Cricket
Motorsport
Basketball test
League - Test
Combat Sports
Netball
Football
Hawkes: Cox Plate would have been "shizenhousen" if Buckaroo won
Connor Scanlon • October 27th, 2025 7:15 pm
Fan favourite Via Sistina made history on Saturday in the Cox Plate, by solidifying herself as a legend, joining a prestigious class of horses to win multiple Cox Plates behind Winx, Flight and Sunline.
While she won the last ever race at the Moonee Valley racecourse before the track undergoes a redevelopment, it wasn’t without a massive scare from stablemate Buckaroo.
The Chris Waller trained pair went head-to-head down the straight, with the 2024 Cox Plate winner barely edging out her seven-year-old rival by 0.1 lengths.
Many Via Sistina fans had their heart in their mouths throughout the final sprint, yet she proved supreme, making the final edition of the Cox Plate one of the most memorable of all time.
Trainer Wayne Hawkes, who had three-year-old Nepotism in the famous Group 1, admitted to Buckaroo’s part-owner John O’Neill that it would have been an awful spectacle if his horse was to beat home Via Sistina.
“No disrespect to you Johnny, and I’m being deadly serious about this because I would love to own Buckaroo and I’d love to train him, but it would’ve been shizenhousen if Buckaroo had have won,” Hawkes told O’Neill on SENTrack & RSN’s Giddy Up.
“I’m being serious, I’m being genuinely serious.
“The Cox Plate always has the best horse win the Cox Plate, very rarely does the best horse through history not win.
“I’m not bagging Buckaroo, but Via Sistina deserves to win two Cox Plates.
“Buckaroo is not a Cox Plate horse.”
This hot take sparked a reaction from the prominent owner, questioning Hawkes on how Buckaroo is not a Cox Plate level horse.
O’Neill: “He just got beaten a nose by the best horse in the world.”
Hawkes: “I don’t care what he just got beaten by!”
O’Neill: “How is he not a Cox Plate horse?”
Hawkes: “Well you know what, go back next year and see if he can win it!
“At the end of the day, for the actual race, the best horse won the Cox Plate.
“Via Sistina was the right horse to win the race.”
