Kentucky Derby 2015: Prize money break down

The Kentucky Derby has come and gone, and the winners are now preparing for their payout based on where they finished the race. 

Despite all of the pomp and circumstance that the Kentucky Derby entails, at the end of the day the big race only pays out the top five finishers, with the biggest prize going to the biggest winner on the afternoon. It’s the most exciting two minutes in sports, and a matter of seconds and inches could mean the difference between a horse winning $1.2 million and a horse winning $400,000.

That’s a difference of over 50 percent that a horse can win or lose it’s team and that only compounds the competitiveness of the Kentucky Derby year in and year out. It’s a shot at being the only horse in the world that can win the Tripe Crown in a given year, but it’s also a chance to payoff all your hard work in more than one way.

While the prestige of the race is important to the tradition of the event, the prize money is more than just something cool you can win.

Here’s a look at the payouts and prize money for the winners of the Kentucky Derby:

That’s a cool chunk of change that can be won at the Kentucky Derby and it goes a long way in paying off the hard work it takes to train a horse for this kind of an event. TO be fair, while the second place prize money is south of half a million, it’s still not chump change and it’s better than what you get if you finish in fifth.

All of that said, the Kentucky Derby is about prestige and being elite, and the top prize money won this afternoon is a reflection of that.

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