Bart Cummings, the legendary Australian racing trainer who won 12 Melbourne Cups, died peacefully in his sleep aged 87 on Sunday, his family said.
An icon in Australia, he was also a familiar figure to Hong Kong racing fans.
He not only left his mark on the Sha Tin internationals amongst his hundreds of feature race winners, he was also an outspoken admirer of racing in Hong Kong.
Cummings was the groom of his father’s 1950 Melbourne Cup winner, Comic Court, took out a licence of his own in 1953 and held it as an active trainer until his death, in the process racking up 268 Group One wins, including an incredible 12 Melbourne Cups, 13 Australian Cups, 8 Newmarket Handicaps, 7 Caulfield Cups, 5 Cox Plates, 4 Golden Slippers, 32 Derbies and 24 Oaks races.
The final runner of Cummings’ life, in partnership with grandson James, was Sultry Feeling, a winner on Saturday in Sydney, and their partnership continued on successfully in memoriam yesterday with two wins at Wyong in his famous green and gold colours.
Cummings’ first runner in Hong Kong was Catalan Opening, a runaway winner of the 1997 Hong Kong Bowl - the 1,400m forerunner of the Mile - and the trip left an indelible impression on the charismatic trainer who was a household name in Australia, known affectionately by one and all as just ‘Bart’.
In the midst of the Melbourne spring racing carnival in 1998, Cummings told a live radio audience that Australian racing was very good, but ranked third or fourth in the world and needed to follow the totalisator-only model of Hong Kong and Japan if its administrators wanted to have the best.
Cummings made two more visits to Sha Tin, with Catalan Opening fourth in the QE II Cup in 1999 behind Jim And Tonic. Rogan Josh, his second-last Melbourne Cup winner, ran as favourite in the 1999 Vase, finishing fifth to Borgia.
James Bartholomew Cummings was born in 1927 in Glenelg in South Australia state and worked as a strapper at his father’s stable despite being allergic to horses and hay.
Cummings began training horses when he was 26 and won the first of his Melbourne Cups with mare Light Fingers in 1965.
He became part of Melbourne Cup folklore when he went on to train 11 more winners of “the race that stops a nation”. The next most successful trainers Etienne De Mestre and Lee Freedman chalked up just five winners.
His last victory was in 2008 with Viewed in a thrilling photo finish.
“Someone told me I do make a habit of winning this race and I said it was a good habit to get into,” Cummings quipped after the race.
He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1982 for services to racing industry and inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2001.
Tributes poured in for Cummings, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott describing him as “a sporting giant and a racing legend”.
“Few people have dominated a sport like Bart Cummings did. He will be remembered as a truly great trainer, the winner of literally thousands of races,” Abbott said in a statement.
“Race day will not be the same without him.”
The racing minister for Victoria state, where the Melbourne Cup is held every year, compared Cummings’ impact on Australian sport to the late cricket great Don Bradman.
“Bart Cummings stands alongside Don Bradman as the greatest name in Australian sport,” Martin Pakula said in a statement.
“Bart won everything there was to win in racing, he fought back from adversity, and with his dry wit and his quiet way, he told racing’s story.”
Leading trainer Gai Waterhouse tweeted: “A great sadness clouds over the Industry with the news of Bart Cummings’ passing. The Cups King’s legacy remembered - past, present & future.”
