FEATURE STORY
BART CUMMINGS – THE AUSTRALIAN CUPS KING BY ANDREW LEMON
Racing writers started calling trainer Bart Cummings “the Cups King” in the late 1960s with three Melbourne Cups under his belt. In two of those first three victories, he also trained the runner-up. The “Cups King” label came early because Cummings was producing a succession of winners of other Cup races in those halcyon years. Galilee gave him – besides the 1966 Melbourne Cup – a Caulfield Cup and a Sydney Cup. Fulmen won a Brisbane Cup and Adelaide Cup, Lowland a Sydney Cup, Big Philou the Caulfield Cup. These are just some of the Cups won by Bart, all before 1970. In the following decade came four more Melbourne Cups. Think Big won twice, soon followed by Gold And Black and Hyperno. Then in the 1990s came Kingston Rule, Let’s Elope, Saintly and Rogan Josh. The perfect dozen was completed with Viewed in 2008. Twelve Melbourne Cups, including five Melbourne Cup quinellas: Australia’s most coveted and keenly contested race. Who could believe such a training achievement? Yet there is one race where Bart Cummings went one better. This year, 2022, sees the 160th running of the Flemington autumn classic, the VRC Australian Cup. And Bart Cummings trained the winner of the Australian Cup no less than thirteen times. Look back through the record books of Australian racing history. It is rare to find trainers who have made a mark on one particular Group 1 race with multiple wins over a training career with different horses. Sydney’s T.J. Smith, long-time rival of Bart, accumulated seven winners of the Cox Plate (Bart trained five) and nine of the AJC Australian Derby. Smith’s daughter Gai Waterhouse has seven Golden Slipper winners to her name (Bart trained four).
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