Best Australian Racing Stories (29 page)

A feature of the race which does not rate a mention in Kendall's poem is the fact that Dodd, the jockey on Suwarrow, which also fell, died as a result of the fall. Burton rode The Wandering Jew into 16th place and the legendary Tom Hales was 17th on Trump Voss.

Now that we have all the facts and prosaic items dealt with, let us enjoy the lyrical, poetic account of the 1881 Melbourne Cup from the pen of one of the greatest Australian poets, Henry Kendall.

How the Melbourne Cup Was Won

Henry Kendall

In the beams of a beautiful day,

Made soft by a breeze from the sea,

The horses were started away,

The fleet-footed thirty and three;

Where beauty, with shining attire,

Shed more than a noon on the land,

Like spirits of thunder and fire

They flashed by the fence and the stand.

And the mouths of pale thousands were hushed

When
Somnus
, a marvel of strength,

Past Bowes like a sudden wind rushed,

And led the bay colt by a length;

But a chestnut came galloping through,

And, down where the river-tide steals,

O'Brien, on brave
Waterloo
,

Dashed up to the big horse's heels.

But Cracknell still kept to the fore,

And first by the water bend wheeled,

When a cry from the stand, and a roar

Ran over green furlongs of field;

Far out by the back of the course—

A demon of muscle and pluck—

Flashed onward, the favourite horse,

With his hoofs flaming clear of the ruck.

But the marvel that came from the North,

With another, was heavily thrown;

And here at the turning flashed forth

To the front a surprising unknown;

By shed and by paddock and gate

The strange, the magnificent black,

Led
Darebin
a length in the straight,

With thirty and one at his back.

But the Derby colt tired at the rails,

And Ivory's marvellous bay

Passed Burton, O'Brien, and Hales,

As fleet as a flash of the day.

But Gough on the African star

Came clear in the front of the field,

Hard followed by Morrison's
Czar

And the blood unaccustomed to yield.

Yes, first from the turn to the end,

With a boy on him paler than ghost,

The horse that had hardly a friend

Shot flashing like fire by the post.

In a clamour of calls and acclaim,

He landed the money—the horse

With the beautiful African name,

That rang to the back of the course.

Hurrah for the
Hercules
race,

And the terror that came from his stall,

With the bright, the intelligent face,

To show the road home to them all!

Regarded by many as Australia's finest poet, Kendall was a very different type of poet to Paterson, Morant, and the rest of the
Bulletin
versifiers. He was also a very different type of person. He started his working life as a public servant with the Lands Office, but suffered family scandals, bankruptcy and bouts of mental illness. He resigned his position to live in poverty before working in a timber business owned by friends on the mid north coast of New South Wales, around the area of the town which now bears his name. His poetry was critically acclaimed but never made him any money. Towards the end of his life, the premier of New South Wales, Sir Henry Parkes, appointed him Inspector of Forests.

Apart from his obviously well-researched 1881 poem, which demonstrates a good knowledge of the horses involved, Kendall does not appear to have had any deep or lasting interest in horse-racing, as did Paterson, Morant and Gordon. It also seems most unlikely, given the rather sad circumstances of his life, that he ever had any money to bet with.

What we do know is that, as well as knowing an awful lot about trees, Kendall spent much of his working life in the saddle, so we can assume that he was a poet who knew something about horses and he obviously knew a bit about racing.

It is hard to imagine a poet like Lesbia Harford knowing much about horses, however, let alone being a regular follower of racing.

Born in Melbourne in 1891 she suffered from a congenital heart defect and later from tuberculosis. Neither ailment stopped her graduating in law in 1916 from Melbourne University (oddly enough, in the same class as Robert Menzies) at a time when women rarely achieved such things. Lesbia was a free thinker and radical, an active socialist, pacifist and champion of working women. She worked in factories and sweat shops and wrote excellent poetry without ever bothering to have any published. Her short but fascinating life ended when she succumbed to tuberculosis in 1927, aged 36.

Lesbia Harford was certainly a wonderful poet, but hardly the type of person to study a form guide or be seen in a marquee during spring carnival social events.

