Helmet will be out to end that drought at Moonee Valley on Saturday and the similarities between him and Red Anchor, the last horse to achieve the feat, are striking.
It has been 27 years since the Caulfield Guineas winner went on to claim victory in the Cox Plate.
Both made their respective debuts at Rosehill as spring two-year-olds and finished third.
While they each showed good ability at two, neither contested the Golden Slipper, bypassing it in preference for the remaining two legs of the two-year-old triple crown.
Red Anchor was beaten a neck by Victory Prince in the 1984 AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes (1400m) before reversing the result in the Group One Champagne Stakes (1600m).
Helmet won both those juvenile features last autumn.
While Red Anchor went through his three-year-old season undefeated, Helmet worked into form with two minor placings in Group races in Sydney.
But once in the southern capital he struck top form with a dashing victory in the Guineas Prelude before a courageous all-the-way win in the Group One.
Red Anchor started odds-on in the Cox Plate in a year when there was a full field of 14, which there will be again this year for the first time since 2005.
Helmet won’t start in the red but he is the pre-post favourite for Saturday’s weight-for-age championship.
He will be aiming to post his seventh win from 10 starts – the Cox Plate was Red Anchor’s seventh win from 12 starts.
Both were out of Irish-bred mares, both prepared by leading Sydney-based trainers, both flashy chestnut colts.
But will they both go down in the record books as Cox Plate winners at three?
AAP TURF
