'No flies on this devout horse trainer'

If you saw the old bloke with head bowed while he knelt reverently at St Francis' Church in Melbourne, you'd have thought he was just another devout worshipper. You wouldn't be far wrong- Bart Cummings worships not just in a place of prayer, he is also a devout follower of horseflesh at just about every racecourse.

He's 81 now, and he's as much a symbol of the Melbourne Cup as the unique three-handled gold trophy itself that is scrupulously handled by craftsmen wearing white gloves during its creation.

Cummings is a horse trainer. No, let me amend that. Cummings is THE horse trainer. He had his first runner in the Melbourne Cup fifty years ago and in a glorious celebration of that association, it was the Cummings-trained Viewed that won by an eyelash in a photo-finish to the 3200-metre event at Flemington Racecourse this month.

It was a stirring victory, one that was in doubt for crucial moments while the stewards studied the photo that will go down in history. But more than anything else, it was that narrow margin that gave Cummings his twelfth Melbourne Cup.

The scale of that achievement should be gauged against the fact that the next-most successful trainer, Lee Freedman, has five Melbourne Cups to his name, including three successive victories with Glen Boss riding Makybe Diva to historic wins in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

My favourite story about Cummings goes back several years, when an official visited his stables. At the end of the visit, he fronted Cummings and said there were too many flies on the property.

Cummings, a man of few words, just looked him straight in the eye and shot back, deadpan: "How many flies am I allowed to have?"

If you must know, there's no flies on Bart Cummings.