Horse racing and the business surrounding it is worth a lot, but how much are the owners in the sport really worth?
From royalty to leading businessmen and Wall Street traders, race horse owners have many different professions.
We have compiled a database containing some of the biggest owners in the world of horse racing and used their estimated net worths to discover who truly are the richest men and women in the paddock.
Net Worth:
£24,714,592,500
Net Worth:
£24,714,592,500
Net Worth:
£12,906,810,000
Two brothers share the top spot on this list and are worth just under £25 billion. Alain and Gerard Wertheimer co-own fashion house Chanel and have owned champion racehorses such as Kotashaan.
The following three positions in the ranking are fairly close and they all have an estimated net worth of over £10 billion. Firstly Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, and another Arab royal, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (the ruler of Dubai) comes in fifth position. Between them is the wealthiest woman on the list, Kirsten Rausing. This Swedish billionaire has produced multiple champion horses from her stud farm in the UK.
The rich list is full of royalty from around the world, including members of the ruling households of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar all feature. Also on the list is Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. Famous for her love of horses and racing over the years, Her Majesty ranks well down in 31st position with a comparatively low net worth of £350 million.
Over twenty owners on the list have a net worth of over a billion pounds, and almost forty have over £200 million. Notable names include the Irish business magnate John Magnier who runs the world-leading Coolmore Stud and American storage billionaire Bradley Wayne Hughes who owns multiple thoroughbred champions including 2020 Kentucky Derby and Breeders Cup Classic winner, Authentic.
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Owner Name |
Net Worth |
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Without the horses themselves there would not be a sport to enjoy. Consequently, thoroughbred racehorses are a hot commodity and can cost tens of millions of pounds on the market as the owners look to find the next four-legged superstar.
Proven champion horses can also make vast sums when put out to stud, and the most expensive sales in history have been those horses sold to stud farms, none more so than former Kentucky Derby champion Fusaichi Pegasus, who sold for a record fee of £35 million in 2000. When you adjust for inflation and add his fee as a yearling the total comes to just under £100 million and he is comfortably the most expensive stallion of all time.
In second place is Shareef Dancer with sales of over £89 million, he was one of the most expensive thoroughbreds when purchased by Sheikh Maktoum in the 1980s and went on to become the second-biggest sale to stud.
In terms of the most valuable thoroughbred yearling, Seattle Dancer comes in first place as he sold for a real price of £24 million in 1985. The Irish stallion sired by champion Nijinsky was purchased by Greek billionaire Philip Niarchos who is the thirteenth wealthiest owner.
The current most valuable sire is multiple champion Galileo who has a reported sire fee of £519,000, which is over £200,000 more than the next most expensive stallion Deep Impact. It is unsurprising Galileo commands such a high fee as to date he has sired a record-breaking five Epsom Derby winners.
Price (inflation adjusted):
£97,398,384
Price (inflation adjusted):
£89,502,732
Price (inflation adjusted):
£22,341,463
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Horse Name |
Inflation Ajusted Price |
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Horse Name |
Sire Fee |
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Of course, the reason owners acquire racehorses is to try and win races and gain the huge champions purses available. Across the world, numerous races and race meetings have prize funds available, with seventeen offering over £1 million in total.
Leading the way is the Saudi Cup which is the richest horse racing event in history despite only being launched last year in 2020. The 1,800-metre long flat race has a total prize fund of over £14.3 million (half of which goes to the winner). This is almost double the amount on offer at the next closest event, the Dubai World Cup, which offers a total of just over £8.6 million.
The biggest events in flat racing are more lucrative than their jump racing counterparts as perhaps the most famous jump race in the world the Grand National only ranks in seventeenth place with a prize fund of just over £1 million.
Although the UK has the highest amount of race meets throughout the season, there is only one British event in the top ten. Royal Ascot is the fourth most lucrative with a total prize fund of £7.3 million on offer for the prestigious flat racing meeting. The only other big UK events with over £1 million on offer are the aforementioned Grand National and the Epsom Derby (£1.5 million), other premier events such as the Cheltenham Festival and St Leger are well down on the list in 20th and 19th place respectively.
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Country |
Race/Race Meeting Name |
Total Prize Fund |
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To find out the estimated net worths of the leading horse owners the first step was to compile a list of the most prominent owners using the British Horseracing Authorities owners list, as well as articles detailing the most prominent owners in the sport. Then used multiple reputable rich lists and websites to find out the estimated net worth of these individuals. To make the data more comparable we used google’s currency converter to get every owner’s wealth recorded in GBP.
To find out the value of thoroughbred horses sold as yearlings at auction we used a list on wikipedia listing the real inflation adjusted values of all the top selling horses. To find out the most valuable sires we used thoroughbredracing.com’s lists of the top 10 most valuable sires for the past 5 years.
Finally, to discover the most lucrative horse races and race meetings worldwide we used articles from The New York Times that detailed the most valuable races. For the UK races an article listing them was used to find the biggest races, and then individually searched to find the prize funds for each.
Owner’s net worths:
Value of horses:
Most lucrative horse races:
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