BART CUMMINGS 1927~2015 BART Cummings spent seven years in Melbourne and his final 40 years living in Sydney but it was his first 40 years in South Australia that made the man who became the nation's greatest horse trainer.
Not that he ever really desired to become a trainer of horses - as a young man he was more than happy supporting his father, James Cummings, as stable foreman at Glenelg North until fate intervened at the age of 26. 
When Jim Cummings took his wife Nancy back to Ireland in 1953, and a six-week trip turned into six months, South Australian stewards insisted the young Cummings take out his own trainer's licence.
"They forced me to ... I'd never ever thought of it until then," he told The Advertiser in 2009. "I had no ambitions to be a trainer. I was happy working for dad. I might have taken over when he retired, but never before." When his father finally returned to Australia, "J.B. Cummings" had already increased his father's winning strike rate with several leading owners in his camp that recognised a unique talent.
Jim Cummings retired immediately leaving Bart as the man in charge. An Australian-Irish Catholic to his boot straps, James Bartholomew Cummings was born at Glenelg a week after Trivalve won the 1927 Melbourne Cup.
He earned the nickname "Bart" early on so as not to be confused with his father, whom he idolised.
When drought drove the Cummings family off the arid farm land north of Port   Augusta in 1910, Jim Cummings, then aged 20, took his chances and headed further north.
He made a good living catching wild horses around Alice Springs that were sold to India to serve as cavalry mounts for the Indian army.
It was a tough life but he learnt a lot about horses.
After three years he took three horses and a pony and set out on the 1750km journey to Adelaide. It took almost three years and his experiences developed the knowledge of feeding and caring of horses he passed to his youngest child.
Stopping off at Jamestown - 190km from Adelaide - for a picnic meeting he backed his own horse and won Â£70 - a large amount at the time, and enough to set himself up with a property at Glenelg North.
He met and married Nancy Anne, a girl from County Cork in Southern Ireland and the couple had three children, Patrick, Teresa and James.
Glenelg North was still a farming area, and young Bart, despite having asthma and an allergy to hay, had to work on the family farm. They were long, active days made longer by scrounging for golf balls late in the evening on the local golf course that he sold back to the club.
Bart attended school at Sacred Heart College at Somerton Park but didn't reach any great academic heights.
"I would have been a good scholar but my teachers held me back," he said once with his trademark cheeky wit.
A regular churchgoer, Bart met his wife Valmae at a church social in Adelaide just after World War II and they had five children: four girls and one son, Anthony, who is also a Group 1 winning horse trainer. Racing was banned during most of the war but it didn't take Jim Cummings long to achieve a career highlight on its resumption when Comic Court claimed the 1950 Melbourne Cup.
Bart was at the horse's side as strapper for the whole extraordinary journey that included a confrontation with the Royal Australian Navy vessel, HMAS Barcoo, that had run aground at West Beach where the horse had his morning swim.
Each morning the strapper, with the care he showed to horses his entire life, coaxed the horse into the water while the sailors, stranded on the boat for a couple of weeks, jeered loudly.
Little did they know they were laughing at a pair that would win 13 Melbourne Cups between them.
Bart led Comic Court into the parade ring at Flemington after the Cup victory and had his first moment as a Melbourne Cup winning trainer when Light Fingers won the 1965 race.
Unfortunately Jim Cummings had died a few months before the mighty mare came from last down the Flemington straight to win with "the Professor", Roy Higgins, in the saddle.
Bart made it a Cup hat-trick when brilliant stayer Galilee and Red Handed won in 1966 and 1967.
Already recognised with contemporaries, Colin Hayes and Tommy Smith, as one of the greats, Cummings was reluctant to leave his home town but the money was all out east.
He left for Melbourne and established stables, now known as Saintly Place, at Flemington, Melbourne, in 1968 and in 1975 set up stables at Randwick, Sydney, naming them Leilani Lodge after his mares which had won six Group 1 races.
Bart Cummings was not a man for regrets and he believed he made the right decision to leave South Australia, but he always acknowledged the place that made his name.
"It's a nice place (South Australia), but things change and you've got to keep moving on," he said in 2009"But it's where I grew up and learned all life's hard lessons and I'll be forever grateful for that."