Kingston Town’s Trainer Won Seven Cox Plates – His Daughter Gai Waterhouse Is Still Waiting On One
Her father TJ Smith won a record seven. Thirty years after she started chasing her first, Waterhouse still can’t explain it, but Sir Delius might be her best chance in more than a decade.
Kingston Town’s Trainer Won Seven Cox Plates – His Daughter Gai Waterhouse Is Still Waiting On One
Her father TJ Smith won a record seven. Thirty years after she started chasing her first, Waterhouse still can’t explain it, but Sir Delius might be her best chance in more than a decade.
23 October, 2026Rory McIlroy finally won the Masters, slumped to his knees on the magically manicured 18th green at Augusta National, and cried like a baby. At the World Cup he’d tried for nearly a lifetime to win, Lionel Messi did the same with Argentina. Even Roger Federer took a while to win at Roland Garros, and no one was ever sure his genius would go all the way on the Parisian clay.
But Gai Waterhouse, for every glass ceiling she’s smashed and all the winners she’s trained, not winning the Cox Plate?
“I don’t really know,” Waterhouse shrugs to Idol Horse when asked why Australasia’s weight-for-age championship has never resided with her. “I’ve had some of the best horses I’ve ever trained run in it.
“Hopefully it won’t elude us this weekend.”
It’s not as if winning a Cox Plate is foreign to Waterhouse: her dad, TJ Smith, won a record seven as trainer, highlighted by the mighty three-time hero Kingston Town. Smith would come home most Saturdays with a fistful of trophies and a young Waterhouse thought it was just commonplace. The Cox Plate was always a special one.
But 30 years after she started trying to win the Cox Plate, Waterhouse has another chance, maybe her best in over a decade since Pierro was the gun three-year-old of his generation.
It would be a shame if Waterhouse’s Cox Plate history is remembered for the More Joyous circus in 2012, which was the beginning of a fallout with larrikin businessman John Singleton (the pair would later rekindle the friendship and name a horse Kiss And Make Up).
That year, Waterhouse was the nominated representative to pick a Cox Plate barrier for More Joyous. As the first horse drawn, Waterhouse had the pick of the board. She chose barrier 11 of 14.
“I love Gai but this is bloody madness,” Singleton fumed at the time. “If this was a normal race and not the Cox Plate, the horse would be scratched and the trainer sacked.
“Gai didn’t need to pick that barrier. It’s absolutely ridiculous, no one in the world thinks this is a good barrier.”
After a wide run More Joyous finished, ironically, 11th.
Fiorente ran third the following year en route to breaking Waterhouse’s duck in the Melbourne Cup 10 days later, but serious Cox Plate chances have been scarce since then.
Waterhouse’s Sir Delius is vying for favouritism in Saturday’s $6 million race, to be held at Flemington instead of the raucous amphitheatre of Moonee Valley, which is undergoing a redevelopment.
It’s been a strange Cox Plate build-up. There was no traditional Breakfast With The Best where Cox Plate contenders are allowed to gallop on The Valley’s quirky, circular track in front of the general public. And with inter-club politics rife between Melbourne’s separate racing clubs, the best guide might be who from Moonee Valley is afforded access to Flemington’s exclusive committee room, and who’s not.
But a Waterhouse win would go a long way to making it one of the most memorable in the race’s history.
The Hall of Famer prepares the horse in tandem with co-trainer Adrian Bott, but there’s no doubt whose fingerprints are all over Sir Delius this spring campaign.
“Not only has he had experience (at Flemington) and won at Group 1 level, you’ve got to remember he’s trained every day of his life at Flemington,” says Waterhouse, who spends a large amount of time in Melbourne each year. “It’s his home track.
“I don’t take my eyes off him.”
It’s six months on from Sir Delius lowering the colours of Autumn Glow in the $5 million Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Royal Randwick. It’s the only time Autumn Glow has been beaten.
It softened the blow after the saga which was Sir Delius’ absence from last year’s Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup, scratched after Racing Victoria’s veterinary and scanning protocols revealed an underlying issue with the horse after back-to-back Group 1 wins. The stable was adamant the horse was healthy, and even contemplated switching him to Sydney for the rest of the campaign. He was eventually spelled.
Sir Delius’ owner, New Zealand philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn, was so enamoured with his stallion’s upset of Autumn Glow it almost prompted him to rise from his wheelchair and give the horse a standing ovation upon his return to scale. He would love nothing more than taking a big shiny Cox Plate home with him this year.
“He’s a great example of how much someone loves racing,” Waterhouse says. “He’s spent a fortune on the sport and Sir Delius has repaid him admirably – and will continue to do so.
“I think it’s a particularly difficult Cox Plate this year with an enormous amount of depth in it. Ciaron (Maher) and Chris (Waller) have both got big representations and the three-year-old (Warwoven) is very, very talented. He’s the horse to beat. He’s won the Guineas in scintillating fashion, toying with his opposition, and he’s the best three-year-old in Australia.
“We have to be there and do the best we possibly can.”
Waterhouse and Bott can’t compete with Australian racing’s two behemoths – Chris Waller and Ciaron Maher – at least on a numbers scale.
Waller is trying to equal Smith’s haul of seven Cox Plates, having already won it four times with Winx and twice with the retired Via Sistina. He has two legitimate chances in Aeliana and Birdman.
Even Gai’s husband, bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse, is cooling slightly on the chances of Sir Delius, who held top billing in Cox Plate betting for months before a battling fourth behind Cosmic Crusader in the Turnbull Stakes on a heavy track.
“You can make excuses for his last two runs,” Robbie says. “I was very confident six weeks ago, but not as confident now.”
Whether she wins the Cox Plate or not, Waterhouse’s legacy won’t be defined by the race. She has achieved too much for too long to be remembered for her record in, perhaps, the purest race on the Australasian calendar.
As for how many more chances she might have?
Laughs Robbie: “Oh, she’s got a few years yet.” ∎
