Cox Plate
The W. S. Cox Plate is regarded as Australia’s premier and richest weight-for-age race with its roll call of winners featuring some of the best horses to have ever raced in Australia. The event is staged at the Moonee Valley Racing Club and has a prize purse of $3million for the winner.
Violoncello (who also won a Caulfield Cup) started the pattern of quality in 1922 and this was quickly repeated with the likes of Manfred, Heroic, Nightmarch and Phar Lap.
Other top flight victors include Ajax, Tranquil Star, Rising Fast and Noholme. In recent years champions such as Strawberry Road, Kingston Town, Might And Power and Northerly have captured the “weight-for-age championship”. Sunline achieved the Cox Plate double, winning the 1999 and 2000 Cox Plate's.
Reigning 2009 Cox Plate winner and New Zealand born champion So You Think took out the 2010 Cox Plate in convincing style. So You Think also won the Memsie Stakes, Underwood Stakes, Mackinnon Stakes and placed third in the 2010 Melbourne Cup. Owner Dato Tan Chin Nam has since sold the four year old champion to a UK stud.
Did you know?
- Bart Cummings has won the most W.S Cox Plates won by a trainer with five. He has also trained the most Melbourne Cup and Caulfield Cup winners.
- In 2005 a horse by the name of Makybe Diva took out the WS Cox Plate then backed up and won the Melbourne Cup in the space of 10 days.
- Might and Power holds the record for the fastest Cox Plate time in 1998 in a time of 2 minutes and 3.54 seconds.
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