Best Australian Racing Stories (30 page)

Light Fingers was raced on lease by Melbourne grain merchant, Wally Broderick, who owned her older full brother, The Dip. The two were well named, being by the French stallion Le Filou, which translates as ‘pickpocket'. ‘Dip' is an old Aussie slang term for just that, a pickpocket. Light Fingers's name was clever and an obvious choice as a full sister to The Dip.

Light Fingers was originally named Close Embrace by her owners, the Dawson family. This name came from her female lineage; her dam, grand-dam and great-grand-dam raced as Cuddlesome, Fondle and Caress. Wally Broderick preferred the name to come from the sire's side to match her full brother, and re-registered her before she raced in his famous colours of white with royal blue spots and cap.

Bart then went on to chalk up three Melbourne Cups in a row, with Galilee and Light Fingers adding another quinella in the 1966 race and Red Handed winning in 1967.

Bart's second quinella in the race saw the owners of the unlucky Ziema, the Baileys, win with Galilee; while it was Wally Broderick's turn to finish second, again with little Light Fingers.

Galilee was an astute buy 12 months before Bart's first Cup win with Light Fingers. His success on the track is an example of Bart's eagle eye and training ability.

Galilee threw his offside front leg out at a 45-degree angle, which produced an awkward, almost laughable, gait; but Bart noticed that Galilee was not knock-kneed but pigeon-toed, and that he actually put his hooves down perfectly. Good training and shoeing could overcome the condition. The Baileys trusted Bart and consequently won the Melbourne Cup in 1966 after going within a whisker the year before with Ziema.

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In the spring of 1966 Galilee had an arthritic condition, and as the rumour spread he drifted from 6 to 1 to 14 to 1 for the Caulfield Cup. However, there was no indication of soreness when Galilee unleashed his withering finish to beat Gala Crest by a length and a half to give Bart his first Caulfield Cup victory.

Bart attacked the 1966 Melbourne Cup with two starters: Galilee and Light Fingers. Bart brought Light Fingers to Melbourne rather short of condition, with only four lead-up runs in which she had been second twice and third once.

Once again history was made when Bart became the first trainer to quinella the Melbourne Cup twice. With little more than a furlong to run Light Fingers stormed to the front. For a moment it seemed she would triumph until Bart's better-conditioned runner, Galilee, breezed past her for an easy 2-length win.

Galilee was a champion. He became the first racehorse since Even Stevens in 1962 to win the Caulfield–Melbourne Cup double and was recognised as the best horse in Australia since Tulloch.

‘Not only is Cummings the man of the moment but also at least the racing man of the decade,' one newspaper claimed. ‘His Cups win climaxed a run of successes, as no other Australian horse trainer has known.'

Cummings's success in major races surpassed even that of Sydney's Tommy Smith, who had broken almost every training record.

Racing historians were astounded at Bart's feat of claiming the Caulfield, Melbourne and Sydney Cups with Galilee. In more than a century no trainer had prepared one horse to win that hat-trick.

Bart's most astonishing, and highly profitable, 1966–67 season, with a small but strong team of horses, set a Commonwealth training record—winning $358,918 in stakes money.

Bart finished the season with seven cups to his credit. He had quinellaed the Melbourne and Adelaide Cups, and won the Caulfield, Sandown, Sydney, Brisbane and Queens Cups. It was one of the most sensational training performances in Australian racing history, a record that may never be equalled.

No man had trained three Cup winners on the trot. But soon after Galilee won the 1966 Melbourne Cup Bart forecast he had another ‘good thing'. He announced that Red Handed would win the 1967 Melbourne Cup.

Again Bart's expert knowledge of horses stood him in good stead when he had settled for an ‘ugly duckling' chestnut colt by Le Filou, lot 202 at the 1963 New Zealand yearling sales.

Bart had tried to prepare Red Handed for Galilee's 1966 Melbourne Cup but then, as a four-year-old, he fell in the Geelong Cup in October, breaking a bone in the near hock, which ruled him out of the Cup. It was only with careful nursing and skilled veterinary care that the chestnut stayer was brought back to racing ten months later.

Red Handed was a frail-looking, plain customer.

Few people noticed that Red Handed almost fell in the straight the first time around in the 1967 Melbourne Cup while travelling wide and looking for a position. He was well back in the field for most of the race but hit the front 400 metres from home. With 100 metres to go he seemed beaten when Red Crest passed him and forged clear. However, Red Handed fought back, drew closer with each stride and went on to win by a neck.

