Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great privilege that I get up to speak about Bart Cummings. Bart Cummings was in fact my cousin. My mother was Bart's first cousin, and my grandmother on my maternal side was Annie Cummings, and Annie was Jim Cummings's sister. I have great memories of my boyhood years when they were living at Glenelg. Bart and the family had their stables in Glenelg in Adelaide. I lived in the country, but we would often holiday in Adelaide and we would stay with Bart's sister, Teresa O'Driscoll. I can still remember that Teresa, her husband and her son, Jamie, had a house in Macfarlane Street adjoining the stables. In my earliest memories I can still remember Jim Cummings, who at that stage was still alive and who lived next door. Bart and Val lived on the other side of the stables on the other side of the block. I have many fond memories of walking around those stables and having the privilege of the horses and the champions that were in those stables. As the member for Lalor would appreciate, when you are with a horseracing family there are things that you do that may be strange for other people. One that I remember is that on many days we would sit in the lounge room—and I am showing my age here—and put on an LP and listen to Melbourne Cup races in sync—one of the 10 or 12 LPs of Melbourne Cups that we had. We would relive those races by listening to the LP, and we used to do that quite frequently.

I have many memories and many stories I could tell. I also have many memories about Val—Val, obviously, is Bart's wife. Val was, for me, a larger than life figure. I was a relatively shy country boy when I would go and visit them. I remember one day Val took me and Jamie, and some of her own children, to the circus. We were driving there, and all of a sudden for me it was a car with no roof. I did not know that there was such a word as 'convertible'. Suddenly the roof of this car came off and I said, 'This car has no roof!' She was a fun character; she was always laughing and great to be around.

As the member for Lalor indicated, they went through some very, very tough times, and it is well publicised that in the late eighties and early nineties Bart went through massive financial problems and he persevered. It was well within his character to do that. I think the reason he endeared himself to the Australian public was not only the fact that he was successful—there are a lot of successful people in our community and in our country—but also that Bart had a manner about him and a way about him that was characteristically, dare I say it, 'Australian'. He was very self-deprecating in lots of ways. One of my favourite statements he used to have was—and he used to say it quite a bit—'I am just an ordinary workin' fella havin' a bit of luck.' I remember a friend of mine spoke to him once and said, 'Bart, what advice would you give me?' Bart said, 'Always remember those you meet on the way up, because you might meet them on the way back down.' In his wit he had a lot of wisdom and he certainly had lived a very full life.

His beginnings were very, very humble. They had a family farm—I would not necessarily even call it a property—near a place called Eurelia in his younger days, which was where my mother also grew up as a young child. That place almost does not exist anymore. It was very dry. The blocks that everybody got back then were very small and they thought they were going to be able to support families but they did not, so there were very tough times, and he saw everything. He saw great poverty and great hardship in his younger years and he got to the stage where he was mixing with leaders, queens and royalty around the world and at times did very well.

My thoughts are very much with Val—who is obviously still with us, and as I said she in her own right is a great character, a great Australian citizen and a wonderful person to be around—and the children, Anthony, Margaret, Sharon, Anne-Marie and John, and their families. Bart has great-grandchildren, so I acknowledge all their families at this time. He was a great Australian. They have every right to be very proud of him. My mother used to love Melbourne Cup days when she would go off to her Melbourne Cup luncheons, and every year that Bart won—there were a lot of them, as we know; there were 12—she felt very proud and very honoured to be his cousin. He has brought his family and extended family great joy.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to associate myself with the statements of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. As shadow minister for sport, I think there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Australia is a sporting nation encompassing all sports, including the sport of horseracing. There was no doubt that Bart Cummings was a hero to many and dear to the hearts of many in the sport of horseracing.

On Monday, hundreds gathered in Sydney, joining thousands across Australia paying tribute to Bart Cummings. Bart Cummings was an icon of the Australian thoroughbred racing industry, known as the Cups King for his unbelievable record of training 12 Melbourne Cup winners. He was born in Adelaide in 1927 and took out his trainer's licence back in 1953. As a trainer, his record was remarkable, surpassed by none, and included 268 Group 1 winners, a list that included incredible feats: the Caulfield Cup seven times, the Cox Plate five times, the Golden Slipper four times, the Australian Cup on 13 occasions, 32 Derbies and 24 Oaks—something that anyone would be proud of. The names of some of the horses he trained have become some of the most well known in Australian racing—horses such as Galilee, Light Fingers, Let's Elope and Saintly, just to name a few.

