Brad Cox doesn’t need a(nother) Kentucky Derby win to prove he’s one of the best horse trainers in the game. That much, the Louisville native has already accomplished at the age of 46.
He’s positioned on the short list of next-generation trainers prepared to usher in a new era of horse racing as the longtime stalwarts like Bob Baffert and Bill Mott enter the twilight of their careers.
Cox, who has had 12 starters in the Kentucky Derby, again has multiple contenders this year. Both Florida Derby winner Commandment and Blue Grass Stakes winner Further Ado are situated among the top morning-line favorites, each with 6-1 odds following the post-position draw Saturday at Churchill Downs.
He’s been there before in 2024 with Catching Freedom and Just a Touch as two of the top five morning-line favorites. And he’ll probably do it again in the years to come.
“I’m looking for the winner, not the favorite,” Cox said. “I’ve always said there are 19 Derby horses and there’s one Derby winner. I’m looking for the winner.”
Maybe this year, the winner he’s looking for could even be his third entrant into the 20-horse field, Fulleffort, who finished fifth among American horses in the Kentucky Derby points standings.
Cox isn’t waiting for greatness to happen. He’s a “super trainer” for a reason.
Check the earnings leaders from three of the past five years and it’s Cox atop the list, claiming more than $30 million in winnings each year in 2021, 2023 and 2025.
He’s already a two-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer — and that came in back-to-back years in 2020-21. Cox won the Belmont Stakes in 2021 with Essential Quality and claimed the Breeders’ Cup Classic that same year with Knicks Go.
But for some reason, sports discussions have deteriorated largely into arguments about championship rings without an appreciation of greatness. And in horse racing, especially for many of the casual fans who only discuss it this time of the year, it boils down to whether you won the Kentucky Derby.
Cox is the first to admit he doesn’t truly know what it feels like. He has yet to win the Kentucky Derby on the dirt track at Churchill Downs before 150,000-plus fans on the first Saturday in May.
Although he is recognized for winning it in 2021 with Mandaloun, his victory came in February 2022 before just a handful of people in a closed meeting of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. A three-member panel of the Board of Stewards disqualified the Baffert-trained Medina Spirit, who crossed the finish line first, for a failed drug test.
Cox’s win comes with an asterisk and keeps afloat the narrative that he might be more like Steve Asmussen — among the greatest trainers to never win the Run for the Roses. If that’s the path his career takes, then it’ll be a pretty big compliment. Asmussen is the winningest trainer in North American horse racing history.
Cox has a ways — or, more realistically, decades — to go before he could eclipse Asmussen’s win total. But what he has done so well is position himself to win, and that’s why his time is now.
Winning at the highest level often requires a lot of times coming up short in pursuit of the top spot.
Cox has never won the Preakness Stakes. But he’s finished third twice, as he also has a pair of third-place finishes in the Kentucky Derby. More than likely, he’ll break through and win them all at some point.
Short of that, he’s still composing the career résumé of a future Hall of Famer, even if he never knows what it feels like to set foot in the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky Derby 2026, why Brad Cox doesn’t need win for validation