Trainer Bart Cummings lifts the Melbourne Cup in November 1999.

Reuters/Sydney

Bart Cummings, one of Australia’s most successful and celebrated horse racing trainers, died yesterday, aged 87.
His family released a statement saying he had passed away peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by his family at home in Sydney.
“His final moments were spent with his family and wife of 61 years, Valmae, with whom he celebrated their anniversary on Friday,” Cummings’ grandson and training partner James said.
“For Bart, aged 87, this was a fitting end. A husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather; a master trainer and a larger than life figure.”
An icon of Australian horse racing, Cummings prepared the winners of almost 7,000 races during his training career, which started in 1953.
He won virtually every major race on the Australian racing calendar including the Melbourne Cup, the country’s most revered race, a record 12 times, a feat which earned him the nickname the ‘Cups King’.
Known for his dry wit and big bushy eyebrows, Cummings transcended his sport, becoming a household name in Australia and the rest of the racing world.
“Australia has lost a sporting giant and a racing legend,” the country’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.
“Few people have dominated a sport like Bart Cummings did. He will be remembered as a truly great trainer, the winner of literally thousands of races.
“Twelve of those victories were Melbourne Cups and in five of those wins he also trained the runner-up, an extraordinary achievement. Race day will not be the same without him.”
Tributes began pouring in from all walks of Australian life and flags at racecourses around the country were lowered to half-mast.
“Bart was always in a league of his own. His larger than life character and sharp wit will be sorely missed,” said Peter V’landys, the chief executive of Racing NSW.
“Bart goes down as a legend in Australian sport, up there with the great Don Bradman.”
Born in the South Australian capital Adelaide in 1927, he spent his entire life around horses, despite being allergic to both the animals and hay, and being told by a doctor to find another profession.
His father Jim was a trainer who prepared the 1950 Melbourne Cup winner Comic Court. Cummings worked as a strapper for his father before taking out his own trainer’s licence in 1953.
“I jumped out of the stands, I was terribly excited I can tell you that,” Cummings told the ABC of that 1950 win.
“I’m just thankful my father talked me into being a horse trainer.”
Cummings landed his first Group One victory with Stormy Passage in the 1958 South Australia Derby and went on to saddle 268 Group One winners, 266 on his own and two with grandson James.
With the dual gifts of patience and the eye to spot a future champion, he won seven Caulfield Cups, 13 Australian Cups, five Cox Plates, four Golden Slippers and 32 Derbys and 24 Oaks. But his greatest success came in the Melbourne Cup, the famed 3,200 metre handicap “that stops a nation”.
He won his first Melbourne Cup in 1965 with Light Fingers, his second with Galilee in 1966 and his third with Red Handed a year later.
He won back-to-back Melbourne Cups with Think Big in 1974 and 1975, and won again with Gold And Black (1977), Hyperno (9179), Kingston Rule (1990), Let’s Elope (1991), Saintly (1999) and Rogan Josh (1999).
BART CUMMINGS FACTBOX
EARLY LIFE
•Born James Bartholomew Cummings in Adelaide on Nov 14, 1927 into a horse racing family, the son of acclaimed trainer Jim.
•Worked for his father as a strapper, helping him prepare Comic Court for the 1950 Melbourne Cup with the stallion, carrying 59kgs, winning the 3,200m handicap race by three lengths in an Australasian record of three minutes, 19.5 seconds.
•Obtained his trainer’s licence in 1953 and set up his own stables.
•Achieved his first Group One victory with Stormy Passage in the 1958 South Australia Derby.
 MELBOURNE CUP
•Entered his first horse, Asian Court, in the Melbourne Cup in 1958, though it finished a distant 12th to winner Baystone.
•Has a breakout year in 1965, entering three runners in the Melbourne Cup with Light Fingers taking the race ahead of stablemate Ziema.
•Won the 1966 Melbourne Cup with Galilee and the 1967 race with Red Handed, though he did not win it again until 1974 when gelding Think Big ran down stablemate, and favourite, Leilani in the last 50 metres.
•Think Big, which was part-owned by Malaysia’s first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, also won the race in 1975.
•Won the Melbourne Cup twice more in the 1970s with Gold and Black (1977) and Hyperno (1979) but did not win the race at all in the 1980s.
•Produced successive winners again in 1990 (Kingston Rule)and 1991 (Let’s Elope).
•Won twice more in the 1990s with Saintly (1996) then Rogan Josh (1999), which had also won the McKinnon Stakes just three days beforehand.
•Cummings’ 12th and final victory in the Melbourne Cup came in 2008 with Viewed, a 41-1 outsider ridden by Blake Shinn, pipping the Luca Camani-trained Bauer in a photo finish.
•No other trainer has won the race more than seven times.
 OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS
•Horses trained by Cummings also won the VRC Oaks nine times, Caulfield Cup seven times, the Cox Plate five, and Golden Slipper four times.
•He trained 268 Group One winners and won nearly 7,000 races in total.
•Was awarded the Order of Australia in 1982 for service to the horse racing industry.
•Inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1991 and was the inaugural inductee into the Australian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2001.
•Carried the torch for the 2000 Sydney Olympics down the straight at Flemington raceway.
•Was nicknamed the “Cups King” for his success in the Melbourne Cup.