BART'S COLOURS BACK IN WINNING VEIN

THURSDAY: September 12, 2024: WHEN Ed Cummings purchased a Bull Point weanling online in 2021, there was never a question she would race in one of Australian racing’s most iconic sets of colours.

It took 10 starts for that weanling, the now four-year-old mare Torie’s Rose, to break through – but she did it at home today in the famous green and gold diagonal stripes and white cap of the Hawkesbury trainer’s grandfather, the legendary J.B. (Bart) Cummings.

Torie’s Rose had started favorite in three and been placed in four of her first nine starts before leading home a local trifecta in The Bachmayer Orthodontic Clinic Provincial Maiden Handicap (1500m).

After a length of the straight duel with Mitch and Desiree Kearney’s $21 chance More Voltage, Cummings’ mare got there as a $4.40 second favorite, with Jason Attard and Lucy Keegan-Attard’s Irish Anthem ($6) working home strongly into third placing.

The green and gold diagonal stripes were carried to stacks of victories on Australian racetracks during Bart Cummings’ storied career, including Red Handed’s dramatic 1967 Melbourne Cup triumph at Flemington; the third of his 12 winners in the great race and first in his colours.

Ed Cummings, who doubled up after also winning at Hawkesbury last Saturday with Cash Me, paid $7500 for Torie’s Rose in June 2021.

“I use Bart’s colours sparingly, only when there is a request from owners and a connection to breeding,” Cummings said this evening.

“Bart trained Torie’s Rose’s granddam Miss Meliss, whose last run was in the 2002 Melbourne Cup.”

Miss Meliss and Torie’s Rose are both bay mares, and it took the former one more race than her granddaughter to break through in a 2455m Class 1 Handicap at Geelong in September 2002 (by five lengths), and it was her sole success.

Ed Cummings did not begin racing Torie’s Rose until she was an early three-year-old just over 12 months ago.

She was heavily backed into odds on making her debut at home, but wasn’t well away and then couldn’t muster early speed before finishing eighth to Smashing Dancer in a Provincial Maiden Plate (1000m).

Cummings chose not use a barrier blanket on the mare today, but again she wasn’t the smartest away and didn’t gather pace quickly from the outside stall in the field of nine.

Even so, jockey Tyler Schiller intelligently did not wait for something to happen.

Rather than sit back and race wide, he got Torie’s Rose on the move and steadily improved to have her running second behind More Voltage before the 600m, after which the Hawkesbury pair had the race to themselves.

“It was an excellent ride,” Cummings said. “Tyler did exactly what we wanted him to do, and it won her the race.”

Triple Group 1 winning trainer Cummings was the sole provincial victor at the meeting; Torie’s Rose being his 61st winner since he began training at Hawkesbury in 2019.

Meanwhile, Torie’s Rose’s stablemate and Group 1 placegetter Strait Acer will trial at Hawkesbury on Tuesday in preparation for a return to racing.