tough Times from the Heart

Introducing… Tough Times from the Heart Tobin Brothers Funerals has joined forces with SPAN CV to bring greater awareness to suicide prevention. 3144 Australians died by suicide in 2021, accordin...

Celebrating Father Gerard Dowling

  Today we would like to pay tribute to Fr Gerard Dowling OAM DE. In recent weeks he celebrated his 90th birthday and also the 49th anniversary of him being on air with the Family Counsellor...

Christmas Message 2021

  In 2020, they said it was a year that we will remember, we can add 2021 to that also. Back-to-back unforgettable years. The last two years have challenged us all in so many varied ways, an...

Escape from Neil’s Wheel: Good Friday Appeal Fundraiser

  Victoria’s Good Friday Appeal, is one of the most important annual events in the state, raising funds to enable The Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne to provide world class care for ...

The loss of an infant or child

From the first dream… From the first moment we dream of them, our babies and children matter. They become part of the very fabric of who we are. All our children, birthed or dreamt of, alive or de...