Ladbrokes Cox Plate 100 - Saturday 24th October 2020

This year represents the 100th running of the W.S. Cox Plate at The Valley - the Weight-for-Age Championship of Australasia. The race is named after William Samuel Cox, founder of the Moonee Valley Racing Club. Whilst plenty has been written about W.S. Cox and the Racing Club he founded in 1883, he achieved much more in Victoria and his legacy to racing lives on. William Samuel Cox was born in Lothantown, County Fermanagh, Ireland on 15 February 1831. He was the second of four sons and two daughters of William and Mary Cox. Cox’s name appears in the Glasgow Post Office directories from 1853 to 1855 as a flesher in his own right operating a shop in Argyle Street, Glasgow. On 4 September I855, Cox married Mary Coates in the Wesleyan Church in Glasgow. Their first daughter Mary was born in January 1856 in Lanark, Glasgow. At the time of his marriage both his parents had died. Cox, at the age of 26, with Mary and their daughter Mary emigrated to Melbourne. They sailed from Liverpool to Australia on 22nd of June 1857 on the clipper ship White Star arriving in Melbourne in September 1857. William Samuel Cox THE STORY OF WI L L I AM SAMUE L COX AND T H E RAC E WH E R E L E G ENDS AR E MAD E