Bart Sinclair bids farewell after 43 years as a racing writer, a lifetime in the racing industry

Publish date: 2024-05-09

BART Sinclair, the son of a top jockey and Stradbroke Handicap winning trainer, has been a horse man since he first rode his pet shetland pony around his family home at Kent St, Ascot as a three-year-old.

One of the best-known and most respected racing media personalities in Australia, he has lived near the Eagle Farm racecourse for all but nine months of his life. This week he retires after 43 years of outstanding service as a racing writer with News Limited.

What's one thing you are looking forward to in retirement?
Seeing more Sheffield Shield cricket at the Gabba. I have always loved it. I don't care whether I am one of 50 people at the ground. I can enjoy a thrilling draw in cricket. There aren't many of us left who do.

Now what about your tipping. I mean, anyone can have a bad decade but seriously, three in a row?
I think it might be four actually. Melbourne Cups ... I was hopeless. My daughter (Katie) was still at school when she said "I just can't understand why they even send you down ... it is a joke". I couldn't argue with her.

The most emotional win you have covered?
The day Rough Habit won the O'Shea Stakes. He was from New Zealand. He wasn't even a Queensland horse and the day he came to run in the O'Shea Stakes just before he retired and everyone thought he was past it. Shane Scriven rode him and it was just extraordinary. Just meant to be. A cavalier win in the last race of the day. I saw some pretty hard tough racing men that day standing and cheering for this scrawny New Zealand horse.

You once said Mick Dittman in another life could have been a prime minister or a doctor. Why?
A lot of successful people I have known - Bart Cummings is one - question why you do things and have the ability to soak up what other people are saying and doing and learn from it. They could go into a room and soak up the best of what they heard from businessmen and high-profile people. Mick could do that. He had very little education but that didn't mean he wasn't smart.

I think the most shattered I have ever seen you was the day Ken Russell was killed in a race fall. It seemed to take you a long time to get over that.
I saw him (on television) go down at Rosehill and drove home after the races. I just had a sixth sense something was wrong so I rang his family at Monto and they told me. I had dinner with him just before that and he was planning to come back to Brisbane after a few months in Sydney to wind down his career. He was a champion bloke and a great friend. Shattering.

You have covered some amazing stories in your life but what about the trio of Vo Rogue, jockey Cyril Small and Vic Rail?
An extraordinary story. That was another one of my great predictions. After Vo Rogue ran in a mid-week race at Doomben, Vic said he would take him to Melbourne and I said "you are off your head". But he was a champion. Away he went. The most ridiculous thing I have ever heard was people who said "what if he had been in a great stable with a champion jockey?" I bet he would not have reached the heights he did. They jelled. Cyril Small rode him beautifully. Vic presented him well.

The most underrated trainer you ever saw?
Jim Atkins. By a mile. He never really got the credit he deserved. He would train three winners a Saturday at Eagle Farm - horses which did not cost much money and were unfashionably bred. His horses always looked immaculate, much like the man himself.

The secret of Bart Cummings' success?
Patience. He lets horses tell him when they are ready. He is so relaxed his horses relax. He was one of the pioneers in working out how horses had stomach ulcers. He would talk about how they were range animals used to having their heads down to feed which produced saliva which helped them digest their food. This was much harder to do if their heads were elevated with their feed bins.

In 1982 you even covered an Australian cricket tour of Pakistan. What is your main memory of that?
If there is anyone you really hate send them to Pakistan for a month. I remember the AAP journalist blowing up at lunch when the scores did not add up and the official scorers just telling him "just add one on".

You were at Eagle Farm the day of the famous Fine Cotton ring in. What did you make of it?
I have bittersweet memories. It was a bad look for racing because it reinforced what some people want to think, that it is a crooked industry. At the end of the day it did not come off and the people who organised it were all punished. The system worked. I can see positives but the image of racing took a hell of a kicking..

