![Sydney trainer Joe Pride [Bradley Photos]](https://betsy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2189764.jpg)
In Joe Pride’s office is a white board, and written on it are two headings.
Metro wins. Feature wins.
In brackets beside each is a target number. By his own admission, Pride’s goal of 60 city wins for the 2025-26 season was ambitious, and the tick over 40 he managed more in line with his tallies from previous years.
“I never meet the targets because I set myself lofty targets for each one,” Pride said.
“The target was sixty metro wins. I count the interstate ones as well, and we got forty-four or forty-five, which is a good season.”
The other section of the white board lists his stakes winners by name, although that column has been afforded some flexibility given Headley Grange claimed the Alan Brown Stakes (1400m) before it’s elevation to Group status.
“I had (a goal of) eighteen stakes winners. There are sixteen on my board. Everyone tells me it’s fifteen, but the Alan Brown is a black type race. It wasn’t last year, but I’ve counted it,” Pride said.
After landing a winner at the last city meeting of the term on Wednesday, Pride walked up to his white board on Thursday morning, adjusted the final numbers, took a photo for posterity, and “reluctantly” wiped it clean.
Then he wrote on it afresh – two headings, two goals.
And a lot of blank space, which he’s hoping to make his first mark on after the opening meeting of the 2026-27 season at Rosehill on Saturday.
While there are no races of significant status, there are city wins to be collected, and Pride says Zouripper is his best chance in the Congratulations James McDonald Handicap (1100m).
In an omen, the gelding will be ridden by the champion hoop, the race named to honour McDonald’s 2025-26 Sydney jockeys’ title success.
Zouripper is backing up from a solid third behind Hawker Hall at Randwick last week, and it’s a recipe the horse has responded to well in the past.
“I ran him ten days after his first run and he ran well again, so hopefully he can do it,” Pride said.
“He’s racing really honestly and with a lot of determination.”
Pride will also have Aberlour and Gatsby’s in the NSW Jockeys Association Handicap (1300m) and while the former is likely to need more racing and distance, Pride believes Gatsby’s is capable of bouncing back on a better surface.
“Gatsby’s was unlucky the other day because he was trapped wide, but I also wouldn’t run him in those (heavy) conditions again,” Pride said.
“He’s back on reasonable ground with his blinkers back on.”
And Pride is back at the start of another season, hoping for a full white board by the end of it.