Nevertheless, she was Melbourne born and bred, and that was enough for her to take the time to write at least one poem about the Melbourne Cup.

The Melbourne Cup

Lesbia Harford

I like the riders

Clad in rose and blue;

Their colours glitter

And their horses too.

Swift go the riders

On incarnate speed.

My thought can scarcely

Follow where they lead.

Delicate, strong, long

Lines of colour flow,

And all the people

Tremble as they go.

Bart: The King of Cups

BRUCE MONTGOMERIE

A
USTRALIA ALMOST LOST LEGENDARY
Melbourne Cup trainer Bart Cummings before he ever trained a horse.

When he was 11, in 1939, Bart almost drowned while swimming off the jetty at Adelaide's famous Glenelg Beach.

He was going under for the third time when he was rescued by his 12-year-old schoolmate, Brendan O'Grady, the son of a local barber.

Brendan received a commendation from the Royal Humane Society of Australasia for his heroic action. If it hadn't been for his alertness and bravery, history would have been robbed of an iconic Aussie character—and arguably the greatest racehorse trainer this country has ever produced.

James Bartholomew Cummings became known to us all as ‘Bart' because he shared his father's first name and the family used his middle name for convenience.

‘J.B.' did it tough in his early days as a trainer and struggled to make a living for himself and his family. His perseverance, patience and uncanny knack of ‘knowing good horses when he saw them' eventually made him a legend.

There are three factors which made Bart the ‘Cups King', with an unprecedented 12 Melbourne Cup wins over a period of 44 years.

Firstly, there is his understanding of training for stamina. Secondly, his amazing knack of timing horses' campaigns. Lastly, his dedication to the welfare of his horses.

If you count Bart's involvement as strapper of 1950 winner Comic Court, he has been involved in 13 Cup wins over a 60-year period. Now, that's a feat that will surely never be repeated. And, he's not finished . . .

Bart Cummings came from hardy stock. His grandfather, Thomas Cummins, was a ploughman by profession. Born in 1828, Thomas migrated from Ireland to South Australia on the sailing ship
Empanadas
and arrived on Christmas Day 1853.

Thomas Cummins changed his surname to ‘Cummings' on arrival and settled in the desolate South Australian hamlet of Eurelia, 280 kilometres north of Adelaide. At least he was now ploughing his own land, although it was rather barren land much of the time.

Bart's father, Jim, was one of six sons Thomas and his wife brought up on the drought-stricken pastoral land in the north of South Australia.

Following two bad years, which included a cyclone, dust storms and thunderstorms, young Jim had had enough of Eurelia and, leaving his parents' farm behind, he braved the unforgiving heat and trekked to Alice Springs to work for his bachelor uncle, James, who needed help running his large station, Granite Downs, at Ellery Creek.

Jim got precious little in return for all the hard work on his uncle's property, but he took to handling and riding horses naturally and was quick to make his name as a rider. Jim also worked as a relief driver on the famous Birdsville mail coach, driving the section between Bloods Creek and Alice Springs.

Jim's first major victory as a jockey came when he won the 1898 Alice Springs Cup on an aged mare named Myrtle, owned and trained by his uncle.

Fed up with conditions on his uncle's property, Jim took up his uncle's offer to take on Myrtle if he won the race. He took Myrtle, a gelding called Radamantos and an old stock horse, and headed south on the long and arduous 1720-kilometre ride back to Adelaide.

This was a truly amazing feat on its own, but two weeks after arriving at Jamestown he had Myrtle fit enough to win the local cup. It was the first official success for Jim Cummings as a trainer— and the beginning of the Cummings training dynasty.

Settling in Glenelg, Jim went on to set a record by training the winners of every classic race in South Australia and training winners in every state except Queensland.

By the time Bart Cummings was born on 4 November 1927 his father was established as South Australia's top trainer. Young Bart worked around the stables and had various jobs away from home while his father allowed him to find his own feet and make his own decisions about life.

