Melbourne Cup: No jokes as Bart factor kicks in

By MIKE DILLON

A television reporter sidled up to Bart Cummings at Flemington the other morning and said: "Mr Cummings, what do you attribute your success to?"

Cummings gave the deadpan frown and said: "Ummm, horses."

The cameraman laughed so hard he nearly dropped his equipment and the interview was over.

If you leave your wicket that exposed, Bart Cummings will take centre stump every time.

He doesn't do it to be smart, it's just his droll humour.

He's as famous for his one-liners as he is for his 11 Melbourne Cups.

In the Flemington clockers hut the next morning, fellow trainer Mike Moroney looked out at the driving rain and said: "We must have had half an inch of rain overnight, 12.5mm."

Someone in the corner, claiming a plumber's apprenticeship, said: "No, when you're a plumber and you order copper piping for water taps, you get 15mm for every half an inch."

"That's ridiculous," said Moroney.

"Half an inch is 12.5mm and if I was a plumber that's all it would be."

Cummings looked up from his newspaper in the corner, only half interested, and said: "That's why there's a lot of leaky taps."

And then there's that famous line, always worth a mention, when the health inspector visited Cummings' Sydney stable and told him he had too many flies.

"How many am I allowed?" asked Cummings.

Okay, one more.

A potential owner asked Cummings what his training fees were.

"Fifty dollars a day, but if you want to help me train it, it's $70 a day."

Three hours after the plumber's line, Cummings was not so happy - one of his two Melbourne Cup hopes, Strasbourg, broke down.

That leaves him with just Frightening in today's Melbourne Cup.

But Cummings is not despondent.

"There is nothing wrong with his chances," he said yesterday.

Frightening is one of Australia's most improved stayers with back-to-back wins in the Coongy Handicap and, last start, in the Moonee Valley Cup.

At 50kg he has no weight on his back and Cummings thinks enough of his chances to have flown Shane Dye from Hong Kong for the one ride.

And then there will be the fitness factor. In Australia they call it the Bart factor.

If they can cop the pressure of the final week, Cummings' horses line up the fittest of the Cup runners.

Not all can cop it, but clearly Frightening has.

Frightening will carry Cummings' famous green and gold diagonal striped colours.

The 76-year-old is extremely proud to have developed those colours in 1958, before Australia embraced them as its national emblem.

"Gold is for the money that can be won in racing and green is for my Irish heritage.

"There are no better horsemen than the Irish."

And the name Frightening? Cummings said, perhaps tongue in cheek: "He was such a good looker as a young horse that it was frightening - and that is what we named him."

Trainers pass on without ever having had a serious contender for Australia's most famous horse race.

Cummings is shooting for an incredible 12th Melbourne Cup win today.

That is seriously frightening.