Ascot Prize Fund Boost

Royal Ascot is set to benefit from a substantial prize-money increase this year. An injection of £1 million, spread across the whole meeting, sees the total funds now amount to £6.58 million, an 18% increase on 2015. A number of headline races will receive a major boosts and also the minimum race value for the five day meeting will increase from £60,000 to £80,000. The G1 Queen Anne S., won last year by Solow (GB) (Singspiel {Ire}), will receive a major purse boost and sees its value shoot from £375,000 to £600,000. The G1 Prince Of Wales's S. also gets a significant hike, similarly up £525,000 to £750,000. Ascot also announced news of a new unsaddling enclosure that is currently under construction. This £700,000 development will be completed and ready for use when the turf flat season commences in April.

Commenting on the announcement, Ascot's chief executive Guy Henderson said, “We are very pleased to announce what is cumulatively a £1.7 million additional investment in racing activities. In making £1 million more prize-money available at Royal Ascot, over and above last year's total prize fund, we are acting to remain as competitive as we can both at home and overseas.”

Henderson recognized the importance of attracting overseas challengers to Royal Ascot and to do that they need to be enticed by prize-money reflective of the status of the meeting.

“It is very important to make sure that we keep increasing the minimum threshold for race values at the Royal meeting and, equally, we need to keep developing our international showpiece events to continue to attract runners from all over the world,” he continued. “In 2015, we had 72 European runners from outside the UK and 20 runners came from outside Europe.”