BENDIGO Jockey Club president Brendan Drechsler has added to the chorus of tributes to Australia’s greatest horse racing trainer Bart Cummings.
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Mr Drechsler said Cummings, who died on the weekend aged 87, was an Australian icon, whose feat in winning 12 Melbourne Cups ensured he was equally recognisable both in and outside racing circles.
“It doesn’t happen to a lot of people, but as soon as you say ‘Bart said that’ about something, people just listened,” he said.
“He got some horses that probably shouldn’t have won the Melbourne Cup – horses like Rogan Josh (in 1999), but he just improved them.
“They sent the horse over from Western Australia, buit once Bart got hold of him, he was able to get things right.”
Mr Drechsler recalled the mid-2000s when the jockey club was honoured to have Cummings in attendance at a race meeting that coincided with the master trainer’s birthday.
“We had a special cake for him – it was a great day for everyone there,” he said.
“Despite all those big race wins, there were some good races in this country that did elude him and one of them happens to be the Bendigo Cup.”
Mr Drechsler was confident Cummings’ record mark of 12 Melbourne Cup wins would never be surpassed.
Former Bendigo jockey Brad Rawiller earned one of the biggest wins of his career aboard the Cummings-trained Viewed in the 2009 Caulfield Cup.
The two-time Australian jockey premiership winner said he would always cherish the moment.
“For myself as a kid growing up in Bendigo and following racing, you look up to Bart Cummings and the legend that he is, but probably never thinking I would be in a position down the track where I'd be able to ride for him, let alone in a Caulfield Cup,” Rawiller said.
"To be able to get a ride on a horse like Viewed for Bart Cummings in the Caulfield Cup and then to win it, is just an honour and a memory that I'll never forget."
Cummings will be farewelled at a state funeral in Sydney next Monday.
The funeral will be held at St Mary’s Cathedral from 10am.
Thousands are expected to attend to pay tribute to the Cups King.