The Master

by Les Carlyon

In the world of horse racing, Bart Cummings is the master. His astonishing tally of twelve Melbourne Cup wins arguably makes him the greatest trainer in Australia's history and, by statistical measures, as freakish as Bradman. His laconic wit and indifference to the trappings of wealth and fame have seen him recognised as a national treasure in his own lifetime. He is one of Australia's great character. As Les Carylon writes, he simply isn't like anyone else. Cummings doesn't come into to everyone he's just Bart .Carlyon is Australia's most revered observer of racing. For close to forty years he has known Bart and chronicled his remarkable career. Now, in The Master , Carlyon gives us a portrait of the man, his horses and his world away from the glamour of the big race days. It shows us a Bart few have seen before. Intimate, personal, informed and captivating – The Master is loaded with stories and characters that bring racing to life and reveal much of the character and modus operandi of Bart.Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and paintings, The Master is a sparkling piece of storytelling by one of Australia's most successful and acclaimed writers.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Les Carlyon was born in northern Victoria in 1942. He has been editor of the Age, Melbourne, and editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times group. He has twice won the Walkley Award. His Gallipoli was published in 2001 to enormous critical and commercial success in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain, and is now widely regarded as the definitive history of that campaign. Gallipoli won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best History Book and the Australian Publishers' Association Readers' Choice Award. He died in March 2019.

Reviews

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Les Carlyon's enthusiasm for thoroughbred racehorses, racing and Bart Cummings (the subject of this biography) comes through every page of this outstanding book. Journalists who worked with Les sing his praises so he must have been a very, very good editor, but he was also a very, very good writer so its a shame that he only wrote six books in his lifetime, which has sadly now ended. Bart Cummings was a 'one-off', a racehorse trainer who created a record that will never be equalled, which is: 268 Group 1 wins including an unparalleled 12 Melbourne Cups, 13 Australian Cups, 11 Mackinnon Stakes, nine VRC Oaks, eight Newmarket Handicaps and five Victoria Derbies. More than luck, incredible skill and knowledge of horses. He also faced in his later years the need to financially recover from a yearling purchase scheme which sent him broke and from which he had to recover. Bart was a one-off and we will never see his like again, but the same could be said about Les Carlyon as a writer.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The master written by a master. No one does it better than Les Carlyon

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved all the little stories in the background. Hope there's still some 'old school' trainers about like Bart.