How Bart Cummings Trained Twelve Melbourne Cup Winners

Recorded August 2025 for Million Dollar Melbourne Cup 2025 Challenge Ep 1. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

Bart Cummings won twelve Melbourne Cups. The next best is Lee Freedman on five. That gap tells you something, and so does the way he did it. His first was Light Fingers in 1965 and his last was Viewed in 2008, and along the way he quinellaed the race five times. That is unbelievable. Behind it sat four training principles, and once you understand them you also understand why trainer experience matters far more in this race than I used to allow.

The four things Bart did

The first is his famous line. Train for the race you are aiming for. It sounds obvious, but it means you have the horse peaking on the day, not before it. If you are setting a horse for 3200 metres on the first Tuesday in November, you are not out there picking off races in the lead-up for the sake of it. Everything points at the one target.

The second is the 10,000 metre rule. Bart wanted miles in the legs. He wanted 10,000 metres of racing in the horse before the Cup. The third is how he got there, roughly seven prep runs, so the horse arrives fit and fully wound up. The fourth is the backup through the Saturday before, which in his day came through the Mackinnon or the Lexus. The Mackinnon is no longer run there, so now if a horse is backing up it is in the 2500 metres on the Saturday before, the race we now call the Hotham.

Where I got it wrong

Trainer has never been a factor I put much weight on in Melbourne Cups. I was wrong. Trainer is extremely important.

Last year I fell into two horses, both prepared by trainers with no real experience of this race. Smooth Operator was trained by Brian Ellison, who was having his first runner in the Cup for twenty years. The other was Sea King, trained by Harry Eustace, who was having his first runner in it full stop. I am not saying they are bad trainers. That is not the point. The point is they had not prepared a horse for the first Tuesday in November before, and that is a very specific job.

Why the experience counts

The roll call of Cup trainers is not a long one. Freedman, Cummings, Hickmott, Waterhouse, and the list goes on from there. In the modern era you are looking at the likes of Waller, Ciaron Maher and Joseph O'Brien. These are people who have done the work of getting a horse to peak over 3200 metres on a specific day, and who know what the lead-up has to look like.

Everything Bart did was about the shape of the preparation, not one flashy run. Miles in the legs, the right number of starts, a backup close to the day, and no distraction. You cannot fake that the first time you try it.

So when you are working through a Cup field, look at the trainer before you fall in love with the horse. Ask whether they have set a horse for this race before, and whether the preparation in front of you looks like it was built for the first Tuesday in November or built for something else.

Every race on the card, rated, with Kingsley's selections and the speed maps behind them. Your first day is free, no card needed.

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From the full video: Million Dollar Melbourne Cup 2025 Challenge Ep 1 | 7 Key Factors to Find the 2025 Cup Winner

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