Since 2000, how many three-year-olds have won the Cambridgeshire Handicap?

Run annually over nine furlongs on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket in late September, the Cambridgeshire Handicap is the first of two historic, late-season handicap races run at “Headquarters”. Together with the Cesarewitch Handicap, which is run over two and a quarter miles two weeks later, the Cambridgeshire Handicap constitutes the traditional “Autumn Double”, once so beloved of ante-post punters. With a safety limit of 35, the Cambridgeshire is no friend of favourite-backers, but occasionally features a progressive three-year-old, brimming with potential and, effectively, a “Group” horse in the making.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a total of half a dozen three-year-olds have won the Cambridgeshire. The first of them was Formal Decree, trained by the late Alan Swinbank and ridden by Jamie Spencer, in 2006 and the last Lord North, trained by John Gosden and ridden by Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori, in 2019. Indeed, Lord North was the most recent of five winners, in total, for the now six-time champion trainer, who also saddled the three-year-old winners Pipedreamer, ridden by Jimmy Fortune, in 2007 and Wissahickon, also ridden by Dettori, in 2018.

The sextet of three-year-old winners of the Cambridgeshire since 2000 is completed by Bronze Angel, trained by Marcus Tregoning and ridden by William Buick, in 2012 and Third Time Lucky, trained by Richard Fahey and ridden by Adam Beschizza, in 2015. It is worth noting that the former returned to Newmarket to win the Cambridgeshire again, as a five-year-old, in 2014, in the hands of Louis Steward.