Baby Wants a Pony

Ok ok...for the two of you reading this I know - I have committed the biggest sin of the start-up blogger: silence. But I have an excuse...really...I do. Last week we welcomed another girl into the family, little Harper Lucy Macdonald. All I'll say is she's a peach but as my wife is far more eloquent on such matters I will defer to her for all the details.

So back to reality and something that has been bugging me recently are the seemingly incesscent plaudits being heaped on the grand daddy of horse racing, Bart Cummings. I realise that it is the Spring Racing carnival and that the "race that stops a nation" the Melbourne Cup is on tomorrow but seriously the carry-on in the press about he of the bushy eyebrows is bordering on the absurd.

Sure, the guy has trained about a gazillion winners in his time, is pushing, what 120, 130 years old, and I realise that due to the fact we seem to be losing everything else in the world of sport at the moment we are looking for a sporting hero but really - is it Bart? Let's break it down.

For starters, please can we stop calling Horse Racing a "sport". It isn't. It is gambling. No different to pokies, blackjack or buying a scratchie. It's just that horse racing gives an excuse for 18 year-olds to put on their older brother/sister's ill fitting suit/dress and drink cheap bubbly, get stone motherless drunk, pash their best friend's partner and lose their shoes.

Next, does Bart really deserve the amount of praise he gets? It's not like he runs the race himself. There's a big difference between winning 100 group ones and training the winner of 100 group ones. Isn't there? Granted, the guy has an eye for horse flesh. He is no doubt the top of his profession. But what does he really do? Get up early and watch horses run in circles. No one cares who trains Usain Bolt do they? I might be being a tad unfair but if there wasn't so much money on the line would anyone even know who he is? In the list of great Australian sporting heroes, I'm sorry - he's no Warnie.

Perhaps the last word on the matter should go to the man himself. When asked recently by a journo what his secret to winning was, Bart casually replied "Good Horses".

'nough said.

(By the way, Usain Bolt's coach is Glen Mills but who really cares? Exactly.)