2025 Eclipse Awards: Brad Cox

Brad Cox during 2025 won more purse money than any North American trainer and more races and graded stakes than all but two.

Yet Cox could look back over the season and wonder what might have been.

Tappan Street beat Horse of the Year favorite Sovereignty in the Grade 1 Curlin Florida Derby presented by Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms at Xalapa, but when Sovereignty was out winning the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve, Tappan Street had started his recovery from a surgically repaired injury sustained shortly before the big event.

Muhimma won all three of her races at 2 and came into 2025 as the Longines Kentucky Oaks favorite. She hasn’t started since the Grade 1 Central Bank Ashland in April. Cox still won his third Kentucky Oaks, with Good Cheer, but she never recaptured that form the rest of the season. Patch Adams won a pair of 3-year-old Grade 1 sprints but headed off to the breeding shed before facing older rivals. First Mission and even Just a Touch dropped hints of Grade 1 glory but never tasted it.

:: Full list of 2025 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Yet even in listing all those horses one feels the depth and breadth of the vast Cox operation. Derby horses, Oaks horses, sprinters, older route runners – and beyond. The 3-year-old turf filly Fionn had a six-win campaign that included four graded stakes. She won the Grade 3 Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs four days after another 3-year-old grass filly, Stellify, captured the Grade 3 Ladies Marathon there, both races carrying seven-figure purses.

Cox, quietly, notched a career-best 277 wins. The troops keep marching, regiments of reserves preparing for their move to the front lines. This winter alone Cox runs divisions in Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, and New York. It’s an annual event, Cox’s position as a finalist for champion trainer. He’s not going anywhere.

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