With a purse of $2 million, the Kentucky Derby is one of the largest (but not the largest) potential paydays in horse racing.
High-end racehorses get ridiculously expensive, but part of that is because a good one can generate quite a bit of money themselves. Several people and horses will exit the 144th Kentucky Derby significantly richer than they entered it. But the Kentucky Derby is not really reflective of most horse racing. Its prestige and prominent national profile raise the stakes (and the purse) quite a bit. And as if the owners and trainers and jockeys didn’t have enough to worry about, the purse for the Kentucky Derby isn’t really alone.
Not only is there the money from the Derby itself, but there is an additional incentives and a bonus if a horse sweeps the Triple Crown. That bonus has only been paid out once in the past 40 or so years, but it’s still there.
The flat purse for the Kentucky Derby is $2 million. That’s quite the sizable amount for most people, but it’s not quite that simple. The winner doesn’t take home the full two million, that purse is split between the top five horses, and the breakdown goes (approximately) as such:
"First place: $1.24 millionSecond place: $400,000Third place: $200,000Fourth place: $100,000Fifth place: $60,000"
Then, a bit more is skimmed off the top to pay the jockeys of the top five horses. The winning jockey generally gets 10 percent of the prize money, or $124, 000 in this case. The jockeys who finished two through five would then get 5 percent of their horses winnings: $20,000, $10,000, $5,000 and $3,000, respectively. Of course, all this gets taxed, so it isn’t how much they actually bring home, but that’s more complicated than most people care to know.
Unfortunately, if your horse finishes out of the money, the jockey is in a tough spot. Jockey’s get paid a small amount to actually ride, but most of their money comes from the purse. So if the horse doesn’t make any, they don’t either.
The trainers are in more or less the same boat. They generally get 10 percent of what the horse earns if it finished in the money rather than it dropping off to 5 percent like it does for the jockeys. Also, the trainers get paid a day fee, regardless of where the horse finishes in the race.
After the trainer’s and jockey’s bonus gets carved off the top, the remaining purse goes to the owner. But in a field of 20 horses, 15 will go home with nothing to show for it. So you should be pretty confident in your horse before entering the race.
Next: 20 short stories about the 2018 Kentucky Derby horses
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