Many Australians have an affinity with the romance of horseracing. The idea of the battler who gets a sporting chance to go from rags to riches seems to entwine itself tightly with the notion that we have of ourselves as Australians. Many good folk put some money on a horse on a daily basis, some on a weekly basis and some, like me, once a year only—if I remember—on Melbourne Cup Day. It is not that I am not interested or do not have a great day and enjoy the cup itself, but the pastime of actually betting on the horses for me seems to be surpassed by the gathering of people, which is much more enjoyable.

It was the Melbourne Cup where Bart Cummings achieved fame and that saw his name become so well known to all Australians. As I said earlier, Bart trained an incredible 12 Melbourne Cup winners. For many people making that once-a-year punt, the question was not so much of a question of which horse would win but, 'Which horse does Bart Cummings have in the cup?' That became for many people the deciding factor on where they would place their 'investment'—which is what I have written down here, but I might say 'gamble' for many others. It is a notoriously difficult decision, of course, and backing one of Bart's horses just seemed to make it a little simpler for some.

For his services to racing, Bart Cummings was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1982, and in 2001 the industry honoured him when they made him the inaugural inductee into the Racing Hall of Fame, surely one of the easiest decisions the selectors had at that time. Australia has lost a trainer with no peer, a great person, and I send my deepest sympathies to his wife of 61 years, Valmae, and all of his family.

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Horseracing is a sport that has played a huge part in the development of the psyche of Australia. We have now lost one of the giants of the industry in the passing of James Bartholomew 'Bart' Cummings. Horses have played an important part in our history and, from the poems of Banjo Paterson to the works of many great artists, the affection that Australians have for such a noble beast is well documented. Many people around the nation enter into horse syndicates to own a racehorse and have some involvement in the racing game, while others invest their hard-earned into working with horses. The Cummings family is one of those that have invested their lives into working with horses. Bart was born to Jim and Annie in the beautiful suburb of Glenelg, in my electorate, many years ago. He actually grew up not far from where I lived for most of my life. He attended the Marist Brothers Sacred Heart College in Somerton Park, also in my electorate.

At the age of 11, he had a near-death experience that had a profound effect on him. He jumped into the ocean at Glenelg and was being swept out to sea when another schoolboy jumped in and saved his life. Another story that has been doing the rounds after appearing in his biography a few years ago is that after suffering from asthma as a boy, he visited the doctor with his horse-training father where, after a series of tests, he was told that if he avoided horses he would be fine. We know that he did not take that advice! When leaving the doctor's surgery, Bart said to his father, 'We've done our day and there is nothing more.' He was not going to be kept away from horses, though, as we all know. Bart stayed involved with the horses and was affected throughout his life by his allergies.

He received his training licence in 1953, when his father's overseas trip was extended from six weeks to six months. Success was not immediate for Bart, but he persisted. His first Group 1 winner was in 1958, and we know that he went on to train 266 Group 1 winners. But it was the Melbourne Cup where Bart Cummings really developed his rapport with the nation. It was as a 23-year-old strapper to the 1950 Melbourne Cup winner, Comic Court, which was trained by his father, that Bart would begin his love affair with the Melbourne Cup. Bart Cummings would go on to win the race that stops the nation 12 times, while developing a relationship with the Australian public rarely seen in any sport.

Rocket Commander, trained by Wayne Francis and Glen Kent, won the Bart Cummings Tribute on Saturday 5 September at Morphettville Racecourse in my electorate. I congratulate the South Australian Jockey Club on their tribute to Bart Cummings, which also included acknowledging him in the naming of the Bart Cummings Gates at Morphettville. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the board of the SAJC and their chief executive Brenton Wilkinson on the good work they are doing for horseracing in South Australia. I have had the pleasure of attending many of their race days at Morphettville, as well as one of their family days. They are always great events. I wish them all the best for the spring racing carnival.

