Who wins at the Breeders’ Cup: trainer records that matter

By ITM Staff

Famously, the In the Money Players’ Podcast is not a “stats” podcast. PTF and JK are both big believers that it is the fundamentals of handicapping that determine who will win the race, not some preordained numerical paradigm. Having said that, while trainer stats may not always tell us what is going to happen, they do a phenomenal job of telling us what has happened. And by examining the clues from the latter, we may just get some insight into the former.

Every Breeders’ Cup handicapper knows the big names. The question is which of them the betting market still seems to get wrong. We went through the result charts for every Breeders’ Cup starter from 1984 to 2025 and measured each trainer’s record against the odds their horses went off at.

The all-time list is interesting, but most of it describes a different sport, so we focus on the last 15 runnings, 2011 to 2025. The good news is that the patterns are stable: trainers who beat the market over the full history mostly still do, and the ones who are overbet have been overbet for a long time.

Who beats the market

For context, the all-time leaders are Bob Baffert and Aidan O’Brien with 21 Breeders’ Cup wins each, D. Wayne Lukas with 20, Chad Brown with 19, and Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott with 16 apiece. O’Brien went clear of Lukas with Gstaad in the 2025 Juvenile Turf (Racing Post, Nov. 1, 2025), and Baffert passed Lukas the same weekend when Nysos won the Dirt Mile (Wikipedia).

Wins alone don’t tell you who’s worth backing, though. The measure that matters to bettors is wins vs. odds: actual wins divided by the number the horses’ prices implied (often called A/E, for actual vs. expected). 1.00 means a trainer won exactly as often as the market expected. Here are the trainers with 25 or more starters since 2011, with the return on a $2 win bet on every starter.

Two trainers stand apart. Charlie Appleby has won 12 of his 32 starts and put two-thirds of them in the first three, at more than twice the rate his prices implied. Brad Cox, who has sent 41 of his 44 starters since 2018, has won 11.

At the other end, Bob Baffert wins plenty, but his horses go off so short that he has won only about three-quarters of the races the market expected him to. Steve Asmussen sits at the same level, and Todd Pletcher a little better.

Where they win: sprints vs. routes, turf vs. dirt

Split the records by surface and distance and the overall numbers start to explain themselves. Most of the big barns have a lane, and the market doesn’t always mark them down enough when they step out of it.

• Todd Pletcher is 0-for-38 in turf routes. On dirt going long he’s 9-for-62, about what his odds implied. This year: Bold Leadership (15/1) and Liam’s Law (30/1) in the Juvenile Turf.
• Aidan O’Brien is 0-for-31 away from turf routes: 0-for-16 on dirt and 0-for-15 in turf sprints. In turf routes he’s 17-for-99, about 50% better than his prices. This year every O’Brien runner in the field is in a turf route; his only dirt or sprint entry, Carry The Flag (Juvenile Turf Sprint), is outside the also-eligible list.
• Bill Mott is 1-for-28 in turf routes but 9-for-37 on dirt, where he has beaten the market by about 80%. This year his three runners are all on dirt: Sovereignty (Classic, 3/1), Knightsbridge (Classic 5/1, or Dirt Mile 6/5 as second preference) and T Kraft (Sprint 30/1, or Dirt Mile 15/1).
• Chad Brown’s dirt routes are his weak spot: 2-for-32. He’s 12-for-102 in turf routes, about par for a barn that’s usually favored, and 4-for-16 in sprints. This year’s dirt routers: Fully Subscribed (Distaff, 2/1) and Gaudreau (Juvenile, 8/1).
• Bob Baffert’s dirt routes are the core of his overbet record: 9-for-83, at two-thirds of the wins his prices implied. In dirt sprints he’s 5-for-23, right at par. This year’s dirt routers: Miss Monica (Juvenile Fillies, 5/2), Hughes (Juvenile, 6/5) and Salahudin (Juvenile, 6/1), and Splendora if she runs in the Distaff (9/2). His sprinters: Splendora (5/2), Explora (7/2) and Nooni (30/1) in the Filly & Mare Sprint.
• Steve Asmussen is 1-for-22 in dirt sprints, against about three winners expected. This year: Stradale (Sprint, 30/1).
• Peter Miller is the sprint specialist: 5-for-22 on dirt and turf sprints, about three times what his odds implied. He’s 0-for-12 going a mile or more. This year: Moonlight (Sprint, 30/1), with Liam Smith (15/1) fourth also-eligible.
• Brad Cox is 8-for-23 in dirt routes, nearly double his prices, and he has won at least once in every category. This year’s dirt routers: Foxiest (15/1) and Scarlett Begonia (20/1) in the Juvenile Fillies, Immersive (Distaff, 30/1) and Further Ado (Classic 8/1, or Dirt Mile 3/1).

