TWO veterans of the sport of kings and queens - the Cups King, Bart Cummings, and the Queen herself - shared their love of the track when they met for lunch in Canberra yesterday, the spring racing carnival on their minds.
''I hope you back a winner,'' said Bart, 83, a dab hand at the art of winning, having trained 12 Melbourne Cup winners.
''Thank you, but I don't bet,'' said the Queen, 85, with a twinkle in her eye. She inherited a string of racehorses when her father, George VI, died in 1952, usually has 20 or so flat-race horses in training and reads the Racing Post every morning.
Alas, the Queen - who has never attended a Melbourne Cup despite sending several horses to run in the race over the years - will leave Australia the day before Cup Day.
Cummings was among 50 prominent Australians invited by Governor-General Quentin Bryce to take lunch with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Government House.
Others included actor Geoffrey Rush; the director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Professor Douglas Hilton; 87-year-old Catherine Hamlin, who co-founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia; Paralympian Kurt Fearnley and his wife, Sheridan; art dealer and philanthropist Philip Bacon; wine producers Michael Hill Smith and Stacey Hill Smith; comedian Anh Do; and Myer Foundation director Rupert Myer.
Earlier, the Queen attended Sunday service at Canberra's little, old St John's Anglican Church where she stipulated that she wished to worship only with regular churchgoers. And so it was - only those who normally attended the 11.30am Sunday service were granted entry. Except, as it happened, Kevin Rudd.
Mr Rudd was the church's most high profile worshipper during his days as prime minister, but his attendance has dropped off markedly since he was dethroned, according to parishioners. And he was a member of the 9.30am congregation. Yesterday, however, he was granted dispensation to attend the 11.30am service. Seats in the church, capacity 110, were found for Mr Rudd, his wife, Therese, and his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Rein.
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