Kentucky Derby 2019 prize money breakdown: who gets paid?

The 20 horses in the Kentucky Derby field will earn a place in the history of horse racing if they win. Their owners will also win a lot of money.

Horse racing has been known as the sport of kings for a very long time, in part because of the massive amounts of money needed to own a horse and run it, and in part because of the massive amount of prize money available when you win.

While the Kentucky Derby is not the richest race out there (that distinction went last year to the Pegasus World Cup in Florida which has a 16 million dollar purse) it is one of the most anticipated and probably the most prestigious. Also it’s not exactly lacking in the money department. In 2005 the purse for the Derby was raised to 2 million and held steady since. Until now. This year it was increased to 3 million.

The race’s winner doesn’t get all of that, but they get the lions share. In 2019 the winner (or rather the connections of the winning horse) will receive 62% of the total purse, or about 1.86 million. From that the winning jockey generally gets 10%.

The rest of the top 5 finishers will also get a pretty nice pay-day, with their prizes looking like:

• 2: $600,000
• 3: $300,000
• 4: $150,000
• 5: $90,000

The jockeys for those horses generally earn 5% of the payout. The trainers of the top finishers also earn 10% of the prize money, so everyone wants to win.

Both the trainers and the jockeys do still make something  if their horses finish out of the money, but it’s not nearly as impressive. Jockeys will get a hundred (or a few hundred) as a fee for riding in the races, but little else. Trainers have day fees they charge to the owners, so they get something regardless, but they still have to win to make real money.