If there is one thing that Australian horse racing is not lacking, it is prize money for our very best races.
The prize money for Australia’s premier weight-for-age race, the Ladbrokes Cox Plate, has increased to $6 million in 2025, further enhancing the earning capability for our middle-distance horses.
The Everest is the richest race run on turf anywhere in the world boasting a $20 million prize purse, the Golden Eagle is the equal-second with $10 million on offer, and we also have the race that offers the most prize money to two-year-olds on the planet in the $5 million Golden Slipper.
There is a balance to how and where this prize money is distributed which makes it tough for the modern racehorse to take full advantage of every pop-up race worth enormous amounts of cash.
The Everest is a sprint race, the Melbourne Cup – offering an unprecedented $10 million in 2025 – a staying race.
Some are limited to a certain age of course like the Golden Slipper and the Golden Eagle.
Old school training tactics implemented in yesteryear by trainers like Bart Cummings and TJ Smith certainly would be interesting in today’s climate.
Bart won a Memsie (1400m), Toorak (1600m) and Melbourne Cup (3200m) with Galilee and Smith raced his three-year-old Kingston Town six times during the autumn and then sent him to Queensland for a couple more.
He won all eight.
Let me also use the great Phar Lap as an example of what race horses are truly capable of.
In 1930 he won four times in one week during the Melbourne Cup Carnival from 1200m right through to the Melbourne Cup over 3200m.
Have we even seen a horse in modern times that would be capable of these extraordinary feats?
I present the great mare Winx.
Let’s pretend she’s just come off her incredible win in the Sunshine Coast Guineas but is entering the 2025 spring carnival.
And instead of a very measured approach, Chris Waller and the team are in search of as much prize money as possible…
The Epsom Handicap
We are going to be asking a lot of the great mare during her spring campaign, so we are starting her out later in the racing calendar to tackle the Epsom Handicap worth $1.5 million in prize money.
It’s not hard to think she wins the race off the back of her Sunshine Coast Guineas victory because she did!
- 2025 Epsom Handicap Date: Saturday the 5th of October
The Everest
Her record at this stage of her career wasn’t as impressive as it would be, but with the turn of foot she showed winning in Queensland, and her first up performance in the Epsom, let’s assume she earns a slot in the richest race on turf.
It would be some sort of training performance to win against the best sprinters in the country, and the visiting Ka Ying Rising, but she was a truly incredible mare who just didn’t know how to lose.
Redzel won the race twice and here is vision of her beating him albeit in a trial.
- 2025 The Everest Date: Saturday the 18th of October
Ladbrokes Cox Plate
Going from 1200m to 2000m in a week?
Seems crazy in this day and age but let me remind you that Carbine won three races in one day.
Twice!
A race she won four times, now worth $6 million in prize money?
Too good to refuse.
- 2025 Ladbrokes Cox Plate Date: Saturday the 25th of October
The Golden Eagle
Winx heads to Rosehill a week later to tackle the $10 million Golden Eagle over 1500m.
Restricted to horses her own age is a huge advantage, and although she would need to beat the likes of Autumn Glow, Lady Shenandoah and Aeliana, there’s no doubt she’d be a short quote.
- 2025 Golden Eagle Date: Saturday the 1st of November
Melbourne Cup
It has always been my opinion that Winx would have won a Melbourne Cup if they decided to go that path.
And if Bart Cummings trained her, I’d suggest she would have.
She did win a Queensland Oaks over 2200m and it takes a weight-for-age performer to win a Melbourne Cup.
The weight would have been the main concern, as well as the three day back up, but with $10 million up for grabs it is worth a throw at the stumps to end a brutal spring campaign.
- 2025 Melbourne Cup Date: Tuesday the 4th of November