Tony McFadden highlights five Flat trainers who enjoyed tremendous campaigns in 2025 without attracting the limelight.
Harriet Bethell
Harriet Bethell continues to do well with her small string and outperform market expectations. Backing Bethell's runners on the Flat to £1 level stakes would have returned a profit in each of the four full seasons she's had since returning to the training ranks after suffering a serious injury on the gallops.
Her level-stake profit in 2025 was £7.80 and was generated from 19 winners from 108 runners at a creditable strike rate of 17.6%. That placed her among the top 20 trainers in Britain and Ireland based on strike rate (among those with at least 50 runners), while she was among the top ten by the percentage of rivals beaten metric (63%).
Her success has attracted the support of The Horse Watchers syndicate whose City Captain has done notably well since joining the yard, winning four times and improving his Timeform rating by 31 lb.
Tony Carroll
Tony Carroll saddled a century of British Flat winners in a year for the first time in 2024 and he had repeated that feat by mid-October in 2025. The winners continued to flow and he finished up with 128, a figure only seven trainers surpassed with their runners in Britain or Ireland. It was also the first campaign that Carroll passed the £1 million mark in prize-money.
A blistering start to the year, featuring 22 winners in January, was the key behind another push towards the century; so prolific was Carroll in January that he had twice as many winners as any other trainer that month.
The biggest contributor to Carroll's century was Time Patrol who won five times in handicaps between January and May, including a hat-trick at Brighton. Brighton remains a happy hunting ground for Carroll who, yet again, was the top trainer at the course. He had 17 winners there in 2025, ten more than the next most prolific, Gary and Josh Moore.
Jim Goldie
Jim Goldie had never had a century of winners in a calendar year but did so in 2025 when Krissy brought up the landmark success at Wolverhampton on December 27. That represented a big improvement on his previous best total of 78, but it was a memorable campaign for reasons other than pure weight of winners as American Affair landed the King Charles III Stakes to provide Goldie with a first victory at Royal Ascot and a first Group 1 success.
American Affair is a fine advertisement of Goldie's talents having started 2024 with a BHA handicap mark of only 70 before progressing relentlessly. He is the most high-profile recent example of a Goldie improver but is by no means the only one - indeed, Goldie has become associated with horses running up sequences and staying ahead of the handicapper.
Seven horses won seven times or more on the Flat in Britain in 2025 and Goldie trained three of them - Jannas Journey, Midnight Lion and Oriental Prince.
TJ Kent
TJ Kent had the eighth best strike rate among trainers with at least 50 runners on the Flat in Britain or Ireland in 2025. His record of 17 winners from 79 runners, at a strike rate of 21.5%, included a sequence of six successive winners in March and April at prices between 7/4 and 9/1. Unsurprisingly, given such a healthy strike rate, backing each of Kent's runners to £1 level stakes would have generated an impressive profit of £78.55.
He's unlucky that figure wasn't even higher as Erzindjan - a newcomer to the stable in 2025 - shaped very well when fourth in the John Smith's Cup at 80/1 and looked unlucky not to win the Cambridgeshire at 28/1 given he stormed home and was well on top of those in his group.
Geoff Oldroyd
Only Charlie Appleby (33.5%), Paddy Twomey (28.7%), William Haggas (24.1%), Aidan O'Brien (23.3%) and the Gosdens (23.2%) had a better strike rate than Geoff Oldroyd (23.1%) in British or Irish Flat races in 2025.
Admittedly, Oldroyd's success was based from a much smaller sample than was the case for those powerhouse stables, but a record of 15 winners from 65 runners still entitles him to plenty of credit.
Even Oldroyd's horses who didn't win tended to run well as his percentage of rivals beaten figure of 64.9% placed him behind only Twomey (71.6%) and Appleby (70.4%) on that metric.
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