NEWS
Legendary Australian trainer Hanlon dies
Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:36 PM
Australian Racing Hall of Fame trainer George Hanlon died on Thursday at a nursing home near Geelong, Victoria, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 92.
Hanlon won Australia’s most famous race, the Melbourne Cup (Aus-G1), with Piping Lane in 1972, Arwon in ’78, and Black Knight in ’84 and had three runners-up in the event.
During a career that spanned five decades, Hanlon won more than 100 stakes races and 31 Group 1 races, according of Australia’s The Age, the last of which was the 2001 Sydney Cup (Aus-G1) with Mr Prudent. Hanlon’s runners scored wins in a number of the nation’s most prominent races, including the Caulfield Cup (Aus-G1), Bribane Cup (Aus-G1), Australian Cup (Aus-G1), W. S. Cox Plate (Aus-G1), Doncaster Handicap (Aus-G1), and four editions of the Adelaide Cup (Aus-G1).
Hanlon’s career began in South Australia, where he learned valuable skills from trainer Jim Cummings, the father of Australian Racing Hall of Famer Bart Cummings, who has trained 12 Melbourne Cup winners.
Bart Cummings, known around the world as “the Cups King,” remembered Hanlon as an excellent trainer.
“He was my greatest opponent in distance races,” Cummings told London’s Daily Telegraph.
Hanlon was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2002.