I return to Bart Cummings's work, which speaks for itself. In addition to the Group 1 winners, they include 32 Derbies, 24 Oaks, seven Caulfield Cups, five Cox Plates, 13 Australian Cups, 11 Mackinnon Stakes, eight Newmarket Handicaps, four Golden Slipper Stakes and of course 12 Melbourne Cups. Some of those Melbourne Cup winners are well known to those of us who started following the Melbourne Cup during our younger years. Let's Elope and Saintly are a couple of examples.

Bart's son Anthony delivered a great eulogy at the funeral. I would like to add a couple of things that he said which I think up the man that I admired, like most Australians, from afar. Anthony said, 'There hasn't been a bridle made to hold him back' and that Bart's favourite sayings were, 'There's no such thing as no' and 'Never give up'. There is a great deal to admire about Bart Cummings, but what I respect most is that, even with all the success he enjoyed, he was first a husband, a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather. I extend my sympathy to Valmae and to Bart's son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The Melbourne Cup will never be the same without the Cups King.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the people of Kingsford-Smith, I pay tribute and offer condolences for the life of a great Australian, Bart Cummings. Since 1883, when Randwick Racecourse was established in my community, many in my community have had a great fondness for the sport of kings, and everyone knows the name Bart Cummings. It is synonymous with racing and it has been synonymous with Randwick Racecourse for many years. Bart was drawn to Randwick and moved his operation to Kensington in 1975, establishing Leilani Lodge on High Street. These stables quickly became the centre of success at Randwick and were the home of champions such as Ming Dynasty, Beau Zam, Sky Chase, Campaign King, Dane Ripper and Saintly. It is also at Leilani that he taught his son Anthony, who is an accomplished horse trainer and very respected in our local community, and his grandson James. They both got their start working for Bart. James was appointed Bart's foreman in 2009 at the tender age of 21. It led in 2013 to him and Bart being granted a joint licence to train in partnership.

Bart Cummings was born and raised in Glenelg in South Australia where he spent his life around horses, working as a stablehand for his father James Cummings. It is well known that early in his life Bart was diagnosed with an illness and was advised not to be around horses—because of an allergy. Thankfully he did not take that advice and he went on to become Australia's most successful horse trainer. He experienced his first taste of Melbourne Cup victory in 1950 when he strapped Comic Court for his father. In 1953, at the age of 26, he was granted a trainer's licence and won his first Group 1 race, the South Australian Jockey Club Derby, with Stormy Passage. He then went on to become one of our nation's most prolific trainers and sportspeople. The record is just unbelievable: seven Caulfield Cups, 13 Australian Cups, five Cox Plates, four Golden Slippers, 32 Derbies, 24 Oaks—a total of 268 Group 1 wins. Of course he is most famous for his 12 Melbourne Cups.

I am fortunate to have had many dealings with Bart Cummings. When I first started working as an organiser for the Australian Workers Union, I was appointed to work in the horseracing industry, particularly around Randwick, Rosehill and Warwick Farm racecourses in Sydney—predominantly to improve working conditions for strappers and stablehands, who were working at the time in what was almost Dickensian conditions. Thankfully, the conditions have improved quite a bit since then. So I did have some dealings with Bart Cummings. Every now and then we did have a run-in; we did not see eye to eye on a couple of issues. We did have our arguments. Bart was certainly a very tough negotiator who never gave anything away. But, at the end of the day, when you reached a deal with Bart Cummings, he stood by it. Compared to many other trainers that were training around Randwick at the time, Bart had a number of very loyal and long-term employees who had been with him for many years. If you want a good indicator of how a person treats their employees, look at how long their employees have been with them. Bart certainly had many loyal, long-term employees.

Bart was also of very quick wit and he had a very quick mind. He was famous for a number of sayings. His son, Anthony, said that he taught him everything that he knew; he just never taught him everything that Bart knew! He also said that a good horse would win the race that you train him for. I think that is the best way to sum up Bart Cummings. He had a knack and an ability to pick a horse and to set a horse for a particular distance or for a particular race. His record across the whole spectrum of races—from the sprints and the Golden Slippers, right up to the staying races in the Melbourne Cups—and the fact that he had success across all that range of different racing platforms is testament to that particular saying and his ability to pull that off.

