Trainer Bart Cummings Sells Stable Complex In Melbourne's Ascot Vale

After 40 years, "a golden era in Australian horseracing is set to end," according to Brendan Cormick of THE AUSTRALIAN. Saintly Place, the stable complex of trainer Bart Cummings in Melbourne's Ascot Vale, "a short canter along a street that runs behind Flemington's main grandstand, has been sold." Neighborhoods surrounding Melbourne's racetracks were once littered with stables, but now Cummings, 84, is the "last trainer in Melbourne who has stables not situated on land within the racing club's boundary." Filly Norzita, whose mission will be to deliver Cummings a sixth Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in October, "will lead the final spring assault from 22 Leonard Crescent." Economic realities and the logistical problems of walking the horses along suburban streets "have convinced Cummings that leasing horse boxes from the Victoria Racing Club is more viable." Cummings' financial and corporate consultant Jack Fisher said that it was "no longer commercially viable to run Saintly Place" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 6/18).