Bart Cummings and Sir John Kerr, 1977
Steve Hart has come up with another pearler!
This one was snapped shortly after the conclusion of the 1977 Melbourne Cup presentation. Bart Cummings is clutching his sixth trainer’s trophy and was caught in conversation with Sir John Kerr, almost exactly two years after the Governor General had famously dismissed the Whitlam Labor Government.
There has never been a Cup presentation more widely reported than the 1977 edition. Sir John Kerr had been enjoying the hospitality of the VRC Committee for several hours and was clearly inebriated by the time he stepped to the microphone after Gold and Black’s popular win.
The obvious slur in the Governor-General’s speech generated some heckling in the crowd from Labour supporters intermingled with a few cheers from pro Liberal racegoers.
Sir John Kerr resigned his vice-regal post not long after his Flemington appearance and moved permanently to London. He died in 1991 aged 76.
His infamous speech is readily available on You Tube. You be the judge.