Further back in time, James Scobie trained a record eight winners of the Victoria Derby (Bart trained five), but Bart Cummings holds the all-time record for the VRC Oaks with nine, and for the rich Flemington autumn sprint double – the (Black Caviar) Lightning Stakes (seven wins) and the Newmarket Handicap (eight).
Early in the twentieth century Jack Holt prepared eleven winners of the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield. James Scobie’s most successful event was the Ascot Vale Stakes, twelve times. In numbers, Bart’s thirteen in the Australian Cup trumps even these.
Over the space of four decades, the conditions of the Australian Cup changed around him. Bart was ever adaptable. When the chestnut gelding Arctic Coast narrowly won the first of these thirteen in 1968 against a talented field, the race was a 10 furlong (2011m) handicap. The winner was well in at the weights at 7 stone 7 pounds (47.6kg). When the proven Group 1 performer Sirmione won in 2008 – Bart’s thirteenth Australian Cup – the race was a 2000m weight-for-age championship.
In nine Australian Cups from 1973 to 1981, Bart Cummings’s horses won seven – Gladman 1973, Leilani 1975, Lord Dudley 1976, Ngawyni 1977, Ming Dynasty in 1978 and again in 1980, and Hyperno in 1981. Ming Dynasty’s first victory was under handicap conditions, his second at weight-for-age.
These were class horses. So too were Bart’s subsequent winners, No Peer 1985, Let’s Elope 1991, Saintly 1996, Dane Ripper 1998 and finally Sirmione.
Most often the stories surrounding the late Bart Cummings are about the man, the character, the quirks and quips, the highs and lows of his career, his capacity to surprise.
He was, as Les Carlyon put it, “The Master”. In the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, he’s a Legend.
But don’t forget the numbers. The statistics, the sheer scale of his success nationwide, still have the power to astonish. Twelve Melbourne Cups. Thirteen Australian Cups. Say it slowly.