Seven days in … racing – Remembering the legend of Bart

In this edition:

• ‘Does it matter if they’re not a Group 1?’ – Scott dismisses Pattern fears as semantics
• ‘Devastated’ – King Island calls off 2025/26 racing season amid trainer and horse shortage
• A chapter closes on the wild west legend of Meningoort
• Ears to a profitable spring – McGaw flies flag for husband-and-wife training team
• Northam exposure – Mistaken identity as four-year-old wins three-year-old race
• Waller wins NSW racing’s highest honour for 14th time
• Trainer backlash forces ATC to review 10 per cent stable rent hike

Saturday marks the 10-year anniversary of the death of a racing legend who will be forever missed but will always be connected to Australia’s iconic race, the Melbourne Cup.

Bart Cummings died at the age of 87 on August 30, 2015, reaching life’s winning post as one of our greatest racehorse trainers.

Whether good or bad, Australian racing looks a bit different from when Cummings was collecting Melbourne Cups as if they were going out of fashion.

And since 2015, the acceleration rate of change in racing’s landscape has been dramatic to the point of being unrecognisable.

It would have been hard to imagine at the time, but the Cummings name no longer has a ubiquitous presence.

Cummings’s son Anthony had his licence revoked earlier this year and his grandson James, with whom he shared a training partnership in his latter years, is enjoying a hiatus in preparation for a move to Hong Kong.

It leaves another grandson, Edward, as the only member of a dynasty still operating a stable in Australia.

As for the racing calendar itself, The Everest was not yet a thought bubble when Cummings was around.

And his preferred Melbourne Cup lead-up race, the Mackinnon Stakes, is no longer that with a rebrand and switch to the fourth day of the Flemington carnival.

Which brings us to the debate around Australia’s pattern of racing, with a Racing Australia board meeting next week potentially clearing the way for a block of new black-type races on an already bloated roster.

It’s hard to be certain what Cummings would make of the commotion, although it’s odds-on that he wouldn’t be a fan of the Victoria Racing Club’s decision to transplant the Mackinnon.

As one Victorian administrator told The Straight: “Probably once Bart died, that was it (for the Mackinnon on Victoria Derby day) because no one else was using it.”

Someone who leaves us in no doubt where he sits on the merit of Australia’s black-type racing is former Racing Queensland chief executive Jason Scott.

As forthright as ever – and released from the shackles of racing administration – Scott told colleagues Bren O’Brien and Tim Rowe that it is a debate created on wasted energy.

“Does it matter if they’re not a Group 1? My practical way of looking at it is it doesn’t matter if the Melbourne Cup or the Everest or the Golden Eagles are Group 1s or not,” Scott told the Straight Talk podcast.

“You’re not going to sell one extra bet, have one extra eyeball on it, or get one extra horse not travel from the other side of the world to race in the race.”

What hasn’t changed over the past decade is the dominance of Sydney trainer Chris Waller.

Waller remains racing’s force of nature despite the emergence of other so-called mega-stables and rising industry costs such as the Australian Turf Club’s planned 10 per cent increase in the cost of rent on-course boxes that has trainers on the warpath.

Fittingly, he won his 14th Bart Cummings Medal on Thursday night as he prepares to send Fangirl into battle against Group 1 competition in the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield on Saturday.

Memsie day will also be a significant occasion for Waller’s New Zealand compatriots Emma-Lee and David Browne.

The husband-and-wife team will have six runners, including unbeaten three-year-old McGaw, in a sign they are starting to leave their mark on Victorian racing.

McGaw is the main subject in our preview of Saturday racing, with Emma-Lee explaining how the son of I Am Immortal found his way into the Pakenham stable.

Our racing coverage this week also included Matt Stewart taking a trip down memory lane to reminisce about the days of the Meningoort Cup and the larrikin behind the race, Jock McArthur.

The Meningoort Cup is a relic of a bygone era, and it is lost forever, something that the hard-working folk of the King Island racing community will be doing their best to ensure doesn’t happen to their grassroots industry.

There will be no King Island racing this season because there are simply not enough trainers and horses to make it happen. However, the club hopes to return in 2026/2027.

What you may have missed this week:

• Betr eyes brand refresh and more acquisitions after confirming positive growth
• The Next Era of Prediction Markets
• Run The Numbers – Is the first crop the deepest?
• ‘Sire power like never before’ – Magic Millions releases catalogue for Gold Coast Horses in Training Sale
• ‘A unique part of the on-track experience’ – Deal done to partially restore on-course tote service in Victoria
• Rowe On Monday – Stallion star power and Hunter hospitality, more success for Mongolian owner
• ‘We’ve come a long way’ – Tabcorp’s fortunes turn around on Victorian deal and leaner model
• Champion stallion Written Tycoon sires 1000th winner
• Outside the bubble: Hazzard appointment defended by NSW Racing Minister
• Pattern D-Day looms, but impasse likely to continue
• Entain appoints Andrew Vouris as permanent CEO
• Betr linked with Entain discussions
• Inglis Ready for two-year-old sale after catalogue release

Don’t forget to check out this week’s episode of the Straight Talk Podcast where Bren O’Brien and Tim Rowe catch up with Jason Scott. The former Racing Queensland chief executive pulls no punches when discussing the state of the Australian industry. The ongoing pattern committee impasse, rising stable rents, and industry tensions affecting trainers are also fertile topics up for debate.

Enjoy your Group 1 racing weekend,

Warwick Barr

Senior Editor

The Straight