It was wonderful to see on the weekend the Randwick racing community give the king of the 'sport of kings' a fitting send-off. The Cummings family gave the Australian Turf Club special permission to honour the legendary trainer at the Chelmsford Stakes day at Randwick on Saturday, where sections of the lawn in the Theatre of the Horse were painted green and gold in honour of the 12-time Melbourne Cup winner's famous colours. Jockeys wore black armbands and a minute's silence was observed. A special condolence race book was produced, and Cummings' old horse, Precedence, was granted special clearance to lead the Chelmsford Stakes field out as he continues to prepare for his fifth Melbourne Cup start.

Despite living a life surrounded by royalty, luminaries, dignitaries, prime ministers and premiers, by all accounts Bart was a down-to-earth person who treated everyone equally. Delivering his father's eulogy, Anthony said a couple of days ago:

In the end, dad was more than a horseman. An icon, a legend, all of that. Built from flames and hardship to go with success. Bob Hawke described him as a great and good Australian. Enough said.

In 1982 Bart was honoured with the Order of Australia for his contribution to the racing industry; in 1991 he was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame; and in 2001 he became an inaugural inductee into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. He passed away two days after he and his wife, Val, celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary—an achievement in itself.

On behalf of the Kingsford Smith community, I offer my condolences to Val, to his children Margaret, Sharon, Anthony and Anne-Marie, and to his entire extended family. May he rest in peace.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have had a long association with the racing industry and, of course, Bart Cummings has been around those discussions when talking about good times, when talking about good horses and when talking about good trainers. It is with great sadness that we say farewell to Bart Cummings, the cup's king. He will be remembered as a Titan for the industry, the greatest trainer this country has ever seen. The man was quick with a reply and so witty with his sayings. I remember once that a steward told Bart that he had too many flies around his stable. Bart replied: 'How many am I allowed? How many I supposed to have? Could you give me some indication?' That blew the steward away. He was always quick on his feet and quick with a reply.

Bart Cummings comes from a family of trainers. His father James trained Comic Court to win the 1950 Melbourne Cup. Bart was the strapper for that horse. Bart received his Australian licence in 1953 and set up his stables in Glenelg in South Australia. He had to wait five long years to get his first big win in the South Australian Derby, but from there he soared. He hit the big time in 1965. He won all his cup races in one year: the Melbourne Cup, the Adelaide Cup, the Caulfield Cup, the Sandown Cup, the Brisbane Cup and the Queen's Cup—a magnificent feat.

Barton crammed a lot of memories into his 87 years. One of the most memorable for me was the time his horse, Big Philou, was scratched from the 1969 Melbourne Cup. Bart had taken this horse to the Melbourne Cup with his team and had settled the horse into the stables and then, as a trainer does on a big day like the Melbourne Cup, he went off to socialise with some of his owners. He was only away from the horse about an hour when a strapper advised him that Big Philou had developed a scouring—and a bad scouring at that. The horse had been severely drugged by a large dose of laxatives. I believe Bart knew who was behind the scene of this crime, but with lack of evidence he could not press charges. Bart knew who it was all right, make no mistake about that.

Even though he led a charmed life, he hit hard times, like many did in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the recession. He bought a lot of horses as he did every year, some from New Zealand. But his team of owners had such bad times they could not pay Bart for the horses he had purchased on their behalf. This put Bart under a lot of financial pressure. But, as Bart was a fighter, he soon kicked back and won many more cups after that. His final Melbourne Cup win was with a horse called Viewed, back in 2008—exactly 50 years after entering his first Melbourne Cup starter. Twelve Melbourne Cups is a fantastic achievement—won by 11 horses. He had one horse called Think Big, who won two Melbourne Cups back in 1975 and '76. He had 268 group 1 winners—a fantastic achievement.

