Sideline Sid Sports correspondant & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Sideline Sid wiped a little tear from his eye on Sunday, when he heard that legendary Australian racehorse trainer Bart Cummings had passed away.

James Bartholomew Cummings, who was known as Bart or JB Cummings, set a record in the Melbourne Cup that is unlikely to ever be beaten.

Bart trained the winners of 'the race that stops two nations” on twelve occasions. In 1965, Light Finger became JB Cummings' first Melbourne Cup winner, with Viewed his last in 2008. Remarkably, he trained the first two past the post on five occasions.

During the 1960s, to the 1990s, Bart was one of the big three, along with Tommy Smith and Colin Hayes, that dominated the major races across the ditch.

However, he will be forever remembered for his training feats in the Melbourne Cup, with the majority of his winners being bred in New Zealand.

Sideline Sid was on course at Flemington in 1967, with around 100,000 other punters, when Red Handed gave Bart his third successive winner in the great race. He still has the race programme dated November 7, 1967.

In the last 100 yards Red Handed was headed by Kiwi horse Red Crest, ridden by Ron Taylor who lives in retirement in Cambridge today, with the Cummings charge coming back to win by a nose on the line.

Bart embraced the same philosophy as that of New Zealand athletics guru Arthur Lydiard, that you had to put the mileage into your horse/athlete in order to win the big prize.

It is unlikely that Red Handed could have come back to head the Kiwi horse, from behind, without the five months of preparatory work that Bart gave his Melbourne Cup horses.

The power of inflation is shown by the price of the 1967 race book that cost 20 cents. The last time Sid attended Flemington was in 2011, to catch a glimpse of Black Caviar winning her 10th of 25 successive races. The race book that day cost $6.

Few local racing fans would realise that organised horse racing in the Western Bay of Plenty dates back to just over a decade after the first running of the Melbourne Cup in 1861.

Horse racing in Tauranga, as in many other districts of the time, started with the militia. In November 1872, the newly established Bay of Plenty Times reported a meeting of gentlemen held in the Tauranga Hotel to appoint stewards and organise details for a race meeting.

The outcome of the November gathering at the Tauranga Hotel was a race meeting set down for January 1, 1873. The Stewards appointed were William Kelly (House of Representatives), F.E Hamlin (Royal Marines), Captains Gundy, Chadwick and Turner and Messrs McDonald, D Asby and Haig.

Lieutenant Samuels was appointed treasurer of the yet-to-be-founded racing club.

It was held on the Government Paddock course by kind permission of Major Roberts, who was the Commanding Officer of the military district.

The race course for the Tauranga meeting was situated on the old (military) camp area starting in Monmouth Street and proceeded along Willow Street, round into Brown Street and back into Monmouth Street.