Here’s how the same barns do in those categories the rest of the year.

A word of caution on the weak spots. Chad Brown doesn’t forget how to train dirt routers for a few weeks each autumn and then remember again after Halloween. Over the past five years he has won with 26% of them in all races (290 of 1,097), so his 2-for-32 at the Breeders’ Cup is unlikely to carry forward as a rule. It’s more a sign of how hard Breeders’ Cup races are to win, and what a laboratory for chaos these championship fields are. Bill Mott’s turf split is a different case. He wins 11% of his turf routes overall (95 of 897), against 20% of his dirt routes, so his 1-for-28 at the Breeders’ Cup points the same way as the rest of his record.

Race by race

The race-level samples are small, so treat these as tiebreakers. A few are strong enough to lean on.

Dirt

• Classic: Bob Baffert is 4-for-23, the only trainer with more than one win. Aidan O’Brien and Doug O’Neill are both 0-for-7. None of the three has a Classic runner this year.
• Distaff: Brad Cox is 3-for-5 and Bill Mott 3-for-9. Chad Brown is 0-for-11 and Bob Baffert 0-for-9. This year: Fully Subscribed (Brown, 2/1), Splendora (Baffert, 9/2) if she takes the Distaff over the Filly & Mare Sprint, and Immersive (Cox, 30/1).
• Dirt Mile: Bill Mott is 2-for-3 and Todd Pletcher 2-for-5. Mott has Knightsbridge and T Kraft entered here as second preferences.
• Sprint: Bill Mott is 2-for-3, Peter Miller 2-for-7 and Bob Baffert 2-for-11. This year: T Kraft (Mott) and Moonlight (Miller), both 30/1.
• Filly & Mare Sprint: Chad Brown is 3-for-9. Steve Asmussen is 0-for-8. This year: Ways and Means (Brown), the 7/5 morning-line favorite.
• Juvenile: Todd Pletcher is 4-for-17 and Bob Baffert 4-for-24. Dale Romans is 0-for-10. This year: Hughes (6/5) and Salahudin (6/1) for Baffert, American History (9/2) and Damavand (20/1) for Pletcher.
• Juvenile Fillies: Brad Cox is 2-for-4. Todd Pletcher is 0-for-13 and Bob Baffert 0-for-11 over the last 15 runnings; Baffert hasn’t won it since 2007. That’s extremely relevant for his unbeaten Del Mar Debutante winner Miss Monica, in the field as of Oct. 23 at 5/2 on the morning line. Cox has Foxiest and Scarlett Begonia; Pletcher has Badittude and Life Changing.

Turf

• Turf: Aidan O’Brien is 5-for-28 and Charlie Appleby 3-for-8. Phil D’Amato is 0-for-10, Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott 0-for-7 each. This year: Benvenuto Cellini and Diamond Necklace (O’Brien); Appleby’s El Cordobes is first also-eligible and D’Amato’s Gold Phoenix third.
• Mile: Charlie Appleby is 4-for-5, including four of the last five runnings. Wow. This obviously ties in mightily to the favorite, Notable Speech (8/5 on the morning line).
• Filly & Mare Turf: Chad Brown is 4-for-31, roughly what his prices implied. Graham Motion is 0-for-8 in our sample, though he did win it with the giant price Shared Account, at better than 40/1, back in 2010. Nine years later he won the Juvenile Fillies Turf with her daughter, Sharing, the first Breeders’ Cup winner whose parents both won Breeders’ Cup races (her sire, Speightstown, took the 2004 Sprint). This year: Kathynmarissa (Brown) and Gimme a Nother (Motion).
• Turf Sprint: Peter Miller is 3-for-12, with seven in the first three. The late Christophe Clement was 0-for-9 in our sample, though he was famously unlucky at the Breeders’ Cup (if you want to see a grown man cry, ask PTF about Big Invasion’s trip in 2023, when he finished second at 12/1).
• Juvenile Turf: Aidan O’Brien is 8-for-21, with 12 in the first three, almost three times what his odds implied. Charlie Appleby is 3-for-7. Mark Casse is 0-for-16 and Todd Pletcher 0-for-12. This year: Florida Bay, Great Barrier Reef, Haffner and Man’s Best Friend (O’Brien); Bold Leadership and Liam’s Law (Pletcher).
• Juvenile Fillies Turf: Chad Brown is 5-for-24, about double his prices. Todd Pletcher is 0-for-12. This year: Domestic Agenda (Brown, 8/1).
• Juvenile Turf Sprint (eight official runnings): Wesley Ward is 3-for-15. Aidan O’Brien is 0-for-10. Ward’s Ruiva is fourth also-eligible.

