Racing: Rare feat for filly - but few have tried

Those who want to knock Samantha Miss keep insisting a 3-year-old filly can't win the Cox Plate because history says only one has ever done so.

History also shows that few have tried.

The weight-for-age championship of Australasia does not usually fit into the spring programme of 3-year-olds of either sex who are targeted at classic races against their own age group.

That has been the case so far with Samantha Miss who made a clean sweep of the four-race Princess Series in Sydney.

But the Cox Plate is no impulse or afterthought. It has been a well-thought out campaign by her trainer Kris Lees who thinks the time is right.

"This might just be the year for a filly," Lees said last night.

"And I think she is the right sort of filly to try it. She's pretty tough, she's very adaptable and nothing really seems to bother her."

Surround is in the record books as the only filly to win the race in 1976. Since then the best performed has been Slight Chance who ran third in 1992.

Two years ago Miss Finland was being touted as the best horse in Australia and to prove it she had to win the Cox Plate. But she found it tough going around Moonee Valley as did her jockey Lisa Cropp.

Samantha Miss won the group one Champagne Stakes at two and she soared into Melbourne spring contention with her four wins in the Princess Series, culminating in the group one Flight Stakes.

- AAP