Bart had become the first trainer in the 107-year history of the Melbourne Cup to train three successive winners of the race. The normally unflappable, deadpan trainer admitted Galilee had given him a big thrill when he won in 1966, but said the pleasure was far greater when Red Handed completed the hat-trick. It was also the first time Bart's stable colours—the now-famous green and gold diagonal stripes with a white cap—had been carried to Melbourne Cup Victory.

Bart's third Melbourne Cup had come along just when some people were saying his luck had run out and he owed his success in 1965 and 1966 to two horses ‘anyone could have trained'.

Red Handed's win was a typical example of Bart's earnest pursuit of perfection—patience and care, attention to detail, homework and hard work have always been essential to the Bart Cummings style of training.

Bart claims he does not believe in luck, but he admitted he gave Red Handed a helping hand by using Light Fingers's bridle on him in the 1967 Melbourne Cup.

By Melbourne Cup time the following spring Bart had trained plenty of winners, but his four runners in the Flemington marathon were all beaten out of the placings. It was the first time in four years he had failed to get a winner or a placed horse.

‘I don't suppose a man can go on expecting to train the Melbourne Cup winner year after year,' he philosophised laconically.

Bart opened a permanent stable in Melbourne during 1968 with enough space for 60 boxes. Since 1965 he had been making two raids a year on Melbourne's rich purses, and the new set-up was his first step in his plan to become the first trainer to operate self-contained stables in three capital cities: Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

By the late 1960s Bart was getting among the big prize money just as he planned. He was soon to feature in one of the most stunning incidents in the history of the turf in Australia.

Leading up to the 1969 Melbourne Cup Bart had four acceptors in the big race: Big Philou, Swift General, General Command and The Sharper. The first of a series of sensations occurred when Big Philou was beaten into second place by Nausori in the Caulfield Cup. Cummings entered a protest against Nausori, which was upheld. For only the second time in the history of the Caulfield Cup, the result was altered by the stewards to place Big Philou first.

Big Philou was to be withdrawn suddenly, just 45 minutes before the start of the 1969 Melbourne Cup. Bart noticed the horse scouring profusely in his stall and advised the stewards that the horse was distressed. It was one of the most sensational dramas in Cup history.

Big Philou had been nobbled, and the repercussions dragged on for more than a year. After receiving the result of the urine samples and droppings taken from Big Philou, it was discovered that the gelding had been administered a drug called Danthron.

Bart did not know how Big Philou had been ‘got at'. VRC stewards swabbed 14 of Bart's horses between November 1969 and August 1970 but all swabs returned negative findings.

In 1974 Bart was involved in a battle with Tommy Smith to become the first Australian to train horses to win more than 1 million dollars in stakes money before the season ended on 31 July.

On 17 June Bart pipped Tommy to reach the million-dollar mark. Bart picked up $200 in the first race at Caulfield when Lady Antoinette finished fourth, and even though Hello Honey was unlucky to finish second in the Birthday Handicap at Warwick Farm, the $1200 prize money she won did the trick. His runners went on to earn $12,250 in four starts—Eagle Farm, Warwick Farm, Caulfield and Victoria Park—that day, giving him a total of $1,011,252 for the season.

Bart had few better years than 1974. His stable took $272,360 over four days at the Melbourne Cup Carnival at Flemington, winning a staggering $432,430 from the time the Carnival opened with the Caulfield Guineas on October 12. His nine winners and a dead heat in the four days of the Melbourne Cup meeting were a training record for Victoria.

In 1974 Bart spearheaded his effort to win his first Melbourne Cup since 1967 with the great mare Leilani and the aptly named Think Big.

Leilani was easily his highest stakes-winner, with $143,550 from wins in the Toorak Handicap, Caulfield Cup, Mackinnon Stakes and Queens Cup. Astonishingly, Bart was to quinella the 1974 Melbourne Cup with horses he had cleverly acquired in 1972.

The trainer with a special eye for stayers had taken a chance at the New Zealand sales on a good-looking yearling and made the successful $10,000 bid. This on-the-spot decision was to prove as astute as his choice of Light Fingers, Galilee and Red Handed in previous years.