What to take to the windows

• Respect Charlie Appleby on turf, at any price. 12 wins from 32 and two-thirds in the first three. That’s more than twice what his prices implied.
• Brad Cox’s dirt routers are underbet. 8-for-23, with the Distaff his best race (3-for-5).
• Back Bill Mott on dirt, not on turf. 9-for-37 on dirt, 1-for-28 on grass.
• Back Aidan O’Brien in the turf routes, especially the Juvenile Turf, and nowhere else. He’s 17-for-99 in turf routes and 0-for-31 everywhere else.
• Don’t let a Todd Pletcher horse on turf talk you into anything. 0-for-38 going long on grass, including 0-for-12 in both the Juvenile Turf and the Juvenile Fillies Turf.
• Bob Baffert’s horses are short for a reason, but they’re too short. He has won about three-quarters of the races his prices implied. The Juvenile Fillies and the Distaff, a combined 0-for-20, are where to look to oppose him.
• Peter Miller in the sprints, Wesley Ward in the Juvenile Turf Sprint. Miller is 5-for-22 in sprints. Ward is 4-for-30 in turf sprints overall, about par, but 3-for-15 in the Juvenile Turf Sprint.
• Chad Brown is about par overall, which still makes him the volume play. Lean on him in the Juvenile Fillies Turf (5-for-24) and the Filly & Mare Sprint (3-for-9), and be wary in the Distaff (0-for-11) and dirt routes generally (2-for-32).

Every one of these is built on dozens of starters, not thousands. They’re a way to break ties and find overlays, not a system.

How we counted. Records come from the official result charts for every Breeders’ Cup race from 1984 to 2025, with the focus on the 15 runnings from 2011 to 2025. “Wins vs. odds” divides a trainer’s actual wins by the number implied by each starter’s final win odds, with the odds in each race scaled to remove the takeout. Sprints are races under a mile. The Juvenile Turf Sprint counts official Breeders’ Cup runnings only (2018–2025), and the discontinued Marathon and Juvenile Sprint are included in trainer totals but not shown race by race. Modern Games, who won the 2021 Juvenile Turf after being declared a non-starter for betting purposes, counts as a Charlie Appleby winner but is left out of the odds figures. Trainer names were matched across the old and new chart formats by hand. This year’s runners are from the official pre-entries as of Oct. 23, before final entries on Oct. 26 and the draw, so fields and also-eligible positions may still change. Prices for this year’s runners are David Aragona’s pre-entry morning lines for DRF (Oct. 22). Records outside the Breeders’ Cup are from DRF Formulator’s trainer statistics for all races over the past five years, pulled Oct. 23, 2026; Aidan O’Brien is left out of that comparison because Formulator counts only his North American starts.

Sources

• Breeders’ Cup result charts, 1984–2025 (Equibase, DRF)
• DRF Formulator trainer statistics, past five years (pulled Oct. 23, 2026)
• Racing Post, Nov. 1, 2025: O’Brien becomes most successful Breeders’ Cup trainer
• Bob Baffert (Wikipedia)
• Chad Brown (Wikipedia)
• AP via ClickOnDetroit, May 25, 2025: Horse trainer Christophe Clement dies at 59
• America’s Best Racing: Miss Monica
• Brisnet (Kellie Reilly), Nov. 2019: Sharing makes Breeders’ Cup history in Juvenile Fillies Turf