The Ladbrokes Cox Plate is a Group 1 Weight-For-Age race for horses aged three years and above, run over The Valley’s famous 2040m with a total prizemoney pool of $6 million. Known as the 'Weight-For-Age Championship of Australasia', the W.S. Cox Plate not only brings together the best middle-distance horses in Australia and New Zealand but more recently it has attracted the best middle-distance horses in the world.

The W.S. Cox Plate has had an extraordinary ability to always produce and showcase the greatest horses in Australian Racing History, and you will not find an undeserving winner of the race over its 100 plus runnings.

Phar Lap, Tulloch, Kingston Town, Octagonal, Makybe Diva, So You Think and Winx are just some of the champions of the Australian turf who have won our great race.

The best horses in the world going pound for pound in front of the amphitheatre that The Valley provides makes the Cox Plate a spectacle like no other, and the deafening roar of the crowd when the gates crash back is worth coming to experience in itself.

The pinnacle of Weight-For-Age racing, there is no doubt it is 'Australia's Best Race'.

In honour of the founder of the Moonee Valley Racing Club, William Samuel Cox, the MVRC Committee decided to run a weight-for-age race over 2040m. 

Offering a purse of 1000 Pounds, the W.S. Cox Plate was first run in 1922 and was won by imported stallion Violencello. He was a seven-year-old who the previous year had won the Caulfield Cup at only his fifth start in Australia after being brought out from England.

Strategically placed on the racing calendar between the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, the W.S. Cox Plate has become a race of great importance and prestige. Since it's introduction in 1922, the W.S. Cox Plate has always attracted a field of the best horses on offer – the who’s who of the Australasian turf.

With an honour roll which dates back to Phar Lap in 1930, three-time winner Kingston Town and the first of five international winners in Adelaide back in 2014 – Winx’s four-peat between 2015-2018 remains unparalleled.

The MVRC commissioned Melbourne artist Louis Laumen to immortalise the mighty mare in bronze which was proudly unveiled at Tote Park in 2020 as part of the 100th running of the W.S. Cox Plate celebrations.

The Cox Plate has been conducted over four different distances – 1900 metres (1922-1943), 2000 metres (1944-1973), 2050 metres (1974-1985) and 2040 metres (1986-current).

For the first time in 2025 the Ladbrokes Cox Plate carried total prize money of $6,000,000 with first prize now a boosted $4,000,000. Since the inception of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) Group 1 rankings, the Ladbrokes Cox Plate has consistently been recognised among the world’s best races. 

Renowned journalist and author Les Carlyon once wrote – “For a scribbler casting around pearls, the Cox Plate has become a tease. The problem is: how do you write about the race without appearing to slobber? I’ll explain.

Moonee Valley Racing Club, rather like that good colt Shakespeare in his Classic year, insists on staging masterpiece after masterpiece. They gave us the Kingston Town trilogy; that used up a few pearls. Then as a variation, they staged the Bonecrusher – Our Waverley Star slugfest. And how do you follow that?” 

The Group 2 Feehan Stakes is a Weight-for-Age race run over 1600 metres for horses aged three years old and above. Run in September, the Feehan Stakes is the only ballot exempt race into the Ladbrokes Cox Plate and it always brings together a mix of top milers and middle-distance horses.

The Feehan Stakes has been a ballot exempt race into the W.S. Cox Plate since 2004, but it wasn't until 2020 that it became the only exclusive ballot exempt race, as previously four other races also carried the golden ticket.

Some of the Champion horses that have completed the Feehan Stakes / Cox Plate double in the same year include Rising Fast 1954, Strawberry Road 1983, Rubiton 1987, Better Loosen Up 1990, Sunline 2000, Northerly 2001 and El Segundo 2007.

In 2021 Feehan Stakes prizemoney was uplifted from $250,000 to $500,000, but the main attraction remains the ‘win and you’re in’ ticket into our great race, the LEGENDARY Cox Plate.

RACE FIRST RUN: Saturday, October 28, 1922 (won by Violoncello)

LONGEST PRICED WINNERS
50/1 (Leonard-1946, Mosaic-1939); 40/1 (Dane Ripper-1997)

SHORTEST PRICED WINNERS
1/14f (Phar Lap-1931); 1/7f (Phar Lap-1930)

LEADING TRAINERS
Tommy Smith (7), Jack Holt and Chris Waller (6), Bart Cummings (5), Colin Hayes, Frank McGrath, Roy Shaw (3)

LEADING JOCKEYS
Darby Munro (5), Hugh Bowman, James McDonald, Jack Purtell, Brent Thomson, Glen Boss (4), Harold Badger, Neville Sellwood (3)

2025 Winner: James McDonald, 

2024 Winner: Mark Zahra, 11 points

2023 Winner: Damian Lane, 16 points

2022 Winner: James McDonald, 15 points

2021 Winner: Jye McNeil, 12 points

2020 Winner: Jamie Kah, 15 points 

2019 Winners: Jamie Kah/ Dwayne Dunn, 10 points

2018 Winners: Hugh Bowman/ John Allen, 10 points

Named in honour of LEGENDARY rider Brent Thomson - ‘The Babe’ enjoyed a long and fruitful career in the saddle with over 2500 winners to his name worldwide. He was born in New Zealand in 1958 and by the time he turned 16 was champion apprentice.

It would be the following year as a 17-year-old that Thomson would win his first W.S. Cox Plate aboard Fury’s Order and begin one of the most dominant runs of any rider in the history of the race.

In the four years that followed, Thomson would win three consecutive W.S. Cox Plates from 1977-1979 aboard Family of Man and the Colin Hayes pair So Called and the brilliant Dulcify.

Given Thomson’s remarkable success in Australasia’s Weight-for-Age Classic, the Brent Thomson Jockey Challenge was first introduced in 2018. 

All riders competing at the race meeting(s) will be eligible, including apprentices and those visiting Victoria from interstate or overseas. The Moonee Valley Racing Club will run 18 races across the 2021 Ladbrokes Cox Plate Carnival with eight races on Friday night 22 October 2021 and ten races on Saturday 23 October 2021.

Points will be allocated on all races across the race meeting to the first three official placegetters on a 3-2-1 points.

In the event of a dead heat, the points will be split as follows: 

• Dead heat for first – first 2.5 points each, third 1 point; 
• Dead heat for second – first 3 points, second 1.5 points each; or 
• Dead heat for third – first 3 points, second 2 points, third 0.5 points each.

If the highest points scorer is suspended for breaching AR 131 and/or 132 as the result of any ride during the race meeting, then the prize will be awarded to the second highest points scorer and so on until such time as the best and fairest jockey is determined.

In the case of a tie the cash prize will be shared equally by those eligible riders on the highest number of points and a countback will not be conducted.