[5] In the late spring and early summer of 1981 many horses in the Dick Hern stable, including Cut Above, suffered from a viral infection and the trainer had very few runners.
Cut Above returned from a two-month break and was given a most challenging task when he was matched against the Aga Khan's colt Shergar in the Irish Sweeps Derby at the Curragh on 27 June.
Shergar had created an enormous impression when winning The Derby by a record ten lengths and started the 1/3 favourite, with Cut Above third in the betting on 14/1.
[7] At Newbury in August, Cut Above was moved up in distance and matched against older horses in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes over thirteen furlongs.
Two furlongs from the finish, Shergar began to struggle and dropped back as Mercer produced Cut Above with a strong run down the centre of the track.
The win came sixteen years after Provoke, owned by Astor, trained by Hern and ridden by Mercer had beaten the odds-on Meadow Court in the 1965 St Leger in what was described as "one of the biggest upsets in British horse racing history".
Ridden by Brian Taylor he started a 38/1 outsider and finished fourteenth of twenty-four runners, approximately seventeen lengths behind the winner Gold River.
In 1981 the official International Classification, rated Cut Above the third-best three-year-old colt in Europe, behind Shergar and Bikala, and the fifth best horse of any age.