Bart Cummings

Bart Cummings is the most successful trainer in the history of the Melbourne Cup, having trained 11 Melbourne Cup winners during his career. Cummings was born into a racing family in Adelaide and spent his youth working for his father as a strapper, despite being allergic to hay.

Melbourne Cup Champion in the Making

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 31: Bart Cummings, trainer of 11 Melbourne Cup winners, speaks during the Breakfast with the Stars event ahead of the 2006 Melbourne Cup Carnival at the Terrace Restaurant at Flemington Racecourse October 31, 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) Bart Cummings was only 23 years old when he experienced the taste of Melbourne Cup glory for the first time. At the 1950 Melbourne Cup Cummings strapped his father’s charge Comic Court before the horse went on to win the Cup.

Bart Cummings acquired his own training license in 1953 and set to work in his father’s stables. Although Cummings did not achieve instant success in Australia’s top races, his fortunes improved steadily. In 1958 Bart Cummings won his first Group 1 race, the SAJC Derby, with Stormy Weather.

Melbourne Cup Success

In 1965 Bart Cummings won his first Melbourne Cup with Light Fingers. This win was just a taste of things to come as Cummings went on to claim another two consecutive Melbourne Cup victories with Galilee and Red Handed.

The Melbourne Cup champions success at Australia’s biggest race gave him the financial impetus he needed to set up his own stables, and in 1968 Bart Cummings set up his Saintly Place stables in Melbourne.

The performances of Cummings’ runners at the Melbourne Cup quickly earned him a reputation as an expert trainer of stayers. However in the next few years he turned this perception on its head by training a succession of great sprinters who helped him to 8 Group1 Newmarket Handicap Spring titles.

Bart Cummings’ next Melbourne Cup success came in 1974 with Think Big, who won him two consecutive Melbourne Cups. In the same decade he won with Gold & Black and Hyperno, a string of results which saw Bart Cummings become the first trainer in the history of commonwealth racing to train the earners of over $1,000,000 in prize money.

Although Bart Cummings failed to find a Melbourne Cup champion in the 1980s, the 1990s saw him claim another four Melbourne Cup titles, including the 1990 Melbourne Cup where Kingston Rule ran the fastest every time over the metric race distance.

At the age of 80 this Melbourne Cup champion trainer remains actively engaged in training and may well become the oldest trainer ever to win the Melbourne Cup.

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