As a child Bart fancied himself as a jockey and used to practise his riding skills on Cushla, a brilliant galloper who won nine races for Jim Cummings. She was a docile mare and helped teach the nine-year-old Bart Cummings to ride.

Bart has been allergy-prone since childhood, and has suffered from asthma all his life. When he was 16 an Adelaide specialist diagnosed him as being allergic to horses and chaff. The doctor's advice to stay away from both was advice Bart never heeded.

By 1947, at age 19, he was a registered strapper with the South Australian Jockey Club and worked for his father for £2 a week and his keep.

Jim's best racehorse, Comic Court, was to steer Bart Cummings on the path to becoming a trainer.

Bart was Comic Court's usual strapper at race meetings and he often rode him at trackwork.

Comic Court had failed in his first two attempts in the Melbourne Cup, finishing fourth as a three-year-old in the 1948 Melbourne Cup and 20th as 7 to 4 second favourite in 1949.

Experts then considered Comic Court suspect at 2 miles, although he was bred to stay the distance, by Powerscourt out of Witty Maid, who was a grand-daughter of Comedy King. He had multiple St Simon bloodlines on both sides of his pedigree, and the experts were proved wrong when Jim Cummings produced the five-year-old to win the 1950 Melbourne Cup.

Jim had owned Comic Court's sire and dam, Powerscourt and Witty Maid. However, when racing was banned in South Australia during the war, Jim Cummings took up temporary residence in Victoria and sold both of them to the Bowyer brothers, who bred four classic winning horses from them.

Comic Court was foaled in 1945 and given to Jim to train.

The 22-year-old Bart was the strapper for Comic Court's Melbourne Cup win and, as he led the horse back to the winner's stall, he daydreamed for the first time about training his own Melbourne Cup winner.

About this time Jim Cummings was spending more time in Melbourne than Adelaide, and young Bart was often left in charge of his father's home stables. Such responsibility was perfect grooming for the future champion trainer.

Still, Bart Cummings took no steps towards becoming a trainer until a decision by the South Australian Jockey Club forced him to take out a training licence. When his father went to Ireland for six months and wanted to leave Bart in charge of his team, the SAJC told Bart he would have to take out a training licence.

Bart took up training permanently in May 1953. He was given the bottom set of stables at his father's Glenelg complex and a couple of horses, one of which was the Port Adelaide Cup winner, Welloch.

Bart's first city winner was Wells, which won the SAJC Devon Transition Handicap (6 furlongs) at Morphettville on 12 February 1955.

Three years later Stormy Passage gave Bart his first feature win in the city by taking out the 1958 South Australian Derby at Morphettville.

Bart's first weight-for-age winner came in the VATC Under-wood Stakes (10 furlongs) at Caulfield when the unfancied Trellios beat the favourite, Lord, by half a length.

The future ‘Cups King' had an inauspicious start to his Melbourne Cup career when his first runner, Asian Court, at 40 to 1, finished 12th in 1958.

Bart's first Melbourne Cup success came with a quinella seven years later, at his fourth attempt, in 1965, when one of his favourite horses, Light Fingers, won and another of his runners, Ziema, finished second.

Bart spotted Light Fingers as a yearling at Pirongia Stud in New Zealand. He did not think the foal was much to look at but as she took off across the paddock it was a different story. As soon as he saw her move Bart said he noticed the mighty stride of a natural galloper.

‘She had tremendous will to win and would strain every limb in her body to do so,' Bart recalled.

Light Fingers almost missed the Cup in 1965. In the Caulfield Stakes she clipped the heels of Winfreux and almost fell, causing her to rick a muscle in her shoulder. It looked like the end of her spring campaign and she was forced to miss the Caulfield Cup, but the magic of Bart Cummings had her ready to run on the first Tuesday in November.

Bart had three runners in the 1965 Melbourne Cup: the big, tough stayer Ziema, another hardened character The Dip (winner of the AJC Metropolitan Handicap), and Light Fingers. It looked like Ziema would take the Cup until Light Fingers emerged from the pack to challenge. The tiny chestnut mare and the big black gelding went to the line locked together and Light Fingers won by a lip.