On Bart's arrival back in Australia, a Malaysian banker and property developer, Dato Tan Chin Nam, from Kuala Lumpur, asked him to buy a horse, preferably a stayer, and Bart suggested Think Big. At the same time as he bought Think Big he liked the look of a filly by Oncidium from the good race mare Lei. Bart snapped her up on lease and registered her as Leilani.

Leilani became the 11th mare in history to win the Caulfield Cup, giving Bart his third victory in the race. Her Caulfield Cup win had been so convincing that she became a short-priced favourite to win the 1974 Melbourne Cup.

On the other hand, Think Big's 1974 Melbourne Cup campaign was unimpressive. He finished last in the AJC Metropolitan at Randwick on 7 October, failed in the Coongy Handicap at Caulfield on 16 October on a heavy track and was eighth in the Moonee Valley Cup on 26 October.

It rained heavily on the morning of the Melbourne Cup, but the track was still officially ‘good' and Leilani was made 7 to 2 favourite.

Leilani loomed into contention in the straight and appeared to have the Melbourne Cup in her keeping until Think Big wound up and charged home to win by three-quarters of a length. Think Big had given the trainer his fourth Melbourne Cup, and with Leilani's second placing he had managed to quinella the race for the third time.

In May 1975 Bart shifted to new AJC stables at Randwick Racecourse and named the yard ‘Leilani Lodge'. In June that year he chalked up his 13th Derby victory when Bottled Sunshine won the Queensland Derby.

During the 1974–75 season horses trained by Bart earned $1,399,182 in five states, creating another Australian record. The Cummings magic carried on into the 1975–76 season, and Bart approached the 1975 Melbourne Cup with three chances: Holiday Waggon, Leica Lover and Think Big.

Bart was confident of winning his fifth Melbourne Cup with either Leica Lover or Think Big. Think Big had again been unimpressive in lead-up races, beating only one horse home in the Mackinnon Stakes.

With 100 metres to go in the Cup Think Big grabbed the lead and the only challenge came from his stablemate, Holiday Waggon, who tried hard before finishing three-quarters of a length away second. Think Big knew only one thing—how to stay. It was another Melbourne Cup quinella and Bart's fifth Melbourne Cup, making him the first man to achieve five Cup wins in the 20th century.

Think Big never won another race in 19 starts. Bart was preparing the six-year-old for a tilt at the 1976 Melbourne Cup when the gelding broke down and was retired.

Bart had 30 horses entered for the 1976 Melbourne Cup, but his only runner come post time was Gold And Black. All eyes were on Bart's runner but a freak deluge—5 inches (12 cm) of rain accompanied by lightning and thunder just 30 minutes before the start of the Cup—had punters rushing to back the New Zealand mudlark, Van Der Hum, into 9 to 2 favouritism.

Van Der Hum surged through the slush to score by 2 lengths from Gold And Black.

In 1977 Bart's chances of winning the Melbourne Cup were boosted when Gold And Black zoomed home for a half-length second in the Mackinnon Stakes.

The galloper was in line to become the first racehorse in the 20th century to win a Melbourne Cup after being runner-up the previous year. Punters were not convinced and allowed Gold And Black to drift to 11 to 2 in the betting.

Gold And Black and Reckless, trained by Phar Lap's legendary strapper Tommy Woodcock, were destined to fight out the 1977 Melbourne Cup, with Gold And Black finishing just the stronger.

In claiming the race Bart had become the first trainer in history to prepare six Melbourne Cup winners.

He had now won six Melbourne Cups and also had five seconds, two fourths, a fifth and two sixths from the 32 runners he had started in 15 Melbourne Cups since 1958. No wonder he was being called the Cups King.

Bart's four starters in 1978—Panamint, Vive Velours, Belmura Lad and Stormy Rex—did nothing to add to the legend, with –Panamint at tenth the closest of the four at the finish.

In 1979 it was an older horse with leg problems, the 1977 Melbourne Cup placegetter, Hyperno, that was to add the next chapter to the legend.

The Cups King was at first reluctant to take on the horse, reasoning that it was hard enough to win races with sound horses, let alone with unsound ones. But Bart's methods suited Hyperno, who responded to the trainer's patient care even though his legs swelled badly after running in the Toorak Handicap of 1978.

On the Tuesday before the 1979 Melbourne Cup, Bart trialled the problem horse in blinkers and the gallop pleased him enough to believe he had another Cup winner. Hyperno went on to give the maestro his seventh Melbourne Cup. Hyperno's win also put paid to any suggestions that Bart had lost his touch.