Pivotal Decision On Cummings Dynasty Looms For ATC
As Anthony Cummings has his training licence revoked and the Australian Turf Club considers the future of the famous stables his father Bart founded 50 years ago, Adam Pengilly asks: ‘How much is history worth?’
JAMES AND EDWARD Cummings are riding ponies in their grandfather’s stable, on an inevitable path to being part of Australian racing’s most famous family. In the background, you can just make out six saplings. They are London plane trees, the glorious figures which were planted by their father Anthony. He wanted to make his dad Bart’s stable feel more with nature. They did the trick.
You walk through the famous Leilani Lodge these days on the High Street side of the Royal Randwick racecourse and the six saplings are no more. Instead, those London plane trees are towering, up to 50 metres tall, the centrepiece of a famous complex which has housed champion after champion: Think Big, Beau Zam, Let’s Elope, Saintly, So You Think, the list goes on.
James and Edward Cummings aren’t little kids either these days, grown men with their own families following in the family tradition as fourth-generation trainers to have won Group 1 races. The London planes tower over them now.
But Australia’s most famous racing dynasty is on the brink of being booted out of Leilani Lodge, 50 years after 12-time Melbourne Cup winner Bart arrived to train in Sydney, partly because he liked the weather.
Within the next few days, the Australian Turf Club will decide whether Leilani Lodge will remain in the Cummings family. Racing NSW has revoked the training licence of Anthony, who has a stable which operates from Randwick, because of the state of his training business, which was put into liquidation last year. He has appealed the decision. How long that appeal takes is anyone’s guess.
But pending the appeal, there is a more pressing matter: what’s going to happen with Leilani Lodge in the immediate future?
Idol Horse has been told by multiple sources that gargantuan trainer Ciaron Maher could lead an express of interest process for the boxes, to add to his other NSW bases at Warwick Farm, the state-of-the-art Bong Bong complex in the southern highlands and his beachside retreat near Newcastle. The country’s most rapidly growing trainer setting up shop at Sydney’s biggest track would, to many, seem a natural fit.
Yet is Leilani Lodge just like any other stable, offered to the next suitable cab off the rank? Or should generations of Cummings’ magic dust sprinkled on horses who have produced countless memories actually count for something?
The intriguing aspect of the equation is Edward Cummings, Anthony’s son who gave up his own training dreams almost five months ago to resuscitate his father’s struggling operation under Edward’s business, Myrtle House.
Edward has already trained three-time Group 1 winner Duais and has been effectively managing Anthony’s stable back from the brink since October as foreman. He took all his staff from Hawkesbury with him, and most of his owners. He knows the big end of town; owners like breeding giants Coolmore, Newgate’s Henry Field, high-profile figures Neil Werrett of Black Caviar fame and Rupert Legh of Chautauqua. It’s a decent contact book to get a start in the game.
Before the end of last October, El Castello won the G1 Spring Champion Stakes for the stable and the horse’s glorious spring run helped bite into the creditors banging down the door of his father’s operation. It’s only a small sample size, but up until the decision to revoke Anthony’s licence, the stable had sent nine horses to the races in February. Five of them won.
But that doesn’t hold sway with an emotionless licensing panel – and maybe it shouldn’t – who need to weigh up whether his dad can keep his head above water. They decided Anthony wasn’t a fit and proper person.
Yet the ATC has arguably a bigger call to make, one covered with emotion and history and the ambition of an up-and-coming trainer: or is it purely bigger is better?
“I’ve been involved with the stable trying to improve the general management and stable aspect with staff quality, staff numbers and staff training, and with the intent to naturally improve the results on the track,” Edward Cummings told Idol Horse. “The results of the stable have improved under the new management. I think I can safely lay claim to that.
“Dad’s expertise has influenced the way the stable operates, and the enthusiasm and skill from the team that came across with me from Hawkesbury has made a really big difference to the consistency of the stable’s performance. Our success is only possible with the support of the owners that came across from the Hawkesbury operation and the willingness of Dad’s existing owners.
“And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see this continue to succeed. Everyone in the stable thinks that success is imminent.”
The ATC has an arsenal of references in support of Edward Cummings’ application, from Australia’s top Group 1 trainer Chris Waller to globetrotting jockey Hugh Bowman, business tycoon Gerry Harvey and even ratings guru Daniel O’Sullivan. To be successful, Edward would also need his own training licence to be upgraded to a metropolitan one.
The ATC board has already fractured about what to do with the future of its Rosehill track. Do they bulldoze the home to decades of memories to turn it into housing and get so much money to safeguard the industry for generations? Or should they be swept up in the rising tide of support to keep an asset nostalgic to many, especially when there is no viable replacement?
Little did they know, they now have another mini-Rosehill decision coming. And it needs to be made about a stable like no other ∎
