It is the face of an old, old man. The frail and unconvincing smile; the black hair now white; the thin neck, the once-jutting, proud jaw now receding; and the high, belted pants of a beloved but ailing elderly granddad.
This isn’t, this couldn’t be, the mighty Cups king, the one king to rule them all – the splendid Bart Cummings?
Bart once said that time was something you always have plenty of, but the poignant photograph of the great trainer on the front page of Melbourne’s Herald Sun told the other great truth: that time marches on for all, and that it will take us all in the end.
As another spring carnival begins, the racing world celebrates Bart Cummings’ 60 years. He always gave the impression of never really trying too hard, when in reality he was the most exacting, careful and patient of trainers to be found in all of Australia.
Patience: the word most mentioned about Bart Cummings, winner of a record 12 Melbourne Cups. Patience is also the word Bart himself most uses when talking of what’s needed to breed and race a horse to win. I don’t know why I have so many friends with a passion for the track, for the authentic Australian racing character, but a straw poll of them on Bart’s 60th anniversary, asking what they thought the secret of Bart’s success was, brought back that calm, measured word over again.
It’s patience, says journalist and author Andrew Rule. “And Bart is as coldly calculating as a KGB spymaster: the writer Les Carlyon calls his horses ‘assassins’.”
My old mate, the artist Jan Senbergs, replies with another single word: experience. Bart started life as a trainer accidentally – he had to get a training licence to look after his father’s stable of horses when his dad travelled overseas. He’s been around them since he was a young man. He’s taken horses who had as much promise as they had problems and turned them into champions.
“The American horse Kingston Rule was a head case when it arrived,” says Andrew Rule. “Bart’s methods calmed him down and he won the 1990 Cup in record time that will probably never be broken.”
Another dear friend, the celebrated painter Stieg Persson (what is it with artists and horse racing?) says it’s all about timing: “He knows how to prepare a horse so that it peaks on the day he wants. Look at the spring preparation for Let’s Elope: no one knew anything about the horse three months before she won the Cup.”
My colleague on ABC News Breakfast, sports presenter Paul Kennedy, says Bart’s secret is “patience and kindness”, and he’s right. Bart is renowned for his calm, kind manner with horses. He attaches a mirror to their feed bags so they think they have company for dinner. He sacks any strapper who is loud or rough. He allows his horses to take their time, no matter what anxious and ambitious connections might be urging.
Bart says the calmer you are the calmer your horses will be and, as anyone who has seen him on big race days will know, he’s the most quiet of men at the most emotionally intense of times. Despite time, inexorable time, my friends and I and many others still hope to see him trackside on this year’s big race day.
