Ask an Aussie racing fan of a certain age about the golden era of the Cox Plate, and it’s likely they’ll start rhapsodising about the last two decades of the 20th century.

Those 20 years took in Kingston Town’s threepeat (though I’m pretty sure we didn’t call it a threepeat at the time), the Bonecrusher/Our Waverley Star “race of the century”, Better Loosen Up’s Japan Cup tune-up, the demolition derby won by Super Impose, four across the track in Saintly’s year, Might And Power leading from go to whoa.

Notice anything about the seven horses I mentioned there?

Yep, all geldings. Like so many of the greatest horses in Australian turf history.

Australians have never been convinced that the job of racing is to “improve the breed”. So the Cox Plate, unlike some of Europe’s greatest races, has always been open to geldings. (The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe will finally join the party in 2027.)

The geldings’ golden Cox Plate run continued into the noughties with wins to Northerly (twice), Fields Of Omagh (twice), El Segundo and Maldivian.

Since Big Mal’s 2008 win, however, we’ve had eight Cox Plate wins by mares, two by colts and six by older (intact) male horses.

The only gelding to win the Cox Plate in the past 17 years is Romantic Warrior (2023).

Whether there’s a reason for that (such as the lifetime blanket ban on steroid use in racehorses introduced in 2014), or whether it’s just the way things have panned out, I couldn’t tell you. (The Cox Plate’s Sydney equivalent, the Queen Elizabeth, has seen five wins to geldings in the same period.)

Carrying the flag for the popular battlers of Aussie racing this Saturday are Birdman, Cosmic Crusader, Ceolwulf, Land Legend, Light Infantry Man, Middle Earth, Saint George and Blind Raise.