Prize money for Royal Ascot 2021 is today announced at £6 million (US$7.13 million) over the week – a 66% increase on the £3.61m (US$4.21m) offered in 2020. The Royal Meeting will take place from June 15 to 19 and the full order of running with race values for the extended program announced in January is available here.
The King George VI & Queen Elizabeth QIPCO Stakes, which takes place in July, will be run for £875,000 (US$1.04m) (2020: £400,000 (US$475,500)).
Guy Henderson, Chief Executive Officer at Ascot Racecourse, said:
“In 2020 we had hoped to offer record prize money of more than £8 million (US$9.51m) at the Royal Meeting. In the event the pandemic made that impossible and we have now spent nearly a year racing behind closed doors with trading income down 80 percent. This year's prize money of £6 million represents 75 percent of what we had originally planned for 2020.
“With restricted attendances in 2021 and pandemic insurance cover no longer available, the business will need to absorb a significant loss this year in order to deliver our wish to support the industry with the most prize money that we can prudently afford. Whilst Covid-19 has knocked back our long term financial trajectory by several years, our aim is to make the largest steps we can towards getting prize money levels back on track as soon as possible.
“Without owners we would have no racing. We are very grateful for their commitment and thank them for their support. We look forward to being able to increase prize money further as soon as it is possible for us to do so.
“We are also very grateful to our official partners, QIPCO and Longines, as well as our official suppliers, sponsors, broadcast partners and betting media partners. All of their support is deeply appreciated.
“We at Ascot much look forward to being able to welcome back our racegoers in June and delivering a special week of racing, both for those who are able to be with us on site and the many millions who will be with us in spirit through our broadcast and digital channels.”
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