What was it like after the race?
I remember someone telling me before the race that the horse has been backed. I said it must be someone wanting to get rid of their money for tax purposes. After the race I asked its trainer Hayden Haitana a few questions and had a tape recorder for 4BC but I didn't switch it on. Then chief steward Andy Tindall tapped him on the shoulder and off he went.
That interview would have gone around the world if I had pushed the button because we never saw him again.

A few of us reckoned Shane Scriven retired when he heard you were leaving because he couldn't face life without you pumping up his tyres. Fair enough?
That's not true but I certainly had great admiration for him. He battled really hard with his weight. It was just incredible with the way he just kept on coming back. He has earnt his success - a great jockey.

Which jockey would you choose to ride for your life?
Scriven would be one of them. Glen Boss would be hard to go past. His big race record is exceptional.
Some of my great Melbourne Cup memories have been because of Queensland jockeys - Chris Munce, Boss, Greg Hall, Mick Dittman and Michael Rodd riding winners. That gave me a big thrill.

Why do people still cherish the memory of Gunsynd?
He had a personality. He actually played up to the crowd. Roy Higgins used to teach him to do it. That last day he appeared at Doomben - and he was only doing an exhibition gallop at three-quarter pace - the place was as packed as any day apart from when Black Caviar raced there. You could not move.
He could not run 3200m down a well but willed himself to run a place in the Melbourne Cup.

What's been your career lowlight?
The day you were working on the form guide at The Sun and forgot to put the Wyong fields in the paper. People were ringing up asking where the Wyong fields were. I said there was no meeting until I found out you didn't put them in. Leaving an entire field out was a world record and it was a huge relief when you moved out of racing.

Thanks for that ... best bookmaker and best judges?
Brian Ogilvie was without peer as a bookie in Brisbane. Fearless. He would lay the favourites all the time. Before videos and computers you would have punters like Frank Scarborough and Billy Unwin who had computers in their heads. They could read races and store information in their heads. They would get 20-1 a horse that was 3-1. With computers now everyone gets the same information so 3-1 shots are 3-1.

What did you make of Tommy Smith?
He was extraordinary. I used to love watching him work in Queensland at winter carnival time. And you would ring him at a certain time on Sunday morning and whatever he told you would happen with his horses over the next few weeks almost certainly always did. There are a lot of good trainers. Few have the total package of being able to train horses and handle people and owners well enough to assemble a big stable. He did.

Even when he was a kid assisting Bill Mitchell you always thought Peter Moody was a gem. Why?
The first time I met him I knew he was going to make a success of whatever he did. He had that air about him. He went to Sydney to work for TJ Smith and absorbed everything that happened around him at Randwick. He has done the same in western Queensland. Very self-motivated, incredible work ethic. And prepared to back himself. Great people skills with clients and workers. He was the full package waiting to explode.

Your earliest memory of horses?
I used to go to the track with my father on a pony led by him and I would ride a shetland pony round and round the house for hours on end. I fell into a rose tree once. I would have lunch and do it all again.

Best horse seen?
It was very emotional when Tulloch won the Brisbane Cup. Kingston Town raced in Brisbane when he was not at his best. It was a privilege to be at Doomben when Black Caviar won.

Career highlight?
I really enjoyed mentoring young people. I remember once on an Australian cricket tour of South Africa three of the four journalists there - Michael Crutcher, Trevor Marshallsea and yourself - had done work experience or worked with me in racing. I remember the help I got when I was young and I enjoyed helping young people as much as anything.

And you did it brilliantly. Top job on a wonderful career.
Thanks.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ7zZqroqeelrlwvdSenKernJa7pXvBmqmtZaOeu6S4wKKpZpqZmcBussCrnLCdnKF6orLTnqlmbGNixqat0axkmqtdlnqzrcKipaBlp6e2tbHRZphmpJmbsrW1zJ5koqZdqbWmedGamqKml2K2r7DUrKursV%2Bjsri%2FjKyrqKqpZIJysMBpm2qeYWqEeH%2BPbnBubGFsrqN%2BwZtonJuTbK53