Her four-year-old season was curtailed by injury, but she became the first filly to win the Lockinge Stakes and produced her best performance in her final race when she won the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup at York Racecourse.
Cormorant Wood was a big, rangy, dark bay mare with a white star and snip bred by her owner Robert McAlpine.
The filly was trained by Barry Hills at his South Bank stable at Lambourn in Berkshire and was ridden to her biggest wins by the American jockey Steve Cauthen.
She prepared for the race with a run in the Group Three Oaks Trial Stakes at Lingfield Park Racecourse in May and showed promise in finishing second, five lengths behind the leading Irish filly Give Thanks.
In the Virginia Stakes, a new race run at Newcastle Racecourse in August she recorded her first success of the year when beating Air Distingue, a filly who had finished third in the Prix de Diane.
In early October at Newmarket she was ridden by Steve Cauthen in the Sun Chariot Stakes and won her first Group race, beating Sedra by a length at odds of 7/2.
She attempted one mile again at Royal Ascot in June when she contested the Queen Anne Stakes, which was then a Group Two race open to horses aged three and older.
[6] In August, Cormorant Wood and Sadler's Wells met again in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup at York Racecourse where her other opponent included Tolomeo and the leading British miler Chief Singer.
The official International Classification rated her on 83, making her the fifth-best three-year old filly in Europe behind Habibti, Sun Princess, Luth Enchantee and Sharaya.