Sitting down to Christmas lunch on Thursday, one trainer who could be satisfied with his body of work in 2025 was Joe Pride.

It hasn’t been Pride’s most productive year — that title belongs to 2023, when Pride runners earned $21.3 million, led by Everest winner Think About It.

But once again in 2025, Pride’s owners got bang for their buck. With just 476 starters, his team (to last weekend) have earned $18,183,715. That’s $38,201 every time he’s saddled one up.

That figure isn’t far off the whopping $42,970 his runners earned per start in 2023.

King Charles III and Champions Mile winner Ceolwulf has led the way, with assists from Attica (Spring Champion), Headley Grange (Alan Brown) and Coal Crusher (Hunter).

Among stables whose runners have earned $10 million or more, Pride has had the highest earnings per starter in 2023 and 2025. (In 2024 Ciaron Maher pipped him with $28,800 to Pride’s $25,729.)

Mind you, Pride is not our leading trainer by that measure overall. That title belongs to one David Hayes, whose only Aussie runner in 2025 earned $7,549,000.

An honourable mention goes to Hopeland (WA) trainer Bernie Miller, who’s had just 36 runners in 2025 for $2,442,855 in earnings. That’s $67,857 per starter.

Quokka winner Jokers Grin chipped in $2,375,050 of that total.

Among the big stables, following Pride for dollars per start in 2025 are Tony and Calvin McEvoy ($29,250), Chris Waller ($27,692), Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott ($22,689) and Maher ($20,246).

When it comes to total prizemoney for the calendar year, Waller leads the way with $68,955,113, safely clear of Maher on $46,910,046, the Hayes brothers on $22,786,364 and Bjorn Baker on $22,311,230.

Maher set the record last year with $69,755,508, giving Waller $800,000 odd to chase down over the last 10 days of this year.