Bart Cummings dead: Inside story of legendary horse trainer’s darkest days by his only son Anthony
THE late Bart Cummings will be forever immortalised in Australian sporting lore. But there were dark moments when he faced financial ruin. How he recovered is something his son Anthony can explain best.
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BART Cummings’ only son has revealed his legendary father, who died on Sunday aged 87, “lost faith” in people but not horses during the desperate time when his racing empire came close to bankruptcy.
From his Sydney base, Anthony Cummings launched a passionate defence of his late father’s legacy, saying “he did nothing wrong” during the tax minimisation scheme that turned sour in the late 1980s when the pair both faced personal and financial ruin.
He said at no time during the crisis — which saw both lose their homes — did his father, born in Glenelg in 1927 and a South Australian resident for 41 years before he moved east in 1968, act out of “greed”.
“The whole thing knocked Dad around big time, and he lost faith in a lot of people and some big institutions,” Anthony Cummings, 59, said exclusively from the Harbour City, where he is helping to organise his father’s state funeral for Monday.
“The nature of training racehorses is it is an optimistic business, and when you get a severe kick in the pants like that it makes every aspect tough. The guts of it is that he trusted people who turned out not to be trustworthy.
He acted on instructions from accountants who at the end of the day didn’t live up to the bargain.
“The legalities beat him down and that put everything he had built at risk.”
Both father and son, second in charge at the family’s Leilani Lodge stables at Randwick at the time, had to sell luxurious family homes with harbour views to pay debts that rose to more than $29 million.
It had all started so optimistically, when the bean counters saw fortunes to be made by exploiting the tax system.
Whether it was investments in vineyards or in olive groves, in 1988 it seemed everyone was in on the bonanza of tax minimisation. And what better guarantee of ensuring a profit than to use the genius for choosing horse flesh of the master, Bart Cummings.
Three syndicates would be formed and shares sold, and everybody would get rich through Bart’s expertise in picking future champions.
And it worked — for a while.
Encouraged, and at the insistence of his accountants, Cummings went on a buying spree in Sydney, New Zealand and Melbourne, spending $22.8 million on 64 yearlings.
But when the recession Australia had to have hit in 1989, with skyrocketing interest rates and a crunch on credit — and even before most of the new horses were broken in — the “Cups King” syndicates fell over.
“Dad wasn’t about any of that ‘time of greed’ stuff. For him it was always about the horses and building a bigger, stronger stable, but that was the reason accountants acted as they did,” Anthony Cummings added.
“These guys (accountants) were all getting very excited about the fees involved. A lot of people didn’t act in the best interest of the venture and at the end of the day Dad had to carry the can.”
Bart explained it more succinctly at the time: “The accountants bolted and left me holding the reins,” he said.
On one grim, rainy night in Sydney, a fire sale of Cummings horses turned into a financial bloodbath for him — only raising $8 million of more than $22 million owed.
It was just another stab in the heart of Bart Cummings to see horses of the quality of Pharaoh — a dual Group 1 Doncaster Handicap winner who helped launch the career of Gai Waterhouse — running in the colours of another stable.
As debts mounted to almost $30 million, and with Bart still calling it all a “hiccup in my life”, the creditors agreed to a repayment plan where they would get 75 per cent of the trainer’s income for five years.
“These are only material things; they come and they go. As long as your family is with you and they are healthy, it’s all right,’’ Bart said after a court ruling in 1991 declared the accountants were not jointly liable.
“Life’s a gamble and you win some, you lose some; that’s about it.’’
With his father heavily involved in fighting the court case and battling ill health, Anthony Cummings took over the training of what was left of their decimated stable.
When Bart returned 12 months later with a spring in his step due to two new knees and the resolution of the financial issues, the son knew it was time to forge his own career.
“Dad definitely had to perform and the pressure was really on, but the freedom I had experienced during his absence was hard to give up and I knew it was time to set up on my own,” Cummings said.
“It was the most difficult time for everyone but we just had to get on with it. Inglis’ lost a lot of money too and we were always very respectful of that.”
This week, veteran bloodstock agent Reg Inglis, managing director of William Inglis & Son during the crisis, revealed Bart Cummings only paid around $350,000 of a $14 million debt to them. Mr Inglis said they knew insisting on full payment would have meant bankruptcy for the racing legend.
“We also felt it wasn’t all his fault — the accountants had encouraged him along,’’ he said.
The period was undoubtedly the darkest of Bart Cummings’ remarkable life, and while he found many “friends” were quick to desert him, his son has confirmed that one man stayed loyal.
Bart Cummings met Malaysian billionaire tycoon Dato Tan Chin Nam in an Adelaide pub more than 40 years ago. Over an illegal game of two-up a few weeks later, they forged the greatest trainer and owner partnership in the history of the Melbourne Cup, returning four winners with Think Big (1975 and 76), Saintly (1996) and Viewed (2008).
Chin Nam bought Princes Farm on the Nepean River in NSW and sold it back to his great mate years later when the horse trainer returned as the Cups King, winning three more of his final tally of 12 Melbourne Cups.
“To say Chin Nam was a big supporter of Dad’s would be an understatement,” Anthony added. “His help was vital during that terrible time and they stayed firm friends to the end.”
Chin Nam has his own take on the time: “I gave coal to Bart when Bart was cold,’’ he said.
Princes Farm was the sanctuary where Bart Cummings died peacefully in his sleep.
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