Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has been said of Australians that we would bet on two flies climbing up a wall. This has become legend, immortal on-screen and in our own mythology. But there is punting and there is racing, and racing is the noble work between man and horse—owners, trainers, jockeys, strappers. Of course punting and racing are interconnected, and I rise today to pay tribute to Bart Cummings AM, a man loved by those who love racing and by those who love the punt.

Bart Cummings was to thoroughbred horseracing what Bradman was to cricket. We have heard that said before in these tributes, but I think it is more accurate to say that he was the Norm Smith. He was to racing what Norm Smith was to football—the strategist; the trainer; the never-say-die; the man committed to finding a way to win and to ensure that racing was the winner. If Roy Higgins is our most enduring jockey and Phar Lap the horse that Australians remember with most love, and if race callers Bill Collins and Johnny Tapp—'The Accurate One' and 'Our Johnny'—with their 30-year careers, were the race callers whom we most admire, then Bart Cummings is the trainer. But no-one touches Bart for longevity or for success.

He is of course known as the Cups King, best known and best measured, obviously, by the day that stops the nation. Many of us, my partner included, can recite the winners of the Melbourne Cup back to its inception—not me, I'm afraid; I need to read them. But for Bart they were Light Fingers, Galilee, Red Handed, Think Big—in 1974 and 1975—Gold and Black, Hyperno, Kingston Rule, Let's Elope, Saintly, Rogan Josh, and Viewed, the last, in 2008. You cannot hear those horses' names and not conjure an image of Bart at the track on Melbourne Cup day, preparing his horses in some of the news pieces leading up to the day, where every year a camera crew would head out to Saintly Lodge to talk to Bart about his horses.

Bart was married to his wife, Valmae, since 1954, and they had just celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary. I would like to spend some time talking about my family and local connections to the great Bart Cummings. For me personally, my memories of growing up are of World of Sport on Sunday morning, listening to Roy Higgins and Johnny Tapp's calls, memorising the silks of the different trainers, hoping for a Cummings horse in the sweep every Cup day. Bart Cummings was a larger-than-life figure for me growing up. Interviews with him on prime time news heralded the beginning of the spring racing season every year. I remember staying up on Melbourne Cup day to watch the Southern Cross ballroom celebrations, to see Bart celebrating with jockey, with owners, with people who loved racing. He was part of the fabric of my life because of my family's connection to racing.

The local Werribee Racing Club was my father's passion. He was a very fortunate man to have been an early friend of Bart's. The Werribee Racing Club is one of the legacies my father left us—with a passion for racing. I rang my mother this morning to ask her about her memories of Bart and her memories of Val. Her words were, 'Oh, they were nice jolly people, like most racing people.' And then she reminisced about days when they graced the old members lounge at the Werribee racetrack on Werribee Cup day. And of course Bart trained local horses Leica Show and Leica Lover, who were owned and bred by a great friend of my father, Bob Gard. Leica Show won the 1974 Oaks and Leica Lover won the Australian Derby the year after my father died. My mother has strong memories of those celebrations and of Bart's work training the Leica horses.

Bart leaves Valmae, his wife, and Margaret, Anthony, Sharon and Annemarie, his surviving children. He was buried from St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney this week.

And of course Bart's is a great immigrant story as well, his father having been Irish and also a horse trainer. Bart lived his life along the lines that we know so many other Australians do: he was determined never to give up. We look back on a life in racing and stories of Bart rubbing shoulders with royalty, with incredibly wealthy people, and we often forget the hard times Bart and the Cummings family faced in their journey in racing. But we do remember that Bart never gave up. We also remember that many racing lovers and many punters every year hoped for another Melbourne Cup winner for Bart—but not this year. Rest in peace.

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