Behind a deep and balanced stable in 2023, trainer Brad Cox topped the list of leading trainers by North American earnings for the second time in three seasons.

In 2023 Cox, a two-time Eclipse Award winner as outstanding trainer, posted a record of 266-171-141 from 963 starts for earnings of $30,947,677 to nail down his second earnings title. He finished atop the list for the first time in 2021 when Horse of the Year Knicks Go secured more than $7.3 million to lead the way for the stable.

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The 2023 season saw a more balanced approach and overall depth in the stable as multiple grade 1-winning filly Idiomatic led the way with $2.4 million in purse earnings.

“Knicks Go earned a good bit of it the first time around whereas this year it was a more all-around effort to get there,” Cox said. “The biggest thing for us was getting the 12 grade 1 wins. I think our previous best was 10 in a season.”

Those dozen wins at the top-level in 2023 marked a personal best for Cox, up from the previous best of 10 in 2021, and tied with four-time Eclipse winner Chad Brown for the most in North America. Idiomatic, expected to be named champion older dirt female, led the way for Cox when she closed out the season with three straight grade 1 wins—topped by her score in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

In other 2023 categories, Brown led all trainers with 39 graded stakes wins while Steve Asmussen led in wins with 379—the fourth straight year and 13th time overall the lone trainer with more than 10,000 North American racing wins has led in that category.

Also of note in a season that saw Jena Antonucci become the first woman to win a Triple Crown race as a trainer when she sent out Arcangelo to victory in the Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets, Linda Rice, ranked 13th in earnings and 12th in wins, and Brittany Russell, ranked 16th in earnings and 11th in wins, closed out milestone seasons of their own.

Trainer Linda Rice is interviewed by FOX Sports. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Russell became the first woman to lead the annual trainer standings in Maryland while Rice set a record for seasonal wins on the New York Racing Association circuit.

Of Russell’s 177 overall wins, 118 were earned in the Old Line State.

“I’m just so proud of the team. It’s a huge accomplishment for everybody and they’ve been working so hard,” Russell told Maryland Jockey Club media after Point Dume registered an 11-length win Dec. 31 at Laurel Park. “Now that everybody pointed it out to us we’ve been keeping an eye on it the last two days, and it feels really good to seal it up.”

On the final day of the year Rice landed victory number 165 on the NYRA circuit to eclipse the previous record of 164 seasonal wins at NYRA tracks by David Jacobson in 2013.

“It’s a tough number to get to,” Rice told NYRA publicity. “It’s just been an incredible year. I’m really excited and I just hope we can do something that will compare going forward. That’s a high bar to set.”

Rice finished with 168 wins overall in 2023 and earnings of more than $10.4 million.