Royal Ascot Record Prize Winnings at 2022 Event

The reason that horse racing is so popular with so many people is because of the amount of money in it. Not only can you, if you are lucky, hit some serious wins when horse racing betting, but riders, owners and trainers can also win a small fortune if their horse fights off the  competition and rides to victory. This was certainly the case when Ascot Racecourse announced that there would be record prize money of approximately £15.64 million in 2022, with increases across both the Jumps and Flat programme.

In total, this would be an astonishing increase of almost 32 million from 2019 – which was valued at around £13.67 million – up around 14.4%. This was the last year that we can properly compare it to, given the impact of the pandemic that came along in 2020. These numbers also exclude the industry partnership QIPCO British Champions Day.

Overall, Royal Ascot, which will be run between 14th to 18th June 2022, is estimated to be worth around £8,652,500, which is an additional £1,322,500 – 18%, on the 2019 value of £7,330,000.

Festival Highlights

The Royal Ascot Festival highlights include

• The Royal Ascot Tuesday card: this features 3 Group 1 races and will be Royal Ascot’s first £2 million + day.
• The Prince of Wales Stakes and the Platinum Jubilee Stakes that will become the first races at the Festival to be run with prize funds of £1 million.
• No Royal Ascot race will be run for under £100,000.

Outside Royal Ascot

• The King George VI and Queen Elizabeth QIPCO Stakes will return to the pre-pandemic value of £1.25 million
• A record value of £550,000 will be awarded at the Dubai Duty Free Sherman Cup, up from £360,000 I. 2019. It will increase from six to eight races, with 12 runners per race, up from 10.
• Every flat race will be worth a minimum of £15,000 and every jump race will be worth a minimum of £10,000… apart from three National Hunt Races and one Hunters’ Chase worth £5,000.
• There will be an extra £25,000 stable prizes given on both QIPCO King George Diamond Day on 23rd July 2022 and the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup Day on 6th August 2022. These will be awarded £5,000 to stable staff and £20,000 to the trainers across the top three performing yards based on the number of points achieved for 1st to 5th places.
• All of these plans are dependent on the COVID 19 situation.

The Chiefs Executive Officer of the Royal Ascot Racecourse, Guy Henderson, said that they are very pleased that they are now able to announce a pre-pandemic prize pot as they rebuild. Although the plans have been unavoidably delayed, they are now starting to look forward. As such, it is important that they can maintain the quality of the British Pattern and the top end programmes. Obviously, a large proportion of the announced increases are focused mainly on the 35 Royal Meeting races.

Basically, the prize money is the horse racing equivalent of pay8ng the players on a football pitch. As such, they need to offer as much as they can in order to attract the best racers and riders and help to maintain international interest and investments in British horse racing. The next ambition, as they aim to build up to be a globally recognised brand associated with world class racing, is to be able to offer at least £1 million for every one of the nine Group 1 races in future years.

The aim is for these stable prizes to give owners and trainers the incentives to target these fixtures and increase on the successful trial at the 2021 Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup. This is a very exciting time in horse racing, with a great future ahead.