Walsh not done yet as career-best year continues
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This already has been a banner year for the trainer Brendan Walsh, and it is not over yet.
With about six weeks still left in 2025, Walsh has hit career bests in all the major categories. He has won 116 races, more than any previous year, and has stable earnings greater than $13.8 million, about $2.4 million more than his previous top. Walsh has won 21 stakes, surpassing his previous high of 16, and has 15 graded stakes wins, six more than his best.
Walsh’s success, obviously, redounds to his owners, no more so than with the group that owned the 3-year-old filly Lush Lips until this month. Lush Lips, an Irish import, improved in all seven of her starts following her American debut last year at Kentucky Downs, hitting a peak on Oct. 11 when she won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup. Dixiana Farms bought Lush Lips for $3.7 million at Keeneland’s November breeding sale and, wisely, left the filly under Walsh’s care.
Walsh and Dixiana plan to swing Lush Lips right back into action, targeting the $300,000 Mrs. Revere on Nov. 28 at Churchill Downs.
“She’s at Turfway, she looks fantastic, and looks like she’s doing really well,” Walsh said. “She came out of her last race in such good order. You work so hard to get these horses right. Why stop on them when they’re doing good?”
Walsh also plans to start the 3-year-old colt Gosger on the same Churchill card in the $600,000 Clark Stakes. Gosger rebounded from a subpar showing in the Pennsylvania Derby, finishing third while facing older horses for the first time in the Fayette last month at Keeneland, defeated by 1 1/4 lengths after losing substantial ground on both turns.
“We were pretty confident after Parx, it was the track that stopped him there,” Walsh said. “He’s never run at Churchill, but he’s always worked great over there.”
The two horses Walsh ran in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, Clicquot and Gin Gin, both will return to race in 2026 after a winter break. Three-year-old Clicquot, who won the Grade 1 Cotillion in September, finished a respectable fourth in the BC Distaff. Four-year-old Gin Gin, upset winner of the Grade 1 Spinster in October, was eased in the Distaff after breaking through the starting gate and being reloaded.
“She’s a horse that’s easily upset. Luis [Saez] just eased her and wasn’t hard on her,” Walsh said.
Special Wan, sharp winner of the Goldikova at Del Mar, was sold at the Keeneland November sale to Japanese interests and sent overseas to become a broodmare.
Walsh, however, is far from ready to turn 2025 out to pasture.
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