My condolences go to his wife Valmae and all the rest of the family. His son Anthony and grandsons James and Edward are following in Bart's footsteps. On the first Tuesday in November, I will be raising a toast to the memory of Bart Cummings—here, here to the cup king.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is so good to be following on from those gracious and fine words by the member for Flynn. I think he and I are probably the two most avid racehorse followers in the chamber. There are very distinct Riverina connections to Australia's two best thoroughbred racehorse trainers: Tommy Smith and Bart Cummings. My electorate is one of the strongest racing regions in the nation, and it has been that way since the 1860s. Wagga Wagga's Murrumbidgee Turf Club, of which I was a director for nine happy years until 2002, was established in 1860, a year before the first Melbourne Cup was run and won by Archer. Indeed, in 1874 the Wagga Wagga Gold Cup offered a richer stake than the Melbourne Cup the same year, prompting The Australasian to ask, 'Will the VRC play second fiddle to Wagga?'

Bart Cummings, to whom we pay our sincerest respects with this condolence motion today, never won a Wagga Cup. He certainly nominated horses in the race which stops a region on the first Friday in May but, Bart being Bart, his charges were always lumped with more lead in their saddlebags by Southern District Racing Association handicappers than Cummings was ever prepared to cop. Such a shame.

The southern Riverina had a special place in Cummings' heart, for it was that fine district—Deniliquin, to be precise—from which the late Roy Higgins emanated. Higgins, appropriately dubbed 'The Professor', rode Bart's first and third Melbourne Cup winners, the tiny mare Light Fingers in 1965 and Red Handed in 1967. Red Handed gave Cummings his initial Melbourne Cup winner in the trainer's own colours, the now famous green and gold diagonal stripes. Like Light Fingers, he was the well-named son of French-bred sire Le Filou. I am interested to note that Racing Victoria stewards will allow Bart Cummings's name to remain in the training partnership with his grandson if the evergreen stayer Precedence makes the Melbourne Cup field in 2015. Precedence, who has already contested four Melbourne Cups, is being set for a fifth attempt at the race that Cummings made his own. That is why, as the member for Flynn mentioned, he was called the Cups King. Chief Steward Terry Bailey said that, if the horse made the Melbourne Cup field in 2015, the partnership name of James and Bart Cummings would remain. I tell you what: if Precedence gets in that field, get on it.

Tommy Smith was raised in the small western Riverina town of Goolgowi, where he spent much of his boyhood driving bullock teams and breaking in horses from the age of seven—just seven; imagine that—with his dad. Smith rode on the flat around the Riverina racetracks. They were pretty rough tracks back then. However, increasing weight resulted in him trying his luck as a jumps jockey, but a bad fall and a severely shattered hip forced him out of the saddle at age 20. TJ took up a trainer's licence and, by a stroke of good fortune, transformed a Riverina rogue, Bragger, into a handy horse—and the rest, as they say, is history. As his daughter, Gai Waterhouse, would later reflect, Tommy Smith famously told jockey George Moore, on a train from Wagga Wagga to Melbourne, that one day soon he would train the Derby winner and Moore would be aboard. There was never any doubting Tommy Smith's confidence. He realised his prophecy when Moore landed a 100 to one outsider, a real roughie, Playboy, a maiden, to win the 1949 Australian Jockey Club Derby. It was the first of a remarkable 35 Derby successes for TJ. Oh, how the sporty Riverina helped shape the careers of Australia's greatest racehorse trainers.

Finally, I would like to relate a tale about Bart, who passed away on 30 August, aged 87, which tells a lot about what a laconic wit he was and what a legend of the one-liner we have lost. The story goes that Cummings's Adelaide stables were being 'cased' by a council health inspector. Cummings trailed after the inspector—you can just see him doing it—throughout his long examination, peering over his shoulder as he scribbled down notes on his clipboard. At long last the inspector turned to Cummings and declared, 'You've too many flies in your stables, Mr Cummings.' To which Bart, peering out from under those big, bushy, iconic eyebrows, retorted, 'How many are we allowed to have?'—just classic Bart, absolutely classic Bart. Anyone who has backed a winner in the race that stops a nation on that first Tuesday in November has probably benefited from Bart. He won a dozen Melbourne Cups. Vale James Bartholomew Cummings. We will probably not see your like again.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the parliamentary secretary and I thank all members for their statements on the death of Bart Cummings. I too would like to pay tribute to the life of Bart Cummings and pass my sincere condolences on to the Cummings family.